An attempt at mapping using economics.

[Redrobes]

Ah I see Dwarf Fortress is not a type of issue but a specific package. I have been looking at it and indeed it is somewhat along the same lines. I think where they want it to be *is* the same thing except that they haven't got there. Here is a link to their dev list:

http://www.bay12games.com/dwarves/dev.html

Now unless I am mistaken almost all of that is not complete. Am I reading that right ? So if that is the case then they have not got it such that people will plant crops, harvest them, possibly eat them or mill them and cook into bread. So these are the things that I would like to tackle first. I'm not getting the idea from their write up that they are using economics as well. For instance does the price of crops or bread drop when there is a surplus of them ? Also I can see more similarities where you get henchmen. This I would like to model but not in the same way. It looks like you get them somehow in their game whereas I would like for people to hire henchmen because they are cheap and offer services in the same way that people will trade for goods and they will use a paranoia or neurotics desire factor and they wealth sum to drive their need for more protection. So yeah, certainly parallels but I don't know enough about what they are doing to see whether its the same thing. It seems subtly different to me based on the things they are concentrating on. It seems like they are going at it from the point of view of a game whereas I am looking to make the map and list of people in it. I don't want it to be like a game. I would like it so that you enter the base map in and then let it rip for a few hours and come back to see a fully populated built up city with all the professions and people listed for it. Practically no user input at all. Then you can RPG in it to your hearts content afterward.

Anyone played it a lot ? Can anyone summarize if it does indeed have people planting, growing, farming, building etc ?

[MarcPolo]

You might look into academic use of agent-based programming, which has been used to understand the ecology of
human settlement during the medieval warm period in what became the US southwest, think Mesa Verde and the
Anasazi peoples. It treats the map as a productive surface of varying qualities, and set loose a small number of
agents that behave like a family of paleo Native Americans: gather food, fuel, build, garden, age, reproduce and
split up when a locality becomes too crowded. As I recall, there is specialized Linux software to host this kind of programming.

[Redrobes]

As much as I very much appreciate the new info its taken the shine off my new results which I was quite pleased about.

If I set my newly spawned human male (Called Andy) to be healthy but thirsty, hungry, without rest or wealth and run it up then it gives:

Character Andy would like to be drinking water.
They need the following:
1.000000 Bucket(s) of at least 50.000000% quality Fresh water
  which is available by moving 9,19 to 19,29.
  and it is free for the taking.

If I make him less thirsty then:

Character Andy would like to be eating harvested crops.
They need the following:
1.000000 Sack(s) of at least 50.000000% quality Harvest
  which would be available right here.
  if they start by planting seed.

If I make him less hungry then:

Character Andy would like to be resting in shack.
They need the following:
1.000000 Shack(s) of at least 100.000000% quality Wooden Shack
  which would be available right here.
  if they start by chopping down trees.

and if rested then:

Character Andy would like to be building a shack.
They need the following:
1.000000 Arm load(s) of at least 100.000000% quality Timber
  which would be available right here.
  if they start by chopping down trees.

So this is all ok for the time being. In the last case you can see that he wants to build a shack which starts by chopping down trees and misses some stages like planing the wood into planks. So its doing a search through the possible transactions forming possible paths through it. So whilst he cant build the shack in one go he knows thats what he wants to do and how to start doing it. Its like this that the language should really be declarative like GnuMake or prolog. All through the paths its tracking the costs involved at each stage and trying to work out the best course of action based on his needs and desires. So hopefully soon ill have him walking to the water and therefore generating a bit of path.

As you can see its looking quite likely that as soon as he has taken a drink from the river he will plant crops right on the waters edge. Im not unhappy about that since you usually camp next to a stream and I see no reason why thats not a bad move. Of course he will have a longer trek to the forest if he wants wood but so be it. We will probably find that he builds his hut right next to the wood and ferry between his crops & water and his shack and the wood. Those building closer are probably going to be more productive.