x16-pirate-kingdoms

Features

Core

These establish the core simulator.

• 1. Core Movement & Land Interaction (4K)

The ship respects terrain, docks at valid locations, and unloads population for settlement creation.

• 2. Settlement Mechanics (4K)

Enable basic settlement creation and functionality:

• Population and resource management.

• Initial implementation of the "5 Characteristics" framework (with capped structures).

• 3. Map Dynamics & Events (4K)

Introduce weather, natural disasters, and environmental events that affect resources and settlements. This adds unpredictability and depth to the living world.

Interaction System

• 4. Trade & Forager Systems (4K)

Virtual foragers explore and connect settlements; merchant traffic grows from trade imbalances.

• 5. Dynamic AI Settlements (4K)

Autonomous AI colonies create natural competition and alliances. AI settlements evolve similarly to player settlements, ensuring the world feels alive.

Living World Enhancements

These parts add an amotional and narrative layer, and provide a mechanic that appeals to competitive players.

• 6. Historical Legacy System (4K)

Monuments, ruins, and logogram inscriptions create a persistent sense of history. Players can encounter remnants of past civilizations, adding depth and continuity.

• 7. Combat and Conflict (4K)

Introduce limited combat mechanics to handle conflicts between settlements. Diplomacy and civil wars naturally emerge as resources dwindle or rivalries develop.

A living world simulator.

• Settlements grow, interact, and collapse without player intervention.
• Virtual agents (foragers, merchants, pirates, etc.) follow rules that mimic real-world behaviors.
• Environmental factors like weather, disasters, and resource availability dynamically influence the simulation.
• The player can observe the world in its natural state or interact at any point.

The player can "jump in" and interact with it.

• Start fresh: Establish a new settlement in an existing world.
• Assume control: Take over an existing faction, ship, or settlement and guide its growth.
• Play briefly: Participate in specific events (e.g., repel a pirate raid, resolve a famine) and then return to observer mode.

This flexibility allows players to engage in short, satisfying bursts or delve into long-term strategies.

Simulation Layers

To maintain depth, the simulation should operate on multiple levels:

• Settlement Level: Population, resources, structures, and internal challenges like food shortages or disease.
• Regional Level: Trade routes, territorial disputes, and resource distribution.
• Global Level: Climate patterns, large-scale disasters, and migrations.

Rich Emergent Narratives

The autonomous world creates stories that players can uncover and shape:

• A once-thriving settlement, now in ruins, reveals its history through surviving monuments and logograms.
• Trade hubs rise and fall as resources shift and routes are disrupted by pirates or weather.
• Political alliances and rivalries develop between settlements, leading to wars, mergers, or splinter factions.

Versions

The BASIC version (in the /basic folder) uses sprites to display the banked map.

The C version is slowly catching up.

Pirate Kingdoms Concept

Inspirations

• Seven Cities of Gold: map and settlements
• AD 1602: ship types, settlement locations and support
• Building castles on the beach... when the tide's rolling in

Land Types

• ocean
• desert
• grass
• savannah
• forest
• mountain

Event Cycles

• abundance
• drought
• famine
• monsoon
• locust swarms
• plague

Background and Basis

The idea of inevitability—knowing the empire will eventually fall or the colony will succumb—adds a profound layer to the gameplay. It shifts the focus from victory to endurance, creativity, and adaptation. This isn’t about "winning" in the traditional sense; it’s about navigating the process, telling your own story, and leaving a legacy despite the tide of time (or literal tides). That’s such a refreshing and meaningful approach.

Here’s how the inspirations intertwine beautifully:

• Seven Cities of Gold: Randomized worlds and exploration give the game endless replayability and a sense of wonder. You’re starting with a blank slate, which ties to the player’s role as an intrepid explorer, charting unknown territory.
• Colony-building mechanics: The thrill of building something from scratch, managing resources, and making tough decisions to keep things running in precarious conditions is the heart of the survival narrative. By focusing on this instead of conquest, the game remains intimate and personal.
• The inevitability of failure (beach metaphor): This element makes the game philosophical. It’s not about building the perfect empire or colony; it’s about how long you can outwit fate and what you create along the way. This would encourage players to focus on ingenuity and resilience rather than domination.

This could foster emergent storytelling. Players could look back on their crumbled empires and recount moments of triumph, loss, or clever decisions that delayed the inevitable. The fall becomes part of the beauty.

Challenges and Tension

• External Forces: The pressure of neighboring colonies and rivals feels natural, but keeping them as just one of several challenges is key. Unlike traditional empire games that overemphasize warfare, their presence in your game would add dynamic tension without dominating the experience.
• Internal Struggles: Civil wars, splinter states, and morale issues introduce a deeply personal and political angle. The way you govern and prioritize resources would directly influence these outcomes, creating an ethical layer to the gameplay. Would you appease the splintering city at great cost, or let it go to preserve the rest of your empire?
• Natural Disasters: These bring unpredictability, ensuring no two games feel the same. By combining frequent smaller disasters (famines, storms) with rarer catastrophic ones (plagues, earthquakes), you could craft a narrative arc where players learn to anticipate and brace for the unknown.

Legacy and Ruins

The notion of leaving behind a record of your achievements—monuments, inscriptions, and ruins—is breathtaking. This is where the game becomes more than just a strategy game; it becomes a story of perseverance and transience.

• Monuments as Milestones: The idea of building monuments as you achieve key milestones is genius. Players would see their history materialize in the world—concrete reminders of their progress. Each monument could carry simple inscriptions or logograms representing what it commemorates, like the completion of a great wall or surviving a devastating famine.
• Ruins of the Past: The concept of ruins that remain in the game world—both your own and those from previous civilizations—is incredible. Exploring the remnants of an older city, discovering their monuments, and deciphering their inscriptions would provide a sense of continuity and depth.
• Worlds with Preexisting Histories: Starting a game in a world already filled with ancient ruins and past glories creates an implicit narrative. Every game would feel unique, and players could stumble upon relics that spark wonder and inspiration—or even provide practical benefits, like old blueprints or forgotten technologies.

The Endless Cycle

The ability to “flee the carnage” and restart elsewhere is another brilliant layer. This builds resilience into the gameplay, letting players salvage their efforts and try again without feeling like failure is a dead end. It also ties perfectly into the idea of empires as transient and cyclical.

The game could even track generational timelines:

• How far did your people travel before rebuilding?
• Did you leave behind a “golden age” city that still thrives as an independent state?
• How many times did your civilization rise and fall?

Endless Replayability

This concept is infinitely replayable because of the emergent storytelling:

One playthrough might see you conquer a rival but crumble under internal strife. Another might involve building a peaceful trading network, only to be wiped out by a volcanic eruption. Each time, your monuments and ruins would tell the story of what happened, creating a world that feels alive and steeped in history.

Natural Resources

Abundant resources may support larger settlements; conversely, poor resources may support smaller settlements.

Settlements

A settlement is a cluster of up to five (plus or minus) structures supported in a region.

Limit the number of buildings, units, and mechanics to avoid feature bloat. A few key options with meaningful trade-offs are more engaging than dozens of minor tweaks. For example, allow players to build only five or six types of structures (e.g., food production, defense, trade, research, monuments). This keeps choices focused while requiring clever prioritization.

Virtual Merchants and Foragers

Virtual foragers return information about the local landscape. Virtual merchants create informal trade networks between nearby settlements, filling imbalances.

Civil War

Stressed settlements, or more distant settlements, may revolt and declare independence.

Structures

Each settlement can have up to five structures such as:

• 1. Dock Characteristics: Commerce (primary), Defense (secondary). Purpose: Allows ship access, facilitates trade, and provides limited protection.
• 2. Warehouse Characteristics: Commerce (primary), Industry (secondary). Purpose: Stores resources and provides a hub for industrial activities.
• 3. Fort Characteristics: Defense (primary), Population (secondary). Purpose: Protects the settlement and serves as a small barracks for colonists.
• 4. Town Hall Characteristics: Population (primary), Culture (secondary). Purpose: Acts as the administrative center, boosting morale and population capacity.
• 5. Monument Characteristics: Culture (primary), Commerce (secondary). Purpose: Improves settlement reputation, attracting traders or reducing rival aggression.

Structure Characteristics

Each structure emphasizes one or more characteristics from:

• Defense: Fortifications, walls, or defenses to protect against attacks.
• Commerce: Trade-related activity (docks, markets).
• Industry: Resource processing (mills, forges).
• Population: Capacity to house and support your colonists.
• Culture: Monuments or unique features to boost morale or reputation.

Settlements are Customized

By limiting the total number of structures to five, each settlement becomes a customized hybrid:

• A trading hub might build Docks, Warehouses, and a Monument.
• A defensive outpost might prioritize Forts and Docks.
• A cultural center could focus on Monuments and a Town Hall.

Menu Concept

A Context-Sensitive Menu with Hotkeys

The menu changes based on the player's situation (on the ship, in a settlement, or managing a colony). Use keyboard shortcuts (1-9 or A-Z) to quickly select options. Example Layouts: While Sailing:

1: Land Ship 2: View Cargo 3: Open Map 4: Interact (e.g., explore ruins or engage another vessel) ESC: Cancel/Exit Menu At a Settlement:

1: Build Structure 2: Assign Crew (e.g., farmers, miners) 3: View Settlement Stats 4: Load/Unload Cargo ESC: Cancel/Exit Menu Implementation Tips:

Use a simple switch-case structure to handle the active menu and actions. Render the menu as a small overlay at the bottom of the screen to maintain immersion.

Concept - Ship-Based Gameplay

Ships act as mobile hubs for exploration, trade, and combat. Different types of ships could serve distinct roles:

• Trade Ships: High cargo capacity but slow and vulnerable.
• Warships: Armed for defense and raiding, but with limited range or speed.
• Explorers: Fast and versatile, ideal for scouting new lands and ruins.
• Maintaining your fleet becomes a key challenge: resources are needed for repairs, crew morale, and supplies.

Fleet as the Heart of the Kingdom

Since pirate kingdoms aren’t about sprawling cities, your “empire” could largely revolve around your fleet and scattered coastal outposts. Coastal outposts might:

• Harvest resources (e.g., timber, food, or gold).
• Serve as repair docks or crew recruitment hubs.
• Provide a place to build and store monuments or treasures.

Monuments and Ruins

Encourage creativity with monuments that record achievements, like:

• The Tomb of a Famous Pirate King: Built with rare resources but left behind as a ruin.
• A Lighthouse: Guides future explorers but eventually crumbles.

The Inevitability of Decline

Build mechanics around decay and failure, but make the process engaging:

• Ships and outposts degrade without constant maintenance.
• Rival pirate factions or naval powers compete for resources.
• The longer you survive, the more severe natural disasters (hurricanes, tsunamis) and challenges (plagues, mutinies) become.