16

I'm making a historically accurate game where the player can interact with past times and shape the future. The entire game is scientifically generated with math and real physics. (no, it won't have dragons! lol) The game will run real time and simulate the entire Earth (at first, then at level 56 the player unlocks universe mode where the whole universe is simulated). The player can build anything they want and it will use physics to simulate each creation based on the materials it's made of. Like they could build a rocket with solid fuel and it will launch realistically, as long as they shaped the nozzle correctly.

Anyway, I'm at the point where I'm simulating the dinosaurs and I want to make it accurate. I know we can't know exactly what the political structure of the dinosaurs was since most of the writings were destroyed in the comet strike, but most people know that our political system is based off theirs.

I was considering just modeling our political system and then applying mathematical regression to the algorithm to regress it 100 million years. However, I'm worried about the limitations of floating point numbers and I think that errors will compound. That would leave me with a political system that's really inaccurate. What strategies can I use to develop a political system from scratch?

P.S. I'm mostly talking about American dinosaurs, because they had the most impact on world politics.

enter image description here

House
  • 73,224
  • 17
  • 184
  • 273
  • 8
    Hi Byte56, welcome to the Gamedev StackExchange! I would use component based system for this one, that would solve all problems that you are currently experiencing. – Kikaimaru Apr 01 '13 at 19:06
  • 5
    I should also mention this is an 3D MMO. – House Apr 01 '13 at 19:09
  • If it is a 3d mmo there might be many paradoxes, some players love to see the world burn and if it would be an mmo with an X ammount of stages, with the ability for players to change the future stages where more advanced players will reside - in the earlier stages it will be a hell of a misunderstanding for players. "Killing someones grandpa would get him deleted from history" that would make the game pretty awkward. You should look at the algorythms used in the Sid Meier's civilization. – Mikolaj Marcisz Apr 01 '13 at 19:23
  • Players can't time travel until later in the game. But I guess you're right, there might be lag when a time paradox is processed. I'll ask about that when I get to it. Maybe I can inverse the lag through the bit shifting of packet headers? I'll look into those Sid Vicious games though. – House Apr 01 '13 at 19:30
  • 2
    Have you tried logarithms? – Daniel Rowe Apr 01 '13 at 19:31
  • I was using treearithms, but hadn't advanced to logarithms yet. It was my understanding that those maths were used for simulating organic growth (mostly flora). I was considering developing my own form of math. – House Apr 01 '13 at 19:37
  • 7
    I would implement that with jQuery – RobCurr Apr 01 '13 at 19:47
  • 1
    I would start by examining what happens when an Allosaurus enters contemporary politics: http://www.irregularwebcomic.net/comic.php?current=402&theme=6&dir=next5 – Peter Taylor Apr 01 '13 at 21:21
  • @Byte56 You might be able to program Morals into your politics. They are severely lacking in most products. – Sidar Apr 02 '13 at 01:44
  • I'm at the weird side of http://gamedev.stackexchange.com – nikoliazekter Jul 11 '15 at 14:31
  • 1
    @nikoliazekter It's really just the April 1st side of gamedev. – House Jul 11 '15 at 14:49

1 Answers1

3

like most beginners to MMO game development, you are making it seem much harder than the actual task really is. Based on your previous answers, you already seem to have a working apple simulator, so all it takes is one small change:

paper_2d_behaving_apple.Location = "AMERICA";
paper_2d_behaving_apple.Timestamp = -6311582168472000;
paper_2d_behaving_apple.RegisterPoliticalTypeMapping(typeof(Dinosaur));
paper_2d_behaving_apple.IsApple = false;
Community
  • 1
Jimmy
  • 9,019
  • 1
  • 30
  • 44
  • 1
    I would use the ENCOM Digitizing Molecular Laser to digitize a dinosaur, but I don't have any dinosaurs. I plan on using the apple simulator, but as I said, I want this to be based on science and apples weren't around back when the dinosaurs were. This is a fact based on evolution. Just look up how much apples have evolved in 30 years. – House Apr 02 '13 at 01:12
  • yes, but if you use the paper_2d_behaving_apple.IsApple = false; line, then it is no longer an apple simulator. If your simulator still smells like apples afterwards you might want to wash it out with SOAP. – Jimmy Apr 02 '13 at 01:15
  • 1
    Of course! I'm going to do a find/replace on all the 2d to make it 3d and I should be nearly done. – House Apr 02 '13 at 01:20
  • 2
    Are you sure there is no jQueries in there that might help solve the problem? – RobCurr Apr 02 '13 at 04:24