Now I've written myself into a bit of a corner concerning the tech tree, because the University is a tier-five building, in a seven tier system. What's their left to research by the time you've already got tier-five buildings? Of course, some of the examples I give were things which basically made existing buildings more effective, instead of unlocking new ones, but that's all the kind of stuff that'd be very useful during base construction, and not so much after. Not to mention several technologies, like irrigation, came around long before a well-educated upper class was established. Now granted, this is a game where you play as a god who's very much fond of divine intervention, so historical accuracy isn't exactly a necessity, but still, that's a pretty big discrepancy and one that'll be hard to ignore for anyone who has any idea of how societies typically evolve.
So I've decided that the Sanctuary can be used for several things in addition to simply housing your godly presence and allowing you to manage your villagers using the almighty power of pie charts. It should also act as emergency housing, so you can sustain a small village population even if all other houses are destroyed, it acts as a fully functioning temple (so you won't need to build a second temple in your capitol unless it's a really, really big city), and actually generates more prayer power per worshiper than regular temples do, and it can also be used as a carpenter's shop to construct scaffoldings, though villagers cannot worship while the sanctuary is being used as a shop. It will also act as a university before you can actually build a university. Temples can also serve this function. If you don't have a university in the same town as a temple or your sanctuary, your priests will spend some of their time studying instead of worshiping.
There are seven tiers each in three different disciplines, each discipline being independent of the others. In your sanctuary, you can tell individual temples and universities to focus on a specific discipline or set of disciplines, or you can let the priests and scholars study whatever they like. In this case, the rate of study will be faster because they're pursing their own interests, however it will also be random.
The disciplines are Philosophy, Mysticism, and Science. Before I list off all the different technologies/theories that can be researched, I should note a new mechanic I'm introducing, crime. If an individual villager is unhappy enough, he may begin to commit crimes, like destroying property, stealing from other houses, attacking villagers if he finds them alone, or becoming an apostate and acting as a missionary for rival gods or atheism. If a happy villager sees a crime occurring, they'll call for help and then rush to stop it, drawing the attention of other villagers and soldiers in the area who will also attempt to thwart the crime. If the criminal is caught, he will be sent to a farm, logging camp, or mine for forced labor, imprisoned in a barracks or fortress, executed, or rehabilitated at a temple or the sanctuary, depending on the severity of the crime and how your village in general is run. You can also hand down a doctrine concerning which punishments should be administered to what criminals (including no punishment at all, in which case even happy villagers will simply ignore the crime) from the sanctuary.
The last four tiers of Philosophy can only be researched at a university. The last four tiers of Mysticism can only be researched at a temple or sanctuary.
I'm also adding a new building, one which automatically spawns: the graveyard. When a villager dies, the villagers will automatically bring them to a graveyard to spawn. If you're a creepy god (malevolent or not) you can use a sanctification miracle to turn any location, including a graveyard, into a site of worship where your priests and villagers will go to pray or conduct rituals which grant you Prayer Power. You can also use graveyards to cast various death-related miracles. Depending on what doctrines you have, villagers will treat corpses differently. If there's a large number of corpses, as from a battle or a plague, they may simply gather them up or burn them, or even just leave them there if no one lives nearby. Elsewise they may dig a mass grave. Dropping a scaffolding on a graveyard will turn it into a mausoleum, which is basically the same thing but fancier. Dropping a pile of wood or stone onto a graveyard along with the scaffolding will turn it into a catacomb, which will allow you to build other buildings on top of it (and people will continue to bury the dead in the catacomb, which will cause it to expand slowly outwards). This will steadily decrease the happiness of any villager standing on top of the catacomb by a very small amount. If they live and work above the catacomb all day, this will cause them to be constantly less happy than they otherwise would be.
Science:
1) Ranching, which will allow farmers to start keeping cows and horses on their farms, thus allowing you to butcher cows for a significant increase in food and raise horses for use by traders, missionaries, and cavalry.
2) Irrigation, expanding the amount of farmable land surrounding water sources.
3) Medicine, which makes illness less rare and villagers more likely to recover from it without divine intervention. This will also make them less fearful of plagues sent by you or any other god.
4) Steel, making all metal tools, weapons, and armor more effective.
5) Architecture. This will increase the health of all your buildings.
6) Crane. All construction will go faster when you have one of these handy.
7) Alchemy. This will allow your villagers to convert metal into gold and vice versa at will.
Philosophy:
1) The Glory of Man. This is the concept that the human body and mind are beautiful, incredible things. This concept is what set Greece apart from other civilizations of its era. It increases the happiness of all your villagers.
2) Moral Justice. This is the concept that some things are inherently just, regardless of what can be measured or enforced. It decreases the odds that a dissatisfied villager will turn to crime.
3) Logic. This is the basic concept of using connecting two true premises using valid logic to make a sound argument. It increases the efficiency of all village activities.
4) Harmony. The concept of living in balance between submission and aggression, and that all good and bad things in life will even out in the end. This makes your villagers more resistant to conversion by fear.
5) Personal Virtue. The concept that by being more virtuous personally, you will cause a ripple effect that will make all the world more virtuous as well. This makes your villagers more resistant to conversion to other gods or atheism.
6) The Rights of Man. This is the concept that all human beings deserve certain rights like freedom and safety. This will make your missionaries more effective and make all villagers in towns that your priests or missionaries have recently visited more likely to apostatize instead of committing other crimes when they're unhappy.
7) Political Philosophy. This is several different non-dictatorial methods of governing. This enables the villagers to elect their own leader if the city hall is currently empty. Having an elected leader will increase villager happiness.
Mysticism:
1) Visions. The ability to receive visions from a god (you). This reduces the cost of setting villagers as disciples and changing doctrines.
2) Afterlife. A knowledge of whatever kind of afterlife your worshipers get when they die. This increases a villager's resistance to conversion by all methods.
3) Ancestoralism. The belief that you can receive blessings from ancestors. This removes the happiness modifier for being near a mausoleum or over a catacomb (graveyards are unaffected), makes sanctifying mausoleums and graveyards cheaper, and increases the power of miracles that involve blessing or cursing villages (which increases or decreases their work and/or battle efficiency).
4) Divination. The ability to predict the future based off of the entrails of a sacrificed animal or by throwing bones, runes, or some other otherwise random method of determining things. This provides a small, immediate happiness or fear boost whenever you cast a miracle that occurs over time (like a blessing, bountiful harvest, or plague).
5) Mythology. A series of legends and stories concerning heroes and monsters who may or may not have actually existed. Reduces the upkeep costs for all Avatars.
6) Communing. The ability to communicate with otherworldly spirits, like angels, demons, animal spirits, the dead, etc. etc. This reduces the cost of miracles relating to raising the dead or unleashing a horde of angels/demons/animals on other villages or your own.
7) Clergy. A hierarchical system of determining who is in charge of running a church. Improves the efficiency and increases the happiness of priests and missionaries in all of their activities.
Okay, so next up we're getting around to one of the ideas I had from the start but haven't gotten around to writing about until just now because I've been busy laying the groundwork in other places: social structures and the caste system. I'll probably cover doctrines in the same post. Then after that we can move on to war, Avatars, and trade/peaceful conversion.
No comments:
Post a Comment