The specification process of Crypto Kingdom - Ultima has startedThe
version 4: Reconstruction is proceeding. I have already seen the gaming software, which is not yet playable but contains most of the UI functionality and (I cannot verify) the backend functionality. The scope is as previously announced. The betatesting will be carried out with the people who know they are selected. We have 2-a-week meetings to hone the details.
But the subject of this post is the concurrent specification of the
Ultima. The design philosophy is different from the current design process (which as we all know had issues). This time we start from all possible future features, and work backwards, cutting and merging features that are redundant, and generalize the rest as much as possible. It currently seems that the resource based economy can be abstracted to as little as 3 main subsystems(!)
-
Human subsystem creates the characters, who emit labor, and require food, drink, clothes and shelter, and eventually die
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Grid subsystem is the registry of physical world from duchies to items, and their locations, logistics etc
-
Transformer subsystem is a collection of conditions, rules, and formulas, which govern the changes of state of the world.
CK Ultima (I repeat the title so that you would not think this is V.4
)
Human subsystem
- one realyear = 52 gameyears, one char may live up to a year
- PC and NPC are equal, with NPC having an AI to make some choices for it
Labor generation
- generates a unit of labor 3/day = about 1,000 units per lifetime
- essential component in work, study, and many activities
- a few units of labor can be saved, the excess is lost if unspent
Food sink
- daily a meal and a drink need to be enjoyed in the restaurants
Health, sickness and death subsystem
- health starts at 100% and is displayed to the char in a 5-scale; 0%=> death
- main drivers of health are age, food, drink, sickness, injuries and living conditions
- temporary health changes from boosters or light sickness are reversible
Grid subsystem
- Defines the world and its structures, both countryside and urban
- Countryside has a huge potential to yield minerals, food etc, when harnessed properly
- Urban is important for communication and production of consumer goods etc
- Items are localized at rooms, and one room can be as small as desired (and as big as up to an undeveloped chapelry in town, or a huge land in the countryside)
- Items have weight and volume
- Logistics are realistic, the ox drivers actually order the caravan to move to a place, and it arrives hours later, no (or very little) shortcuts, only in things such as automatic emptying of small rooms
Transformer subsystem
Defines all formulas (the list of formulas can be expanded at will) how:
- Work is achieved from Labor (labor units with skill) and Capital (consisting of tools, machines, organization, etc)
- Work can be used to convert items to other items (very broadly), for example a building company might set up BuildingSiteArea51 to the Lot where a palace will be built. First they select the appropriate "Work generation formula" that makes use of their resources, and then summon the resources to the site. When time passes and Labor is poured to the factory, BuildingPoints (Work) come from the other end, and once enough of them is generated, the Palace can be built.
The building is a conversion operation where this Work, the Stone, Windows, and other resources (luxuries will be phased out), are merged to become a Building (or several).
- A much smaller example might be to use a Blacksmith'sWork point and some metal to make a small amulet, or a big one why not.
Discussion
This is a very fundamental way to think what actually happens in the game. It is Human Action (thanks
Mises) that is directed to other characters, concepts and virtuo-physical things in the game. To the extent that the state of the virtuo-physical world is changed, the characters set up transformers to refine the resources into a more desirable form. They always need to apply labor of some kind at least, in some stage of the process.
The ultimate sink of value is the sustenance system. When characters eat or drink, or their clothes or houses undergo wear and deterioration, this is the value (in kind) that leaves the equation. (Of course excess housing, industrial capital, and luxuries also undergo depreciation.)
The new value that comes, is the labor the characters generate. With higher skill, the labor yields more Work. With more capital, better technology, and more efficient organization, the productivity can be increased. This requires more skilled workers, and better working conditions, which translates to higher standard of living, so the factories in some distant future will pour out iPhones for all the characters...
Until now, I haven't mentioned money. Money is a unit of account and a means of transferring and storing value. It is not involved in production. Some people say that we could do without money. I haven't found this credible just yet at least. What Adam Smith said, and many before and after him, it is the common unit of account that makes financial planning possible both in the big (whether to build a new factory) and in the small (how the pencil is most efficiently assembled using up to 80 production steps by dozens of actors, none of whom could make the pencil by himself, all of whom guided by nothing but price information alone).
A restaurant from here onwards, will be a transformer of raw food to enjoyable meals. The monetary side is of course there - all inputs cost money, so it follows that the output must cost as well. But the structure of Pools in V.3-V.4 will be phased out in most cases and replaced by atomic interaction driven by the basic needs of sustenance (blindly enforced by the game) and vanity (enforced by the players themselves).
All monetary economy will reconstruct itself as the most efficient means of brokering between the actors in different stages of the production and economy.
All other game concepts from highway robbers to space program will be able to be defined in terms of the 3 Subsystems.
