currently:

• we have income decay driving you forward
• we have internal events creating narrative with your characters

but where are we going as we are driven forward?

what I'm trying to fight is the "what am I doing here" feeling; when you have 2 equal choices in front of you to proceed, and they are both identical in all ways that matter, what makes you pick one?

• if there's nothing to differentiate them, you get that "what am i doing" feeling.

ideally we will eventually have 10 of these intermeshing but orthogonal systems that drive the player from one to another, so the player always feels like there's something different worth doing and it's not just grinding through the same list over and over.

helps encourage the player to create their own goals and dance between these systems for various outcomes that help with those player goals.

1. we need external events

• gives you some background on what's happening around you

  • motivation: go fight someone specific because they are a jerk
  • motivation: these people have specific units/commanders
  • motivation: special mechanics for that location

• 3 flavors of external events

  • things that affect a "duchy" you are in
  • things that affect a "kingdom" you are in
  • things that affect the entire map

• examples:

  • immediate neighbor getting conquered by a "strong" foe/player rival
  • farther away inside-same-kingdom npc has some unique mechanic
  • on other side of the map, invasion just happened (encourage player to centralize & prepare & watch)

• we need some mechanism to prompt the game to say "hey what's going on around me" -> let the game feed us our local/kingdom/map-level stuff

  • if nothing is going on: the game now knows: "the player wants something to happen"
  • gives the player some direction (if they weren't paying attention)
  • gives the simulation an opportunity to make something happen (if nothing was happening)

2. goals

-> animal crossing new horizons

• don't show it on the screen
• let it be in a menu that players can look at
• but it's NOT a quest log, it's not your primary objective, it's a bonus and side pursuit

what are these in a diagetic way?

• your character's personal goals?

• character traits affect these?

• this could feed into/from external events, or be totally separate

• rote list of "do this and get reward"

  • conquer 3 counties
  • befriend a courtier
  • imprison an enemy
  • recruit a POW
  • level-up a courtier

3. developing your characters

   • stats & skills

   • narrative / relationships

   • becomes active by:

     • county behaviors (meetings, etc)
     • xp levels
     • assigning to council

4. developing your counties

   • buildings
   • county-unique events and mechanics
   • culture

5. faction/government & policies

   • changing gameplay constraints

     • you can without worrying about this until you want to

   • eu3 style sliders

   • inheritance laws

   • can drive medium/longer term goals:

     • "i want to get to this government type"
     • "i want to change these inheritance laws"
     • "i need to deal with these problem characters i cant get rid of"
     • "..."
     • "and doing this will help me with A"
     • "in order to do that, i need to X, Y, and Z"