There could be real Food fights between civs that find the same resource.

I love the concept of resources being a lot more important in this way. In my notes you'll see I have a lot of this planned already (experimenting in LUA) but you have pointed out some great stuff.


[[ Nomadic Camps or "Tribes"/"Clans" or Tribe Leader ]]

This is exactly what I am going to do. Very early man was extremely nomadic. Once they "came down from the trees" and were able to start to walk more upright they were then able to cover more distance. The concept of a "capitol" or main gathering area will start very small, perhaps even a UNIT (e.g. a leader). As time goes on, man is able to "find" new types of shelters and claim them as "capitols". Then man is able to build his own shelter after certain technological advances.

Example Order:

Leader > Cave > Shelter > Camp (slightly movable?) > (Settlement - with Agrciulture)

Each phase will have limited "builds" and other limits but as you progress in phase there would be less limits.

I love your idea for Caves and Shelters. I am now starting to think of advantages / disadvatages of natural regions and not calling them caves, per se, but some generic term for natural shelter. I suppose caves can be found almost anywhere and so each regional type would have its advantages (desert caves, mountain caves).

Example: mountain caves may have a defense bonus but would be limited any type of territory expansion.


[[ Resource Depletion ]]

Yes. That is the plan. Lots of details to work out, like over-harvesting.



THANKS FOR THE INPUT!

Thinking of the Nomadic Era, there should a way for the civ to accumulate and convey some Resources in order to sustain the Tribe while traveling from a depleted Food Resource to the next FR. Perhaps one of the Tool Techs could be something like the "Travois" [from the French explorers/fur traders who encountered them] of the American Plains natives. They would require some wood to create the Travois. The larger the Tribe the more Travois [or whatever ...] they would have to make before migrating successfully.

I found the auto tree-spawning mod. Its name is "TreeGrowth" by "iamaplayer".
It spawns new forests randomly on unimproved hexes adjacent to forested hexes.

Thanks. I am using that mod, new resource generator, and new bonus & lux resources for reference. I am adding Lumber/Wood as a resource, too.

Thanks Deep Blue. FramedArchitect, Horemvore, and iamaplayer.

A less elegant proposal but perhaps rather than depleting resources you don't allow any permanent settlements during the nomadic era but do allow pastures to accumulate food points that can eventually be converted to buy a settler unit? And settlers can't build permanent settlements until the discovery of urbanization (and probably agriculture to support it) which historically happened in Sumer around 4500 BCE.

There also is a mod called "Reforestation" by FramedArchitecture that enables Workers to plant, grow and harvest new Forests on certain hexes.
That reforestation process might be used to enable workers to regrow certain depleted Resources during the Nomadic phase. That could be a way to generate Hammers for the Tribe/Clan.

A different approach: Given that the Prehistoric game starts around 6000 BCE and settled communities didn't appear until about 1500 years after that, what if during the "nomadic era" instead of programming complex resource shifts you start with two units - an autochthon and a proto-setller. The proto-settler would have an upgrade to settler when the right technologies (say irrigation or urbanization) were discovered (or easier still, when the year 4500 BCE rolled around). Goody huts would give small ammounts of gold, science, faith or become Outposts (no tech, no barbarian activity). So, the intial phase involves scouting the map, presumably follwing animal herds, discovering Outpost improvements and then choosing the spot for your first city rather than having the computer do it for you.

The issue with Nomads is that they existed throughout history independent of technology. The Mongols and Huns were nomads yet they had advanced technology for the time period and conquered great civilizations. The Shoshone remained nomadic into the 1800s even after adopting gun powder. Parts of Arabia remained nomadic into the early 1900s.

On the other hand not all caveman would be nomadic especially the ones who lived in actual caves. If you look at the great apes such as silverbacked gorillas or chimpanzees these are not nomadic creatures but are instead territorial animals who would claim and defend territory. It is likely early hominids such as ♥♥♥♥ erectus and Cro-magnon would have been the same. Nomadic tendencies were something that would have developed later as the result of hunting migrating animals or rapid climate change at the end of the ice age.

This would be a good idea for a prehistoric scenario based on the "Out of Africa" theory. Early man evolved in Africa and then migrated to other parts of the world. Some tribes settled down to become civilizations while other peoples elected to pursue a migratory way of life while continuing to develop technologically.

Agree with Novu. "Settled" peoples have existed for a long time but the difference is in the amount of human-change to build up these settlements. The earlier you the less interaction there was. Simply, a cave was used and that's it. Later on, humans started constructing closures for these caves or were able to create simple lean-to shelters when caves weren't available. These would be settled usually near river valleys against a protected backdrop.

It was after 300KBC (Mousterian tool manufacturing) that humans gained enough intelligence and technology to affect their environment in a way to better their settled areas.

It is before this time that I will not allow settlements, but rather a "leader" to be, in effect, the center of the tribe, the one they all gather around; the one that provides capitol-like bonuses (small).

The idea sounds interesting, but how will it affect later game? Also how will it keep the civilizations somewhat equal so you don't end up with one super-power due to getting all the barb camps and making friends with the city-states and/or getting a lot of the goody huts?

As well how will this balance with having city states? How will they be managed in this setup, since no settlements means your going to have to completely rehaul city states or add a note not to have them. They already generally ignore the culture sink and have their borders growing before anybody else as is, with this that gives them years ahead if they aren't rehauled on borders.

Originally posted by ESC Klocknov:

The idea sounds interesting, but how will it affect later game? Also how will it keep the civilizations somewhat equal so you don't end up with one super-power due to getting all the barb camps and making friends with the city-states and/or getting a lot of the goody huts?

As well how will this balance with having city states? How will they be managed in this setup, since no settlements means your going to have to completely rehaul city states or add a note not to have them. They already generally ignore the culture sink and have their borders growing before anybody else as is, with this that gives them years ahead if they aren't rehauled on borders.

Seems to me that CS's could be handled by simply having them not show up until year X [tbd]; perhaps 2k-3k bce.
As to balance, all Players would be in the "same boat". They all will have to compete to stay even [or at least not fall too far behind]. The same possibility for one empire getting all the goodies before the "later game" applies to the basic game as well.

Well there is an idea for goodie huts, have them appear after a rough avg of when every should have their palace as a way to show the tribes that did not make it through that age. They already push people way to far ahead giving the classic bonuses as is, at least that would lighten the hit since everyone would be at least somewhat through the tech tree at that time.

Originally posted by ESC Klocknov:

Well there is an idea for goodie huts, have them appear after a rough avg of when every should have their palace as a way to show the tribes that did not make it through that age. They already push people way to far ahead giving the classic bonuses as is, at least that would lighten the hit since everyone would be at least somewhat through the tech tree at that time.

Yeah ! All GH's should not be deployed at game-start. Maybe set up PreHistory with special limited set of GH's. Hold off on regular GH's until [] some civ development criteria are met or maybe until a fixed date [].

the only thing i wanna bring up, is how will the barbarians function?