Warning: this is rather lengthy, but a good read for ideas!
Down below is a large catalog of ideas for the awakening stage, starting a very long series of ideas. We start with the emergence of your alien species’ civilization, greatly inspired by the struggle humans had in prehistory so long ago. I will try to make a part 2 of 5 focused on more of what the awakening stage could look like based on the example images I’ll give.
Overview
Just like how the current idea for Thrive is, I’m going to agree on the idea that Awakening begins with once you achieve sentience, but I don’t agree how you can instantly start using things like sharp rocks shortly after. I believe if we don’t want to make the mistake spore made 18 years back of making the tribal stage to basic and the civilization stage to short, it needs to be more advanced gameplay rather than small minigames. The Awakening stage should open up to something similar to survival Minecraft, but a lot less about the building and crafting part, and heavy emphasis on the surviving part. The Awakening stage should mirror the Paleolithic stage when humanity really started to take off. Instead of tools, the awakening stage should be more inclined of exploration of the area, and over time from one person to inviting many more, you can form a tribe and advance into tool-making. Many reading may be wondering, why start with tools much later if you want FUN gameplay? To that, I say human settlements weren’t started by a single person in the paleolithic, it was started by many. Besides it also introduces an adventure sub-genre to keep those types of players hooked into the game between the transition of survival as an animal in the Aware Stage to real-time strategy in the society stage. A slow transition would keep the game intriguing and doesn’t lead to sudden change.
Parts:
Early Awakening Stage - Paleolithic (From sentience to the invention of microliths, smaller stone tools which were useful)
Stated in the overview, the Paleolithic would focus on survival, similar to the aware stage, but focuses on the more social aspect. The social aspect would be important because, similar to here on Earth, alien societies would need to come together to form major settlements. The paleolithic would start as more of exploration based and overtime changes into a game on building settlements. One thing is that I would like to separate settlements and Society Centers. Yes, Society Centers are settlements, but it isn’t always vise versa. In the early parts of the Awakening stage, seasonal settlements or nomadic camps following animals for key resources is what was occurring. For example, humans followed animals such as bison to get their hides, meat, and even bones for many different things in daily life. Alien societies would probably be similar to this, and once you develop to having a big enough group, you can go on to form a tribe, starting off semi- nomadic. Nearing the middle to end, tools would become available and parts of the tech editor would be unlocked for your group, specifically the ability to form tech objects. Technologies like the ability to create tools would be hidden and wouldn’t present to you how to unlock them until record keeping, which is when the society stage starts. Besides tools, the culture editor* would be unlocked, but still hidden, similar to the tech editor. Once your tribe grows large enough, you can start to design cultural traditions, which can be caused based on what you do and what your focus is.
Along with socialization, domestication can happen over time, with both plants and animals. Other technologies can include tanning of animal hides and fire making. Along with unlocking technologies, you’d combat other similar species within your genus, and your goal is to either eliminate or lessen the other species within the genus, similar to Homo Sapiens and Homo Neanderthalensis.
Down below is a list of possible technologies in the paleolithic that can be used. Keep in mind that these technologies are unlocked by carrying out tasks which accidentally lead to the unlocking of these hidden techs.
Lower Paleolithic technology:
Cave paintings - unlocks cultural editor
Basic Tools - unlocks tech object editor
Foraging - unlocked by your tribe beginning foraging
Hunting - unlocked by hunting a certain number of animals, leading to better mechanisms to build a tech object
Socialization - ends lower paleolithic, leading to the creation of tribal settlements that are nomadic
Middle Paleolithic
Structures - temporary structures similar to tipis can be made
early domestication - allows for domestication to start to take place
Early culture - allows for more cultural traditions
Fire - allows for cooking more healthy and better food
seasonal settlements - ends middle paleolithic, leading to settlements that could last up to half a year
Upper paleolithic
Boats - leads to travel across streams and rivers, and it greatly reduces chances of drowning
Chiseling - leads to slightly better tool techniques in object editor
Religion - boosts work and morale by allowing you to create religious cultural traditions
Advanced domestication - makes domestication of plants and animals faster
Better Clothing - allows for better survival in extreme environments
Microlith tools - ends upper paleolithic, leads to more versatile tools
Mid Awakening Stage - Mesolithic (From microliths to the neolithic revolution which introduced farming and led to more permanent settlements)
By the beginning of the Mesolithic, your tribe has advanced and became more of a range when it came to tools. A technology on better tools would be unlocked and tools have become more versatile, leading to fishing, foraging, and hunting to all be viable options, each being much easier with the introduction of larger societies and tools. The Mesolithic serves more of a transition than a new stage, more of the change from industrial to space, more subtle and not too extreme rather than the Microbe Stage to Multicellular which completely changes everything you did so far. In this stage, you have either become the most influential species in your genus or have died out. The culture editor becomes more important in-game as in the Mesolithic, cultures start to form with other tribes similar to yours start to show more similarities with each other than with someone on the other side of a large river. Down below is a map of what this could look like. From now to the end of the Awakening stage, we shall be focusing on the purple(bottom-center), maroon(right-center), and yellow(very bottom) cultures. Different strategies in the gameplay could be you could aggressively spread near water routes, and be more inclined to fishing, or be more passive like purple and maroon where you stick near the coast, but not afraid to go more inland. Now the parameters of maroon and purple are rather different. Maroon is more inland, blocked to the northern coast by the pink culture. Maroon is also more dry than purple. Maroon reflects more of the Sahel, with shrubs here and there and flat grassland for miles while purple is more like what its is by the Nile river delta, rich and fertile.
Each province marked is broken up by much smaller streams, rifts, or small mountain ranges, geological features overall. Cultures can break up over time mainly because of distance, leading to cultures getting technologies slower, faster, or a different order entirely. This can be mirrored in Thrive by based on distance to the start of the culture, the farther the province is, the more likely the culture would branch off. It could be caused by a drought in one area, leading to a cultural tradition unlocked exclusively to a single area, greatly increasing the chance.
While on the topic of cultures, the Maroon and purple cultures still come from the same culture group which still holds similar cultural traditions, but still different in some ways, relative to how Irish is a Celtic culture, in the same group as Scottish, but still different. This also could scale down into sub-cultures, which share extremely similar cultural traditions, but might be slightly different. For example, one half of the culture could enjoy yams while the other enjoy carrots. Lastly these subcultures can be broken down into smaller tribes, who each can have different social hierarchies, or they just have a certain dish that makes them different, just like how People from Dublin, Ireland, and people from Leinster, Ireland may share different likes and dislikes.
Overall, cultural ties become more important in the Mesolithic than before, since cooperation may be important in case of occurrences of natural disasters or wars between other cultures, you’ll need a strategy to get certain traditions in areas to grow cooperation.
Traditions could also have buffs in hunting, fishing, or just techniques in general to either get better or worse in certain areas. Traditions could also be for cosmetic purposes, such as maybe a certain type of clothing or a certain like for a certain plant.
The Mesolithic would end with the neolithic revolution though, once enough technology is unlocked and overtime, your tribe/ culture becomes more settled. The Mesolithic could end with the beginning of a Society Center, unlocking the Nation Editor, which was originally hidden with only the cultural editor enabled, and the society, government, and economy sections to be unlocked.
Mesolithic tech ideas
Trading
Ranged Weapons
Component tools
Agriculture - ends Mesolithic
Late Awakening - Early Neolithic (From agriculture to the invention of pottery[Which in turn is a major milestone because pottery enabled record keeping])
The Neolithic introduces major changes in gameplay since it was the Neolithic era where on Earth, human civilization truly took off.
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Gameplay
Once you end the Mesolithic, Strategy mode is unlocked, and now you can convert your nomadic tribe into a permanent society center. You have to protect your city state from military threats, economic collapse, and abandonment as you test if you are able to go from a simple tribe into a bustling empire. It begins with farming which makes it possible to stay in one area rather than the need to move around. You leave from being a single organism into a small nation. The Neolithic marks much change in gameplay because permanent settlements are the main reason for most strategy from now on. Timescales continue to shrink, to half decades, but still time on the yearly scale passes by rather fast. Below, the neolithic is broken down into more detail. -
The Editors
2A. Nation Editor
2AA. Improved Culture Section
Before I go into detail, society from culture should be rearranged on what falls into each. Things like religion or language should go into culture, and then influence other societal things such as ethics found in the society section rather than those being found into the cultural section. The culture section should be for Noosphere related things. With that out of the way, the Culture section would be slightly revamped by cultural traditions starting to become less accessible as timescales start to shrink from first, millennia to centuries, and into decades. Cultures would start to play into society from this point forth, enabling which trade is possible, which is not, what your starting religion is like, and all that. Traditions could still be unlocked, but it would take time, and now traditions start to be created by you rather than it just happening, like you can have decisions where you could design a new game, design clothing, language and religion, which all fall under here. Religion becomes a centerpiece, especially as we enter the Society Stage which I envision could be from the Post-pottery Neolithic all the way until the Industrial Revolution where the Industrial Stage beginning, which in turn shrinks the timescale even farther, but that’s a concept to revisit for another time. I envision Religion to be mainly for morale to boost production in your nation, as a tool to align with other nations, or the opposite, a reason for war. Religion could also be used in the government section if your nation were to be a theocratic type government where then, religion could become very important since it would determine your very laws. Language is another, but more cosmetic one that would still be impactful in communication, especially in the Late Awakening Stage to the Mid Society Stage. Language groups could work similar to culture groups where as the closer the language is, the easier communication is, leading to less need for interpreters. A fun concept would be that to speak with a nation with a different language, you could have a chance of the opposite option from happening due to misunderstanding, such as you ask for an alliance, but the other nation embargoes you. In the long run, depending on your strategy, the culture section could be more cosmetic or extremely important. Below are some ideas for how the culture section works.
Tradition examples: Employment and Economy: Rural based, Ocean based, Highly Religious, Hard workers | Cultures and Society: Xenophobia, Multiculturalism, Individualist, Collectivist | Ethics and Values: Warrior culture, pacifist culture, rebellious(anarchist) culture, patriotic, male-based, female-based
Religion Types: Monotheistic, Polytheistic
2AB. Government Section
The Government section is going to be rather limited in the Awakening stage because the society starts off less focused on government, but once you unlock a technology for social hierarchies, then government would become much more important. Government could be more inclined into religion, similar to the Aztecs or Ancient Egypt or more democratic based as in Ancient Athens, but since it's an evolution game, it's completely up to you. Forms of government could also even be democracy, as we saw with the Ancient Greeks, but in the end, you still have to balance the religious leaders, the people, the nobility, and the army, which could turn on you at any time. The government at this stage would be mainly about keeping an early civilization thrive, and would start off more based on the richer people, and over time, based on your decisions, transform into a democracy, or who knows, a kleptocracy. Below are some further ideas into how the early government section could work.
Legislation: Instead of types, it is more of the power and roles of the type of legislation
Upper House: May vary
Lower House: May vary
No Legislation:
Types of legislation
Legislative Responsibility
Reviews ~ Double checks the laws
Amends ~ Adds changes to the laws
Initiates ~ Starts the laws
Representation
Region based ~ Set amount for each region
Population based ~ set amount depending on region's population
Selection method
Voted ~ Appointed by the voters
Appointed ~ Appointed by the leaders
Hereditary ~ Decided by family roots, born into position
Tribal Council ~ Elders of the tribe
Leaders
The system of the decision of appointing the leader the leader can either be via election, competitive, or autocratic, but you could blend different forms of government.
Election: Once democracy is discovered, the leader can be picked by a people group through an election where people cast their votes. It can come in the following forms
Direct Democracy ~ If the balance of power of the people is a certain percent greater than the Leaders.
Parliamentary Democracy ~ If the balance of power of the legislation is a certain percent greater than the Leaders.
Landed/Wealth Voting ~ The wealthy and/or if they own more land receive more votes than others.
Aristocratic Democracy ~ Similar to early Venice, Aristocrats vote among themselves to determine a leader, but also the people could have power, just less votes
Census Suffrage, which can come in the following
By Race ~ Only people of a certain race can vote.
By Literacy ~ Only literate people can vote.
By Gender ~ Only a certain gender can vote.
Universal Suffrage ~ Everyone can vote
Council Republic ~ Different groups of workers elect representatives to represent their work, basically a bigger version of a labor union
Autocratic:
Civilian Dictatorship ~ A dictator forced into the power, usually the head of a one-party state, usually totalitarian or authoritarian, occurs if the leader slider for the balance of power exceeds >80
Military Dictatorship ~ Caused by an event when the military takes full control of the government
Absolute Monarchy ~ When a person named a monarch is born into a family and the leadership roll is passed down.
Elective Monarchy ~ When multiple contenders the throne from different aristocratic families, and one contender is elected for a certain amount of time(Can be set to permanent).
Theocracy ~ When a single person is leader due to the laws of the faith which is very impactful in everyday life
Oligarchic:
Aristocracy ~ One wealthy family or multiple rule over a nation.
Plutocracy ~ The wealthiest individuals rule over a nation
Technocracy ~ The smartest and most reasonable individuals rule over a nation
Theocratic Oligarchy ~ A council of the religious clergy rule over the nation
One-Party State ~ A single political party always wins the election and rule over the nation
Competitive:
Militaristic ~ The most militaristic is appointed(can lead to a military dictatorship)
Wealthiest ~ The richest candidate is appointed
Honorable ~ The most popular candidate is appointed
Diplomatic ~ The most diplomatic candidate is appointed
Tribal ~ The elders serve, based on age and how wise they are.
Power
Balance of Power
The power of each fundamental part of the government, adds up to a 100
Legislation: If too high, could trigger an oligarchy
People: If too high, the nation becomes an anarchy
Leaders: The higher, the more autocratic the government is
Distribution of Power: A slider that determines the power between the regional and nation governments, will equal to a 100 total
Cities: The individual society centers
Regions: The regions of the nation, multiple society centers
National: The central Government
Decentralized Nation: The cities have much power, most visible during the neolithic-antiquity where cultures are multiple city states, but in some ways function as a single entity
Confederation: Regions have greatest power, the regions behave like separate entities, but also resemble a central nation, but regions have many more liberties
Federation: The regions receive some powers from the central government, but overall, the nation is a full entity
Unitary: The regions have no power, all power is in the central government
Autonomous regions: If the nation is unitary or a federation, each region has an amount of autonomy desire, which can be bolstered, and upgraded from region to autonomous region which functions in a federation how a region is in a confederation and as a region as if a federation if unitary.
Foreign Policy: This part would mainly be based around relations found in games such as Humankind by Amplitude studios of Sid Meier’s Civilization by Firaxis Games where you can have relations with other city states and form alliances with them. This part is rather influential, but how Thrive could pull it off is up to debate, but I think a basic relations tab and different things such as raid, war, or align with other nations is very possible. The Neolithic foreign policy would be rather basic as interactions would be far and rare. For example, Germanic tribes didn’t communicate and plan major attacks until the Romans made it their only option, which was still mostly planned individually rather than all the tribes coming together all the time.
Domestic Policy: These are the laws for the people, below features possible laws
Trade System – System on how trade is done
Land Ownership – Law deciding how land is owned
Taxation – How taxes are distributed and how much
Free Speech – Laws deciding on the rights of free speech
Labor Rights – Rights of workers
Rights of Women/Men – Legal regulations on how the other sex is treated in society
Welfare – Government assistance for the income deprived.
Immigration – Controlling the flow of people.
Slavery – People as property(You usually want to ban slavery as soon as possible, but could vary in difficulty depending on cultural traditions)
Labor Associations – The law that dictates the rights and activities of labor association.
Note: Some of these laws could be blocked from being accessible until you actually discover them, for example, nobody had trade unions in 5000 BC, same applies to forms of government.
2AC. Economy Section
The economy section is mainly for determining trade (resources can be very different in needs based on planet generation an/or evolution of key plants and animals over time) and deciding how money is exchanged along with currency, and overall, the science of commerce which can range from media networks, in newspaper or other to how trading works with other nations. It would start off basic as the Neolithic is mainly city states. The economic policy is either primitive or traditionalist and the government control is rather limited. It would become more important once your culture enters the Medieval Era when technology really starts to take off. In the meantime, the Neolithic economy is mainly about trading with other city states to get food during drought and to learn about distant lands. Below are ideas that apply from the Neolithic all the way until the end of the Medieval era which will be discussed another time.
Economic Freedom*
Slider: 0-100
0-19 | Command Economy ~ The government controls most of the economy and decides on how to distribute the wealth
20-39 | Colonial Economy ~ The government is specifically for exploitation with little economic liberties for entrepreneurs.
40-59 | Interventionist Economy ~ The government only intervenes when necessary to keep the economy in balance
60-79 | Laissez-faire ~ The government doesn’t interfere at all with the economy.
80-99 | Traditional Economy ~ People form their own economy, and the government has little control over trading, which is carried out by merchants instead.
100 | Anarchist Economy ~ People can do whatever they want in the economy.
Economic Policy
Primitive ~ No economic system
Capitalist ~ Designed for competition between entrepreneurs promoting increase in economy
Communist ~ Designed for the workers to do work and they are all provided with the same amount
Colonial ~ Designed for extreme exploitation of a land
Anarchist ~ Designed for no rules on economy and it is up to the people
Feudal ~ Peasants work for lords in turn for protection from enemies and shelter
Traditionalist ~ Economy is based in localized areas also known as guilds where the workers work mainly to help each other by doing their respective jobs.
Education*
No Schools
Apprenticeship Schools
Religious Schools
Private Schools
State Owned Schools
Public Schools
Media
Media Types*:
Gossip ~ Can have a wide variety of effects
News ~ Neutral form, can be for local, or national based on things from weather to politics
Propaganda ~ Has a chance of either angering people or high morale increase
Entertainment ~ Slightly boosts happiness
Educational ~ Increases literacy
Media Circulation*:
Level 1: Word of Mouth
Level 2: Community Board
Level 3: Printed
2AD. Society Section
This section is rather limited overall in the Neolithic and would mostly be concerned about ethics and values of your city state. It is rather basic starting off with mainly entertainment made by the people rather than cultural practices which you could fund for money or make a complete ban on a certain practice.
2B. Tech Editor
The Tech Editor would mainly stay the same, but the Awakening stage ends with pottery, which in turn leads to record keeping, opening up the visible technology web which was hidden, and you were blind about all other technologies before. Important technologies include irrigation and animal husbandry in the early Neolithic Revolution which is when civilization settles down. Tech objects transition from basic tools to complicated designs such as housing, work, and more. Besides structures, you could also design vehicles such as animals leashed to a cart. The tech editor advances greatly as now you have more viable options when designing such tech objects in the transition to the society stage.
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Early Militaries and the importance of provinces
3A. Military
The Military would be pretty basic in the final stages of the awakening stage, as it is mainly composed of levies rather than professionals. The military would mainly do raids to gather resources by force from rival city states, similar to Athens and Sparta, but much less advanced. The military would mostly be for protecting your city state from being destroyed and more. Militaries would be stationed on Military Centers, found inside your society center where you could manage your military and also assign different weapons made in the tech editor. Your military can also survey an area, and can be found as basic navies too.3B. Province Mechanics
Provinces would be broken up by geographical features and only one Society Center can be found per province, and if one is built in the same current province, it will splinter off into it’s own new province, but would by highly unrecommended to build too close because the other nearby city state could raid and dismantle yours. Each province is then part of regions which usually are drawn by cultural borders based on if a culture is inside of a certain province. Along with there being only one society center per province, you could also have up to 5 tribes in one province, each are like a seasonal arrangement of makeshift society centers without armies, or city planning. You could also access the City Editor where you could design either your seasonal tribal establishment or your brand new society center. -
The Society Center
The Society Center would be broken up into different types; tribes, who are like seasonal society centers that are more of a makeshift base for a season than a place of exchanging ideas and settlement. Tribes can go on to become cities, which start off as hamlets and can grow to megalopolises which in turn is determined by population, and welfare in that city. Tribes can convert into society centers by gathering enough technology and growing to a certain population to then become permanent once they have invented farming. Cities, the next type of society center start off as hamlets which are mostly rural, but as population grows and people start going from being farmers to salesmen, doctors, and merchants, it can grow to a town, with a moderate population and distributed jobs. The town can grow into a city where thousands of people live and jobs now vary greatly, increasing the wealth gap, but still promotes development of the economy. Lastly, the cities can become megalopolises, where they are centers of information and greatness, which is basically a huge version of a city. Early society centers could be merchant towns, or seafaring centers, which are instead more for specialized jobs such as a giant port city made for transport or a merchant center for easier trade, similar to merchant towns that once covered the early Arabian peninsula, allowing for trade between merchants from far distances. Each of these society centers branch from tribes and once permanent, can exchange into one another, for example a merchant center could transform into a city if it balances out jobs and removes their focus on trade into for more of living.
Early Neolithic Tech ideas:
Animal Husbandry
Irrigation
Full Domestication
Ruling class - unlocks nation editor
Advanced weapons
Architecture
Pottery/Record Keeping(Not writing) -ends early neolithic
Below are listed some mechanics that could work in the Awakening stage.
Mechanics:
Lifestyle Scale: basically what this is a is a scale based on where you are in game in proximity from changing from nomadic, to seasonal, to permanent
You can get higher based on the technology you’ve unlocked and the population to see how close you are to becoming more permanent.
0-49: Nomadic | This basically means your are still a hunter gatherer culture where you move around from place to place never building big settlements
50-99: Seasonal | Presented when I was talking about tribes, this basically is when you have something like a tribe where you stay there, for example just summer, and then you move somewhere else, constructing semi-permanent settlements. This also allows construction of tribal centers which are like society centers but much more basic and limited when it comes to structures and what the population does overall. still hunter-gatherer.
100: Once the player’s culture has progressed enough in making more and more complex tribal centers, the tribal center may become a society center making a permanent settlement where employment of small groups is now possible, and the society editor is unlocked, a sort of editor before strategy mode and the nation editor but after organism mode. You can start to design your city and employ.
Tech Editor: In this editor, you can design tech objects such as structures and/or tools for your culture/nation. Examples are things like axes, houses, and even cars. The main sections of the tech editor are tools, structure, surface, and systems. This could be used for better tools for building, hunting, and farming. This is similar to the organism editor where you design your organism, but this one is based on constructing objects for you to use.
Tribe: A tribe is an early seasonal settlement once your lifestyle gets high enough to seasonal, and then you can found tribal center with your tribe, a group of related people. You can have basic buildings such as a shelter, bonfire, and storage area among other things.
Era: A time period or part of a stage, specifically the awakening-space stages.
Levies: Basic soldiers drafted from society centers to ransack other small settlements
Wilderness: The territory remains widely unexplored and currently inaccessible.
Province: Once at the early neolithic, the map is procedurally generated into provinces, little sections divided by rivers and other geographical features which could fracture if more than 1 society center is build, but multiple tribes are allowed too.
Domestication: A tab showing your progress to basic domestication where you have to get a certain amount of plant, animal, and other categories to progress and research irrigation along with a requirement for unlocking record keeping.
Raiding: You can send out small groups to attack other tribes and society centers to collect resources and deter others from reaching permanent settlements.
Ideas for Tools
Axe
Pickaxe
Shovel
Slingshot
Spear
Sharp Rock
Ideas for structures
House ~ You can house people here
Bonfire ~ You can cook food to reduce sickness risk and also keep warmth
Longhouse ~ The administrative center for a tribe
Tipi ~ Lower grade house for nomadic peoples
Workshop ~ You can make tools made in the Tech Editor here
Farm ~ You can grow produce here
Stables ~ You can house animals here
Anyways, that’s all to it, and I hope you enjoy some of my ideas, and I will try to get part 2/5 as soon as possible. I tried to incorporate a lot of the ideas included for Thrive found on the developer wiki, but changed where a lot of events happened based on what happened in real life, and a detailed experience since that is Thrive’s goal, and I wish y’all good luck in programing this amazing game!
Below is the image mentioned before:
