Slitherine

Playing FOG Empires made me think of a book I once read called Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. The main premise is that "...gaps in power and technology between human societies originate primarily in environmental differences, which are amplified by various positive feedback loops."

Basically, he posits that the first step towards civilization is the move from nomadic hunter-gatherer to rooted agrarian society. Several conditions are necessary:

- access to high-carbohydrate vegetation that endures storage;
- a climate dry enough to allow storage;
- and access to animals docile enough for domestication and versatile enough to survive captivity.

Control of crops and livestock leads to food surpluses. Surpluses free people to specialize in activities other than sustenance and support population growth. The combination of specialization and population growth leads to the accumulation of social and technologic innovations which build on each other. Large societies develop ruling classes and supporting bureaucracies, which in turn lead to the organization of nation-states and empires. Diamond goes on to note the geographic variations in plants, animals, terrain and temperature and how they affect agriculture and domestication.

He has much more to say on geography (temperatures, water availability) and germs (plagues, diseases).

FOG Empires is a wonderful game. But I think it may need another pass on the particulars of agriculture, animal domestication, diseases and weather.

Right now, not to put too fine a point on it, some things are simplified to a point where players face fewer constraints than existed in a time before modern medicine, science and communication. I suspect this is due not only for game play (who wants to spend all their time being buffeted by factors beyond their control?) but also to make the less developed "barbarian" nations more fun.

I realize Guns, Germs and Steel had its critics, and that modeling human development and civilization on such an ambitious scale is incredibly challenging. But playing FOG Empires right now feels a bit formulaic. Build lots of infrastructure. Build lots of purple buildings. Watch your population grow. The tiniest collection of bedraggled forest tribesmen can become an empire to marvel at. It needs something more.

For example, the AGEOD games often had a "historical" attrition and supply setting which reflected how in real life armies during the pre-modern age would sometimes just waste away without battle due to poor supply, disease or lack of discipline. Players usually hated it, since it put real constraints on freedom of action.

I think however FOG could benefit from a "historical setting" or even a new campaign scenario, where the map and rules would reflect real life constraints of time, space, geography, medical science, etc. No more moral boosts from "fortune tellers" for example. A realistic impact of creating a herbalist at a time when medical knowledge was so poor. What use a herbalist when the common remedies of the day were things like "here you are dearie - a mandrake root so your child will be born male!" And they need to add a LOT more random events on social disruption, weather and disease.

Sounds like a great idea for a mod! For an enterprising modder. Also, I highly recommend GG&S as great reading as well.

Great book. I think with some thinking about the design, and not too much fuss, improvements could be made. A mod also sounds like an interesting project.

I was fascinated by that book and I agree it would make a good basis for a game. However, that would most likely be a 4X game which takes a population from clan to empire over aeons of history, rather than a Grand Strategy game like FoGE that concentrates on a distinct period of history - a snapshot in the overall progress of humanity. That's not to say that there aren't lessons that could be incorporated in FoGE; even the venerable EU series incorporated tech improvements, though mainly related to military units.

The revolutionary jump in FoGE is the trading system which could be adapted to all sorts of other Grand Strategy periods, or indeed used in a 4X game once settlement begins. Tech advances could unlock goods and related buildings as well as trade abilities, for example. The feedback loop of surplus & tech could find a niche, influencing & being influenced by social traits.

For example (4X), a tribe with minimal resources may become stagnant, socially focussing on the "goodwill" of the harvest gods; their efforts go into temples and ceremonies. Conversely a tribe with plentiful resources may become confident in their own ability to progress and whose society forms a "manifest destiny" approach with research institutes and tech.

Nothing stays the same forever, though; the stresses in society (corruption, inequality, complacency) may bring stagnation (a bit like FoGE decadence), and importation of outside ideas may invigorate stagnant societies to radical change. As new techs and goods appear, old ones may become redundant and economic niches change. A society which grew rich on oil may become a backwater when fusion power is developed, for example.

OK the more I think about it, the Jared Diamond approach would best feature in a game of its own, as it would need long periods of history to evolve. But inspiration for some changes to FoGE - sure.

If you don't build any health buildings you will be hit by plagues, it's not as simple as you say. if you build lots of them you will get population surpluses resulting in additional growth. Jarred Diamond also said that unlimited population growth and specialised trading and production (loss of diversification and free trade of cash crops) caused civilisations to fail.

vakarr wrote: ↑Sun Aug 04, 2019 7:55 am If you don't build any health buildings you will be hit by plagues, it's not as simple as you say. if you build lots of them you will get population surpluses resulting in additional growth. Jarred Diamond also said that unlimited population growth and specialised trading and production (loss of diversification and free trade of cash crops) caused civilisations to fail.

Good points.

On the health side, I suppose my sense would be that, while health buildings should be useful, their effects should be more limited. Since I always build them, I haven't seen the significant plague impacts you described. So I can't judge whether they drew the line in the right place. I'd need to know more about how they model the impact of health improvements at a time of such limited knowledge. Death rates could actually be higher if they put you in a hospital back then, since you were exposed to other illnesses while there. Infant mortality was through the roof and the very finest court physician was treating their noble lord with arsenic and bleeding them to remove the "evil humors."

It's true about what Diamond says about overpopulation. The "carrying capacity" of a region, at a time when refrigeration didn't exist on a wide scale, when even the best food storage had limited impacts, and insects and vermin did even more serious damage than they do today (and they still do a lot) mean that populations not only would increase very slowly, but you had situations of catastrophic death leading to population drops, like the plagues during the Peloponnesian Wars where Athens could lose a fourth of its population.

Again, I can see why a game developer would mitigate this in order to retain some "fun factor." Who wants to sit around as Lord in your wooden fort, your people constantly on the edge of starvation and rebellion, scratching and clawing your way to increase your power only to see everything dashed by a flood, famine or plague?

That's why I see something like this as an optional setting or mod.

And there are disasters such as floods and earthquakes that can destroy your buildings.