Hydro's Random Ideas for World building....

[Hydromancerx]

Ok so i have been really wanting to make a tribal game that works but not Sagan 4 sicne that totally failed. So i was thinking of mixing Sims 2 and Sagan 4 style all into one.

And i have this Sims 2 neighborhood set up with roads so you can place the largest lot in a grid. It fits 21 lots East to West and 18 from North to South with a coastline in the south. I would like to set it up somehow with diffrent biomes and then a a Sagan 4 style map that corresponds with the game map. I am thinking north to south can be the cold to hot temp while east to west can be wet to dry.

Within all these i would need an ecosystems however i am unsure how i should do it. Should i use Earth creatures? make up alien ones or do some sort of future evolution. Then once that's set up should they ben drawn or use the Spore creature creator to make them? I tied doing it with the black background and overlaying them over pictures of the sims and they work but are very time consuming.

So i am thinking perhaps instead of trying to make the story or game or whatever i am doing like one big storyline have it more like guide book to the world. So it would have biomes, topography, fauna, flora, resources, etc.

Now is it easier to build as you go or make a while world and then play in it? For instance if i just started with one biome and then a basic ecosystem do you think that would work then as the tribe expands out to fill in more regions around them based on the temperature/humidity grid?

Then there is participation. Should i just run it myself or would others be interested? Is polling good or will people get impatience waiting or will i waiting for results in the poll. Needless to say these pprojects are alot more fun with others are helping and/or watching and commenting.

I am just wondering if i am trying to make something to complex and big, yet over and over i keep coming back to this idea but never doing / finishing it. It would be nice to figure out a way to do the game like sagan 4 where it can work during both high activity and low activity but never really die if participation slows.

Anyone have an idea how to make such a system work? Should i just leave out the Sims 2 part since others don't have it?

See what i really need is to set up say a handbook like D&D has where you can follow a set of rules to the game and then have it play out. For instance it would be nice to have pre-made ecosystems and resources to work from. Especially if its an alien one since making those is a project in itself. But if you use earth species they could be wrong just not work right. Then if you use say founder species and then evolove them to fill in the niches like the Darwin finches then it becomes a project. Yet i want to have the tribes exist within a realistic world both in the creatures but the biomes and resources within them.

I know some of you guys like this stuff too so maybe we could split the project up into jobs to make it work such as a map maker, ecosystem maker, etc. Let me know if you have ideas too.

[Hydromancerx]

Here are the Sagan 4 style biomes just for reference.

BIOMES

Vents & Seeps
Geothermal Vent
Methane Cold Seep

Oceans
Ocean (Sunlight Zone)
Ocean (Twilight Zone)
Ocean (Abyss Zone)
Ocean (Sea Floor)

Coasts
Tropical Coast
Temperate Coast
Polar Coast

Beaches
Tropical Beach
Temperate Beach
Polar Beach

Rivers & Lakes
Tropical Lake
Temperate Lake
Polar Lake
Tropical River
Temperate River
Polar River
Salt Lake
Salt River

Wetlands
Swamp
Marsh
Bog

Rainforest
Tropical Rainforest
Temperate Rainforest
Taiga
Alpine

Woodlands
Tropical Woodland
Temperate Woodland
Boreal

Scrublands
Scrub
Chaparral
Rocky
Volcanic

Grasslands
Savanna
Plains
High Grassland

Desert
Dunes
Desert
High Desert
Tundra

Subterranean
Sea Caves
Limestone Caves
Sandstone Caves
Lava Caves
Ice Caves
Water Table

Atmosphere
Atmosphere (Troposphere)
Atmosphere (Stratosphere)

[Hydromancerx]

I was also looking through a geology book i have. It would nice to make a world realistic enough to include realistic deposits of diffrent minerals, rocks, gems, ore and other natural resources in appropriate spots based on a map. In shot what i would really like to do is have a project where we could have a realistic world. But honestly i don't know enough about those things so i would need some help.

EDIT:
Ah i have an idea! What if we made a world based around a future human colonized planet! One far into the future where human civilization has reverted back to tribal culture and they forgot their origins on earth. Thus the wildlife on the planet would be from Earth too but since evolved into new niches for the new home planet. Thus a hand full of Earth species spreading into brand new roles. This would make t both familiar and alien without having to start from microbes and working our way back up. It would also allow us to make a brand new planet without having to have say a future Earth and worrying about what it would look like or being accurate to Earth locations.

Now the real question is not only what species would humans take with them but of those would would survive without humans caring for them?

[Elerd]

I think it sounds a lot like some of my projects.
But I'm not sure what exactly do you intend on doing with this game/world.

I had a few hypotheses that I wanted to check about human cultural and religious development, so I've built a world from scratch. because I wanted it to be logical, I've started with a long list of animals and their properties, and then another list of tribes of humans and where they came from and what they believed in. then moved a bit on the time scale and started writing what happened to the tribes during that time. Never finished it though… I have a problem with finishing things…

[dacmat22]

Ok i would much rather keep it an alien tribe rather than a human tribe because im more of an xenobiology guy.
I do want to help with this project but i wont be here or there (if this is going to be made into some completly diffrent forum) because of school. i will make some suggestions later today.

[KingAcer]

If you are going to make a new project like this, I think you should start it on gamingsteve since it has more people and it won't distract too much from Sagan 4.
I wouldn't use the sims for this if you want a lot of people to help you, cause not everyone has it (like me). If you don't mind doing most of it yourself, then it could be fine. Also, if you want a lot of people to join, I would keep it simple if I where you, cause complex things scare people off ().
I like the idea of a human colonised planet. Maybe they reverted back to tribal because of a catastrophy. And to make it more unique, the humans could have evolved into a slightly different species to survive the dangers on this new planet. Some biomes could for example be ruins of ancient cities. Or perhaps the reason people have reverted back to tribal is because their colonisation-ships have crashed and only a few survived. then those ships could be new biomes.

[Elerd]

I like kingacer's idea:) a whole remmnent of an ancient colony or surrvivors of shipwreck theme would be cool

[Raptor]

I like the idea of a crashed spaceship...sometimes fictional worlds are much more fun to look at after they have been ruined. They become mysterious.  To maximise awesomeness make sure the spaceship crashes in a rainforest, and atleast one giant spider colony setups in the wreckage.  Also malfunctioning robots roam the general area.  Other stuff could be brought in later, like a bunker full of shut down robots, which were to be turned on after landing but things didn't turn out that way...or buried terraforming devices, the occasional genetical experiment gone wrong (GIANT SPYDARS).  To add more mystery you could say the ship had been shot down, which is one of the reasons no rescue boats apear, because the aliens have destroyed all the other human worlds (although they didn't know there are survivors on this planet , it will be their greatest mistake!!)



On the other hand, you could dump the sci-fi thing and do a fantasy caveman thing, with giant dinosaurs and general prehistoric stuff.  Everybody likes dinosaurs!

[Hydromancerx]

If you are going to make a new project like this, I think you should start it on gamingsteve since it has more people and it won't distract too much from Sagan 4.
I wouldn't use the sims for this if you want a lot of people to help you, cause not everyone has it (like me). If you don't mind doing most of it yourself, then it could be fine. Also, if you want a lot of people to join, I would keep it simple if I where you, cause complex things scare people off ().
I like the idea of a human colonised planet. Maybe they reverted back to tribal because of a catastrophy. And to make it more unique, the humans could have evolved into a slightly different species to survive the dangers on this new planet. Some biomes could for example be ruins of ancient cities. Or perhaps the reason people have reverted back to tribal is because their colonisation-ships have crashed and only a few survived. then those ships could be new biomes.

I was planing to get gaming steves people aware of the project however i was not sure if i should keep it here or there. I wanted you guys opinion 1st because this kind of project is what we do here and i know some of you do other projects like the future evolution on other sister sites.

I do like the colonization spaceship crash. Please keep with the ideas like this. Right now i need some brain storming.

I am also going to try to transfer over some of my Sim Caveman threads from GS to here to show you guys the Sims 2 aspect i liked.

[Hydromancerx]

So i posted up the Sim Caveman stuff and i would like to go over what i liked and disliked when doing it.

Likes
o I like the 1st episodes before they went through the stargate.
o I liked the newer custom content i eventually got and wish i could have started
o Early individual stories on the caveman level.
o Poll choices but not too many where it got crazy to keep track of.
o Totem pole offerings.
o Tech tree but its to bad they are hard to keep track of.
o Seeing Generations of families.

Dislikes
o Plantsims - They are not realistic and keep multiplying too fast.
o Gardening - Having to tend a garden and tell a story is annoying. I liked the static crops better.
o Multiple lots or super mega lots. I have to find some sort of balance between the 2 where i don't have to control other lots all the time but then not have to many on the main lot.
o People keep saying i "pulled a Hydro" when it would go inactive for a few days or more.
o Hard to play neighborhoods
o Building up the buildings too fast.
o The early parts where you can''t do anything.

[Hydromancerx]

Here is a biome map if i use the Sims 2 map grid. I included all the biomes. North to south is cold to warm and west to east is wet to dry. Ocean/beach is on the west and in the bottom i had a single row l so i suck the volcanic biome in it since really it could go anywhere.

[dacmat22]

so i dont realy get what you are asking. i dont know how i could help because i dont have games like the sims 2. just tell me ways I can help and what jobs need to be filled in.

[Hydromancerx]

so i dont realy get what you are asking. i dont know how i could help because i dont have games like the sims 2. just tell me ways I can help and what jobs need to be filled in.

Well the next step I need help with is natural resources and terrain features. Resources would be things like copper, iron, salt, oil, gold, silver, etc while terrain features would be things like caves, tar pits, geysers, quicksand etc. I need to make a big list of both and then we can plan where to put them on the map i just made.

Once that's set up i can build it in the Sims 2 based on the grid. Such as put a hot spring at J9 or there is an ice cave at U17. Get it? Your help in planning allows me to create a world in the Sims 2 to eventually play.

Once the biomes, resources, terrain, fauna and flora are put in then we can start putting in a tribe. I am using humans because the Sims 2 uses humans.

[dacmat22]

were you not talking about alien plants and animals.

[Hydromancerx]

were you not talking about alien plants and animals.

I have not decided yet. But it would be alot easier to use the flora i already have in the sims 2 to decorate the areas in game. Also its not like there is a flora editor yet for Spore so i can't overlap them in pictures.

I do have a lot of flora though through custom content in the Sims 2 so i can fill up all the diffrent biomes and still have them look diffrent.

I will have to show you some lots i made before on my own.