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 Happy Easter SA!! No special implication should be taken from the fact that I am launching this project on this holiday; it's simply how it worked out from a timing POV. What Is Dawn of Man? Dawn of Man is an ancient city-builder released last year from Madruga Works, recently moved to version 1.5. That's the same people responsible for Planetbase, and it shares some look-and-feel similarity. It's been compared to Banished as well, which is appropriate in some respects. I personally really enjoy and appreciate the way you advance as a society in the game, how new discoveries are achieved, etc. It also is somewhat on the simplistic/easy side, which I am addressing somewhat with a fairly basic mod that I whipped up for it to address pacing and so on. HP lolwut?? This is the beginning of a much larger and stupidly-ambitious project that I am naming Historic Perspectives. Think of it as a Paradox megacampaign that took way too many steroids and had no proper concept of scope limitation. Starting from so-called 'prehistory', I endeavor to cover the whole of human history, past, present, and future. My focus is to not sacrifice for completion of the whole however; I would prefer to cover a smaller period well than a larger period poorly. This is something I've had in mind in one form or another for at least a decade, long before I ever posted on this forum or contemplated being a content creator beyond simple forum AARS/dynasties. If it were up to me (which it isn't), this is the thing I would be remembered for most as an LPer. I will be attempting to fuse gameplay and, well, historical perspective on the subject matter of said games in a way that I don't think has really been done before. This may be brilliant; it may be mindbogglingly idiotic; or it may be anywhere in between. I leave that to the viewer/reader to judge. The old saying about a journey of a thousand miles having to begin with a single step is very much in mind here; but not all such journeys end well. Most don't; but it can't end well if it never starts. Here's a short intro video I did announcing the project. LP Style As pretty much all my content is now, this will be an edited VLP; slow at first to introduce new concepts, explain the game, etc. Later updates will involve increasing amounts of time-skipping in slower or grindier timeframes when there isn't as much of consequence going on. As ever I appreciate all suggestions, constructive criticism, etc. in the thread. Timeline Dawn of Man covers roughly two-thirds of my intended length of the project in terms of the historical period. It begins at approximately 10,000 BC at the end of the last glacial period and covers everything up through the Iron Age. Mod Details I have done the following things: ** Flatter terrain values for less of a 'modern art' approach and less ruggedness. ** Normal difficulty ** Immigration disabled ** 'Nomad'-style start with slightly lower population, no automatic forest-clearing, minimal starting gear, and no pre-built structures. ** Increased knowledge requirements by 50%. ** Additional house rule: no trading except late-game possibly for things I run out of locally. Inception Historical Documentation The settlement of Inception has so far accomplished the following: Inception (25:21) Hunting for a Home (26:48) A Close Call (24:29) The Path Forward (21:02) The Circle of Life (23:19) Tanning & Growing (20:05) Mesolithic Matters (20:40) New Food Sources (20:57) Growing Challenges (23:58) The First Wave (26:47) Neolithic Transition (30:38) Raiders & Reconstruction (21:37) Livestock, Megaliths & More (23:11) Weaving (23:29) Wells and other Sundries (18:52) Copper Beckons (21:06) Straw Struggles (20:04) Crossing the River (22:15) Bronze Beginnings (20:35) Stone, Finally (20:42) Bronze Complications (21:44) As Strong As Iron? (21:13) Conclusion (21:56) Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 16:11 on Sep 30, 2020 |
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Apr 12, 2020 14:45
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 Inception (25:21) Introduction to the time period, and we dive into the Paleolithic Era as a barely-surviving handful of humans. From this humble beginning will grow … something. Strategic Sage fucked around with this message at 14:58 on Apr 12, 2020 |
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Apr 12, 2020 14:46
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A mega-Campaign spanning the entirety of human history is very ambitious. I'm very interested in seeing how this turns out so good luck.
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Apr 12, 2020 14:59
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I've wanted to do something similar with a Caveman 2 Cosmos LP for a couple of years but the scope was just way too much. God speed, gentlegoon, I will follow you unto the end  e: How often will updates be?
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Apr 12, 2020 15:35
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I think the risk of burnout with something this vast is incredibly high, but drat will we be impressed if you manage it. Good luck to ye.
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Apr 12, 2020 15:44
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Rarity posted:How often will updates be? Twice a week to start with during the current 'unpleasantness' that is the subject of your thread. Normal life, whatever that ends up being, will probably reduce it to weekly at some point. It's also going to vary based on interest; some projects I do retain long-term viewership much better than others, and I have no idea really how this one will fare. So I'm intending to be flexible and put more or less time into this compared to my other projects depending on relative viewership.
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Apr 12, 2020 15:56
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This is an intriguing premise and I want to see where this goes. Godspeed.
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Apr 12, 2020 18:16
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I'm always down for megacampaigns, and am extra down for whatever this is.
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Apr 12, 2020 23:10
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So I've just realized something annoying - there shouldn't be black bars around the screen on this, but it was pointed out that there are. I have the second video done, recorded/processed the same way as far as I can tell, and it's not a problem on that one. I'm at a loss to explain why, but regardless I apologize for stumbling out of the gate on that issue. I'll be watching it but I don't expect any repeat occurences, I've never run into this before.
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Apr 12, 2020 23:30
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It doesn't fit with the strategy/empire building games but this should really should have started with Ancestors shouldn't it? 
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Apr 13, 2020 00:46
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Well shoot if you want to go that route, I could have always started with Spore and then just sort of interspersed the stages of that at various points. But you know, human history … I figure beginning at a point where there's a distinct human species was a good jumping-in point.
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Apr 13, 2020 01:10
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I think what interests me most is what you'll be playing in terms of games once we reach more modern eras, since that's where the choice of games really booms, as well as how you decided what to go with.
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Apr 13, 2020 11:41
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Is there a possibility that you might throw your mod onto the Steam Workshop, or make it available some other way? I'd like to play with flatter terrain myself. What do you need in order to mod the game yourself?
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Apr 13, 2020 23:46
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It's all done in text files. I never made any sort of proper graphics for it, or a regional map with different locations to choose from, or any such thing which I'd need to do for an even vaguely-presentable workshop mod. There are mods up there already which change the terrain as well; I have the GOG not Steam version of the game in this case but they basically work the same, sans the workshop which I've always found finnicky to work with on the modding side. There's a modding subsection on the steam forums themselves that explains how it works - basically each environment has a series of values that influence the amplitudes in the terrain, but they don't actually tell you which one of the seven I think numbers does what, because they work together in unclear and unintuitive ways. There was a lot of trial and error for me. The Bloodline mod has several flatter terrain options and various gameplay flavors, there are some that just do the terrain and call themselves Flatlands, most of those are quite a bit flatter even than what I've done … I'd think you should be able to find one of those that works for what you want. PurpleXVI posted:think what interests me most is what you'll be playing in terms of games once we reach more modern eras, since that's where the choice of games really booms, as well as how you decided what to go with. We'll get right on that years of IRL time from now! I'll definitely be open to suggestions there; while I've got quite a bit of the timeline planned out it's not all done, as by the time I even get there the gaming landscape will have changed to at least some degree. But I should mention here that after the first couple of games, it will branch out a bit as we enter the 'Paradox Era' and I'll be doing multiple games in parallel to cover different aspects. That's where managing the scope is really going to get interesting.
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Apr 14, 2020 00:20
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Hunting for a Home (26:48) Thanks in no small part to the number of predators about, hunting opportunities are fairly limited. Still, we do manage to get our first proper building up and running, allowing us to actually do cool things like sleep. It's progress.
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Apr 15, 2020 14:13
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Looking forward to seeing appearances from some Good Boys in the next update 
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Apr 15, 2020 15:22
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I was wondering when domesticated animals would start appearing. I couldn't remember when exactly humans got doggos (I know horses are later than that).
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Apr 15, 2020 19:11
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I keep looking at the season indicator, and your lack of winter clothing, and your lack of a crafter, and your housing for three of five, and the lack of skins, and the lack of game, and your one hunting spear... What happens if everyone freezes to death? 
Lemniscate Blue fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Apr 15, 2020 |
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Apr 15, 2020 20:11
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Man that walk speed is slooooooooooooooooooooow.  I noticed you turned off immigration - so how do you grow? (Is inbreeding modeled?) Very cool that they included domesticated animals (though in retrospect obvious). A bit disappointing to hear that they apparently just appear, but then actively doing the domestication would probably take too long? Looking forward to see if it works differently for example with the donkeys. Lemniscate Blue posted:I keep looking at the season indicator, and your lack of winter clothing, and your lack of a crafter, and your housing for three of five, and the lack of skins, and the lack of game, and your one hunting spear... 
DTurtle fucked around with this message at 20:20 on Apr 15, 2020 |
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Apr 15, 2020 20:17
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Lemniscate Blue posted:I keep looking at the season indicator, and your lack of winter clothing, and your lack of a crafter, and your housing for three of five, and the lack of skins, and the lack of game, and your one hunting spear... Game over... Even if you have enough kids.
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Apr 15, 2020 21:07
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Rarity posted:Looking forward to seeing appearances from some Good Boys in the next update It's going to take longer than that, but it will happen. Per the growth thing … like other games such as Banished, inbreeding doesn't matter. Offspring will happen from within the settlement the 'old-fashioned/natural' way. There are conditions that must be met, and they aren't yet - I think I've already talked about the housing capacity aspect. I'll get more into this when the time comes, probably a couple episodes from now. Lemniscate Blue posted:I keep looking at the season indicator, and your lack of winter clothing, and your lack of a crafter, and your housing for three of five, and the lack of skins, and the lack of game, and your one hunting spear... They all die and this is a really short LP. Hint: I wouldn't place odds on me allowing that disgrace to happen. Winter is not going to be a joy-filled fun zone, but Inception will exist on the far side of it. The power of reloading will be invoked if necessary in such emergencies. DTurtle posted:Man that walk speed is slooooooooooooooooooooow. You're not wrong. Next episode has a good example of the difference between someone who has big needs issues and one who doesn't -- there's a pretty massive gap in how quickly they get around. Moral of the story; treat our employees/villagers/vicarious simulations well. Also, as things stabilize there will naturally be more periods of time-acceleration and outright time-skipping. Typically the game doesn't require a ton of micro, but I did inflict this kind of start upon myself for a reason. DTurtle posted:Looking forward to see if it works differently for example with the donkeys. re: this and the comment about the horses … there is a different method used for all other animals as compared to dogs. If you're sharp-eyed, you've seen it already; some of the game animals have a lasso icon that is for now ghosted because we don't yet have the advance required to use it. But basically you have to capture (or trade for) the others and then breed them. There are also requirements in terms of caring for them. None of that will happen in the Paleolithic Era though so we have a ways before we can do any proper animal husbandry.
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Apr 15, 2020 22:00
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Oh man. I wanted to love this game but found it so awful to play. Looking forward to following it via the LP as well as the rest of the project.
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Apr 15, 2020 23:05
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I feel that this is going to be both interesting and also end up being a mine of articles about misconceptions, precisions and so on about time period X, Y and Z as things go on.
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Apr 15, 2020 23:10
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Interesting idea for an LP, and interesting way to mod and play an excellent game. I'm curious to see how late game will work, given your conditions here, I know I've had certain late game issues that nearly tanked things even with all the standard features of the game available.
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Apr 15, 2020 23:14
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SIGSEGV posted:I feel that this is going to be both interesting and also end up being a mine of articles about misconceptions, precisions and so on about time period X, Y and Z as things go on. I'll be pleased if it manages to be both. I'm curious to see the reaction to the next episode, in which the most controversial concept of the game is introduced, and I drag out my axe and grind away for a while. Jossar posted:I wanted to love this game but found it so awful to play. Why was that out of curiosity? Shootaboy posted:I'm curious to see how late game will work, given your conditions here, I know I've had certain late game issues that nearly tanked things even with all the standard features of the game available. It's possible issues will be run into there. Because of what the next game will be, it's not even essential for me to go quite all the way through the tech tree here (though I definitely want to hit at least most of it). I did a test game to ensure I could get through a number of years, having a growing population, not die out early etc. but I didn't do any real long-term ones (though I have gone all the way through with no significant problems in a more vanilla setup). I'll just sort of have to take things as they come.
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Apr 16, 2020 16:14
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Strategic Sage posted:Why was that out of curiosity? I'm not quite sure? Part of it was that the camera was not cooperating with the more mountainous terrain of the default game setting resulting in it veering off to random parts of the map, but that was a minor issue. I think the main problem was that no matter how high I cranked the speed up, everything felt like it was moving slow as molasses. Both in term of physical movement speed and progress. It all seems much better paced when watching someone else play it, but actually playing it felt interminably boring just sitting around waiting for my group to actually do anything especially when it came to hitting new milestones.
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Apr 16, 2020 18:59
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Jossar posted:I think the main problem was that no matter how high I cranked the speed up, everything felt like it was moving slow as molasses. Both in term of physical movement speed and progress. It all seems much better paced when watching someone else play it, but actually playing it felt interminably boring just sitting around waiting for my group to actually do anything especially when it came to hitting new milestones. It probably helps that SS is cutting out all the dead time
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Apr 16, 2020 19:08
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Jossar posted:I think the main problem was that no matter how high I cranked the speed up, everything felt like it was moving slow as molasses. This is a common complaint; fyi I've found the camera thing is pretty much always because I've moved my mouse to the edge of the screen and it starts scrolling for that reason, fyi. But on the speed thing … I think part of it is the developers fault for having good macro tools with the work areas, continuous production, and so forth. Since a settlement doesn't need a lot of micro once it gets going - we'll get there eventually - a lot of it is just waiting for time to pass before you slap down a bunch of new buildings or set up for whatever new tech advance you are working towards. The thing about that is, I don't think it's actually slower than other citybuilders in that respect. People tend to enjoy watching things progress in Cities:Skylines and SimCity and the like in a way they just don't in Dawn of Man for some reason. I've always thought on 4x or 8x speed things move quite quickly but that's not dismissing the issue, because it is a common one. I just find it fascinating because it doesn't really seem to track with other games in the genre. The closest one Banished, didn't get that either and things definitely don't move any faster there - it's just that it doesn't bother people as much for whatever reason. I wonder if it's just the whole knowledge/milestones system since most of those other games don't have as many specific imposed goals to work towards? *ponders*
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Apr 17, 2020 04:33
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Fwiw, I've never felt like it's a slow game, really. It drags if you just use speed one, but I usually play just fine swapping between 2 and 4 as needed, same as when I'm playing CKII.
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Apr 17, 2020 06:28
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Oh man. I've wanted a game like this really badly about 14 years ago. Not just this game specifically, but the entire project that you're doing. Teching up is always my favorite thing to do in 4x and RTS games. So something that follows the progress of humanity from no techs, all the way up to a spacefaring civilization is going to be amazing.
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Apr 17, 2020 20:47
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A Close Call (24:29) I tried something sneaky to make the winter a little easier, but didn't quite get away with it. After suriviving the first winter with only moderate levels of hypothermia, Inception set about the task of making the second year better than the first.
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Apr 19, 2020 15:18
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Glad to see Inception survived the winter, know it can be pretty brutal especially this early on.
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Apr 19, 2020 15:43
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Some people say that we should let old customs die but I think there's still place in society for a pole where we stick the skulls of our enemies
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Apr 20, 2020 05:51
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So what's the level of interaction that Dawn of Man will eventually permit with other settlements? Is there raiding and other outright warfare or is violence only directed at animals?
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Apr 20, 2020 19:01
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PurpleXVI posted:So what's the level of interaction that Dawn of Man will eventually permit with other settlements? Is there raiding and other outright warfare or is violence only directed at animals? No interaction with other settlements. Raider attack from Neolithic area onward, and they get better and better equipement as time goes on.
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Apr 20, 2020 22:29
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Good job surviving the winter. I wasn't able to tell. Is it possible to micro so that when you have someone go into the tent, and someone leave, the person going to the tent can give the person leaving the warm clothes? I got the urge to watch some more of this, so I fired up another LP. He had a normal start as opposed to your story start of running away from some catastrophe, plus, he had regular research costs. By the hour and fifteen minute mark, about where you are now, he's got 20 people in the village and one tech away from being done with the mesolithic. He's also blazing through it and not showing anything off. This means I need to wait on you to continue this series to get my fix. Speaking of getting my fix. I'm thinking of getting this. Are there any advantages to get it from Steam as opposed to GoG? I tend to support GoG over Steam when I can. General Revil fucked around with this message at 07:01 on Apr 21, 2020 |
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Apr 21, 2020 06:55
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General Revil posted:By the hour and fifteen minute mark, about where you are now, he's got 20 people in the village and one tech away from being done with the mesolithic. He's also blazing through it and not showing anything off. Yeah that's the typical way of doing the game. Pravus the great and powerful completed the game easily within five episodes (less than three hours altogether). Time-acceleration and the default setup really runs through the ages quickly. As to your questions - I don't know any way of getting people to drop items they currently have. You can kick items out of a storage building, but not take them away from a character. Steam vs. GoG; I'd say it depends on whether you want to use mods. The betas are only available of Steam; recent 1.5 update didn't come to GoG until it was tested by the Steam people. Workshop is the main thing though. Almost all the mods for the game are made for the Steam Workshop so unless you're happy with vanilla … I generally look at it as if you want to use mods for a game, GoG isn't going to be as good for that. re: Purple XVI; Traders, raiders, and immigrants are the 'off-map' interactions. Since I'm ignoring the first and disabling the third, that really limits it more. They're all just generated hand-wavium style based on what's going on in your settlement (or raiders come after a certain time on hardcore difficulty, which I'm not using here). Similarly, new animal herds are spawned each year if needed.
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Apr 21, 2020 15:26
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Strategic Sage posted:re: Purple XVI; Traders, raiders, and immigrants are the 'off-map' interactions. Since I'm ignoring the first and disabling the third, that really limits it more. They're all just generated hand-wavium style based on what's going on in your settlement (or raiders come after a certain time on hardcore difficulty, which I'm not using here). Similarly, new animal herds are spawned each year if needed. It's a bit of a shame they didn't get a bit more simulationist with that, i.e. make it possible for you to depopulate an area of a certain kind of animal(though more could spawn in, it would be less and less likely as you repeatedly hunted them down), maybe make trader and immigrant visits more regular based on how often you deal with the trader, something mild like that.
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Apr 21, 2020 22:32
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The Path Forward (21:02) The circle is complete now in terms of initial infrastructure/resources/setup. More discussion of the requirements for producing offspring ensues, because that's the main thing we need to do next. More people = more knowledge = faster progression up to a point, both directly in terms of just getting knowledge for having more people and indirectly because they need and produce more other resources. The only real risks to the … eh, hamlet I guess we'll call it … from a viability standpoint is an attack by a large pack of aggressive animals like those cave lions we had at the beginning, or some disaster befalling our lone eligible bachelorette. It's time to get procreating. All the necessary conditions have now been satisfied.
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Apr 22, 2020 20:07
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So er, is everyone in our settlement related? Cause this is not looking good for our genetic diversity
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Apr 22, 2020 20:22
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