Assignment 3: Faith City

After discarding several versions of this game for being too complicated, here's a version that just might work:

Faith City is a massively-multiplayer online game where 2 religious orders are competing for the faith of the citizens of a city (no prizes for guessing it's name :P). Players will join the priesthood of 1 of these religious orders and attempt to convert as many people as possible; advancing through the ranks of the order and gaining power and responsibility as they do so.

The citizens of this city are AI entities, similar to those found in the Sims in that they have needs and desires that they want to fulfill. Society in this city is divided into 3 strata- the high-income, middle-income and low-income classes. Citizens belonging to each of these 3 classes will have different needs and desires and players must exploit these in order to successfully convert them.

Player characters have certain statistics (wisdom, charisma, reputation, leadership etc) that affect their ability to successfully convert citizens. The number of citizens converted by the player and the number of citizens accidentally driven away by the player are also tracked.

The priesthoods of each religious order are divided into ranks- each new rank a player reaches will afford them new actions, greater responsibility and also greater access to the order's funds and resources. Players ascend to a higher rank by fulfilling certain minimum requirements, both in terms of their characters statistics and the number of people converted by them. In order to reach the highest ranks of each order, though, players will have to be elected to the office.

Each order starts with one temple in that order's home area and a limited amount of funds. Further temples and other structures can be purchased- but only if the order has a player of sufficient rank to do so.

Upon creating a new character, players will have these actions available to them:

1. Preach in temple (Success depends on player's charisma- if successful, will increase faith of citizens who attend temple and also increase player's reputation).
2. Preach on the streets (Similar to 1 but usually requires more charisma to be successful).
3. Community service ((Success depends on player's leadership- if successful, will increase faith of citizens who attend temple and also increase player's reputation).
4. Teaching (Success depends on player's wisdom- if successful, will increase faith of citizens who attend school and also increase player's reputation).
5. Study (Increases wisdom).
6. Speech training (Increases charisma).
7. Leadership exercises (what'cha think? :P)

Further actions would become available as players progress in the game, such as:

1. Starting a marketing campaign.
2. Organising a charity event.
3. Organising a funding drive.
4. Building a temple.
5. Building a school.
6. Building a hospital.

The final 3 actions would only be open to the highest-ranking players and would require a substantial amount of funds. In addition, after gaining a certain level of faith, miracles would become available to each order (perhaps voting could be used to decide which miracle players want to be performed). These miracles would have fairly dramatic effects on the cities citizens as compared to normal actions.

The game is turn-based- each turn takes place over a period of 1 in-game day, which is one real-time hour. Each player's interface to issue commands to their character is in the form of a daily planner- Players may issue commands up to 2 in-game weeks in advance (or 14 real-time hours).

This game would require a high degree of co-ordination between players within religious orders in order for them to successfully spread their religion within the city. Thus a a chat client along with a "newsboard" would be provided within the game in order to facilitate communication between players.

A final note- the design of the game's interface is very important as players should be able to access information about their own character and the levels of faith in the city easily.