I'm not actually quite sure it is needed to have the same level of technology anyway. Mind you, technological differences are often determined by many factors. Among these factors are the history of the culture in question. A culture which has a less violent history and has worked together more often will have more advanced tech. But, that doesn't mean that all cultures with less violence will have more advanced tech. There are many things that have to be considered when looking at tech levels. We will always have varied tech levels. Just because some people have a higher tech level at the beginning doesn't mean that they will have a higher tech level in the future. In fact, I would expect the cultures with low tech levels to focus mostly on gaining tech rather than fighting.

As for history, just because it is 4,000 BC doesn't mean that we can't have history. Around 4,000 history is when we first saw written history. Before that, it would have been told orally. The history of our cultures are basically the legends of our people, we aren't even quite sure that the history is exact. I know that the history in my culture is quite possibly only true in the case of the names. Nobody can actually tell where history begins and the stories end.

But, what you have been suggesting is that we should have the same tech level . I can't say I disagree but the tech levels will vary per culture. A war like culture would have developed defensive architecture and weaponry faster. A trade culture would have developed more in the area of trade tech and transports. Our cultures will in not always have the same tech levels as each other as we advance on with this roleplay. Truth is, I would be disappointed if we did have the same tech. It shouldn't be our world's history which effects what level our tech should be because, as Captios said, this is a blank slate. We shouldn't be trying to base our tech levels off the tech levels of our world's cultures at the same time.

DAWNSTAR said
I'm not actually quite sure it is needed to have the same level of technology anyway. Mind you, technological differences are often determined by many factors. Among these factors are the history of the culture in question. A culture which has a less violent history and has worked together more often will have more advanced tech. But, that doesn't mean that all cultures with less violence will have more advanced tech. There are many things that have to be considered when looking at tech levels. We will always have varied tech levels. Just because some people have a higher tech level at the beginning doesn't mean that they will have a higher tech level in the future. In fact, I would expect the cultures with low tech levels to focus mostly on gaining tech rather than fighting. As for history, just because it is 4,000 BC doesn't mean that we can't have history. Around 4,000 history is when we first saw written history. Before that, it would have been told orally. The history of our cultures are basically the legends of our people, we aren't even quite sure that the history is exact. I know that the history in my culture is quite possibly only true in the case of the names. Nobody can actually tell where history begins and the stories end. But, what you have been suggesting is that we should have the same tech level . I can't say I disagree but the tech levels will vary per culture. A war like culture would have developed defensive architecture and weaponry faster. A trade culture would have developed more in the area of trade tech and transports. Our cultures will in not always have the same tech levels as each other as we advance on with this roleplay. Truth is, I would be disappointed if we did have the same tech. It shouldn't be our world's history which effects what level our tech should be because, as Captios said, this is a blank slate. We shouldn't be trying to base our tech levels off the tech levels of our world's cultures at the same time.

Dawnstar makes some excellent points. We have definitely focused on different areas in terms of defining our cultures' abilities, which is good AND realistic. Lots of us are going the military route, which is a little worrying for our long-term prospects, but ultimately I foresee a lot of diversity as we begin growing into our civilizations. To a degree, as proto-nations our level of customization is limited at the get-go - I'm less excited by what I've already written for the Jals than by what comes after we begin. Nevertheless, I hope we see these cultures go in some interesting directions.

The concern, I suppose, is not really a matter of technology, which has been the focus of most of the debate so far, but overall progress. Societies' total population and their cultural/technological development go hand in hand; the larger they get, the more need there is for organization, and the increased need for food, shelter, and livelihoods necessitates the aggregation of populations in urban centers. Proximity breeds competition, competition breeds innovation, and so whether you have copper or bronze weapons is more indicative of how big your culture is that anything else. As long as nobody makes us laugh with an extremely precocious Iron Age culture, weapons or cities shouldn'd be concerning us - we will have ample time to build more cities by the time our cultures even encounter each other. It's population that is a concern.

For scale, the real world had a population of as little as seven million people at our starting point; assuming that human development since the Ice Age has been more or less consistent with real world populations, no one of us should have a population of more than a million. Realistically, each of us should begin with less than 100,000 to mirror the populations of pre-urbanized 4th-millennium cultures.

To use Partisan's Tao-Zheng as an example, since he provides us with some pretty accurate population counts, there are approximately 60,000 Chon-worshippers and 30,000 Shen-worshippers - 90,000 total. That puts him at the upper limits of a believable range, but it is still believable. That being said, Partisan might have to keep the challenges of a large population in mind; lots of mouths to feed, y'know.

Everyone else doesn't really provide an idea of how big their population is, and that's probably a good thing. Once the grand experiment begins, they can articulate the specifics of their populations - that's when obviously OP cultures will show their faces. Until then, any concerns about number of cities or whatnot aren't a huge bother to me. Again, it matters much more what happens after the starting whistle than before.

Just some thoughts.

Captios...I really don't want to put a damper on your ambitions, but I'm not getting a very good vibe from "87%." In my experience running and playing in RPs, anything less than a 100% rigid commitment from an admin about to start an RP usually means that they're about to jump ship. It's not that they're lying: They always believe it in the moment, but their optimism doesn't realistically account for the coming reality. The "sudden work load" never goes away like they expect it to.

This generalization might be totally untrue for you, but just saying I'm uneasy. So I would like to have a little reassurance, so I know for sure that this forum is happening. Is there a date by which, unless some horrible accident befalls you or your family, we can expect Update 0? A for realzies no-later-than-this-I-promise date?

I can't help but agree. We're all putting a good deal of effort into this and it'd be nice to know for sure that said effort will be fruitful.

I'm not quite worried with Captios just disappearing. It has been my experience that the GM of nation roleplays don't disappear half as much as their players do. Sometimes we must put our faith into the GM and hope that everything will sort itself out.

AspenIvan said
Captios...I really don't want to put a damper on your ambitions, but I'm not getting a very good vibe from "87%." In my experience running and playing in RPs, anything less than a 100% rigid commitment from an admin about to start an RP usually means that they're about to jump ship. It's not that they're lying: They always believe it in the moment, but their optimism doesn't realistically account for the coming reality. The "sudden work load" never goes away like they expect it to.This generalization might be totally untrue for you, but just saying I'm uneasy. So I would like to have a little reassurance, so I know for sure that this forum is happening. Is there a date by which, unless some horrible accident befalls you or your family, we can expect Update 0? A for realzies no-later-than-this-I-promise date?

Wednesday is by far the absolute date, I'd judge.

87% was simply taking into account the variable amount of time I would have to complete the update.

From what I can tell you now, map is ready; update itself, which isn't really that time-consuming given that I don't write all that much for my own updates anyways, is around half done.

Awesome! :D Thanks for keeping us in the loop.

No problem.

I'm a tad busy with research and various other scholastic projects at the moment, but I'm slowly but surely wrapping the update. Expect to see it this evening PST.

Captiooooooos....where did you goooooooo? :'(

And now it is Thursday. This makes our situation quite awkward.

At this point, having put a lot of effort and hope into this, if Captios isn't going to get this rolling, I would be willing to. If we don't take off in a day or two, I'll be happy to get my own started. Any objections?

Not really, but I would like to wait just a little bit longer for Captios to get back.

AspenIvan said
Captiooooooos....where did you goooooooo? :'(

Hospital.

That is a valid excuse!

D: So sorry Captios! That must be difficult. :(

Please get better, and not just for the convenience of us bothersome roleplayer types :P

So.....what now?

Would very much prefer this not to die.