Resource Design Pass 1

Resources

I am defining resources in terms of categories. Though this task focuses primarily on what I've called 1st Order Resources, others were defined as a framework for future discussion, and for thinking about the specifics of the 1st Order Resources. Other sections will be minimally expanded here, and only to the extent that they affect 1st Order Resources. 2nd Order Resources will be moderately fleshed out as they will very directly influence how 1st Order Resources behave in context.

0th Order---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

outside player's control

• Weather

• Plague

Weather - through temperature, and danger and slowing effects, affects food, transport speed

Plague / Fungus - environmental hazard, and risk of

1st Order---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

directly managed resources - represents a large majority of what player directly manages

• Population

• Food

• Resources

• Fuel

• Medicine

Population

role: capacity for work

used/expended by:

• death from events or low health

**design consideration: turn time scale matching with the amount of deaths needed to lose 1 pop

• represent with in-game message 'the loss of life is enough it's starting to affect our work force' (abstraction of tipping point in larger trend)

• larger turn time scale

• migration if unhappy or desperate

sources: events involving migrants, taking control of new settlements

storage:

Housing. Possible city-level decision. Different options. Crowded may affect health, happiness, likelihood of plague.

management:

• assign to role in building/region

• set to transport/travel between areas

effects of scale:

• large: prone to faster changes to reflect ideas and feelings spreading

• happy population more likely to stay happy

• more likely to suffer severe effects of plague outbreak

• small: more resilient, easier to survive scarcity and shocks

• plague outbreak less likely to be severe

Food

role: upkeep for population

used/expended by:

• upkeep cost for population with options to determine how well to keep people fed

• decays over time depending on storage available

• higher potential to lose food during plague seasons to events, some amount of food contaminated

sources: scavenging, raising and harvesting, hunting

storage: 2 main types, pre-edible food (planted crops), and edible food. The former requires special buildings/areas, or repurposing of one to this task. The latter is available by default, but with a low cap, and high rate of deterioration (you don't require a specific building to store some food). But more advanced buildings, like refrigeration capable are required to store large quantities and slow deterioration.

management: player chooses rate at which population is fed

effects of scale:

• large - prone to larger amounts being lost to events that affect food storage, increases happiness and/or appeal of settlement to outsiders

• small - minimal to no decay (while it may make sense, if we're measuring in hundreds it's not fun to be eeking by in the early game and go down from the 10 food you need to 9, it's silly to have to end a game because you didn't know or didn't account for X% decay)

Resources / Materials

role: currency

used/expended by:

• recovering buildings

• responding to events both reactive (fix a damaged something) and proactive (people want to build an improvised playground to raise morale)

• generally used when we need the player to make a choice between development options, it forces decisions over which options to get since you cannot afford them all (over time)

sources: scavenging, events, intentionally damaging a building further

storage: can store a moderate amount by default, but has a higher probability than other resources to be stolen if not in explicit and manned storage buildings

management: decisions on what is worth spending limited resources on, and how and where to store them

effects of scale: N/A - material is the most basic resource, it is meant to be straight forward and uncomplicated, since it is the most directly spent it could be beneficial to have minimal other considerations

Fuel

role: streamline existing tasks (temporary power, warmth, transport)

used/expended by:

• rapid transportation by vehicle

• can expend on events/quests for special result - temporary source of electricity for small areas (event driven for now)

• heat generation

sources: primarily scavenging/gathering, some events or special buildings may provide some (if buildings, should be in small amounts)

storage: can store a small amount by default but deteriorates quickly (if wood, idea is it gets damp or moldy), otherwise assign buildings to task

management: decide where to spend as above, decide where to store

effects of scale:

• large: access to larger potential projects through events/quests such as airplane example from class

• small: N/A - this will be very scarce until end game, having special considerations at low amounts could be confusing

Medicine

role: preserving population and preventing instability

used/expended by:

• optionally rationed preventatively

• used to solve or contain effects of plague or other health events

• used in events as a means of trading as the most in-demand resource for outsiders not from a major settlement

sources: primarily scavenging, uncommon buildings like hospitals, other buildings can be repurposed but provide much less, developments/events in late game may allow other sources (ex: discover through research that a growable plant can be used to help treat some symptoms of plague)

storage: small amount storable by default, needs buildings to store but not necessarily specially for medicine like food is, lack of storage and/or security may lead to theft

management: decide how and if to ration preventatively, decide how to distribute during times of sickness, decide how to store, decide how to expend on events

effects of scale:

• large scale: small amount of deterioration to represent expired medicine, also higher chance of events for theft from within (ex: personel see huge stockpiles and think it's no big deal if they pocket some for their family)

• small scale: more likely to trigger events tied to desperation

2nd Order---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

-derived resources, these are often what the player hopes to affect through managing the 1st Order Resources in the short term

• Happiness

• Health

• Comfort

Happiness/Morale/Hope

role: stability

derived from:

Health, policies and event decisions.

effects:

Low happiness is a strong factor in negative events for the player. There is a target sort of median happiness that is intended to be a baseline goal. Above this median, positive effects will grow (see Comfort below, suggested to be rolled into Happiness). However as happiness remains well above the median it will start to move the median goal upwards with time, creating a higher baseline standard that the people expect. It will also start to create a secondary danger range of happiness above where the previous bad events happen, but at least a chunk below the median. This range can trigger negative events, but not as severe as the truly low happiness ones. This system and events are meant to represent people raising their standards, and as their lives get more comfortable they're more willing to complain and be upset by less important things. This has the potential to serve as a strong negative feedback system going into the late game so that fluctuations in happiness can more easily set a chain of negative events in motion. Examples below to help illustrate:

Late game city has very high happiness, but also a very high expected happiness standard. To help accomodate a newer settlement, the player makes a choice in an event to divert resources from the city. Doing so lowers the happiness, which in turn lowers productivity, and triggers some events dealing with some groups being disgruntled. These negative effects in turn upset the balance of the economy leading to further troubles that have the potential to drag happiness down further. Together this creates an unscripted crisis where the player must find a way to stabilize the city's happiness or risk a major setback in its development and/or efficiency.

Diagram to show how the shifting goal and effects of happiness would work over time. The player would likely not see all of these sections on their own happiness meter. I am picturing only the target median being visible. Though a tooltip somewhere might describe the existence of the regions in nonspecific terms.

Health

role: prevent deterioration

derived from:

Percentage of population infected, living conditions, education in health-related skills (first aid, etc), medicine stores, and internal tally of events + decisions that narratively relate to health.

effects:

Likelihood of infection spreading, affects happiness, will be a strong factor in determining random events. Affects how many viable workers the player has to place on the map.

Comfort/Luxury/Wealth (** feels like too much overlap with happiness, I recommend just rolling this into Happiness and have complex effects, and an informative graph as above. open to keeping as wealth if we can think of an interesting purpose for it aside from generic currency)

role: growth, slowing factor

derived from:

Some measure of stability for a given settlement that includes but is not limited to: a surplus of all resources, consistent and/or high food provided, development level of the settlement (more recovered buildings, etc), quality of living conditions as determined by settlement's housing and internal tally of event decisions, and access to luxuries from buildings or events + decisions.

effects:

Comfort serves a dual purpose. It will play the largest role in how attractive your settlement(s) appear to outsiders, and so affect population growth. However it also represents a decrease in urgency. This will be reflected in decreased efficiency of work performed. This debuff will be minimal to non-existent at first, but at high levels may even reduce the size of your work force.

3rd Order---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

derived, but is strictly a measure of progress, does not behave as a resource (ex: cannot be spent), may act as long term goals

• Prosperity

• Education

Prosperity - meta-resource as measure of objective, derived from happiness, health, comfort

• may not affect anything in-game that the stats it's derived from don't (ex: prosperous community appeals to outsiders, but a happy, healthy, comfortable community appeals to outsiders)

Education - abstraction (even within game logic) of training/education buffs applied to population