This would also be a good topic to discuss in the awakening stage section, but I found it would be way more relevant here.
Anyways, I know little of biology but I’m “addicted in history”, specially pre-historical history (including pre-columbian history here) and there are two questions that have always fascinated me: could “advanced civilization” (in lack of any other term that could be used and understood with ease) develop amongst nomadic cultures? and could “advanced civilizations” develop amongst cultures that use little to no agriculture? Also, a third question: can societes that do not use any kind of agriculture become sedentary (and be stable societes at that)?
I know the answer for the third question is yes, there have been sizable (a few hundred, at most thousand people) societes like that at least in the British Isles and the North American West Coast, where food sources are/were quite abundant. I do not know the answer for the other two though, but I do think it should be possible and amazing to see the possibility of having various combinations of these two features (nomadism and agriculture) leading to the development of civilization, as well as the consequences for each of these societes. Here are a few ideas:
Agriculture based sedentary societes: Basically what we have today. Would allow for larger populations, but would also be heavily dependent on sucessful harvests and droughts could lead to famine and, eventually, the need for getting resources from other nations (which ends up meaning war in many cases). Still, they should be more stable internally, as not having everyone move around all the time can lead to an easier development of more complex societes.
Hunting-gathering sedentery societes: Small societes and heavilly dependent on regions which have abundant resources (like river estuaries filled with fish). Very stable societies though, as their food supply shouldn’t vary a lot (except for climate change and possibly other natural disasters, but I wouldn’t be able to tell which). The abundance of resources may also lead to a lack of interest in military and economic developments.
Hunting-gathering nomadic societes: Possibly the smallest kind of societes. In real life they are societes that either did not know agriculture or refused to use it for some reason. In general, their nomadic life-style would come from a need to get resources, as staying in one place would/could deplete the resources in that area. They would be more stable economically than agricultural sedentary societes, as they would have less people to feed and a more predictable and continuous food source. They would be less stable politically though, as the lack of resources could lead to raiding other factions/war with them and having everyone in your country moving around all the time shouldn’t help internally either.
Semi-nomadic societes: A highly adaptable kind of society, which knows agriculture but also relies greatly on hunting-gathering and moves it’s population occasionaly, depending on the availability of resources. I guess they would be a mix of all the other ones, not being very stable neither too unstable in any aspect whatsover.
Sorry for the very long topic. There’s a lot more of stuff that I would like to discuss, but some of it would be too complex for the game (at least for it’s full release), like gender roles, and other things would be nice to discuss, but only later on perhaps, like the effects nomadism/sedentarism can have on the view that a culture has on propierty.
