5 Years of Christmas in Design Philosophy

ID:265195
 
Dec 20 2002, 5:04 am
A game that lasts 5 years. Thats what Im playing with right now. Currently it will take over 60 days of playing to finish, or just over 30 days, depending on my final choice for game time. Its a toss up between 1 minute:1 second and 1 minute:2 seconds.
The games time system mimic's real life, you start on Febuary 5th 2032 and end on Febuary 5th 2037. It takes into account leap years and everything.
Anyway, to my problem. I need a way too handle daily events. Now Im not asking for someone to give me any snipplets or anything, Im asking for ideas on how I could handle this.
Originally I was planning on using something simple that randomly picks an event for the day from a list. After a while I realised this probably wont work too well since the events cant really just be thrown at you randomly.
They have to follow each other (If war breaks out one day, peace cant break out the next).
Although since the war is a big part of the game the end of the war will probably be hard coded in to occur around a certiant time.
I was hoping not to have the events hard coded into the game (So March 7th 2032 every year the same thing happens), but its looking rather likily unless someone can suggest or inspire a new system for handling them.
-DogMan
PS: Id like to have multiple events occur every day which vary in importance. Ie, Tokyo gets bombed, London gets bombed, DogMan finds $20 in his dirty pants.
#1 Dec 20 2002, 5:06 am
Ok, an update. Ive decided that I'll use a few event generators. Major Event Generator, Minor Event Generator and Pointless Event Generator.
Major: This is the big stuff, like war breaking out, the town your base is in being attacked, ect. Big things that change the course of 'destiny'.
Minor: Events that effect the world, but not on a huge scale. They can encourage major events to occur (Ie, lots of the bases on the south coast are being attacked, in a week or two a major even could occur there leading to the south coast being completely taken over)
Pointless: These dont effect much. They could cause things like supply prices to go up and down, and maybe encourage some minor events. Pretty much just random stuff that happens every day too fill in the newspapers.
Its not set in stone, and Im still not sure how each of the event generators work specifically. Pointless is most likily just going to be random stuff.
-DogMan
#2 Dec 20 2002, 2:33 pm
In response to Dog Man (#1)
You could partially randomize the dates to start off with, and for some events just require that other events have already happened, and that some events have not happened.

For example, the major event "War starts" might occur anywhere in the first year. All major events such as "London is bombed", "Paris falls to the enemy", etc. would require the event "War starts" to occur before they can ever occur. Anytime in the last year, the event "War ends" will occur. "London is bombed" and "Paris falls to the enemy" CANNOT occur after the event "War ends".

Just a few thoughts. Sounds like an interesting game!
#3 Dec 20 2002, 5:01 pm
In response to Crispy (#2)
"London is bombed" and "Paris falls to the enemy" CANNOT occur after the event "War ends".

Well, they could, but then another "War starts" would occur the day afterward. ;-)
#4 Dec 20 2002, 7:57 pm
In response to Spuzzum (#3)
Heh. :-)

Oh yeah, thanks for reminding me Spuzz - you'd need to have a reason for the war to start, so you might have another major event on that day or just before, which is the reason for the war starting. :-)