Idiling and interactions

Hm, well, I think that sounds like it’s a bit more micro-managey than the developers probably are willing/intending to go. Not sure if I would like to do that sort of thing regardless. But who knows, it’s worth bringing up if it’s something you would like to see, I suppose :slight_smile:

Hmm. It might be fun to see them crafting (cost-less) trinkets. For example, an idle carpenter might fiddle around making a toy or something. It wouldn’t do anything, and heck, might just disappear after the animation, but it’d help give the illusion of activity that isn’t organised by the player.

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On that note, I wouldn’t mind some things they do during downtime that actually do contribute, either. Like having the above-mentioned toy crafted and then actually stick around for kids to play with, perhaps contributing to town happiness. Perhaps some fraction of ‘idling’ could be spent that way. If it seems overpowered, it could cost some small amount of material, in which case perhaps it could be turned off as an option in a general management screen by the player.

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Oh sure - I mean I suggested it being resource-free or w/e to avoid complaints about dwindling stockpiles of materials etc, but it’d definitely be nicer if you could do it like you suggest.

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Well, there are various possible ways to do it, I was just kicking around a couple alternatives. But I agree, I would like it best if it actually has some effect on gameplay, or, failing that, if there is at least some sense of constancy (kids could play with the created toy even if it doesn’t affect happiness). The balancing would have to be right, of course, not only in terms of finding the right cost in terms of time and other resources relative to the benefits, but also in the sense that I don’t think it should have too big an effect, so as not to get the player to feel like the town could run perfectly well without any input. (Another way to attain that, of course, is to only have certain needs met by these ‘automatic’ behaviors, and not others; e.g., entertainment, not sustenance.)

I understood that as a different idle animations with more effect… Heh, that would be good.

Well, it could bring a little more live to our settlements, sometimes with additional things. For example:

  • Citizens are sitting near the campfire. A person with high Mind+Heart could for example start telling other settlers a story.
  • even simple playing with their ‘class items’ (Trapper sharpening their knife or Carpenter playing on his saw like that: Britain’s Got Talent - Playing the Saw - Austin )
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Love the idea of having the citizen’s characteristics/personality come into play in it. Good job thinking of that :slight_smile:

Do you think the settlers should speak English, or should they just show images in dialogue bubbles?

I like the speech bubble idea, but they could also easily speak nonsensical stuff. Think of the villagers in Age of Empires* etc. “Ooga booga jibber jabber” and all that.

*Actually, I think they were using real phrases etc, but you get the idea.

Bubbles. Bubbles definitely. Remember we don’t see their mouths :stuck_out_tongue:
Or we may focus on the gestures and

AoE: I’m 70% sure it’s a real, but extinct language.
AoEII: Each nation has their own real language. Most of them were said using the rules from VII-XI century. Just look at the Japanese. Click on a villager, then a tree. “Ki wo kirimasu” (“I am cutting a tree.”)

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I like this idea. It makes the game more lively.

“I cut trees”, technically. “I am cutting a tree” would be “Ki wo kitteimasu” (「木を切っています」).

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Could be kinda like the Sims. You know a speech bubble with a picture and if the other villager likes it then it shows the picture in there bubble, if not then you see the image with a red X over it. Simple but gets the point across of them conversing.

i dont recall if “happiness” was a topic of discussion at the time, but i do recall Radiant mentioning idle animations that fell into this category… units who might sit by the water and simply gaze… or run around town and fly a kite, play with a ball, etc.

the addition of having another unit craft the goods, as well as how the idle activities impact a units happiness are both excellent suggestions…

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Need to read my learning book again then. xD

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It’s like in English (and unlike Dutch, for example), you have the obligatory distinction between present participle (“am cutting”) and present tense (“cut”). The latter is just the regular form (perhaps -masu to make it polite); the former is the te-form plus the verb for “exist” (“iru” or “imasu”), which is kind of cool, I think. Since you can also string verbs together with te-forms and only conjugate the last one to communicate the tense etc., to mean you’re doing X and Y and Z (all of which are interpreted according to that same, final, conjugation), it’s kind of like you’re saying, “I cut trees and exist” to mean “I am cutting a tree”.

Something tells me this will be considered off-topic. I apologize, I just couldn’t stop myself.

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I think this is a good idea. It’ll help a bit with the activity of a town once they get more in depth. I would hate to see a rather large town full of villagers who just swing their arms back and forth. Of course the only reason why I say a bit is because I think their should also(maybe) be a bit more to it. By that I mean characters that have been idle for a very long period of time will wonder around the town, performing harmless actions (ie “buying” something from a shop or talking to someone). To deal with not losing track of your villagers, you’d just use the manage citizens tab. Of course though, each class would have a different kind of activity to do while idle.

i have this town and there is nothing left for me to do than wait for me to have more hearthlings that i do beds and homes. So i think it would be cool to give them various trigger idling animations.

  • Have a hearthling take out an instrument and play for fun.
  • Have 2 or more hearthlings strike up a conversation with each other.
  • Have some hearthling pull pranks on other idling hearthlings like scare them.
  • if you have any hearthlings pass away, have a hearthling who is idling go to the grave stone and grieve.

Maybe some other idling animation when they are standing around doing nothing. just a thought.

Note: if there is a topic that is somewhere similar to this one, please move it to that topic or something so this isnt an eyesore.

Nice ideas there, though there are a couple of topics already on it:

Links for @SteveAdamo or @Geoffers747

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I’ve been modeling some musical instruments, and I hope to mod them in. We’ll see, shall we?

I’d love to see this in the main game.

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