Play a sim.

Seriously, you just described a society simulation game.  There are plenty out there that you might enjoy.

I think your logic may be lost on the hordes of gamers within these forum walls. I was refreshed by your pragmatic prose, though it was readily inaccessable to the gaming community at large. I cannot say you were right, but I do agree. I think there are methods to combat predictable issues like this. Developers are unwilling to throw away maintenance because it is an automated system to account for random changes in cities that require money; such as fires and riots. It could lend to this game if the developers institued random events within each empire to create a more historic trend in this "deterministic" system.

Self-organization could be achieved by occasional power struggles between the immortal sovergns and their more rebelious offspring. They could arrange random riots and political upheavals to obtain a sense of fuedal kingdoms, this would make things like approval and taxation a constant concern for struggling empires. Also, these random events should stem from actual actions the each player makes. Taxes, annexation, massive expansion or colonization should all have a random chance to sprout real life occurances.

I doubt the developers have any interest in such possibilities but it is nice to escape the realities of fantasy gaming, if only briefly.

Well, im pretty sure there won't be any city happiness in the game (otherwise I would have used that as a variable in my ideas), however other potrayals of Social Discord, Civil Strife (royals revolt), and Extra-planar invasions would be nice.

Usually, however, each person creates their own clock, and the end of the game is a battle of the Giant Clocks. That is sometimes fun. Perhaps boring for singleplayer, but in multiplayer it can be a blast. Sometimes in games I want to build palisades and walls for that "Just in Case" they ever get attacked, but usually I should know that they never will get attacked.

Once you have enough cities, nothing ever usually attacks the inner cities. Perhaps we could have raoming bandits/ bandit armies, and neutral trolls/ect, which can move in-between our cities (towards the inner cities) and occasionally attack an inner city. Say there is something special about inner city X which is attracting a bandit army or a troll. Then those creatures, which might normally only roam the countryside, would actually lay seige/attack the inhabitants of the city.

Another example, a disgruntled Royal raises an army in the countryside and marches onto an Inner City to start his powerbase. Maybe the disgruntled royal gains a few external, outlying settlements as "his cities" ... of course if he is first born, or a particularly powerful Royal .... he could rise with half of your empire already under his command. The question I raise, is how would your first born end up being so mad??

Well, I'd like to think that each Champion (especially Royal) has a personality. Some Champions get increased Loyalty from your Channeler doing evil things, and some have an opposite effect. Some Champs get increased Loyalty for your actions to be Chaotic and Outside social norms, and others are opposite. Some Champions are Xenophobic, and others are Xenophillic. Some want a salary of more gold, others want a salary of more prestige/land/better city.

In this way, you would know which Champions to throw to the wayside, and which champions to coddle and support. I think giving in to their needs could, in some cases, increase their experience points/ level them up. And then some cases of particular disfavor could cause them to either Desert (NPC champ), or begin a Revolt (Royal Champ) by raising an army.

Executing a Champion would, of course, lower the loyalty of all but the most depraved champions, unless that Champion has led a revolt. If a champion raises an army in revolt, you can capture him and execute him without reprecussions (in fact it will increase the loyalty of al champions, if only temporarily) because he commited treason.

There are a few events in FFH where a building burns down, or a road collapses, where you would either pay to get it replaced/repaired immediately, or have to go through the trouble of building it over again. Also, in some cases you needed a Particular Magical Node in order to choose the "best outcome" for a random upkeep event. For instance, Muris Clans dumping waste, or disease hitting a city. I think disease could be spread along trade routes, and it being a Temporary buiding, which takes up no space, that adds a certain amount of negative prestige. You can take magical intervention to combat the disease more swiftly, or use mundane methods of the time to slow its spread and decrease its effectiveness. If no measures are taken the disease increases (greater decrease in prestige) until your city could possibly grow to a very low number. A city won't go below a certain amount, but if a disease is still quite strong at a low population, the negative prestige won't grow any further (or maybe it will) but it won't decrease either. Once the disease starts to be fought in some way, the temporary building's negative modifier will slowly decrease, until it is little noticable, and then decreases altogether. Living units in a city with disease ... thats a tricky one. Should your units die? Personally I think that they should be effected by the level of disease. Minor disease, and all units HP 75%, More Disease, and all units HP 40%. Powerful Disease, and all units HP 10%. however that route seems a little simplistic. I think instead the total hitpoints for the entire army should be placed on an array, and for a minor disease, each turn has an X percent chance of an HP being removed. Medium disease every turn has an X percent of 3 HP being removed, and Great Disease an X chance of 5 HP being removed each turn (5 chances for an HP to be removed). In this case, high HP units could be weakened, and low HP units would straight up die. I rather like this idea better. Some units, like undead, demon, Edar, Umberdroth, and Dragon, could be immune to disease, and therefore not be included in the array.

There could be a random event more inclined towards "older" buildings ... a building that has not upgraded in 20 turns or more, to be "wearing down" and need to be paid to be replaced, or rebuilt. It would be bad for buildings to be popping up every turn, so use some Algorythm which emphasizes that only one of such buildings could wear down per city per 5 turns. And even then, not always. If a city does not have a governor, or has poor/evil management, this chance could be higher. If it has great management, this chance could be lower. I'd say a 1 in 20 chance within the framework of once per 5 turns after initial 20 turns. Upgrading a building resets the counter.

// although this could all be far too complex, including the posts above me. I would rather have one good game than five great games competing against each other.

I should say, not related to the size of the city, but the size of the empire. Then, different disasters could effect different cities depending on the disaster. If its being invaded/seiged by bandits, probably an outlying town, but could be any town. If its an invasion of trolls/ogres, same deal. If its a building gone run-down, probably a Village somewhere. If its something to do with something that could only take place in a City Proper, then it happens in a random City Proper (probably would have no more than 5 full size cities towards mid-late game)

2xpost

What I propose is like you describe : lot of trade = disease ? Add a % bonus to the trade buildings. Lots of buildings = lots of trades = probably a disease.

A city underprotected ? No barracks and an enemy cultural border = % of uprising in that city.

Anyway, we would need some kind of triggers. And quests have them. So why not having quests tied with you actions, the way you build towns and the sor of things you describe. Quests can give you that "non deterministic" thing.

I loved the threat of civil war in the original Medieval Total War. Though one of its faults was that it seemed to happen more often when you were weak, and almost never when you became a huge bloated empire, mopping up the rest of the map <yawn>.

One of the main things that makes medieval histroy interesting is the inner threats to factions. To a King, the enemies within his kindgom were just as great as those outside his kingdom. The distinction were all too often very blurry. In many 4x games, inner conflict is almost totally ignored, and you the player are in COMPLETE omnipotent control of their faction. Sure there is the occasional city unrest that is easily put down if you have half a brain, but even in reality, during medieval times, these kinds of revolts were somewhat easy to suppress. The real revolts with some teeth on them were started by others within the faction that also had power (i.e. nobility), but the in these games, the player almost never has to contend with any other power that he/she must share power with.

So it no wonder by why half way through the game it becomes a snorefest due to having bulit up enough steam to destroy all other factions, and nothing can stop you.

Suggestion:

(This idea of mine is actually inspired from the Dominon of the Sword mod for Medieval total war 2 (which is still a WIP). They are actually trying to implement a much more involved system. If they ever get to finishing it, it should be epic. If you like this idea, check them out http://www.twcenter.net/forums/forumdisplay.php?f=492))

I would love to see a beefy system where you must manage and delegate power within your own faction as you expand your power. You could do this by having a sub-faction that represents the "ruling elite" (ie nobles). It acts basically as a regular NPC faction. This sub faction is not actually seen on the map (not at first anyway) and would occasionally ask the player to complete objectives (lets call them "quests" for Elemental) that if the player completes successfully will earn them 'approval' from the sub faction. As you gain approval, special actions will become available to the player. Not completing their quests will lower their apporval and having it at negative could cause problems...such as champions, allies, vassal states and even individual cities switching sides, attacking the player or both (for being a tyrant..or at least a tyrant that isn't advantages for them). Or if things really get bad, the sub-faction props up a newly discovered channeler as the a new soverign (maybe even a family member of yours), and half of your kingdom/empire goes with them. You could go on and think of a bunch of other things that could happen..

At first, when players build their first city they won't have this ruling elite sub faction, but as their faction's population grows to a certain size, this sub faction will approach them (via a pop up window and message) and tells them that they represent their power base. They then will proceed to hand the player quests to complete, which represent the needs and desire of your ruling class. These quests should not be completely random, but be based on the current situation (anyone who has played the more recent Total War games knows what I mean). These quest may or may not be in line with the player's current objectives. They may ask the players to do things that will completely mess up their awesome invasion they are planning, or conducting the quest might break ties with a faction whose relationship the player had been cultavating. The player can of course ignore them, but at a risk.

As the player's faction gets bigger and bigger, the more the player will need the help of this ruling elite sub faction. Building more and bigger cities becomes increasingly harder to manage (via increasing maintenance costs or some other means) to the point where its impossible. However having a high standing with the sub faction or building something like a "noble's fort" (or whatever you want to call it) will make having more cities possible, but it will also increase the power of this sub faction. Their increasing power is represented by them asking you to complete bigger, bolder and simply more quests, and not completing them will have even harsher penalties.

The player can mtigate this by sectioning the empire/kingdom into vassal states (which is something the vassal states might already be asking the player to do, once you get to a large, bloated size). These states are NPC controlled and are by default allied to the player (ala civ4 colonization, but with more teeth). By doing this the player reduces the nagging of the player's ruling elite sub faction, but at the same time the player losses direct influence over parts of their empire/kingdom. The player also inadvertantly creates more enemies if he ever does ever piss of his sub-faction..however the sub faction will be easier to manage since the player has less cities and has less need of the sub faction and less will be asked from the player. Vassal states, are not ruled by a sovereign and so are dependent on you.... but other sovereigns can support them just as well....

So as the player expands, their will be more the player most consider. Instead of dealing with less and less as they grow, due to conqueroring other factions, and replacing them with nothing. So basically you get rid of enemies, and replace them with enemies you trust only slightly more : P. Like this, the feeling of winning a game might actually feel challenging, rewarding and satisfying ...rather than boring, anti-climatic and predictable.

I don't know. Dwarf Fortress was pretty non-deterministic without having to resort to Random Events. Can't we find a way to make all games unique?

I feel non-deterministic gameplay will only be accompolished is if Stardock implements gameplay systems that determines areas with many variables relative to eachother that set things off if certain point levels aren't met.

Say for example, your city is in an area. I'm not good with math but the city is the major factor. If that city and the area around it rarely sees military units belonging to that citys faction around and especially inside the city garrisoning it, bandits, criminal guilds and whatnot should take residence within and without. I would love to see my capitol city turn into one resembling Calimport from the Drizzt Do'Urden series from Dungeons and Dragons. I have many guilds in my city that control and fight over prositution, drugs, street territory, merchants running protection schemes, cetera if I maintained units vastly below relative to the immense population.

There has to be a limit, because it is a game after all that needs to reward 1 + 1 = 2. Not there's a chance I get an army of 500,000 conquering swaths of territory, away from my empire and suddenly, half my empire and family decides it would prefer their own color, army, government, cetera. To much randomness could ruin it for someone, and that's how I felt Fall From Heaven for Civ4 didn't do well with.

Believe me, Fall From Heaven is not that balanced, especially in regards to random events. It's annoying. I played dozens of online games for hundreds of turns with at least 5 other people, and found that whoever's continent had the Black Dragon or the Orc ravager spawn on it was going to automatically fall behind everyone else in the game, like forever. Lest they traded technologies, you were fucked. Personally, whenever I see someone mention Fall From Heaven like it's a gift from God, makes me cringe. It has many unique features and good ideas, with random events giving you headaches. As I mentioned previously, would you like in Elemental, especially in an online match a Black Dragon spawned by one of your cities? You can't recruit him, he excretes barbarian units ever 2-3 turns towards your cities till you slay him, being, over 100 turns later. Whilst nobody else in the game has to deal with that level of orgy and feels like your the only one that doesn't have the Wall of China. Excuse my language. I don't want that in Elemental without having at least some idea it could occur. If one of my major cities has sewage problems for extended periods of time and I still don't handle it. I should get the following:

• Plague
• Sewer rats that are humanoids spawning outside and inside my city tiles generally just causing unrest and attacking any of my military units causing minor issues
• Whatever makes you fix the situation or your city hates you and could make worse events occur. Like your mom telling you your a horrible player.
  

I would not like a civil war to occur because the game wanted to screw with me. Conditions need to be met, and players have some insight into it.

We usually played three continents. True Orthos is laughable, but many players and AI have been caught off-guard and destroyed because he popped out of nowhere, especially with an army supporting him. Suggesting if I can't handle Orthos, I need to learn how to play, huh.

What does BTS mean?

Perhaps we didn't take advantage of the options, however Elemental's regular games I'd assume both multi and singleplayer should be having recruitable dragons, and random quests available. This discussion is about non-determinsitic gameplay trying to make the flow of managing an empire fluid and yet somehow natural. I think FFH's quests and events are an example of not being well done in that aspect if that was "the regular game". Which it kinda is, if you need an option to turn it off.

Last time I checked, you really had no way of influencing which events to occur in FFH, they came and you simply responded at the moment it came. I would prefer if civil wars were possible is if Sions and Channelers were so far away each other with large armies for periods of time with other factors, it could sow the seeds of discontent. Something along those lines.

I am sorry to interrupt you, of mighty FFH players, but it comes down to this comment:

The randomness element present in the game added a uncertain flavor to each game. Sometimes, it was for good. Sometimes, it was for bad. But the game just could be replayed again with a feel of unknown ahead of you.

am I right?

I think I'm gonna try to find a copy of FFH...

Personnally, I'm all in favor or a little randomness thrown at us during gameplay. Kinda like Major Events during GalCiv2, or Europa Universalis III. I know some players are going to cry about "game balance", but I answer them:

Screw the balance, I want to replay!