Crypto Kingdom Game Design

[generalizethis]

Is building large buildings going to change at all in coming year(s)? Need to know if I should keep learning and designing in spreadsheet or not.

It possibly will. Thing is:

- The building has until now had the required datatype and the utilized datatype. The required has included things such as facade plans, even though they have not been utilized, ie. had any affect on the game (and not even stored in the database).

- We seek to make a new, easier utilized datatype, which can be scripted completely and not rely on admin periodical updates. This means that Ancient buildings utilize even less of their data. It is up to me whether to continue to require all the same things as before or ease them.

If all the same things are required still, it is easy for builders who know the rules, difficult for new ones, and time-consuming for all.

If less things are required, the new Major (stone) buildings do not conform to old Major buildings, and neither to the new Minor buildings in their required datatype. In the utilized datatype, they of course all conform because that is the data the system actually uses.

Maybe give a historical building bonus, so the old builders are rewarded for their harder work and the game can move onto to use only the utilized data to the benefit of all?

It is an option yes, but then it requires the utilized datatype be more comprehensive (, so that it allows not only commoner house and herb garden, but also RWWC factory, Grand Hotel, Gilded Goose, Mint, etc. buildings which have multifarious game objectives and aesthetic value. In any case, the historical buildings data will be kept, so that we can merge them in the next iterations of Building subgame.

I am considering. Google DB (current master for /BLDG) has 56 fields that are officially required. The Minor buildings sheet (link a few posts ago) has 5-7. There are benefits for keeping them separate, but also for merging.

My thought was that the older buildings would have to be built again when "building type 3" was started and that the buildings in "type 2" would be generic, but configurable to certain objectives (gain sci, gain cul, gain m, or a mix of them all) and for that all you would need is four building types (or maybe even less) that could be modified by voxel total, voxel type, and voxel location. The generic description looking like this: a three story research building that contains 2000 wall voxels, 100 window voxels, 16 door voxels  located in this tax and bonus area. It could be even more generic: voxels + building type + area = cost and yearly payout. Again, this is assuming that most, if not all buildings, will be built from the raw materials from the type 2 era when the switch to type 3 is made.

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[rpietila]

Building in the Coming Incarnation

This module will be implemented right after the current DB logic rewrite, EXP/Tutorial, and Health Challenge (2 weeks). As for Stone buildings, building will be enabled as soon as I manage the datatype ready, in a few days.

Basics

Building master will be moved to Ultima from its current residence in google sheets. After this move, google sheets will not contain any of the master data.

All buildings will utilize a uniform datatype for their game effects.

Buildings will be able to be built on lots on your ownership only. Rental to other PC will not be enabled. This decision is taken to add "ownership" to the game from the first day.

Buildings come in 3 classes of importance: wooden, stone-modular and stone-custom buildings. These differ in the real effort to build them. Wooden buildings are completely scripted with predefined parameters. Modular stone buildings generate their effects from the script but require raw materials etc. to build. Heritage buildings are similar to our current buildings requiring complete voxelcounts for stone and at least the information how to implement the building in the future 3D.

1. Wooden Buildings

Wooden buildings can be built to a lot in a loosely predetermined order (some require another building to be built before them). They give bonus to the owner of the lot if the lot is designated to be his primary residence. Owning several lots with wooden buildings in them does not have any further effect. Only one of each type may be built.

The current and near-final list of the wooden buildings (list will perhaps be expanded for buildings/effects that suit Noble residence purposes, but let's not care about that now). Many of the proposed effects were reduced to simplify the gameplay and cut short the dev implementation time.

The residence brings major bonuses to the game. If fully built, it will require a 390 sqm lot, have 260 built-sqm in 3 floors, cost 33.7 mil, require complete renovation after (no less than) 20 years, and produce the following bonuses:

2 Major and 2 Minor Health Bonuses (easier health challenge)
3 Skills Bonuses (effect accumulates until Skills are implemented)
REL bonus
8*CUL, 8*IC, 1*SCI
800,000 m income
200*VEG and reduces spoilage
100*MEAD
60*MEAT
100*CAN
Fits 2 horses

(If you wonder about CAN, it is a new consumable in the series of CAN, CIG, MUS, AYA in increasing potency, towards Wisdom and Understanding. Health effects are unproven at present.)

1.1. Conversion/grading of existing stone residences

Current residences will be graded for the Wood Building bonuses, and receive the ones that are fair, for free. It is somewhat unclear if it is possible to allow the actual building of new wood buildings to a lot already containing stone buildings, because the footprint of the stone buildings is undetermined.

Large residential buildings and Non-residential buildings will be graded for their pool shares in a system similar as before. They will not be customizable after the grading, until some further update to the whole system.

Here it is important to mention that stone buildings have a near-constant yield, so it does not matter how many or few you own. The wood buildings have overall (much) higher yield, and have the tendency of decreasing yield the more you build (some are better than the others). This is to make the game speed higher in the early commoner stage, and the total yield capped to a good sustenance level nevertheless.

2. Modular Stone

Stone building differs from wood building in a few major respects:
- 2-5 times more expensive per sqm to build
- Depreciate much slower
- Building requires amassing resources
- Can be used for other purposes than basic residence
- Can contain luxuries and facades.

Modular stone buildings are built using a calculator that ignores the actual looks and floor arrangement of the building, and lets the builder customize according to resource usage or intended effects. The calculator may be in an external source (or a 3rd party developed module) but its resulting building can be built using command BUILD and giving the parameters that the calculator produced.

3. Custom Stone

This is similar to the way building was in the early stages of the game, when yields/effects were negotiated with the gamemaster. We will have the need for custom benefits in the future as well, so this is important to keep. Another reason to build custom buildings is aesthetics, you can build whatever pleases your eye. In ingame cost terms, custom is no more expensive than modular, but in real-world costs, custom requires a lot of time to think about, BI cost, and a possible architect cost as well.

4. Designer's Notes

I am quite satisfied with the intricacies of the Health Challenge and its hoped-for effect in increasing the player identification to the character.

Now after quite some thoughtwork which was not even fun always (the constraints were many, and uncertain, at the same time, and this module has already caused huge unnecessary work due to difficulty of matching the effects, the data and the datatype), I believe the new Buildings will kill many flies at one time, and make the game an even stronger contender in the segment of Farmville players as well, and at the same time not burdening the rich players who get the upon conversion or can buy them with money (either a fully developed lot, or build by mouse-click).

Buying the house is a challenge. While prebuilt houses will likely be offered by nobles to get new players to their Tribe, it remains the situation that land in the town is never free. Even the smallest lot costs 2-5 mil (about which can be gained from the tutorial gift windfalls, once per character). So unlike some other games that constantly build you new buildings for free without regard to anything, we put the difficulty level up at the very beginning - at least the new character needs to figure out how to get the land and start building. (Options are to save but that takes a few weeks, exp-grind through the tutorial and sell all valuable freebies, wait for town or other land giveaway, enlist to some tribe incl. church that offers housing to members, or deposit, or why not gamble as well - selling pseudo-ingame services is usually feasible in the stage where the character already owns the house).

After securing the land and building the Chamber, which is the first room, there is already a range of options. Some outside buildings are a must-go, others require much land which typically is not available. This instantly causes the need to prioritize, and later causes the need to trade to a bigger lot, probably already developed. The costs and benefits, while adjustable both now and on the go, are carefully tailored to fit the increasing affluence of a commoner, even up to Master level, during which a natural move to stone buildings with better health, culture etc. benefits, occurs.

The order of building some of the rooms depends on the spatial arrangement. The house is 3-story. Most rooms give just CUL (which in turn gives IC, listed separately). This is in accordance with the prior and stone building yields. CUL is an important determinant in level promotions, IC once again increases the identification by allowing (later, possibly right after this module) to gain personal items. A rental block can be constructed for income, although it is expensive to build and possibly some other benefits are actually more valuable than the money. All the bonuses and benefits of a fully developed Wood residence amount to 5.0 mil per year, a huge sum in bonuses to a character whose salary income is about 2.1 mil.

[generalizethis]

2. Modular Stone

Stone building differs from wood building in a few major respects:
- 2-5 times more expensive per sqm to build
- Depreciate much slower
- Building requires amassing resources
- Can be used for other purposes than basic residence
- Can contain luxuries and facades.

Modular stone buildings are built using a calculator that ignores the actual looks and floor arrangement of the building, and lets the builder customize according to resource usage or intended effects. The calculator may be in an external source (or a 3rd party developed module) but its resulting building can be built using command BUILD and giving the parameters that the calculator produced.

3. Custom Stone

This is similar to the way building was in the early stages of the game, when yields/effects were negotiated with the gamemaster. We will have the need for custom benefits in the future as well, so this is important to keep. Another reason to build custom buildings is aesthetics, you can build whatever pleases your eye. In ingame cost terms, custom is no more expensive than modular, but in real-world costs, custom requires a lot of time to think about, BI cost, and a possible architect cost as well.

This is great. 

When we move to 3d rendering, will we be able to renovate modular stone buildings? And if so, do you think there will be any cost associated with the renovation (I'm talking of a voxel for voxel renovation for aesthetic reasons)?

[rpietila]

When we move to 3d rendering, will we be able to renovate modular stone buildings? And if so, do you think there will be any cost associated with the renovation (I'm talking of a voxel for voxel renovation for aesthetic reasons)?

I would guess that if space is not a concern, there will be a default 3D rendering, situated on the land with some simple logic.

If the space is very cramped, it might not be allowed to build so much by the Modulator, or at least in the rendering phase it will need to be custom handwork to fit the lot.

I don't believe the game attempts to charge for this but if manual rendering is involved, someone uses his precious time to enter the coordinates, which comes at the owner's expense.

[Syksy]

- - we put the difficulty level up at the very beginning - at least the new character needs to figure out how to get the land and start building. (Options are to save but that takes a few weeks, exp-grind through the tutorial and sell all valuable freebies, wait for town or other land giveaway, enlist to some tribe incl. church that offers housing to members, or deposit, or why not gamble as well - selling pseudo-ingame services is usually feasible in the stage where the character already owns the house).

One additional way that quite many games use, is through Daily Quests that have some nice little rewards.
From a pool of readily made (eligible) quests like: (i): Make a market transaction; (ii): Build a wooden building; (iii): Gamble; (iv) Use the GIVE-command; (v) ...
game would offer a new random quest each day and add it to the player's pool of daily quests. Each player would have a maximum pool size of 3 to 7 quests - so if you don't log in within 3 days or 7 days and complete these dailies you'll be losing on "free money". This is quite an easy way to give new players something as a reward for their loyalty and dedication towards the game, even for freebies. Additionally, the psychological positive effect of getting something done and even a minor reward may be huge.

Hardcore gamers will quickly notice that dailies are not enough to gain momentum properly and seek additional ways, while more casual players would be happy about such a possibility catered for them.

[rpietila]

PRIOR NOTICE ON WHAT SHOULD BE EXPECTED TO HAPPEN ON CERTAIN SITUATIONS
("TERMS OF USE")

PLEASE READ THIS NOTICE CAREFULLY BEFORE PROCEEDING. IF YOU CREATE ACCOUNT AND USE CRYPTO KINGDOM, IT IS LIKELY THAT THIS INFORMATION WILL PROVE HELPFUL.


INTRODUCTION

Crypto Kingdom (CK) is an imaginary world, defined as the "State of the World", a dataset listing the status of characters, land, buildings and items. It is used via Interfaces, the one here is Ultima Gaming Platform, but others exist for humans and programs.

This is no "agreement" between you and "CK", because both are ineligible to make a binding agreement at this very juncture.

"Town" is the ingame government of CK. It is chosen by players who own gold (CKG). Its jurisdiction in CK world is summarized as "Who has the gold, makes the rules." CK itself is just the world, in which the jurisdiction of the Town is supreme and enforceable. Because CK is only the world, and Town is only an entity inside CK, there is no counterparty who would have the authority to represent CK in any outside world matter.

CK also does not require you to agree - each one will reap the rewards and punishments of his actions regardless of prior agreement. The primitive laws of CK world are based on common sense and good conduct, and the more advanced ones apply to those who are in a position to understand them.

It is not mandatory to enter any personal data, but lost passwords cannot be retrieved without having some.


LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

All characters in CK including the Town and its associates, are responsible for their actions in CK, and may not disclaim liability. Disputes are settled in the judiciary system of CK, with King as the supreme judge.

Outside world has no domain of jurisdiction in the matters of CK, nor CK in those of outside world.


INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OWNERSHIP

All information entered in CK is public domain.


ASSETS

"Assets" refers to all contents of CK world which can be transferred ingame and thus "owned". These are Urban Land titles and Items.

Urban Land Title registry is part of the State of the World. Before acquiring Urban Land, it is important to check the local terms of the title. In general, gamemaster events (such as war) can not affect the ownership of land, and the local administration does not hold eminent domain over it. There may still be mandatory taxes or building restrictions, and the refusal or inability to pay taxes may lead to loss of the land.

Items ownership is a transfer registry, similarly part of the State of the World. Items are subject to wear and destruction. Gamemaster may adjust the properties of items, add and delete items, and the value of items that is determined in the open market may change as a result of these changes.

Gold ownership is specially protected. More cannot be created at will by anyone, and gold can never be subject to tax or encumbrance, does not wear, cannot be stolen, etc.

Private depositories hold non-game virtual goods such as cryptocurrencies in proven storage and emit depository shares ingame so that the value of the shares is backed by and often convertible to the non-game assets they hold outside of the game. Using such depositories or holding their shares is at player's own risk. The ingame value of such depository shares depends on events outside CK domain, including embezzlement, hack, theft and seizure of the funds in deposit.

Town does not guarantee the market value of any item. Institutions ingame are responsible according to their respective TOS for the promises they make for their offerings, and will be prosecuted for breaches of contract.


TERMINATION AND SUSPENSION OF ACCOUNT

Each character has one account, each player may have many characters and thus accounts.

The account will be terminated as an administrative procedure if:
- A few weeks neglect makes the character starve to death, after which the heir inherits the assets of the character. If death happened intestate, there is a 1 month grace period for the account holder to manage the estate of the deceased with original account. After this, the Town escheats the assets.
If you lose the password and have not entered any recovery information, this is what happens.

The account will be terminated as a punitive measure if:
- The character is convicted of Treason, and in major or repeated cases of Felony. Treason is defined as a wilful act, attempt or plot to undermine, corrupt, damage, compromise etc. of the CK's, (State of the) World's, Town's, King's, etc rule-bound authority, integrity or function. In addition to terminating the account, the character may be sentenced to death, and before that lose all assets and decorations.
- Illegal immigrants may be expelled without warning. Illegal immigration means mass character farming, especially if characters are bot-controlled, but only with proof that it is done for the purpose of monetary gain rather than to enjoy the game.

The account may be suspended (temporarily blocked):
- As a warning or punishment for Misdemeanor or Felony.
- As a safety measure if there is reason to believe an identity theft has occurred.
- If the account is used to flood the system or other similar activity.
- If the character is under investigation or trial for Felony or Treason "arrest". In this case the character will be kept alive by Town-appointed health manager at the character's expense and released if found not guilty or if the verdict does not include termination.


DISRUPTION IN THE STATE OF THE WORLD; DISCONTINUING THE GAME

CK is designed to run perpetually, which is evident from its robust governance model and data structure, and having perpetual rules such as the gold generation script, which cannot be changed by any power inside or outside the game ever, and perpetual rights, such as the right to receive 100,000 m weekly per each consol item forever.

It is possible still that 1) hosting the state of the world becomes difficult due to eg. disruptions in Internet traffic or compartmentalization of the Internet, or 2) several key administrators disappear at once and Town management capability thus suffers, or 3) a data corruption attack has despite all precautions managed to corrupt the game state during extended time, or 4) a similar event.

There are very elaborate procedures that will be activated if such events occur occurs, too lengthy to be listed here. The short version is:

If anyone is willing to play CK, it continues to exist, and if no one is, it still continues to exist in dormancy, ready to be resumed, unless all memory of it is irrevocably destroyed. It is just imagination anyway - information in public domain.

In the case of CK, nobody reserves the right to discontinue the hosting of the game and cancel your account for no reason, and keep all your stuff. Rather, it is everybody's right to continue the hosting of the game, and your right to keep your stuff.


CLOSING WORD

Regardless or not whether you "hereby understand that you are solely responsible for your own conduct, and the decision to continue to play CK is yours, and any issues arising from that will be handled between you and the relevant third parties in the CK world as they pertain to CK, and between you and the relevant third parties in the outside world, as they pertain to the outside world", so will it happen.


DECISION

* I want to enter into Crypto Kingdom

* I do not want to enter into Crypto Kingdom

[rpietila]

On the usefulness of patents:

The economist Edwin Mansfield of the University of Pennsylvania studied the development of 48 chemical, pharmaceutical, electronic and machine goods in New England in the 1970s. He found that, on average, it cost 65% as much money and 70% as much time to copy products as to invent them. And this was among specialists with technical expertise. So even with full freedom to copy, firms would still want to break new ground. Commercial companies do basic research because they know it enables them to acquire the tacit knowledge that assists further innovation.

[Syksy]

The account will be terminated as a punitive measure if:
- The character is convicted of Treason, and in major or repeated cases of Felony. Treason is defined as a wilful act, attempt or plot to undermine, corrupt, damage, compromise etc. of the CK's, (State of the) World's, Town's, King's, etc rule-bound authority, integrity or function. In addition to terminating the account, the character may be sentenced to death, and before that lose all assets and decorations.
- Illegal immigrants may be expelled without warning. Illegal immigration means mass character farming, especially if characters are bot-controlled, but only with proof that it is done for the purpose of monetary gain rather than to enjoy the game.

I think the majority of the rules seem clear. However, I would like to see the above quote clarified (Felony especially), due to the severity of the punishment; after all, the character/account is put to death!

For example, when I first joined the IRC-channel, I kept referring to the King as "Your Highness" (I thought from some references that this might be proper). I was soon corrected, that I should be using "Your Majesty", as only this would be proper for the King.

If the King was having a bad day, would this count as "Strike #1 in Felony" for Syksy as an attempt to undermine/corrupt King's authority? It was a sincere mistake, and a very extreme example (I sure hope King didn't mark down one for me...), but above rules is a bit vague still on this aspect. Is roleplaying in a clumsy manner enough to undermine King's authority and integrity, or does it only refer to attempts to e.g. hack King's account, impersonate the King etc? I think I got the definition of "Treason", but "Felony" (which would result in "Treason" if done multiple times) in particular is still unclear to me.



As an interesting further reading, here's an oldie but goodie "Top 5 memorable events in MMOs": http://lorehound.com/news/top-5-most-memorable-events-in-mmorpg-history/, and in particular #1 out of Ultima Online is interesting in relation to CK.

Richard Garriot, the creator of the famous Ultima RPG series, had a reincarnation (Lord British) inside Ultima Online MMO in late 1990s (1997 in this example). During a public speech, he was assassinated using a bug, while the character was normally flagged as invulnerable by definition. The bug abuser was banned due to multiple accounts of bug abusing, but still this serves as an interesting example of how authority could be undermined using game's own mechanics, though in this case it was through an unintended feature.

The King could be in my opinion be kind of compared how Lord British reincarnated in Ultima Online. He was both a developer as well as a player (albeit with "superpowers" in UO case).

[rpietila]

The account will be terminated as a punitive measure if:
- The character is convicted of Treason, and in major or repeated cases of Felony. Treason is defined as a wilful act, attempt or plot to undermine, corrupt, damage, compromise etc. of the CK's, (State of the) World's, Town's, King's, etc rule-bound authority, integrity or function. In addition to terminating the account, the character may be sentenced to death, and before that lose all assets and decorations.
- Illegal immigrants may be expelled without warning. Illegal immigration means mass character farming, especially if characters are bot-controlled, but only with proof that it is done for the purpose of monetary gain rather than to enjoy the game.

I think the majority of the rules seem clear. However, I would like to see the above quote clarified (Felony especially), due to the severity of the punishment; after all, the character/account is put to death!

The characters may "go to a long trip", "be exiled", "die naturally", or "be convicted and executed".

The account may be terminated with or without right of inheritance.

Felony is any ingame act that would result in prison time if done IRL, such as murder, theft, fraud; and also the stuff that other services prohibit in TOS.

For example, when I first joined the IRC-channel, I kept referring to the King as "Your Highness" (I thought from some references that this might be proper). I was soon corrected, that I should be using "Your Majesty", as only this would be proper for the King.

In the same time, the English have just learned to write, and address their king with 3 different honorifics in the same text. Merely behaving like the English do, is not a reason to be put to death.

If the King was having a bad day, would this count as "Strike #1 in Felony" for Syksy as an attempt to undermine/corrupt King's authority?

LOL. Highness is still a respectful address, eg. I haven't addressed anyone IRL as "highness". I know "excellences" such as ambassadors and cabinet ministers (who in Finland cough their coffee if addressed such) but no highnesses that I am aware.

Also, commoners of course need to abide by the laws of the land, but their status is not that they are sworn servants of the King as nobles are. The higher you go, the more loyal to the King you must be in word and deed.

attempts to e.g. hack King's account, impersonate the King etc?

Hacking any account counts. Because it is resorting to out-of-our-world powers to wilfully cause damage to SotW, so it is witchcraft as well, and burning at stake might be a good punishment.

The bug abuser was banned due to multiple accounts of bug abusing, but still this serves as an interesting example of how authority could be undermined using game's own mechanics, though in this case it was through an unintended feature.

If such happened in our case let's say in a battle, rules say that an archer may have 3 arrows only. After he finishes them, I charge towards in an attempt to finish him, but he shoots me dead with a 4th arrow. In this care it is simply checked if there was an unintended exploit that led to the violation of rules (in which case the move is declared illegal and he dies instead), or if the rules allowed for an unthought-of exploit, in which case I remain dead for taking stupid risks.

He was both a developer as well as a player (albeit with "superpowers" in UO case).

I am not a wizard, I am short, medium-handsome, weak in health, bad agility, medium dexterity, high intelligence, bad swordsman, bad rider, does not know any hand trades, strong in all science and culture. Some guys have superpowers but not HM The King.

[rpietila]

Buildings getting closer...


Current thinking is to move buildings to become a very abstracted datatype. Why?

Because we will have the skills, and the items, and the factories, and maybe NPC, and all these things that in real life also are the real grantors of bonuses and factors of production. Building is after all just walls.

So the most ruthless idea is to get rid of buildings as a datatype altogether! 

Before condemning the idea, let's start with explaining that in the history, they were rather late to be implemented in the first place. Actually just 10 years ago, when the game was already paused. Before that, the bonuses were assigned by Lot, of course containing the buildings.

We already decided to move to this direction with the Wood buildings (which only have 1 individual parameter, repair%), and this move was applauded by all who opened their mouth.

So why not make the Lot contain a certain pile of stone and other materials, with the Building payouts just calculated from this?

Later on, when visualization comes, the approximation that has so far served as a building, will become a comprehensible one, and excess and deficient stone etc. will be handled at that point.

The Lot would have a "focus of production" tentatively as:

- Cultural institution (mostly CUL)
- Scientific institution (mostly SCI)
- Rental property (mostly money)
- Residence (gets payout as a cultural institution + same bonuses as the wood buildings (without need to build them).
- Production (needed to make certain items, no/low other bonus)

This would greatly simplify things and cause a building boom, while retaining the "dormant data" such as knowledge of the looks of the historical buildings.

I am playing with the idea of reducing the building data (in the Lot datatype) to the following fields (please add for ones you believe should be added):

- stonecount
- windowcount

- Location desirability (is already a Lot-specific field)
- Luxury (would now directly affect more since some soft correlating data is scrapped)
- Sqm (room height comes automatically as the stone/sqm is constant, and larger buildings have larger rooms)
- Unbuilt sqm (lot size would add to the benefit as it does now)
- Focus of production (CUL and SCI would have fixed payouts, rental is a pool)

With potentially some modifiers to add to the historical value of some lots, which cannot be compensated just by their location (or just bump their location really high).

[generalizethis]

Buildings getting closer...


Current thinking is to move buildings to become a very abstracted datatype. Why?

Because we will have the skills, and the items, and the factories, and maybe NPC, and all these things that in real life also are the real grantors of bonuses and factors of production. Building is after all just walls.

So the most ruthless idea is to get rid of buildings as a datatype altogether! 

Before condemning the idea, let's start with explaining that in the history, they were rather late to be implemented in the first place. Actually just 10 years ago, when the game was already paused. Before that, the bonuses were assigned by Lot, of course containing the buildings.

We already decided to move to this direction with the Wood buildings (which only have 1 individual parameter, repair%), and this move was applauded by all who opened their mouth.

So why not make the Lot contain a certain pile of stone and other materials, with the Building payouts just calculated from this?

Later on, when visualization comes, the approximation that has so far served as a building, will become a comprehensible one, and excess and deficient stone etc. will be handled at that point.

The Lot would have a "focus of production" tentatively as:

- Cultural institution (mostly CUL)
- Scientific institution (mostly SCI)
- Rental property (mostly money)
- Residence (gets payout as a cultural institution + same bonuses as the wood buildings (without need to build them).
- Production (needed to make certain items, no/low other bonus)

This would greatly simplify things and cause a building boom, while retaining the "dormant data" such as knowledge of the looks of the historical buildings.

I am playing with the idea of reducing the building data (in the Lot datatype) to the following fields (please add for ones you believe should be added):

- stonecount
- windowcount

- Location desirability (is already a Lot-specific field)
- Luxury (would now directly affect more since some soft correlating data is scrapped)
- Sqm (room height comes automatically as the stone/sqm is constant, and larger buildings have larger rooms)
- Unbuilt sqm (lot size would add to the benefit as it does now)
- Focus of production (CUL and SCI would have fixed payouts, rental is a pool)

With potentially some modifiers to add to the historical value of some lots, which cannot be compensated just by their location (or just bump their location really high).

Maybe add a historical bonus every fifty years or so, but caps at 300 years (or more or less). It will encourage buying of older buildings and building ASAP, but not give an infinite advantage to early adopters.

[rpietila]

Much in progress

I think the last official Rulebook is from October a year ago, so it's about time to update.

In our new governance logic, there will be a few documents that govern what happens in the game and dictate the rightful relations between the game and the gamers.

Prior notice on what should be expected to happen on certain situations (the "TOS" in the most binding context)

Rulebook (somewhat less strict, but enumerating all the burdens the game institutions have heaped on themselves on the gamer's benefit, and opening up of the main game concepts)

Wiki (a comprehensive, community-made, not authorised, not binding source on everything ingame, "growing from" and expanding the Rulebook)

Tutorial (we seek to have these uptodate but in the end cannot guarantee even that)



Crypto Kingdom Rulebook V.2.0


1. PURPOSE OF THE DOCUMENT

Crypto Kingdom Rulebook v.2.0 attempts to define the central concepts of Crypto Kingdom. The reader is expected to have understood the document "Prior notice on what should be expected to happen on certain situations". This is not an "agreement". The information provided is assumed current at the time of publication. No rights are reserved.


2. CRYPTO KINGDOM

Crypto Kingdom (CK) is an imaginary world, defined as the "State of the World", a dataset listing the status of characters, land, buildings and items. It is used via Interfaces, the one here is Ultima Gaming Platform, but others exist for humans and programs.

Residents (accounts) in CK may own gold (CKG). The owners of CKG choose the Town Council (TC), the body that governs the World in many central aspects:

- Collectively as TC, deciding the Rules of the Game;
- By selecting Mayor, who coordinates the Town Corporation. The Town Corporation is an ingame character with taxing rights;
- By selecting Lead Designer, who coordinates the design of the game and development of Ultima platform, the in-house gaming software;
- By selecting Gamemaster (GM), who coordinates the work of admins, leads the events in the game, and is the final arbiter in "State of the World" disputes;
- King is independent of the Town and has a prominent position, but the rules governing the King are set by the Town.

As of now, the Mayor of CryptoTown is HH SirJacket of North Face, and the other 3 positions are occupied by HM The King (rpietila I of Crypto Kingdom).


3. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

All characters in CK including the Town and its associates, are responsible for their actions in CK, and may not disclaim liability. Disputes are settled in the judiciary system of CK, with King as the supreme judge.

Outside world has no domain of jurisdiction in the matters of CK, nor CK in those of outside world.


4. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OWNERSHIP

All information entered in CK is public domain.


5. CHARACTER

Each character (Player Character, PC) has one account, each player may have many characters and thus accounts. Corporations and similar are characters, but not PC. They likewise have one account each. Do not confuse player (the controller) with character (the CK entity controlled).

Only characters can


Definition

Attributes and Traits

Skills (Personal, Labor, Management, Military, Scientific, Victory)

Levels

Character attributes are properties which increase the player bonding to the character, and/or enable customization to create a character that gets a head start towards a certain play style. A points system will be used for customization to ensure variety and fair start for non-depositing players. The price of points will rise exponentially to allow rich players to get good start but make it expensive. (This is fair because they are anyway able to spend their money to give them advantages, so the price will just be balanced with the other opportunities.)

Attributes are largely unchangeable during the lifetime of the character.

1.1.1.2. General

Age
Can be 15-50. It is somewhat difficult to balance this because older characters have realistically earned their Masters, and are therefore capable to earn much money immediately, which is a call to character farmers who spawn free characters and earn 2 XMR per week with 10 minutes' work until they die in 3 weeks, and start over. This is not desired. Perhaps allow more than 30 years age only for depositors, or make higher age a kind of slow play where the character does not have much skills, but also starts with much better health than the age peers many of whom are dead already.

Sex
I don't know what to make of it. 95% of players are and will be men. Perhaps an unrealistic choice of completely disregarding the effects of gender on everything?


CHARACTER LEVELS

Character level is an inherent and non-transferable property of a character. Only PC have a levels system, all corporations and other non-PC share the common level L0. A new player starts generally at level L1/L2 and may advance all the way to L20. Upon death, the character becomes Estate, which is a corporation, so the level also drops to L0. In HoF, the character retains the level he had at death. It is possible (but has never happened) that a character is demoted in level.

Town promotes Commoner levels up to L9 Grand Wizard. The promotion of Nobles is King's privilege only. King chooses his successor. The current Prince Royal is HRH The Archduke Zechariah of CK, played by the same as King. Below is a list of levels and their meanings.

Commoners - skill levels
L1 Visitor
L2 Stranger
L3 Beginner
L4 Novice
L5 Expert
L6 Master

Most new players start their game in L1-L2 range. The levels system is designed so as to offer a progression through skill/experience-based ranking from Beginner to Master in the normal lifetime of a commoner (age at start 15, life expectancy 45, so 30 weeks of play). Characters who do not receive external money (free players) should generally be able to reach L5 Expert or L6 Master before the character dies. The progress through these levels may be faster with active play.

Commoners - bonus levels
L7 Wizard
L8 Doctor
L9 Grand Wizard

Commoner bonus levels are for those commoners who play extraordinarily well. Since it takes long time active play to reach these levels, the characters are often old when this happens. L7 Wizard (actual title may be different) is a level for those excelling in artesan or related skills. L8 Doctor is for those excelling in knowledge and science. L9 Grand Wizard is for the actual magi, the demigods who enjoy independent gamemastery privileges in full harmony with the world.

Minor nobles
L10 Jungherr
L11 Knight
L12 Baronet
L13 Baron

L10 Jungherr is any noble who is not yet 21 years old. L11 Knight is a level for those who have been Knighted in some or the Orders, or for other reasons. In the past, officers were Knighted. King has promised to promote to Knight all who reach 250 years of age. L12 Baronet is true to its historical equivalent, a buyable level costing 100 XMR. L13 Baron is the level in the "normal career path" for commoners. Typically prominent merchants, landowners and gold owners are promoted to Baron directly from L6 Master, skipping all the levels in between since they are special levels for special occasions. All the other minor nobles also mature towards Baron.

Landed nobles
L14 Earl
L15 Marquess
L16 Prince

The landed nobles (LN) are the aristocracy of CK. As the name suggests, the LN hold fiefdom over the territories of CK (the Rural Land). This brings to them many responsibilities, especially after the Countryside module (in development). The qualification to be promoted Earl is being a long-term player and capable to take responsibility. L15 Marquess and L16 Prince are "only" honor-levels of Earls, with the most magnificent promoted after a long service. It is notable that Earldom is hereditary, so once you reach this level in one character, when it dies, you are entitled to retain the level. Lesser noble levels (or any other levels) are not hereditary. L16 holders have honorary address HE (His Excellency), which others may have in rare occasions only (YE, Your Excellency, when addressing directly). "Viscount" is a functional title, not a level, but can be regarded as being above Baron and below Earl. Even commoners may hold Viscounty if appointed by an Earl.

Dukes
17 Duke
18 Grand Duke

Dukes are promoted from levels L14-L16. The promotion is not based on absolute magnificence but on need for Kingdom administration. Therefore it is possible to become a Duke as a leap-promotion (skipping eg. Prince). L18 Grand Duke is the highest non-royal level, with the most senior of Dukes occupying it. Dukes are addressed HH (His Highness).

Royal
19 Archduke
20 King

L19 Archduke is reserved for the heir/s to the throne. It is a Royal level and addressed HRH (His Royal Highness). There may be several Archdukes whose order of succession is determined by edict. There may only be one L20 King (HM The King, His Majesty). When the King dies or abdicates, the first in succession becomes King and it is customary to seek Town affirmation for the act.

The practical importance of the levels is linear only inside a category, not across the whole system. The commoner bonus levels (L7-L9) overlap with the minor nobles (L10-L13), Princes (L16) are often wealthier than Dukes (L17), and Archdukes (L19) are only designated such based on the succession. The guiding principle in promoting commoners is skill. Barons are promoted based on wealth. Earls based on responsibility. Marquesses and Princes based on culture and gold. Dukes based on continuity of the game.



1.1.4. Decorations

1.1.4.1. Definition

Decorations are signs of achievement, and can be added to your full title. They often include the token as well, which is separate from the decoration. The decoration may not be transferred and dies with the character (though some are hereditary and passed in practice with the player, and others can be recreated when the previous holder dies.

1.1.4.2. Badges

Badges are signs of achievements, and range from easy (which will be awarded to everyone in their first year) to very hard (of which only a few exist in the Kingdom). They are always accompanied with copper tokens with badge type, minting year and no other parameters, so will become an interesting thing to collect (both the decorations, and the tokens) because of cheap price and large selection.

Existing "set of 6" badges that are currently unique items, will be converted to the new format, and the COT copper tokens that physically look like badges, as well.

1.1.4.3. Medals

Medals differ physically from badges in that they are larger (copper: 50 g as opposed to 15 g), or made of precious metals, and are often minted to commemorate a certain event and can only be gained by participating in that event. Some medals include a decoration, others don't. MG-5 is a coveted medal that has the "MG-5" or "Medal of the Game, 5th class" decoration, but physically it is 50 grams of bronze. Some other medal might be 50 gram of gold but has no meaning in the decoration sense. "King's Hero Medal" is 50 gram of gold, and a decoration awarded to only 4 characters in the whole game.

Medals will be opened so that not only they can be minted by anyone against a fee, the "decoration part" giving authority will be given to Earls and certain institutions (Church, University), to be used wisely.

1.1.4.4. Titles

No changes. Titles do not usually include a token.

1.1.4.5. Honors

No changes.

1.1.4.6. Orders

No changes. These will be rejuvenated, with not much practical meaning but they add status to whom it is due.




5. ASSETS

"Assets" refers to all contents of CK world which can be transferred ingame and thus "owned". These are Urban Land titles and Items.

Urban Land Title registry is part of the State of the World. Before acquiring Urban Land, it is important to check the local terms of the title. In general, GM events (such as war) can not affect the ownership of land, and the local administration does not hold eminent domain over it. There may still be mandatory taxes or building restrictions, and the refusal or inability to pay taxes may lead to loss of the land.

Items ownership is a transfer registry, similarly part of the State of the World. Items are subject to wear and destruction. Gamemaster may adjust the properties of items, add and delete items, and the value of items that is determined in the open market may change as a result of these changes.

Gold ownership is specially protected. More cannot be created at will by anyone, and gold can never be subject to tax or encumbrance, does not wear, cannot be stolen, etc.

Private depositories hold non-game virtual goods such as cryptocurrencies in proven storage and emit depository shares ingame so that the value of the shares is backed by and often convertible to the non-game assets they hold outside of the game. Using such depositories or holding their shares is at player's own risk. The ingame value of such depository shares depends on events outside CK domain, including embezzlement, hack, theft and seizure of the funds in deposit.

Town does not guarantee the market value of any item. Institutions ingame are responsible according to their respective TOS for the promises they make for their offerings, and will be prosecuted for breaches of contract.


6. TERMINATION AND SUSPENSION OF ACCOUNT

Each character has one account, each player may have many characters and thus accounts.

The account will be terminated as an administrative procedure if:
- A few weeks neglect makes the character starve to death, after which the heir inherits the assets of the character. If death happened intestate, there is a 1 month grace period for the account holder to manage the estate of the deceased with original account. After this, the Town escheats the assets.
If you lose the password and have not entered any recovery information, this is what happens.

The account will be terminated as a punitive measure if:
- The character is convicted of Treason, and in major or repeated cases of Felony. Treason is defined as a wilful act, attempt or plot to undermine, corrupt, damage, compromise etc. of the CK's, (State of the) World's, Town's, King's, etc rule-bound authority, integrity or function. In addition to terminating the account, the character may be sentenced to death, and before that lose all assets and decorations.
- Illegal immigrants may be expelled without warning. Illegal immigration means mass character farming, especially if characters are bot-controlled, but only with proof that it is done for the purpose of monetary gain rather than to enjoy the game.

The account may be suspended (temporarily blocked):
- As a warning or punishment for Misdemeanor or Felony.
- As a safety measure if there is reason to believe an identity theft has occurred.
- If the account is used to flood the system or other similar activity.
- If the character is under investigation or trial for Felony or Treason "arrest". In this case the character will be kept alive by Town-appointed health manager at the character's expense and released if found not guilty or if the verdict does not include termination.


7. DISRUPTION IN THE STATE OF THE WORLD; DISCONTINUING THE GAME

CK is designed to run perpetually, which is evident from its robust governance model and data structure, and having perpetual rules such as the gold generation script, which cannot be changed by any power inside or outside the game ever, and perpetual rights, such as the right to receive 100,000 m weekly per each consol item forever.

It is possible still that 1) hosting the state of the world becomes difficult due to eg. disruptions in Internet traffic or compartmentalization of the Internet, or 2) several key administrators disappear at once and Town management capability thus suffers, or 3) a data corruption attack has despite all precautions managed to corrupt the game state during extended time, or 4) a similar event.

There are very elaborate procedures that will be activated if such events occur occurs, too lengthy to be listed here. The short version is:

If anyone is willing to play CK, it continues to exist, and if no one is, it still continues to exist in dormancy, ready to be resumed, unless all memory of it is irrevocably destroyed. It is just imagination anyway - information in public domain.

In the case of CK, nobody reserves the right to discontinue the hosting of the game and cancel your account for no reason, and keep all your stuff. Rather, it is everybody's right to continue the hosting of the game, and your right to keep your stuff.




1.2. NPC

It is possible that the current NPC will need a reorganization once again, so that they will supply the bulk of the labor to the market during the time the PC are insufficient. The "owners" will get the money.

1.3. Corp

No changes.

2. Land

2.1. General

2.2. Urban land

2.2.1. Subdivision

No changes.

2.3. Rural land

Rural land is held as a fief from the King, so the nominal owner is the (corporation) County of county_name, which is managed by the Earl (or his subordinate, Viscount). Possibly the country map will be left uncovered, not because it is technically hard to do it, but because changing it is difficult and we do not yet have enough information how best to make it. The Counties do not exist in definite physical locations, rather their parameters are general, including distance to CryptoTown and whether road exists. Economy will be simplified at this stage, but food production will largely move there, and building in the county center is possible.

3. Buildings

3.1. Structures

We will start to have important previously vaguely implemented concepts such as rural roads. They will be mapped.

3.2. Buildings with floor area

3.2.1. Preface

3.2.2. Datatype

3.2.3. Wood buildings

3.2.4. Modular Stone Buildings

3.2.5. Custom Stone Buildings


4. Game concepts

4.1. Labor

4.1.1. General

The economy takes Labor as an indispensable input in every quite many transformation process (eg. making vegetables from a field, or hunting deer, or keeping a large palace tidy). Labor is converted from time, and sold to the market where business owners buy it, or spent in your own businesses as is the case of small farms.

There are many types of labor, and when time is converted to a certain type, all bonuses are applied. Therefore, labor units are fungible despite the infinite number of different skill sets the characters have.

4.1.2. Types of Labor

We seek to have approximately the same number of labors as there are skills, but they don't map exactly. Several skills may boost the same type of labor effectiveness, and some skills are not labor skills. Further, certain skills when practiced to perfection, enable a higher detail skill as a bonus in higher levels. The possessor of this can choose to do the high detail work if it is available, but still has the lower skill as well as a backup.


TIME

The game started in year A.D. 1400 (2014-10-10). The current era is early 1600s, with the time directly corresponding to outside world time as follows:

- Year changes every week (week changes between Sunday and Monday UTC).
- 2016-1-4 is the first month of A.D. 1621.
- The 7 weekdays of outside world correspond to 7 months in CK named (January, March, May, July, September, November, December).
- Each month has 24 days, each day 24 hours, 60 minutes each.
- Timestamps are in outside world time, easily convertible if needed.

GAME HISTORY AND ERAS

The earliest period of the game as it was played, is called Ancient Era. Its beginnings are vague, but its ending is clear: A.D. 1599 is the final year of Ancient Era. No item may be backdated to Ancient Era nor gain the attribute Ancient, if it was not implemented to the DB at the close of the Ancient Era (2015-3). The Ancient Era is after-the-fact divisible to sub-eras such as:

Very Ancient (-1399)
The game was not playable so only some "childhood items" remain (~200 in total)

Most Ancient (1400-1500)

- Pre-CryptoTown (1400-1429) the game existed only as an ownership roll, with no town present
- Early Town (1430-1450) first buildings, golden jubilee
- Jousting (1451-1499) building of citadel, olden days town life in 1-C

Ancient (1500-1599)

- Classical (1500-1519) expansion to 1-E
- Trust in Economy (1520-1549) building of 2-C , opening of B.2, B.3
- Great Depression (1550-1564)
- Cultural (1565-1599) growth in every possible way, B.4, B.5, B.7

Economy (1600-present)

- Turmoil (1600) earthquake, cold, deaths, long year
- Reconstruction (1600-1610) earthquake rebuilt, great plague, B.6, B.8, B.9
- Unnamed (1611-present)








From Version 4: Economy (2015-1-18), gold is created to the players of the game regardless of level or possessions, roughly in proportion to their time spent online (inactivity does not count, and actual receiving of the gold requires solving of a captcha). Approximately $0.025 worth of gold will be created per hour played.

Gold is an income-producing asset, regardless of the form how the character chooses to keep it (in coins, jewelry, clothes, roofplates, ...).

The dividend is game-biennial (every 2 years; in real-time it means: once per day in Ancient era, once per every 24 days from Version 4: Economy). In the Ancient era the income is in the form of stone; from Economy onwards, it will be a share of the Town council surplus.


City
Borough
The city consists of a number of Boroughs (currently: 1, and it is expected that maximum 1 other will be opened during the Ancient era). The boroughs are located near each other but not immediately connecting. A borough is 450x300 meters in size.
Chapelry
One borough is subdivided into 9 chapelries (3x3 of them in a borough). This is the area that will fit into the city view screen in the coming mobile version.
Quadrat
A Quadrat (q) is a square of 10x10 meters. Each Chapelry has 10x15 = 150 quadrats. It is the smallest unit of land that can form or be part of a Lot.
Lot
A lot is a continuous area of one or more quadrats, belonging to the same owner, inside one chapelry. The real estate registry, and therefore trades, are made by lot, which includes everything built on it.
Building
A Building must fit into one lot (adjoining buildings are allowed only according to administrator decision). It has a building year and several parameters.
Apartment
An Apartment is a part of the building that has one or more Rooms, so that they are connected with each other by doors, and there is a door leading out (to a space connected to a public road via a route not requiring going to another apartment) from at least one of the rooms. The rental contracts are made by apartment.
Room
An area enclosed by wall and ceiling and having a door. Living rooms are good to have a window also. Outside spaces such as gardens of the house are also technically treated as rooms.

In the later versions of the game, a room is the place where characters are located, and the characters in the same room can converse with each other.
City map and Building

Haw
The Nobles (Barons or higher) created in the ancient time are entitled to have a Haw in the town area. The significance of a haw is that there are:
- no building restrictions (except the ones dictated by the rules - physical limits and height limit) - and the property tax (instituted in Economy or later) is waived.

The haws are inside a created borough, but (may be) outside of the city walled area. They need therefore to be walled at the expense of the owner. The King grants the haws at the noble's request. One noble is entitled to one Haw, and it must be walled on the gameyear it is granted, by a wall minimum 3 m high. If it is adjoining a wall minimum 3 m high, that side need not be walled.

It is not intended that the building land itself is a limited resource. However, centrally located, Ancient, or nicely developed land will command a much higher price than partially developed boroughs. The city will expand to every direction from the initial borough.

The minimum price of land in the aftermarket can be derived from the public infrastructure (perimeter wall and roads). In the Ancient era, it is forbidden to build in any spaces that are not enclosed by a wall at least 3 meters high and 1 meter thick.  If we consider that a chapelry (150 q) is walled around its outer perimeter with a wall, and 50 q of its area consists of roads or is reserved for the future public buildings, the money expended on this development, depending on the exact quality of the wall, makes the building land worth 2-3.5 XMR per quadrat.




GOVERNANCE

The World can be classified to consist of three types of entities:

- Kingdoms utilizing CK principles but doing it in an incompatible way as to not allow cooperation (0 exist)

- Kingdoms utilizing CK principles in a way that allows foreign trade and relations (0 exist)

Since these entities exist in their own servers, it is clear that Crypto Kingdom does not have any jurisdiction over them.

- Crypto Kingdom.

Inside Crypto Kingdom, there will soon by Counties, which reside in the common database but are in most respects including economic model, very independent. Operating a County requires promotion to Lx Earl, or being appointed by one.

THE MOST ANCIENT CORPORATION OF THE TOWN OF CRYPTOTOWN

Who has the gold, makes the rules.

The highest decision maker in Crypto Kingdom is the Town Council, who are selected by the holders of component resource gold, CKG (component resource is embedded in the items, so no matter what items are held, they all count as votes).

The number of seats in the Town council depends on how much CKG there is in the game:
1,000,000 - 1,999,999                        => 6
2,000,000 - 3,999,999                        => 7
4,000,000 - 7,999,999                        => 8
and so on, doubling the CKG leads to one more seat existing in the council.

Seats will be filled with willing candidates that have the highest amount of gold backing them. Elections are periodical. The members of the Town council are called Councillors, who select a Mayor among them.

Town council has the authority to decide the rules of the game.
Town council is responsible for the costs of development of the game.

Town council appoints the Mayor to coordinate its activities and run the Town.

Town council appoints the Gamemaster to

Town council appoints the personnel necessary to design and develop the game, including Lead Designer and Lead Developer.

Town council



Administrator
Administrator refers to any person, program, or character that is administering the game functions.



FEUDALISM

KING

King has claimed all the land in Crypto Kingdom (an area much larger than the effective sphere of influence currently). All the Earls+ are required to make an oath of subservience to the King, in return of which they get the land as fief. Especially, the King is by birth the Duke of the Very Ancient Duchy, the area in which the habitation of CryptoTown is located. There is a deal in force that the King is bound to surrender land to the Town upon the latter's request for the expansion of the town, and be compensated 4,500 million per borough. (The town has in turn pledged to sell it to the highest bidder, and the unbid land listed for sale at double the price paid to the King.)

King is the Fount of Honor, and in this role he is the only one to grant Nobility (levels Lx Jungherr to L19 Archduke). He is the grandmaster (or equivalent) in most Orders of Chivalry, although some exist by Royal Prerogative and may appoint characters on their own.

King is the Supreme Justice in ingame grievancies. While the dispute resolution system in CK is in the state of case law, King decides what is right, or appoints the Tribunals and vests the powers upon them.


DUCHIES

COUNTIES

TRIBES AND GUILDS




The Ancient Order of the King
The Ancient Order of the King (AOK) is a monarchic chivalric order established in 1418, with a limited membership of 24 characters. The membership is hereditary (exact rules on how this happens, will be introduced in Version 7: Family and Lineage). Therefore, after reaching the maximum number of members, new members can only be introduced in the rare case of an existing member is displumed (stripped of the honor due to grave offences) or if he dies childless (effectively discontinues playing the game).

The reigning King is the Grandmaster of the order (AOK-GM). Other ranks are:
Commander (AOK-C), minimum level L11 Marquis
Sergeant (AOK-S), minimum level L10 Earl
Knight (AOK-K), minimum level L8 Knight.

The award of AOK is accompanied by gifts from the King.
The Medal of the Game
The Medal of the Game (MG) is awarded by the Town council for "Developing the Game". It is hereditary and can be awarded in 5 classes:
1st class - may be awarded earliest when the game has 100,000 characters
2nd class
3rd class
4th class
5th class.
Badges
Badges are awarded automatically for ingame activities. They are not hereditary.

First builder (FBB) - only 20 awarded for first characters to build anything (one per char)
Castlebuilder (CB) - for building a castle (a building in min. 4 q lot enclosed by wall)
Homebuilder (HB) - when the character builds his first own house.
Order of wear
The King determines the order of wear of the honors, medals and badges, which currently is:

AOK-GM
MG-1
AOK-C
MG-2
AOK-S
MG-3
AOK-K
MG-4
MG-5
FBB
CB
HB.

The game thread in Bitcointalk (highly recommended read daily for active play):
https://bitcointalk.org/index.php?topic=819073.0

The game IRC channel is (will be moved to ingame "trollboxes" starting Version 2: Ancients):
#crypto-kingdom @ irc.freenode.net

The Characters & Resources Database: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1tgIzgMza7NQsTpMO9pHke1ZVXYH7l5Sj5bHdZHItivo/edit?usp=sharing

[rpietila]

Countryside Opens

A long-awaited expansion, Countryside is moving towards production. There are earlier expositions of long-term plans, so this concerns itself of the immediate and near-term new features only.

Map features

The Kingdom map will be hex-based and one hex defined to be 0.200 sq.km (of which 0.135 sq.km are the 450x300 m Urban area if the hex is an urban Borough). Since our land is big, it is possible it will consist of millions of rural hexes. The visualization of the map is not going to happen yet.


Peerage and fiefdom

The whole backbone of countryside is that of feudalism, the hierarchical domain over lands:

Kingdom - Duchy - County - Estate.

The whole of rural land will be organized so that each hex eventually is part of one County. Duchies are administrative entities over Counties. Estates are productive entities in Counties, but a County is not necessarily completely divided to Estates. Urban lands' standing depends on local legislation and ownership of Urban land is guaranteed. Kingdom remains the concept of the totality of all lands, yet it is possible that independent Counties will emerge in the outskirts, or based on negotiation or civil war or similar event (in the future).

Peerage means the fiefdom over land. Peerage may be held by Earls and higher, but is created separately of promotions. Only the King may "create" peerages that are for life. Upon death, the peerage is re-created to the heir of the holder, or to a different character, or reverts to the Crown in which case it may be recreated later. As a norm, the actively played peerages are hereditary but the King decides. The successive holders of the peerage may title themselves as "Sir Joukahainen, the 2nd Earl of Käkisalmi" etc.

There are currently 26 peerages in Crypto Kingdom, of which one is the Kingdom itself. Of the others, all 25 are Counties, but 5 are also Duchies. We will not do anything practical with the Duchies just yet. The oldest and most senior peerage is "TVA Duchy" created in 1366 (or probably earlier but this is not verifiable). This is the County in which TMA CryptoTown is located.

How to gain a peerage

Peerage may be gained immediately upon promotion to Earl, but in some cases characters are promoted Earl and need to wait some time to gain peerage. Each holder of peerage may also appoint one Viscount, to practically manage the affairs of the County. While being a Viscount does not directly confer levels or peerage to the appointee, Viscounts without peerage of their own are highly considered to get one in the future.

To get the things rolling, Earls of the past with no peerage are not going to get one in the near future. Instead, we start with the 25 that we already have.

The complete list of peerages is in googleDB /Peerages tab.

Purposes and Vision of the Countryside Module

It is designed long ago that the ratio of peers (landed nobles) to all the population should be about 1:50. It is easiest to think that peers will in the future be reigning over their domain in the same way as the King has done until now, with the number of PC ranging from 2 to 100+.

Each County will have its capital city "Seat", consisting of 1 or more urban boroughs. In addition, the Estates are production centers providing food and raw materials. The seat will be the administrative and cultural centre, habitation of the PC's and place of commerce and manufacturing.

New players will need to select their tribe (County) when they come to the game, and they may switch it later. This will keep the Earls constantly competing for new and existing players. The new player registration page will be modularized so that it can be plugged in to the Earls' other marketing pages where they can funnel players to their County and start to provide for them.

The economy of Counties (pools etc.) will be independent, but with common rules on resource production and consumption. Earls have a say in what kind of economic models to employ in their domains.

Economy of Counties

The county is a corporation account. Its holder may conduct all business as he sees fit. The county is not owned by the holder, though, and therefore it may not be split into shares and sold. It is also not allowed to squander the County resources for personal benefit. It IS allowed to grant the rural and urban land of the County to the holder or anyone else, with or without payment. (To raise the funds for the initialisation, it IS possible to pre-sell the land but the arrangements are at own risk.) It IS allowed to pay a pension to the Earl and the Viscount, in form of money or a resource stream, if the County is making profit. It IS possible to indebt the County if someone (usually you) wants to lend them money, and this must be recorded as a notarized admin-created DEBT instrument (the King hates debt though). These guidelines are intentionally left vague to test the character of the holders and further guidance is given by the King when requested.

In addition to the "County incorporated", each county also will have (a bit later) a pool account. This one is not yet in the Earl's control. Labor payments to the county eg. building, will be deposited to the Pool account and will later provide the dividends in the county. This will be separated later to allow large enough scale. Town pool accounts hold m only, but county pool accounts will diversify a little into CKG, CON and DEP if sufficient liquidity is guaranteed.

Getting Started

We have 5 strains of NPC in the game, and two of them will be allocated to the Countryside completely (for now):

Managerial (ASS-1,2,3; MGR-1,2,3,4,5)
Military (PTE ... COL)

These NPC will have their monetary dividends revoked (SCI will continue). Moving/selling them to the Counties, increases the County preparation capability. These are indispensable, if no managerial talent and show of force is present, the Counties will not submit to your rule.

Specialists (AR-1,2,3; SPE-1,2,3,4,5) may be moved to the Counties and will boost their CUL/SCI production and in addition give other benefits.

Butlers and Chefs (WAI; BUT-2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9; KA; COOK-1,2,3; CHEF-1,2,3,4,5) do not provide special benefit in the Counties and may be best to keep in CryptoTown.

Other Workers (OTH) will become the mainstay of NPC toiling for your county. These and some of the others will become available as new items to be purchased from the market. (OTH will cease to provide money, just work.)

NPC continue to have a 5% risk of death per year. They also promote as previously.

Battle Aquilae (COA-1...COA-27), especially the ones of historical troops, are much revered by the peasants, so attaching one or several to the Army stationed in the County, boosts the pacifying capability a lot.

Counties do not require consumables, rather produce them. The new production of CAN, MUS, VEG, MEAT and FOIE will be phased to be produced almost solely in counties.

Stone will start to be produced in Counties themselves. Because it takes time to get the peasants back into doing it, in the beginning, a maximum of 1,000,000 stone per county per year can be sent to them. It will be consumed in admin schedule and boost the statistics of the county.

Prepaid building labor (S-BLD) is a smart thing to be gained by counties, since it will steadily increase in value, and will be available for conversion to buildings when the module opens.

A "state carriage" (TRC2-x, TRC4-x, TRC6-x) is good to have in County level as well, since it is awed by the peasants.

Most of the other items are not needed yet. We will soon expand the creation of items from IC, so it will be possible to convert and backdate important regalia of the inauguration of the county.

All Science (SCI) gained by the County, will be consumed by admin and converted to preparation.

What is Preparation and what happens then?

Preparation (PRE) is a non-transferable point item that only Counties may have. Upon Admin discretion (planned yearly), the admin checks the progress of the preparations of the County and awards a maximum of 20*PRE. When 100*PRE is gained, the County Seat is inaugurated (1 urban borough). Even before this happens, counties that are pacified and well in preparation, may produce foodstuffs.

As is the custom in B-22 shares, a large amount of new preparation points is more expensive to get than a small amount. Being the 2nd town after CryptoTown in the Kingdom, on the other hand, is a worthy goal...

(Since TVA Duchy already has a seat, it gains preparation but may not have a second town.)

HM The King is so happy that the Kingdom finally is enlarged that he is offering the following Bounties for PRE accumulation:

* In the Quasquibicentennial Jubilee (1625) *
- 500 CKG to the county with highest preparation
- 250 CKG to 2nd highest
- 100 CKG to 3rd highest
- 50 CKG to 4th-6th highest, each

* All Counties that reach 25*PRE in 1630 or earlier *
- 100 CKG at once

* All counties that reach 100*PRE in 1630 or earlier *
- 100 CKG at once.

The gold will be given in historical and/or collectible coins, and we hope it will be augmented to the Treasury of the County, to provide a lasting income stream for the fiefholder. We reserve the right to give more gold as we see fit.

Closing

The Counties should be created shortly. The passwords can be asked from the admins. Please do not change the password as the admins need to be able to access the counties as well. Note that it is possible to conduct the business of the County for now even without logging in, just GIVE all the items that you want and they will automatically yield their benefits.

Corrections and amendments will be in blue.

Physical location and size of the Counties

This will be based on how actively the Counties are developed and how many residents they get. The historical seniority and prominence of the county do not affect much. Duchies also are "grown" of counties, and we of course hope that they get to be developed to be big ones to fit the designation of duchy proper, and to be qualified to "rule over" the surrounding counties.

Guidelines for human resourcing

Managers produce 1-5 "MGN points" according to their level. One MGN point is needed per 5 workers (OTH).
Assistants produce 1-3 "ASS points" according to their level. One ASS point is needed per each manager, and per 5 workers.
Having excess managerial talent is beneficial if properly assisted.
SPE are always and everywhere just good, and do not need MGN/ASS allowance.

Army is divisible to Field officers (COL, LTC, MAJ), Junior officers (CAPT, LT), Non-commissioned officers (MSG, SGT, CPL) and soldiers (PTE). In a functioning Company, each must be present. A standard Company is now defined as follows:
* Commanding Officer (Field Officer)
* Staff (2-4 Field or Junior Officers)
* 2-3 Sections, each with at least 1 seasoned NCO (more is better), and ~10 troops (count includes the NCOs)
* Battle Aquila

The exact size is of course based on need, finances and the availability of personnel. The larger the force, the more important is to have a good commanding officer. In the Ancient times, a COL has been sold for ~400 million. NCO are soldiers with experience, so might become a bottleneck, since they are promoted only slowly. Having a MSG leading a section if possible, is very valuable. NCO cannot be substituted by junior officers.

The horses will be available in the countryside soon. Also Army has their own weapons so no swords etc are needed.

[rpietila]

Production and consumption of consumables

This is a very important update but I put it here instead of the main thread since the beauty of it is mainly of design nature 


After some experimenting, we will have a competitive system in all consumable markets. What are the consumables?

Food:
VEG, MEAT, FOIE, CAV

Drinks:
MEAD, BEER, Wines, Spirits

Wisdom:
CAN, MUS, imported products

All will have similar production shares as FOIE has S-FOI currently.

The main players in the markets will soon be:

- HungryMob, which produces some VEG and MEAD (they are NPC who are simulated to act as junior commoners) and consumes quite a bit of many things with 600 mil budget to feed and clad 600 NPCs.

- Farmers who replace Town as the main producer of VEG, MEAT, MEAD and CAN (the account is still owned & operated by Town)

- OldDuchy from where the farmers mainly come from, is an established administrative entity in the position to levy taxes in kind, and consequently "produces" VEG, MEAT, CAN and MUS (and would produce FOIE as well but it is already accounted for in King's personal S-FOI quota)

- Other counties will see their production growing a lot if preparations continue and dependent on policies chosen. MEAT, FOIE, CAN and MUS will be produced. It is uneconomical to transport vegetables over long distances with no roads, and they also spoil easily.

- Nobles will continue to have their historical S-FOI shares but they will dilute in value when counties are awarded their shares.

- Breweries continue to produce and sell BEER.

- Commoners will have access to S-MEAD (equipment producing 100*MEAD) and can also acquire a share of common gardens producing VEG.

Therefore, all the different locally-produced consumables will have markets consisting of many profit-driven actors, just as we already have very well-functioning Wine markets.

In total, 8 different times-of-year have been specified when actions happen in the markets. Main actions are as follows:
- Beginning of year: many things spoil. Even BEER and prepared meats will start to spoil 5%.
- In March (tuesday): VEG spoils more, but many things come to market after being dried over winter.
- Summer: VEG spoils completely, and after a short period of no VEG at all, the new produce starts to come. In the beginning days (hours), these new VEG are specially healthy. This will reset to the usual value soon. VEG is coming in many batches over the summer and the quantity (price) is dependent on how much the Earth gives, which in turn is not knowable beforehand.
- Slaughtertime is before Christmas and new FOIE and MEAT come to market.

Admin (GM) will create all the new production and dividend them immediately. The market players take care of listing and pricing.

[rpietila]

The design of the Wisdom module

Wisdom module builds on top of the existing Consume subsystem, so very little new things are needed.

Wisdom is a general character trait (same as Health, and soon also Culture(PC)/History(Corps))

Wisdom is amended every time there is an event that increases it. Currently such an event is consuming things that increase Wisdom. Frequency and Variety bonuses apply normally.

Items may have a Wisdom value (UND substances do, but there may be others). The values of item:Wisdomness are secret and the value of Wisdom of a character is also lightly masked. Consuming Wisdom items does not give immediate feedback.

New field in Char table: Wisdom (encrypted field)
New field in Item table: Wisdomness (encrypted field, denoting the # of Wisdom points per item consumed - base value)
New lookup table: Wisdom->Wisdom_print (masking the exact value of character's Wisdom point total)

The Wisdom_print is displayed in MyCharacter.

New code to be added to consuming consumables   

   wisdomBonus = Bonus   //wisdomBonus gets the same frequencyBonus that is already calculated for "Bonus" in health challenge
if item_consumed_already=FALSE   
effect = floor(wisdomBonus + variety_multiplier * item_id:healthiness) ; 0)    //variety_multiplier is the same as already in the script; note that effect_multiplier is not used


New treatment of CUL/HIS

Culture and History are the same thing except History is awarded in place of Culture for those in level 0 (Corporations) and 42 (Estates of the dead).

Find a way to either implement them as character-specific variables (while retaining the possibility to use the value as a command parameter), or make the item:Untradable=1 mean that no bids and asks may be placed and the item may not be Given (but may be Transfered).

Also make it possible that consuming items can award CUL to the PC. This consuming does not award IC, however (that would be preposterous). There would be a separate list of item:consumeCULbonus, with a flat (no frequency/variety bonuses) addition to char:CUL, (in addition to the health and wisdom effects of such things).

[rpietila]

Now the time is coming to make a huge push in game mechanics

- Wood building
- Stone building
- Unique building
- Countryside production
- Multiple towns
- Kingdomwide logistics

The wood building is pretty much designed, though it needs some coordination with PIG, DIS, etc that were already implemented as items. They will probably be merged to the wood building at least partly, because the early years of a commoner are supposed to be spent much with the house, with exponentially more expensive modules for a declining marginal utility.

Stone and unique buildings require a potentially huge conversion work so that the existing ones are implemented in the new system with as little as possible manual work. After this, the construction of them in Ultima will not be difficult at all.

At the same time, the Lots require a large rework. Possibly the Buildings will be such integral property of Lots (as at least wood buildings are planned to be) that the current lot structure needs revamp and new zoning needs to take the new rules into account very well. As all the chapelries in the 25-borough area will be implemented in graphics, that also requires resources.

The commoner lots, designed for wood buildings only, may be as small as 40 sqm and do not get benefit for being larger than 400 sqm. Street access needs to be had (2 m counts as an alley), so narrow lots may become a norm with some aspect ratio rule in place to prevent stupid ideas.

I am planning to open B.23 (between 1 and 3 on both sides of the historical Boulevard (ca. 1560)) for a project loosely similar to B.22. Neither could be zoned before both are completed. The B.23 conversion would be based on stone (and money, to redeem it from the King), and the stone would be used for constructing the fortifications around the whole town including 18 casemattes. The SCI is not yet there, but each one would house several cannons for the total of hundreds of cannonposts (in practice, many of the cannons would be moved to the side under attack). Heavy cannons could also be housed permanently especially in vulnerable areas near gates. The bulk of the defence spending falls on the King obviously, but at least the 10-20 million stone could be raised by selling this land.

The plan for this and the map of CryptoTown with vegetation is revealed in GameDB.

To be continued in a separate post.

[rpietila]

The game economy in broad lines

All NPC labor (including building, quarry - suspended) costs go to Labor pool, from where NPC's pay their consumables and suits (hungryMob), and the rest is divided between Town and Rental pool.

The Rental pool is able to live well on this money, because many buildings are not rentals, they produce CUL, IC, SCI and act as factories instead.

Town has several direct income sources, one being sales of spirits and other luxury items (SFS brought 665 mil). The direct taxation has been at 0% for some time now.

Town also sells the urban land in CryptoTown, for which an income of 4.5 bil per borough is gained (difference between purchase price and whole chapelry sell price; smaller lots fetch more; King is rulebound to sell all the land in town for 4.5 bil per Borough and Town can choose - Currently King also cannot sell the unopened boroughs except to the Town).

15% of Rental pool is divided between Rental buildings, which dividend has increased in 4 years to 6,100 (was 3,500) and rentals now pay very nice APR such as 3% and over.

NPC are also valuable investments who produce, much in excess of their cost, worth CUL, IC, and SCI (seldom m), the money going to Labor as mentioned.

Town pays income to commoners but this total amount is currently quite small (~100 mil annually, compared to 400 mil paid to consols, 900 mil allowance of hungryMob and 1-9 bil of historical gold dividends). Nobles must live on their own.

The PC and NPC must consume to stay healthy. The total consumption per year is ~2 bil, so therefore a very important sum to keep the things going. The production of consumables happens as follows:

VEG - Only the Manors and independent Farmers (system acct controlled by Mooo) produce them close enough to allow for transport in our bad roads (or even if good roads, VEG spoil in transit very easily). Also characters can produce small amounts in their gardens.

MEAT - This is a conserve, with a 10% annual spoil. It is more valuable by weight than VEG, yet is in practice produced in the nearest manors and farmers only, but this will change in the future with better roads and more population. Pigs also provide meat for commoners.

FOIE - With even better price/weight ratio, this is brought from all over the counties, but stable administration must be present. Also historical nobles have the shares that entitle them to FOIE income for now at least.

CAV - Imported from Rossiya (Town pockets the import proceeds).

Spirits - Town sells the imports and pockets the money.

Wines - Converted from IC, historically the most important convertible.

BEER - Due to weight, must be produced locally; 7 licensed breweries exist.

MEAD - Is produced locally by commoners (DIS items).

AYA, COH - Restricted luxuries and no more can explicitly ever come.

SHI, CIG - Luxuries that may be reproduced but no plans exist (SHI in at least 50 years).

MUS, CAN - Are produced in many places and with excellent price/weight, are often the first things to bring home from new counties. Some CAN can be homegrown as well.

The Counties act as complete units until they are Inaugurated. When this happens, the County will have a Seat (a town with expandable size, potentially larger than TMA CryptoTown) and Manors. It is a historical fact that urban land (land in town with ownership protection) is very expensive, as a single Borough is worth billions (or even a Lot can be). What is not yet commonly understood is the very high value of Manors, since they can crank out products valued at 30 mil a year, which at 3% interest rate (compared to CON=0.6%) means that the Manor is valued at 1,000 mil! Since few players have the possibility nor willingness to invest even that sum (let alone 2 bil for 1.5% etc..) the only manors so far are all tenancies. To differentiate the eventual fully purchased manors, their owners will be able to use Free Lord of XX in place of just Lord and the Earls can create them Barons at will.

This is the biggest sure income for the County players. Having a county well situated, free of enemies and garrisoned from rebellions, will spawn Manors as the player count rises and the need for more products is felt. The Earl can then either operate them on his own, lease them out for guaranteed income, or give them to freehold against a windfall of cash.

The other towns will operate similar as CryptoTown with no need to pay the devcost, but no profits from the imports either. Each county with PRE=50 and more, will have a single pool of money acting as the rental pool at this time. These County pools will also benefit from gold and CKG appreciation as a part of their money is invested in these assets. So far CryptoTown has not been able to do this as it would mean self-collateralizing.

Once the necessary defence, infrastructure etc. is present (or often before), the County can sell, or do whatever with the urban land in its Seat. It is likely that the land values are cheaper in the counties, making situation interesting for the land magnates who can possibly gain large areas of urban land in the vicinity of the center point.

The Gold dividends are paid from Town surplus, which in the times of large land sales has occasionally been very large. The thrifty dividends in December-January were because of the initial Ultima project final milestones which were large (to have the incentives correctly aligned). Now the realmonthly cost is lower and can be met from the operating income even without resorting to CON sales.

The CON sales are expected to continue, however, to provide more liquidity to CON, and of course enable the Town to play more loosely, keep taxes at 0% and also increase gold dividends at least somewhat. The devfund is added to every year, and used for paying the devcosts. There are no plans to increase the spending to technical development (no more Wizards), but on other fronts more resources are needed.

[rpietila]

Production shares

We assume 3% IRR (internal rate of return, the interest rate used in calculation) because that is in the ballpark with buildings (slightly higher) and NPC (slightly lower) and significantly better than the no-hassle investments of CKG and CON.

S-VE1 (~100 VEG @ midprice 1,500) = 5 mil (in practice lower b/c limited to 1/char)
S-VE2 (~75 VEG @ midprice 1,000) = 2.5 mil
S-ME (~50 MEAT @ midprice 6,000) = 10 mil
PIG (~50 MEAT @ midprice 6,000) = 10 mil (in practice lower b/c limited to commoners)
S-FOI (~3 FOIE @ midprice 50,000) = 5 mil (trading is discouraged; near-term production may be higher)
DIS (~100 MEAD @ midprice 1,000) = 3.3 mil (in practice lower b/c limited to commoners)
S-BB (10,000 BEER @ profit 1,500) = 500 mil (building will soon be required)
S-MUS (~1 MUS @ midprice 150,000) = 5 mil
S-CAN (~100 CAN @ midprice 1,500) = 5 mil

The counties in advanced PRE stages will get the production shares and while the amounts may seem low, these are the values that justify them. When the Manors are implemented, the number of shares will go up more (better administration) but the Earls cannot easily handle the manors any more so will need to lease/sell them to other players. The number of Manors (and production shares) allocated to a county in the mature stage will be dependent on:
- Number of PC residing in the capital of the county (urban land+house)
- How many years the county has been under our rule
- Pacification (no enemies, rebellions; garrison, standing army)
- Administration
- Properties of the county
- Distance and travel time to CryptoTown
- Perhaps other factors.

[rpietila]

Change of the CKG tradable asset for ingame needs, as well as possible exchange integration

Currently HM02B100 is the trading asset, and its lot size is 1 bar = 70 XMR. This is a problem for many, especially the prospective ones.
S-CKG is a proxy asset with a lot size of 1 share = 1/100 CKG = 0.007 XMR = 1,400 sat.

The new conditional command feature allows automatic replenishment of market maker orders as they are being fulfilled.

Coinshop can offer "infinite ladder marketmaking" at a density of 250 CKG per 1% change in price, as it already does.

Currently, 1 bar is offered at every 0.4%. This can be changed to 2,500*S-CKG offered at every 0.1% (if wished, any resolution is now possible). When an ask fills, a new bid is automatically placed with a (theoretically infinitely) chained command

n(SELL S-CKG 2500 7000>BUY S-CKG 2500 6930>)

Once the ladder is set up, the execution of any order by market participants, always causes an opposite direction order be placed by the market maker. If malfunction happens, it is risk free for the market maker, as only the others suffer by the widening spreads. (This has been the modus operandi constantly so far with the manual order replenishment.)

The coinshop has enough CKG to absorb all XMR, so even 50k should be enough to be deposited to S-CKG holdings to allow the creation of enough S-CKG to provide better service than currently with HM02B100.

The role of HM02B100 would be the "take-delivery" asset which the large holders can possess from the ETF, and deposit back when needed. Separate market making for it would be discontinued.

The small unit size of S-CKG allows anyone to price their assets relative to CKG by having triggers that cause the clearing of previous orders and placement of new ones as S-CKG price changes.

Exchange integration becomes easy and risk free with S-CKG being the asset traded there and deposit/withdrawable against the ETF, who can develop the needed interfaces with little coordination needed from PJ.

That the asset is traded in exchanges, does not alter the market making structure ingame in any way - all arbitrages will be gained by market participants, but the market maker still makes a continuous income stream by having a spread. 1% is deemed enough in these conditions, vs. 4% currently.

Trading in Agora system is currently free, no fees. Fees are planned strictly to recoup the added computing resource costs, and will be fixed (negligible) sum per order placed and/or executed, and small traders (<1,000 transactions per month) excluded.

[rpietila]

Preliminary spex on Clans

CK - Clans is a core module that is aimed to address certain deficiencies in the current core functionalities in the game, and to redefine the previous Skills core module, which was already postponed to autumn-16 due to the consideration that the present players would not enjoy having more mandatory weekly activities, especially if the time they require is positively correlated to the extent of the player's empire.

Design goals

Make the administration of a player's CK presence easier, so that as the player's wealth and "empire" grows, it will cause as little as possible increase to the mandatory weekly administration time. The main way how this is accomplished is to restructure the account such that with one login, a player can handle all his wealth and all the (PC) characters that belong to his "clan". A clan consists of all of one player's characters that serve a single goal, and in case of nobles, it can also be called a house. This is different than "tribe", which is defined to be several players (and now - several clans) banding together for common purposes, such as inhabiting a new town in an opened county.

For instance, the clan of rpietila (the current Royal House of CK) would consist of a single account with single access to the game and a single account_id, single wealth and items mgmt, and the following characters:
- HM The King rpietila II (PC)
- Lord Ezekiel, son to the previous (PC)
- All the NPC's hired by the above PC

The health challenge will be redefined to be a weekly (consumption) challenge, with elements from both the current negative health challenge, from the consumption quota of the NPCC and new positive elements of 1) aspiration challenge (fulfillment will cause the clan to advance in stats and levelup and 2) a weekly quest, with reward badges and also contributing to advance in ranks and levels.

The system will administer the challenge based on the total extent of the clan so that regardless if the clan consists of a single PC and no servants, or 10 PC and thousands of NPC, it will not be markedly more time-consuming to manage it - only the amounts that need to be consumed are different. Neglecting even the basics of the challenge will cause deterioration of health of the PC and increased loss of the NPC. Neglecting the positive parts of the challenge will cause a stall in the advance of the clan, and that the newcomers and inferior clans overtake you in progress.

The premise of the clan is the foundation of CK, so the new module should only be regarded as an improvement in the administration, not a big change in the fundamentals. In most MMO, the PC do not die - it is possible to play a character as long as desired. In CK with a realistic approach to the world and a timescale of several centuries, individual characters will necessarily have to die, but this has never been intended to be a showstopper. With this new module, the players can retain their preferred ever-expanding empire, so that the death of their head of the clan causes as little as possible managerial annoyance, even if the roleplaying effects continue to be significant, comparable to losing a large building to a fire, or a county or a manor to invasion or insurgency.

It is now intended that one player only has one account and one clan, since the benefits of having several clans do not really exist, except in the case someone with limited means and unlimited time wants to gain as much foothold as possible with active play - which of course is much appreciated and desired.

Particulars

When moving to clans, the definitions change somewhat:
- char_id becomes account_id and is permanent and does not change upon any character's death
- the clan only has one economy as previously described, to ease the administrative effort of the controller
- the distinction of PC and NPC becomes more blurred as all the characters controlled by a clan are in a sense PC (the controller tells them what to do and what to consume) but the player is not associated with a single character, although most will probably continue to associate themselves with the current head of their clan, named after themselves, as I also did upon the death of rpietila I, renamed the successor rpietila II and the show goes on
- the levels will be based on clan, so that the levels of the current heads are grandfathered to the clans. In the event of clan head dying, the level is unaffected (King will retain the right to demote but as that has never happened so far, it is unlikely to be used too much in the future either).
- the titles that have been tied to the levels (eg. level L15 being named Marquess/Marchioness/Margrave/Margravine, also the PC in the level have been titled such) will undergo slight changes: the clan will be entitled to some titles and will have the liberty to divide them between the clan members. Each peer title (Earl and higher) will bring subsidiary titles such as Viscount and a quota of Barons, which the clan controller may bestow on anyone, either the PC in his clan, or the characters controlled by other players to forge alliances with them or reward them for services.

Countryside will be mapped and the map published, to visualize the location of counties, manors etc. It will be of great significance where the domains are located, as the world is in tumult and CK may gain and lose influence in different counties, affecting the production. Areas closer to the capital will likely be more peaceful and yield more, especially as the road network in the kingdom is in a sorry shape, preventing the transport of low-value and/or spoilable items over great distances.

PC are of limited quantity, and will spawn as rewards for good fulfilment of the weekly challenges. (It will be possible to pay money to gain new PC to your clan to speed up the play though). The increase of # of PC in the clan will cause a slight increase in management effort since PC are unique and have certain individual parameters that need to be nurtured:
- Health of a PC cannot be affected directly, the overall weekly challenge of the whole clan affects the health of the PC
- PC have individual Wisdom and Culture stats
- PC have individual Skills, but they will accumulate as automatically as possible, with only limited controls to the player
- PC have Time Points, which the commoners (with a clan typically consisting of a single PC) will be able to use for work to gain money, and the nobles can allocate their PC for important missions or assign them to study and practice to gain more skills
- Skills have been specified earlier in this thread, main alteration is to lessen the micromanagement in gaining them. They will be of paramount importance in both weekly and individual quests.
- A clan with many PC will be able to participate in the game in a more rich and more time-consuming way. If time is sparse, it makes sense to have a clan with only the minimum number of PC.
- NPC management will not be a burden since their actions are largely automatic and it takes the same amount of time to feed 100 NPC as it takes to feed one, since the requirements are clearly laid out in the weekly challenges.

Corporations and FOC will continue as separate accounts. There will be less incentive than before to have an FOC since the clan system will also effectively ensure a permanent account with guaranteed wealth. (Clan accounts that are neglected and ignored will still be swept after a period of inactivity, whereas FOC are guaranteed 7 realyears of untouchability so they still serve for the people who do not have any interest in the playing, only in the speculation).

In the UI side, there is a development as we speak, to make a functional ingame chat system with IRC functionalities. Also the messaging system was recently deployed. In these, players may use any character names to indicate in a storytelling way which of their characters they are playing.

The look and feel of the UI will be reviewed so that the game will not look as industrial

Closing

We are in a middle of a transition from "monopoly" to "civilization" in our game. The transition is not without difficulties, but it is necessary to morph the game to the next stage in order to make it accessible and interesting for gamers, who will then get hooked and will become members of the Monero community. This is the purpose of the existence of CK so we will need to embrace the change.