As the game gets inexorably closer to the stage wherein one collects raw resources, converts them into finished goods and then eats them in order to feed a hungry faceless mass of labourers whose only purpose is to reproduce in competition to other faceless masses of labourers, we get closer to thoughts on the world generation. For a game like Cultura one expects procedurally generated worlds (ie. random). That leads to a lot of questions about how to place resources, initially seeding the starting points of different peoples and how might biomes/climates work.
The general status of the game is that the consumption of food, consumable goods and property items is in! Seeing as how those are fairly complicated state machines, there's a lot of testing that needs to be done (and then bug fixing anything wrong that is found). There's also the delicate issue of balance but that comes later. It's an exciting time. The general idea is that food is pretty obvious (make food, eat food) but there will be a balance between consumable goods (consumed once, get a bonus) and property items (needs repair over time but get a better long term bonus for the cost). So your society's economy is a balance between short-term and long-term gain.
But, let's get back to world generation. In the world of Cultura it is powered by the "This Makes No Sense" resource engine. Essentially, the resource system boils down to fifteen different raw resources: wood, stone, earth, grain, meat... etc. For each type of resource there are eight different types of materials for it. As an example, wood could be pine or oak or ironwood. This allows you to create the same product between two different societies but use different materials and you can then trade these different goods. Bonuses are based on the consumption of a variety of materials (every material type consumed for a good it's a multiplier bonus). So an oak chair gives you +10 happiness. But an oak and pine chair would give you +20 happiness. I know that when I go home to my table made out of six different kinds of stone I get six times the happiness from it. Don't you?
The placement of each type of material is what matters most. So for the most simplistic version of a world generator, firstly it would build out where land exists. Everything in Cultura right now is flat (there are mountains but basically they're just rocky obstacle walls). Then the world is divided down into eight regions (or four regions). Each region is then claimed by a single material type (or two, if there are four regions). The selection is random. One part might be pine and then another might be oak. This process is repeated for the fifteen different types of resources each with differently shaped regions and so the overlap of resources varies. Some areas might have pine and unicorns, another might have silverwood and deer. It's random.
Now of course this isn't a super realistic resource placement but alas one developer can only do so much in order to actually finish a game within his/her lifetime.
You: Why is there pine near the equator? Shouldn't it be in the colder regions of the planet?
(ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ ┻━┻
Me: Why is your table flipped?!
You: :(
There's a very large wish list of my own that I would like to eventually include in Cultura but all in due time! For now, I'll just discuss what I think is minimally necessary for the game to be fun and realistic enough. The main point is that different regions have access to different resources so that trading in the initial era (the lithic ages) is predicated on the exchange of different goods. As societies advance (and sequels to the game are made), they'll be based more on comparative advantage due to labour skill, non-residential capital investment (it'll be more fun doing in the game than what that sounds like) and education opportunities. For now, just an even spraying of resources across the world shall suffice. As a side bonus, it makes balancing a lot easier.
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