Adding marriage - poll about how you find its priority

[Sami]

Let's have a poll, just for the sake of poll.

[Mati256]

I went with the second from the top because I would like to see an overhaul of AI behavior before marriage, for example that NPCs can do almost everything you can with commands. Like giving orders to make food, build something, go hunting or fishing. And the need for them to eat every single day like the player, etc, etc. 

[caius]

I just put a long post is a separate subject that probably should have gone here:

I have a few comments on the marriage poll and incorporating marriage into URW.  Others can comment on the role-playing nature of an NPC spouse or the ability to have children and have a multi-generational URW experience.  But I am reducing the arguments to two options for incorporating a NPC spouse: 1) the Resource Drain NPC Spouse, or 2) the Resource Generator NPC Spouse.  These options might be considered over simplifications (they are mechanistically not mutually exclusive). 

Option 1: The Resource Drain
For this option, a NPC spouse becomes a drain on player resources.  First, the spouse must be wooed and courted with furs, tools, weapons, valuables, etc.  In this option, a significant expenditure of player time is given to attract and then obtain a spouse.  The "cost" of a spouse would then be proportional to the perceived "value" of that spouse.  In this scenario, the spouse becomes a status symbol for the player through their ability to attract the "best".  It could be even that the spouse gives the player increasingly difficult quests as they become more involved along the wooing path.  Maybe there are differences between an in-culture marriage versus an out-of-culture marriage?

Second, after a marriage ceremony, the spouse must be provided for.  In this option, the NPC spouse is a bystander that consumes the player's food, clothes, tools, and weapons (maybe also armor, cords, bandages, bowls, etc.).  The player must spend time ensuring the spouse is sufficiently provided for so they stay committed to the marriage and alive.  In this option, a NPC spouse likely functions like current NPC villagers.  They wander around a specific location or follow the player around, but have limited utility.

The entire purpose of a resource drain NPC spouse is to add a monumental achievement to the URW experience.  That is, the player can not only provide for them-self, but they can attract and maintain the NPC spouse as a status symbol.  The resource drain NPC spouse then would "unlock" PALU's generational feature...

It can also be noted that there are probably very few people who play their characters for 17+ years so that they could have had "adult" offspring. This means you could potentially start a family, but any children would be unlikely to be adult when your character expires, so if a generational feature would be introduced it would probably have to be able to skip a number of years, which would require some kind of logic to advance the world (which should include repopulating village animal stocks, at the least, and probably replace some of all those villagers who died fighting robbers with your ex character as well).

Option 2: The Resource Generator
For this option, a NPC spouse would need to function differently than other villager or companion NPCs.  The NPC spouse in this scenario would need to be a productive member to contribute to living in URW.  For example, the resource generator NPC spouse would need to actually engage in meaningful labor around a settlement or while on a hunt.  This means they would need to accept and execute commands that take advantage of skills.  A resource generator NPC spouse is likely more accurate (they help contribute to life), but much more difficult to develop.  This option could also lead to players gaming the system or to unexpected results (or danger to the NPC spouse) due to poorly issues commands and limitations of the AI. 

A wooing process would need to take place.  However, while a resource drain NPC spouse would be a status symbol, a resource generator NPC spouse would be valued to complement the player.  For example, if a player is unskilled in something, woo a resource generator NPC spouse to compensate so they can perform those skills for you.

Once the courtship is completed, the resource generator NPC spouse would need to be functionally helpful to a player.  For example, if a player provides the necessary items (tools, weapons, seeds, pots, cords, etc.) and key instructions (location of a field to prepare/tend, trap fence to monitor, materials to process, etc.), the resource generator NPC spouse could process through a que of instructions.  For example, a resource generating NPC spouse could contribute to agriculture, hideworking, fishing, food preparation (smoking, salting, drying meat or making flatbread, stews, grinding flour, etc.), hunting, building, monitoring a trap fence, checking traps, making clothes, tools, or weapons, etc..  A resource generator NPC spouse would need to have skills that would affect their ability to perform all of these actions/functions. 

The entire purpose of a resource generator NPC spouse would be to expand a players skills set, provide a companion in shared activities, and/or help reduce the tedium that can occur when surviving in URW (i.e. division of labor).   I can imagine scenarios where the resource generator NPC spouse...

• prepares the soil, plants seeds, harvests crops, threshes for grain/seeds, grinds flour
• skins a carcass, cleans the skin, tans furs and leather
• butchers and smoke the meat or cooks any of the other food recipes
• prepares logs, blocks of wood, boards, etc.
• builds a wooden building or kota if the player outlines the walls and doors
• follows a circuit of traps, or a trap fence, to collect the trapped animals, reset the traps
• being sent out into a delineated geography and asked to harvest all the berries or herbs of a given type
• wanders a geographical area to actively hunt
• joins the player and sets traps in a designated place
• joins the player on an active hunt
• follows the player to a village to trade and carry items
• etc.

I've said too much...

Option 1 would be easier and provide for "end game" objectives.
Option 2 would require the player to spend a great deal of time managing the NPC spouse.

[PALU]

As Mati256 I find it a nice thing, but quite a few other things would be higher up on the agenda.

caius made a nice argument regarding the spouse's behavior, but I don't think "trophy wives" were a thing at the time. I certainly have nothing against resources spent on wooing and general upkeep resource consumption as such, but I'd definitely expect the spouse to be useful (but I assume players could deliberately refrain from making use of the spouse's capabilities to create a trophy spouse).

As mentioned, a good spouse system would probably need to build on a number of other new mechanics, such as e.g. tasks requiring, or at least greatly simplified through, the use of two people (with the ability to use hired help for those jobs. However, the hermit play style shouldn't be sacrificed in the process).
Spouse and spouse family quests/demands could improve things, but that in itself would probably be built on a broader village relation framework where messengers would seek you out to make requests rather than wait for you to show up (and the spouse would presumably ask to see the relatives from time to time, for instance). Obviously, village requests would only happen if you're on sufficiently good terms with them, and possibly only after accepting some kind of status (again, to protect the loner play style).

What I think this boils down to is an aimed chaotic development process where systems supportive of the family goal might be given a slightly higher priority than those not leading towards that goal, resulting in such processes being worked on a little more frequently than others.

Turning your homestead into a single character village with a spouse NPC inhabitant no more reactive than current village NPCs wouldn't really achieve much, in my view (in fact, turning it into a "real" village through the recruiting of "settlers" would probably be less boring).

Obviously, the above are my opinions, and not any kind of objective truth.

[Mati256]

Nice post caius, the spouce should definitly be a resource generator but a resource drain at the same time. For example she could prepare two meals a day but she would eat two meals too. So you are consuming twice as many resources but you are not spending the time cooking.

[Privateer]

 I too think that before marriage there is much AI that could/should be filled out.

For NPC's to take a more lively role in the game, imo they need to "act" more like players. Some being friendly, some devious, some trusting, some dishonest and some just down right evil.

 NPC's could/should serve as better wealth sinks. Consuming received foods, "using" /removing traded items, or reselling items at a profit.

 For bonding/marriage there needs to be some overarching danger/human drama/risk to NPC's;
You come home and a stranger has taken up with your spouse and cleaned you out.
A wild animal has attacked your spouse and you must care for them.
Your kid gets lost in the woods.
etc.

 Possibly even look at enslavement vs bonding (if this is even historically correct).

This is a deep well topic

[JEB Davis]

While I usually don't vote the middle choice in polls because the vote doesn't sway it one way or another, this time I did. Here is the reason: Sami has been developing the game very nicely for a quarter-century and I'm constantly impressed with each new version.

Implementing spouses sounds like a massive task that includes many other game developments, the biggest of which, IMHO, is an A.I. that can play like a complex bot in order to make a believable spouse. Because a spouse that behaves like village NPCs wouldn't really be worth it.

Keep up the good work with your own priorities, Sami :-)

[DfDevadander]

I had to vote the middle option as well, and for much the same reason as JEB Davis chose to vote that way. I would love to see spouses and eventual offspring in the future, and I agree that if it is to be implemented then it should come after some AI updates so that we don't have the old problem of "It's a nice car to look at, but it won't run without fuel!"

The work that has been done to this game (read:life-changing experience) over the years is wonderful, all of it being due to the dedication and passion that Sami and Erkka have for this work of theirs, and I am more than happy to simply sit back and watch it grow organically at their behest

[Mati256]

I should also add that I'm not fond of the idea of children. I haven't had any character lasting an amount of years that he could raise adult children, and doubt that many players have.
And I don't think that the excuse that now characters will last longer because the incentive of children has any validity.

[Wulfgaran]

I like the idea of having a partner and children.

I think it would be a nice extra challenge to need to provide extra food, clothing etc for children.


I like the idea of being able to continue the game playing as your oldest son, once the father dies.
(Aging of characters would be interesting.)

Depending how well fed your children are affects their starting stats when they come of age, so keep their bellies full so they become strong and smart.


Its obviously a huge thing, not just a little tweak, but id love to be able to one day create my own village.


trading/buying weapons and armour for all the men. Setting tasks for each person.


Arranging groups of 2-3 men to go hunting. Give them weapons, and a few days worth of food. They go hunting and return a few days later with meat and unprocessed skins.


Have the boys go fishing - returns X fish per day.

the women can make clothing and smoke meat etc. Not automatically but something along the lines of handing a elk fur to a woman and having a "'what do you want me to to with this"'menu.

select - make cord.

Hand her a 100 cuts of elk - Please smoke this


A decent village would need alot of meat per day. Alot of clothing, alot of weapons, and many many many logs to build houses. You would have to scale up slowly.

The same way we hire assistants you could also offer a "'would you like to come stay in our village"' option.

"'im sorry, it doesnt look like you have room for me" (please build more houses)



Its fun to think about but i guess it kinda turns into AGE OF EMPIRES if you go too far down this path.

[Plotinus]

When marriage is added, I would like gay marriage to be a thing too - or at least partnerships of some kind where two people would go off and live together and make a life together.

[mosshobo]

I don't know if an AI to hand over all gameplay to is something good, so please make it generate more gameplay and more content as an addition to the gameplay.

I would not use my AI wife much and tell her to do this and do that, build that and so on.
I do that myself.

I'd like an AI that lives in the cottage and do things with their own initiative.
If she have skills for agriculture and we have seeds and tools in our cottage I want her to use them on her own, surprise me!!  Be alive! Make own decisions and don't ask me about what to do.

Plant them seeds wherever she think is a good spot.
Tend to the animals whenever she think it's a good idea.
Start a fire and cut some firewood at will and so on.
Eat food.

Occasionally I can tell her to tan a hide or cook something up but she will reply that she will do it, or often she reply she are bussy with the other work and will only do it if she have time. (High chance the requested work don't get done by her any time soon, or at all.)

Don't be too predictable and boring, when I come home she is not there, she somewhere else hunting, fishing or whatever in the woods nearby or 7km away only to return to nightfall or the next day.
Often failed hunt or only a small animal so she don't carry the player.

When she comes home, make it possible to engage in some generated conversation about what shes been doing.
A little story about her hunting, fishing, or any activity, maybe it failed or was successful and what she brought home and that she bruised her leg when falling down from a slope tracking the wounded animal.

And make the AI consume as much food as the player, or even more.  So it's not always an easy task to keep the family feed during the winter.

Also make possible problems that can happen, so everything is not always easy as long as we have food.
Make it possible she get wounded, sick and need help.
Make it possible shes get robbed and lose gear.
Make it possible she craft worthless bent arrows or ruin a hide while tanning.
Make her sink the punt in the river by accident.
Make her waste arrows and resources in a hunt without any gain.
Make the player feel, the pain, a marriage also brings along with all the goodies!

[Plotinus]

@mosshobo yes! I want all of those things.

I am one of the players who remembers how marriage was implemented back in the day, before it was removed, and one thing i didnt like about it was the vending machine approach to getting a wife: if you put a lot of gifts in + put the right magic words in then eventually you get a wife. i would like it if sometimes an NPC approached me and tried to make me their spouse or sometimes I approached an NPC and no amount of gifts would work because they just weren't interested in me or sometimes it seemed to work for a while and then they changed their mind or found somebody else to be interested in or went off to marry a njerpez or whatever.

I want to sometimes ask my wife to do something and she says no or she says "I am in the middle of doing this other thing, can it wait?" or sometimes she asks me to do something. I want to take her with me to a village and have her point out some items she wants to buy or to say she wants to go on a trip to visit her family in Reemi do i want to come and then even if I don't then she says ok i'll be back in a month cya.

[GiTiB]

I am a bit afraid it would turn the game community a bit weird as seen in different games that deal with such features such as stardew valley, rimworld... Maybe a  mariage that does not say its name would be enough, lifetime companion? A way to hire both genders as companions would do the trick, a little love for all these village maiden that are useless as for now.

[Kolmya]

I am a bit afraid it would turn the game community a bit weird as seen in different games that deal with such features such as stardew valley, rimworld... Maybe a  mariage that does not say its name would be enough, lifetime companion? A way to hire both genders as companions would do the trick, a little love for all these village maiden that are useless as for now.

When are we getting our roguelike survival waifu-simulator game?