A Possible Resource System
#1


Basically as a long time fan of city builders and a real resource fanatic, I've long been considering how best to implement resources in a hypothetical city builder. I have no experience in coding so I have no idea how these ideas would work from a practical side. But I thought I would lay it out for anyone who might be interested. Most of this is based on my past experiences with city builders and on some of the questions and problems that have come out with trying to implement basic goods in banished.




Basically the idea would work something like the current system in Banished, with resources having specific properties that denominate its use. For example, you might have porcelain which would be classified as a houseware, and a luxury. Or something like ginger, which might be classified as a food, a vegetable, a medicine, a cuisine good, and a comfort good.




The system would kind of break down like this.




First you would have your necessities, the things your people cannot live without. This would be water, fuel, food, and tools. (Tools would not be strictly a necessity, but their need would certainly be universal enough.)




A household would gather water from the nearest source, be it a lake, stream, reservoir, well, or fountain. (The same for industries and buisnesses that need a constant supply of water like tanneries or farms.)




Fuel is what they need to heat their house and cook their food, and different fuels would have say a different heat rating which is basically how effective they are. (Some industries for example might demand fuel with a high heat rating.)




A lack of tools will not cause your citizens to die, but will severely reduce their efficiency in whatever they do. (You try planting a garden with just your hands.)




Food for it's part would be divided into several sub categories for the purpose of determining nutritional health. For simplicity's sake say starches, vegetables, fruit, and protein. If you have all four types of food you're in good shape.




Then you would have the goods your citizens use in daily life. My current thinking is to have goods classified in two ways. The first is the good's quality (common, comfort, and luxury.) The second is the good's classification, which would basically describe how the good is used by your citizens.




Common goods would basically be the goods people use in day to day living. The clothes on their backs, the bowls they eat out of, etc. Comfort goods would be those goods that are not necessary for day to day life, but which make life more bearable. Salt or pepper to put on food, nice furniture, or some simple perfume so you don't offend your neighbors with your stench. Luxuries would be those goods which are both expensive and opulent, good for showing off, but not necessarily good for anything else. Things like gold and diamond jewellery, silk coats dyed royal purple, marble statues and so on. For simplicity's sake, it might be better to classify them as lower, middle, and upper class goods.




Classifications I am imagining would just denominate how the good is generally used. The idea being that citizens will then have the ability to demand a wide range of goods, and not just consider themselves satisfied because their house is filled with carpets and nothing else. The way I am imagining it, you'd have the following categories.




-Housewares: Pottery, glassware, iron cookware... the things you'd use for cooking, eating and/or storing food and liquids.




-Textiles: Wool cloth, leather, dyed silk... the things you would use for clothing, bedding, tapestries, or rugs.




- Cuisine: Spices, herbs, salt, oil, sauce... things you would use to enhance or accompany food, but would not provide vital nutrition on their own.




-`Furniture: Baskets, Wooden furniture, lacquered chests, mirrors... basically furniture you would bring into your house to sit on, lay down on, eat off of, or store things in.




- Intoxicants: Beer, wine, tobacco, coffee... basically things that are consumed by your people for their chemical effects, not their nutritional value.




- Aromatics: Incense, perfume, soap... things that smell nice and help to cover up or eliminate unpleasant odors.




-Illumination: Candles, oil, gas lanterns... used to provide light during the night-time.




- Decoration: Jewelry, Statues, Decorative urns, oil paintings... Things that are mostly useful for looking good and showing off




I also had the idea to have a category for medicines, which would tell doctors what to stock in their clinics.




Basically the system would work is that each house has certain quality and category needs that must be fulfilled for it to be happy. (Ideally there would be many different ways of fulfilling these needs so that no two cities have to rely on the same goods, resources, or infrastructure to stay happy.) For example one house could be satisfied with date wine, stoneware pottery, linen cloth, cedar chests, and salt. While another house could be satisfied with barley beer, earthenware pottery, wool cloth, reed baskets, and lavender perfume.




This could also expand to other buildings like industries, or even public buildings like temples that can be set to consume different categories of goods. For example a temple consuming incense and candles. 


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