23-05-2000 18:45									#1
	Openciv3 - Basic Concepts and Terms Support Apolyton, buy GURPS/ Alpha Centauri

Basic Concepts and Terms

Created: May 23rd 2000
Updated: -

This is a thread meant for providing info about the basic game concepts, and for explaining some commonly used terms. If you have something to add, or if you have something to ask about some concept in other sections, please send a message here.

I will upkeep this list regularly. From this message, you can have quick information what has been changed and decided.

Ethnicities

An ethnicity is some thing connecting a large group of people. In former civs, it was called "civilization". People belonging to same ethnicity hace strong bonds between them, and tend to stay together. Ethnicity has a thing called "national identity" and each E wants to have an own country (or civilization). Each ethnicity starts as a small civilization. New ethniciteies, "splinter E's" can be created during the game.

For each ethnicity, is given a "homeland", certain area of land inherited from the ancestors. The members of the ethnicity will consider that land as their own, and act according to that. The size of the land depends on some factors. In some games, it could be possible that all the land is already taken by the starting civilizations. That would be quite realistic. In that case, all new land has to be acquired by conquest.

It could be possible, that some ethnicities are closely related to each other. That is, they speak similar kinds of languages, have common ancestors etc. They would start close to each other, their relations would be warm, and it could be possible that they would be easily convinced to form one great civilization with each other.

Each ethnicity could have some properties, that would decide how it works. They might be:

-name
-population growth penalty/bonus: decides the average growth rate of that E
-starting environment: in what kind of place the ethnicity tends to start from; phoenicians would always start near an ocean, and incas in mountain regions. This effect could be turned off to randomize the starting environments.
-religiouness: how religious that E tends to be. Also each ethnicity could have a "starting religion" - what kind of religion they tend to start with.
-national identity
-others?

The properties for "splinter ethnicities" would be decided based on the situation at the moment of their creation.

Is there any better word for this? Ethnicity is quite long and difficult. People? Tribe?

Professions

Profession is a special ability. Each citizen in the working group belongs to some profession. Each profession produces some thing specific to that P. This system replaces the specialist/talent system in earlier civs.

There are a number of professions.

Slaves: The people with no civil rights. The corner stone of every ancient economy. Generally, the player needs slaves in the beginning of every game. Notice though, that the slaves need necessarily not to be treated badly.

Workers: Produce workhours to be used for building, producing food etc. They include farmers, fishers, miners, builders, artisans (pre-modern producers of things), etc. If needed, it could also be possible to create an own profession for each worker type. Artisans could belong to the professionals group.

Merchants: produce trade goods from other nations.

Artists: produce cultural advancement. This could also include full-day sportsmen and -women in modern times, as funny as it sounds...

Scholars/Students. They become eventually priests, officials, scientists or professionals.

Officials: run the businesses of state. Indispensable for every advanced nation.

Priests: Produce religious advancement. They can be as well Monks etc.

Scientists: Produce scientific and technological advancement.

Professionals: Educated people of modern times. Are at service of companies, and produce mainly taxes.

Laborers: Factory workers. Are at service of companies, mostly, and produce taxes.

Soldiers are treated differently. They are not counted to the city population.

Special professions:

Primitives: Primitive people, hunters, gatherers, etc.

Nomads: This works as a small mobile city. They might build a permanent city, but that is not their primary goal.

Settlers: Mobile city, whose intention is to build a permanent city as soon as possible.

Refugees: Mobile city, that is escaping from somewhere, and whose primary intention is to join an existing city, or to build a new city if that fails.

More info about professions can be found in other sections: Population

Workyears

Workyear is a unit of work. It is the amount of time your workers spend working. They are produced by slaves, workers, merchants, officials and professionals.

Workyears are required for producing resources, and for all building and upkeeping. Also trade requires workyears.

More info about workyears is give in other sections - Population, Building Projects, Trade

Creative energy

CE is the amount of time used for creation, and recreation.

Scientists, artists and priests produce CE instead of workhours.

Workers produce some CE, depending on how hard they've got to work - more work, less CE is produced. This simulates the free-time activities of the people, and the fact that the people tend to create better solutions to problems encountered in their work.

CE is used for a number of things.

-Scientists use it to produce scientific development
-Artists to produce cultural development
-Priests to produce religious development
-Other professions use it for recreation, producing religious and cultural activity, or
-for producing development in the area they work on; building ships develops the shipbuilding technology etc.

-Unhappy citizens would use their CE also for rebelling.

More detailed information about how the CE is used is given in other sections: Population, Culture, Religion, and Technology.