Friday, July 22, 2011

the World Builders Spreadsheet Dream

I'm trying to learn as much about LibreOffice spreadsheet as possible. Currently work, Philippine BPO industry, has me dealing with a lot of Key Performance Indicators and trying to make sense of it all or present them in the easiest understood way possible.

As a Gamer, seeing the potential in what I am learning in LibreOffice I see first its uses to my hobby: The World Builders Spreadsheet. A spreadsheet that will allow a World Builder Given certain Parameters to populate a World in a near Realistic/Historical manner.

I also see that the Form Section in LibreOffice Writer can make an awesome character sheet.

Anyway, what this spreadsheet should be capable of doing based on what it can possibly do becomes clearer and clearer. basically given a set of Parameters:
  • Regional Area,
  • the Largest and the number of these social units units
  • Natural resources (with the option to generate it randomly)
  • Technology Available
  • Domesticated Animals or Plants Available
  • Level of Organization
  • Various templates of religious institution and their method/pattern of spreading
  • Current Economic Condition
  • Influence of various States: Warfare, bountiful season, Peace, Famine, etc.
  • Geometric Relationship
and many more.

The product is detailing the region and its inhabitants down to the smallest social unit: the Household. Each of this household will have a productivity value for future reference and further random detailing. The spreadsheet, through a Macro, will create households, their professions, and their villages and communes based on a lot of economic factors and rules. The Macro would also group these villages based on a randomly determined political/social balance (many semi-equal regions, one more powerful with many lesser that are equally weaker, or decending levels of resources and influences etc.).

It should assign where the Specialist/Professionals based on resources and other factors or allow the World Builder to move these around. These then affect Price Modifiers and availability of Goods as well as offer a sheet for the World Builder to place all products and goods to allow the World Builder to generate regional price lists.

Such a spreadsheet and macro should be able to track these details. It illustrates these all by the story it tells with its Income Statement, which takes a snapshot of the year. Ideally the program can lists certain expenses by the season, so that the World Builder can better tell the story.

Outputs:
  • Households and their Professions, and where they can be found.
  • farmsteads, mines, mills, villages, market villages, manors, fiefs, and towns and where they are
  • Regional Price and Availability List
  • See where demands and supplies of goods, skills, people, or social needs can be found.

Details and even More Details. It would be nice if that there is already a World Builders Spreadsheet Project, at least as a spreadsheet the barrier of learning is much lower than if it was a software. As an open spreadsheet projects copying variants, data ranges and tables is much easier and anyone can create increasingly detailed and customization outputs.

Anyway just started checking out WorldBuilders and despite how many of the topics there might appear similar, it has made me realized this one I'm talking about has key words like: realistic, historical, human-centric, economics based, simulationsists, etc.



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