RTS Neverdark -post ITZ society rebuilding

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

http://www.slitherine.com/news/2797/Neverdark.has.been.announced!

On December 24th 2030 a global blackout occurred. In an instant, the world lost access to electricity, and suddenly so many things that we had taken for granted were gone; the Internet, global communications, electronic devices… all gone.

War emerged as governments fell. Society collapsed upon itself and guns, medicine and food became the new currency. A new world rose from the ashes of the old one, one ruled by bands of raiders, religious cults, bikers gangs, idealistic democratic communes and organisations built around charismatic leaders. Cities became battlegrounds. This is the world of Neverdark!

Real-time simulation strategy gameplay

Neverdark is a pausable real-time strategy game which brings you to a post-apocalyptic world. Following a global blackout, society has collapsed, and it will be your goal to rebuild it.

You lead a group of survivors, and you will need to contend with other factions over the control of the city. Invest resources, expand your influence and take over the city, street by street. Neverdark is as much about politics and social evolution as is about combat.







Real cities and real maps

In Neverdark you play in a fallen and ruined city; you need to rebuild it, adapt it to new needs and conditions and build a new kind of infrastructure. But you are going to play across real urban maps of existing cities; Paris, New York and Tokyo. You will find yourself leading your people and expanding across familiar streets. Take over existing buildings and repurpose them. Perhaps you might want to use the Louvre Museum as the seat of your Black Market, or it might be a good idea to grow your crops on Rooftop Farms in Brooklyn? It is entirely up to you.







Political decisions and events

A new type of society has emerged, one without a central government and your goal is to shape it and see it evolve. React to dynamic random events, which force you to make ethical or political decisions. Pass new laws and edicts, adapting to ever-changing conditions. Adopt new policies, and decide what direction your new society will take.







Tactical combat

One way or another, you need to deal with other groups competing for control of the city. Both you and your enemies have powerful and influential agents at your disposal. You will need to send those specialists across the city to perform political and military tasks. Perhaps sending a Political Agitator in a contested neighbourhood might sway the locals that your cause merits their support? Or perhaps your enemy got there first, and then it might not be a bad idea to send a Sniper to take him out?

Eventually, the streets will run red with blood. Take the fight to the streets, and lead your crews of specialists in exciting turn-based tactical combat missions.

 

[LESS T_T]

Steam page:

 

[thesheeep]

This... is not a bad idea.
Hopefully, the implementation keeps up with it.

 

[Burning Bridges]

Looks like somebody tried his hand with Unity again.

 

[Zarniwoop]

Revolution: The game?

 

[Haba]

Oh gee, this is probably the most naive post-apoc scenario I've ever heard.

"Global Blackout", O.K. some kind of magical event that permanently fries everything? Generators no longer work (because magic?) but all other tech does? Uh huh.

#1. Nuclear plants need electricity for cooling. Do the backup generators at nuclear plants still work (despite the magic?). If not, then uh oh.

-> multiple nuclear meltdowns

#2. Water treatment requires electricity and has no backups. What happens when tens of thousands of sewage gets discharged?

-> water sources in all major cities are contaminated

#3. Food production would stop.

#4. Heating would stop

#5. Medicine production and distribution would stop

etc. etc. etc...

Johnson, chairman of the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs, posed questions to witnesses testifying on Capitol Hill before his committee. He asked R. James Woolsley, chairman of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies and former director of the Central Intelligence Agency, what would happen to society if the electrical grid were to be down for an extended period of time, such as a year or two, following an EMP event?

Woolsley responded, “It’s briefly dealt with in the commission report of [2008]. There are essentially two estimates on how many people would die from hunger, from starvation, from lack of water, and from social disruption. One estimate is that within a year or so, two-thirds of the United States population would die. The other estimate is that within a year or so, 90% of the U.S. population would die. We’re talking about total devastation. We’re not talking about just a regular catastrophe.”

https://www.powermag.com/expect-death-if-pulse-event-hits-power-grid/

In this kind of scenario, reclaiming cities would be the very last thing you'd want to do. You'd be busy tilling the land with hand tools and farming with no fertilizers, no pesticide and at best with horse drawn carts.

Cities would be hellscapes of contamination and disease, filled with the rotting corpses of millions of people.

 

[thesheeep]

In this kind of scenario, reclaiming cities would be the very last thing you'd want to do. You'd be busy tilling the land with hand tools and farming with no fertilizers, no pesticide and at best with horse drawn carts.

Cities would be hellscapes of contamination and disease, filled with the rotting corpses of millions of people.

Right... that must be why there were no cities prior to electricity, because clearly they couldn't function without it nor offer any other advantage that might make you want to reclaim them instead of some village.
Of course you would want to reclaim cities first, simply because most people live there and because their infrastructure is superior, even without electricity. And that is true in every scenario - well, except those that annihilated the city to begin with.
As someone living in a city, you would likely want to leave it, though, immediately after the event happened, for reasons you stated. But you'd also want to return asap.

However, I think this is entirely besides the point.
From how I get it, this isn't immediately after the event, but quite some time after it.
There was already enough time that everything fully collapsed, gangs formed, etc. The "rotting corpses" phase is likely over already.

You are right about the meltdown, of course. But that might just be a point where you'll have to set realism aside for a moment

 

[FritzedProcess]

Right... that must be why there were no cities prior to electricity, because clearly they couldn't function without it nor offer any other advantage that might make you want to reclaim them instead of some village.
Of course you would want to reclaim cities first, simply because most people live there and because their infrastructure is superior, even without electricity. And that is true in every scenario - well, except those that annihilated the city to begin with.
As someone living in a city, you would likely want to leave it, though, immediately after the event happened, for reasons you stated. But you'd also want to return asap.

However, I think this is entirely besides the point.
From how I get it, this isn't immediately after the event, but quite some time after it.
There was already enough time that everything fully collapsed, gangs formed, etc. The "rotting corpses" phase is likely over already.

You are right about the meltdown, of course. But that might just be a point where you'll have to set realism aside for a moment

Of course there were cities before, but water supply and sewage management had different scales and technologies than they do today. Especially the latter. Imagine what will happen when you have millions of people tossing piss and shit from their bedpans out of the window (or people shitting out of the window and falling to their deaths) because the flush toilets do not work anymore, and the water supply is far away and relies on pumps that do not work, and the nearest waterway is heavily polluted so drinking it is a no-no without distilling it first. Cholera epidemics were a thing into the early 20th century.

Or when the cities run out of food because the supply chain relies on technology that does not work anymore.

The thing is that recovering pre-industrial tech would take time that most won't have.

 

[Haba]

Right... that must be why there were no cities prior to electricity, because clearly they couldn't function without it nor offer any other advantage that might make you want to reclaim them instead of some village.
Of course you would want to reclaim cities first, simply because most people live there and because their infrastructure is superior, even without electricity.

What infrastructure? No running water, no electricity, no heating.

Starving hordes will have looted the cities for anything worthwhile.

The problem with this scenario is that someone somewhere needs to produce the food. If 90% the population has died, I find it highly unlikely that cities would be reclaimed anytime soon. The remaining 10% will be busy trying to survive w/o mechanized farming, no fertilizers and other comforts of the modern world.

Yet the screenshots show people growing plants on the balconies and roofs of their houses. That is the idiotic naivete part. People tend to underestimate what kind of a catastrophe this kind of a scenario would be. It wouldn't be a case of a "few years of hardship" and then reclaiming the cities from the orange men.

More likely it'd be a case of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads (we're even more vulnerable now that we were in the 1980's)

Of course suspension of disbelief is necessary for the game to work in the first place, but they could at least make it semi-plausible.

 

[FritzedProcess]

What infrastructure? No running water, no electricity, no heating.

Starving hordes will have looted the cities for anything worthwhile.

The problem with this scenario is that someone somewhere needs to produce the food. If 90% the population has died, I find it highly unlikely that cities would be reclaimed anytime soon. The remaining 10% will be busy trying to survive w/o mechanized farming, no fertilizers and other comforts of the modern world.

Yet the screenshots show people growing plants on the balconies and roofs of their houses. That is the idiotic naivete part. People tend to underestimate what kind of a catastrophe this kind of a scenario would be. It wouldn't be a case of a "few years of hardship" and then reclaiming the cities from the orange men.

More likely it'd be a case of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threads (we're even more vulnerable now that we were in the 1980's)

Of course suspension of disbelief is necessary for the game to work in the first place, but they could at least make it semi-plausible.

Yes, that "urban orchard" and rooftop farms thing is nonsensical. Soil in many cities will be polluted to a varying degree, so if you live in a nasty place you will need to import soil from the countryside for your raised beds. Speaking of which, the yield of whatever you can plant on a rooftop will not be enough to feed the whole building.

A friend of mine has some decently-sized raised beds the size of which would be more or less half of what you could build on a flat rooftop on an average-sized apartment building. It provides about 50% of the food a family of 4 would need, on a good year. Fertilizers are made by composting. Now imagine how many people live in an apartment building.

 

[Haba]

And what do you do if it doesn't rain for a while? Gonna be fun carrying water to that roof.

 

[Damned Registrations]

Why would the buildings be full of people? It's post ITZ. A family of four could be sharing the apartment building with one other family. And even if it's not enough, you'd still be retarded not to set up a garden anywhere it's safe to do so.

 

[thesheeep]

Right... that must be why there were no cities prior to electricity, because clearly they couldn't function without it nor offer any other advantage that might make you want to reclaim them instead of some village.
Of course you would want to reclaim cities first, simply because most people live there and because their infrastructure is superior, even without electricity.

What infrastructure? No running water, no electricity, no heating.

Which doesn't exist anywhere else, either, in that scenario. But it will be rebuilt, it's not like this situation is forever.

I'm talking about buildings, streets, a great amount of manpower and knowledge in one location, etc. Everything that cities had way before electricity.
Without computers, any knowledge would be even more valuable, a library would suddenly become an extremely valuable place. Good luck finding so much knowledge in a village. Something like masses of barbarians looting and burning the books for heat simply wouldn't happen. People are dumb, but not THAT dumb. All of that doesn't become useless or unreclaimable just because the power went out, especially not if you consider that power can be restored eventually.

You'd move toward more remote areas first, initially. But once you got the basics down there, there's no reason not to try and regain cities next.
From the way the game is described, I think that is pretty much the situation. Some kind of stability has been achieved outside of the big cities, so those are to be reclaimed next.

While inside the cities, a limited number of people have survived and built gangs, etc. which you have to deal with.

The problem with this scenario is that someone somewhere needs to produce the food. If 90% the population has died, I find it highly unlikely that cities would be reclaimed anytime soon. The remaining 10% will be busy trying to survive w/o mechanized farming, no fertilizers and other comforts of the modern world.

Yet the screenshots show people growing plants on the balconies and roofs of their houses. That is the idiotic naivete part. People tend to underestimate what kind of a catastrophe this kind of a scenario would be. It wouldn't be a case of a "few years of hardship" and then reclaiming the cities from the orange men.

If 90% of the population died (way too pessimistic number, btw. We are way more flexible and adaptable than most think), then your apartment buildings won't be full and rooftop plantations - as well as other space now likely used for farming within the city, or in the outskirts - could indeed be enough. 90% less people means 90% less resource consumption. While resource production (at least of basics like food) would still be enough, as most basic farming can actually feed a more limited number of people.
Besides, you don't need pristine conditions to grow food. People grow food in the outskirts of Chernobyl, ever since the thing "blew up". That food isn't healthy, the soil obviously radiated, yet people survive on it anyway.

Also... orange men?

 

[FritzedProcess]

Which doesn't exist anywhere else, either, in that scenario. But it will be rebuilt, it's not like this situation is forever.

I'm talking about buildings, streets, a great amount of manpower and knowledge in one location, etc. Everything that cities had way before electricity.
Without computers, any knowledge would be even more valuable, a library would suddenly become an extremely valuable place. Good luck finding so much knowledge in a village. Something like masses of barbarians looting and burning the books for heat simply wouldn't happen. People are dumb, but not THAT dumb. All of that doesn't become useless or unreclaimable just because the power went out, especially not if you consider that power can be restored eventually.

You'd move toward more remote areas first, initially. But once you got the basics down there, there's no reason not to try and regain cities next.
From the way the game is described, I think that is pretty much the situation. Some kind of stability has been achieved outside of the big cities, so those are to be reclaimed next.

While inside the cities, a limited number of people have survived and built gangs, etc. which you have to deal with.


If 90% of the population died (way too pessimistic number, btw. We are way more flexible and adaptable than most think), then your apartment buildings won't be full and rooftop plantations - as well as other space now likely used for farming within the city, or in the outskirts - could indeed be enough. 90% less people means 90% less resource consumption. While resource production (at least of basics like food) would still be enough, as most basic farming can actually feed a more limited number of people.
Besides, you don't need pristine conditions to grow food. People grow food in the outskirts of Chernobyl, ever since the thing "blew up". That food isn't healthy, the soil obviously radiated, yet people survive on it anyway.

Also... orange men?

I think you are being optimistic about city population survival. Most cities have only a few days (maybe about a week's) worth of food, accounting for both pantries and supermarkets, and even less drinking water. Food takes weeks or months to grow, which most people can't survive (maybe the fatter ones can survive a month or even two without food, with deleterious effects to their health and fitness), and you can't go more than a few days without water. Once you drink dirty water, you will probably get the shits and it's pretty much over.

Now, if there are stiffs galore in the streets and buildings, you have to get rid of those or you'll have an epidemic sooner than later, and that is a lot of work you don't have the time or manpower for (or the diesel, and you want to keep the lime for agricultural purposes). So you ideally want to be out of Dodge by the time it happens, unless it's a small city a stone's throw from the sticks and you happen to have some already productive fields.

And forget about the infrastructure, by the time the tech to make modern cities livable again is back, you will have to rebuild it. I actually have been to Chernobyl, and it's overgrown everywhere except where the plant's personnel spend their two weeks' shifts and around the plant itself, and they still have electricity (the NPP is still operational) and running water... the only people who came back were old folks and hobos, the former are too old to get cancer and noone cares about the latter. As for the rest in the neighboring areas, good luck treating thyroid cancer without modern medicine in this scenario.

 

[hoothoot]

 

[thesheeep]

I think you are being optimistic about city population survival. Most cities have only a few days (maybe about a week's) worth of food, accounting for both pantries and supermarkets, and even less drinking water. Food takes weeks or months to grow, which most people can't survive (maybe the fatter ones can survive a month or even two without food, with deleterious effects to their health and fitness), and you can't go more than a few days without water. Once you drink dirty water, you will probably get the shits and it's pretty much over.

Now, if there are stiffs galore in the streets and buildings, you have to get rid of those or you'll have an epidemic sooner than later, and that is a lot of work you don't have the time or manpower for (or the diesel, and you want to keep the lime for agricultural purposes). So you ideally want to be out of Dodge by the time it happens, unless it's a small city a stone's throw from the sticks and you happen to have some already productive fields.

Oh, don't get me wrong, I'd fully expect many people to die in such a case. And only very few to survive staying in the cities.
I just think that 90% dead in this scenario is an absurdly high number. I'd expect more something along the lines of 50-70%.

And forget about the infrastructure, by the time the tech to make modern cities livable again is back, you will have to rebuild it. I actually have been to Chernobyl, and it's overgrown everywhere except where the plant's personnel spend their two weeks' shifts and around the plant itself, and they still have electricity (the NPP is still operational) and running water... the only people who came back were old folks and hobos, the former are too old to get cancer and noone cares about the latter. As for the rest in the neighboring areas, good luck treating thyroid cancer without modern medicine in this scenario.

But Chernobyl is a Fallout scenario (more or less), the environment is actually deadly.
In this game's scenario, the environment never became deadly. The power just went out. Contamination from bodies, etc. lasts a bit less long than radiation. Even when the black death happened in Europe (and those sure were a lot of dead bodies, plus infectuous), people eventually moved back.
Still enough to drive most of the population out of the city, of course, but by far not enough to keep them away for long enough to become overgrown like a proper ruin.

 

[praetor]

Something like masses of barbarians looting and burning the books for heat simply wouldn't happen. People are dumb, but not THAT dumb.

indeed... surely there are no people who'd believe the Earth is flat in 2019, right? right?!

are you living under a rock?

you're right, people are not that dumb... they're even fucking dumber.

 

[Norfleet]

IF something like this happened in real life, you wouldn't want to be near a city when it happened, you'd want to be like me, living in a dwarf hole. The only people who are going to survive such a thing are those like me: I am a dwarf and I'm digging a hole!

 

[thesheeep]

Something like masses of barbarians looting and burning the books for heat simply wouldn't happen. People are dumb, but not THAT dumb.

indeed... surely there are no people who'd believe the Earth is flat in 2019, right? right?!

are you living under a rock?

you're right, people are not that dumb... they're even fucking dumber.

Yes, SOME people are THAT dumb. But thankfully a minority. Not enough to form hordes of book-burning barbarians
Such stuff would be more believable in Fallout-like scenario where society had decades to decline that much.

 

[FritzedProcess]

Yes, SOME people are THAT dumb. But thankfully a minority. Not enough to form hordes of book-burning barbarians
Such stuff would be more believable in Fallout-like scenario where society had decades to decline that much.

Man, I wish I could be more optimistic, but there's a lot of retards out there.

OTOH, most of the books in cities are pulp literature, self-help, Paulo Coelho and the like, so no big loss there, and paper is the most abundant kindling you'll find in a city.

 

[taxalot]

 

[Norfleet]

Yes, SOME people are THAT dumb. But thankfully a minority. Not enough to form hordes of book-burning barbarians

People would totally form hordes of book-burning barbarians. They, after all, cannot read. To them, a book is just a sheaf of flammable material.

 

[Johannes]

Right... that must be why there were no cities prior to electricity, because clearly they couldn't function without it nor offer any other advantage that might make you want to reclaim them instead of some village.
Of course you would want to reclaim cities first, simply because most people live there and because their infrastructure is superior, even without electricity.

What infrastructure? No running water, no electricity, no heating.

Which doesn't exist anywhere else, either, in that scenario. But it will be rebuilt, it's not like this situation is forever.

I'm talking about buildings, streets, a great amount of manpower and knowledge in one location, etc. Everything that cities had way before electricity.
Without computers, any knowledge would be even more valuable, a library would suddenly become an extremely valuable place. Good luck finding so much knowledge in a village. Something like masses of barbarians looting and burning the books for heat simply wouldn't happen. People are dumb, but not THAT dumb. All of that doesn't become useless or unreclaimable just because the power went out, especially not if you consider that power can be restored eventually.

You'd move toward more remote areas first, initially. But once you got the basics down there, there's no reason not to try and regain cities next.
From the way the game is described, I think that is pretty much the situation. Some kind of stability has been achieved outside of the big cities, so those are to be reclaimed next.

While inside the cities, a limited number of people have survived and built gangs, etc. which you have to deal with.

What do you need all these buildings for? Or STREETS of all things? Manpower is not there since it's mostly dead or moved away. Knowledge, books? A tiny percentage of books is at all useful in an apocalyptic scenario, mostly you want books that help you do basic crafts, agriculture, and so on. Which kind of books you're quite likely to find in a village. And if you want some university chemistry textbooks or whatever, just go and take it, dont have to move in to get that. The city is just an asphalt desert at this point, lots of useful stuff for looting but a nonsensical place to live in. Buildings in the countryside should be numerous enough, and also better equipped for the situation -- you have your own well, able to heat with firewood, etc.

 

[thesheeep]

Right... that must be why there were no cities prior to electricity, because clearly they couldn't function without it nor offer any other advantage that might make you want to reclaim them instead of some village.
Of course you would want to reclaim cities first, simply because most people live there and because their infrastructure is superior, even without electricity.

What infrastructure? No running water, no electricity, no heating.

Which doesn't exist anywhere else, either, in that scenario. But it will be rebuilt, it's not like this situation is forever.

I'm talking about buildings, streets, a great amount of manpower and knowledge in one location, etc. Everything that cities had way before electricity.
Without computers, any knowledge would be even more valuable, a library would suddenly become an extremely valuable place. Good luck finding so much knowledge in a village. Something like masses of barbarians looting and burning the books for heat simply wouldn't happen. People are dumb, but not THAT dumb. All of that doesn't become useless or unreclaimable just because the power went out, especially not if you consider that power can be restored eventually.

You'd move toward more remote areas first, initially. But once you got the basics down there, there's no reason not to try and regain cities next.
From the way the game is described, I think that is pretty much the situation. Some kind of stability has been achieved outside of the big cities, so those are to be reclaimed next.

While inside the cities, a limited number of people have survived and built gangs, etc. which you have to deal with.

What do you need all these buildings for? Or STREETS of all things? Manpower is not there since it's mostly dead or moved away. Knowledge, books? A tiny percentage of books is at all useful in an apocalyptic scenario, mostly you want books that help you do basic crafts, agriculture, and so on. Which kind of books you're quite likely to find in a village. And if you want some university chemistry textbooks or whatever, just go and take it, dont have to move in to get that. The city is just an asphalt desert at this point, lots of useful stuff for looting but a nonsensical place to live in. Buildings in the countryside should be numerous enough, and also better equipped for the situation -- you have your own well, able to heat with firewood, etc.

Again, you are assuming a Fallout-like scenario here in which almost everyone is dead and things couldn't be rebuilt relatively quickly (as in years, not centuries).
That's just not the case. Neither realistically nor (from what I gather) what the game displays.

You also have to move REALLY deep into the countryside to find enough wells and houses that are heated with wood
Well... at least in an all areas I've been to...
Even if you assume up to 70% dead, that would still be too many people for those kind of houses. So you might as well try and get by in a city, or rather their outskirts (closer to water, fields, wood, etc.).
That's where most people would likely end up - not within, but close to a city, anyway. And once your basics are covered close to a city and you have recovery of electricity in sight, why WOULDN'T you try to recover the city? Are you just going to ignore its existence and build a new ring-city around it?

I am of course assuming that electricity can be rebuilt. In the best case by recovering the power plants, in the worst by building them from scratch. Please keep in mind that not all power plants are nuclear in nature and require less advanced tech to be built to begin with.
Now, how long would it take to build a power plant from scratch and rebuild the power lines? No idea, but that would be my "timeframe" for recovering cities. I'd also assume this to be the highest priority of whatever is left of a government, restore power.
If you somehow manage to not get back on your feet before people with the knowledge to rebuild power died, all bets are off and I'm willing to accept the eventual book-burning barbarian hordes. And dwarves in holes.

 

[Haba]

The main question is food production. How will you produce food in a major metropolitan area? You'll need arable land to grow your crops on. Since you won't have access to fertilizers, pesticide and combine harvesters, you'll need more land to produce the same amount of food you do today. If you wanted the surrounding farmlands to supply the cities, how would you ship the food?

Sure, in one of the greener cities you might have quite a few usable parks and golf courts. But at the same time you'll have massive competition for the same land, which will make thing go funny real fast.

And if you happened to be in a country that doesn't produce their own food currently... well, you're fucked.

On the positive side, a global blackout due to a massive EMP is still one of the more positive scenarios
https://www.elsevier.com/books/feeding-everyone-no-matter-what/denkenberger/978-0-12-802150-7

You are right in the "get by in a city" -part. In the event of such a catastrophe, the government would block the main roads and MAKE you stay in the cities. Then if you are lucky enough, you'd get drafted for field work. If you're unlucky, you'd slowly starve with diminishing rations. Most post apo scenarios are quite unrealistic in that fashion, they assume public order collapses instantly.