The Orcish Eco-System.

One thing that's always bothered me in games is opponent distribution. That is, the way that Bad Guys just seem to be hanging around in numbers for no discernible reason. "There's Goblins in that cave!" you hear a Peasant say. Why? He looks confused and simply mutters "Erm... because they've always been there." But why? Why are the Bad Guys there? What are they doing? Why not do it somewhere else, away from all these pesky adventurers? Surely a monster has more aspirations in life than to be a squishy and fluid-filled obstacle between you and your (formally their) loot?

We take the common example of Orcs in a Mine. Why are they there? Are they guarding something? Are they actually mining? Do they live there, or are they using the cave systems as temporary housing on their migration to somewhere else? Are they refugees? Its all about context. It's all about why they are there. And, more importantly - where are all the non-combatants? The wives, husbands, children? The farmers and cooks, butchers and administrators and all that? You enter the average Orcish Mine, and all you find are the warriors. Where are the others? Are they deeper in the cave? Somewhere close by? What feeds and clothes these warriors? Who pays them? How does the food get there? What about water?

Imagine this scenario: you come across an Orcish Mine and, amazingly, rather than just stand around waiting to kill something, the Orcs are actually mining! Every day like clockwork, carts filled with ore are shipped out along the road, and in return, shipments of food come back to them. Now, what to do - you're not strong enough to take them all on. Your options:

• Intercept The Ore Shipments. By intercepting these, the Orcs are effectively not paying for the food they receive. Their employer then stops sending them food, and you can starve the Orcs into submission.
• Intercept The Food Shipments. Starve them out once again. This also annoys the employer, who stops receiving ore because the Orcs think they're not sending food any more. The above two options may cause the employer to send his own soldiers to bring the Orcs under their heel, and in the resulting carnage, allow you to infiltrate the mine and achieve your objective.
• Ransom The Non-Combatants. Upon closer inspection, you see that the bulk of the Orcish population lies in a camp not too far away. Whilst the warriors and miners spend all day toiling in the mines, the women (wom-orcs?) and children spend their time in the village. You decide to use this to your advantage! Timing it just as the day shift moves off to relieve the night shift at the mines, you spring into the village and abduct as many children as you can carry, and leave behind a note with your demands. This alone would cause conflict in the ranks - those who want to capitulate versus those who want to hunt you down and use your organs in decorative flower arrangements. You can then wait for a response, or, using the above conflict, infiltrate the mine when the Orcs are at their most divided and distracted.
• Negate The Specialists. By 'removing' the important parts of the society - the cooks, brewers, administrators, trainers and what have you - the Orcish camp falls into chaos as more Orcs with no skills are forced to preform tasks they simply can't do. The proper amount of food isn't ordered. Warrior skills dull as they aren't being trained properly. Shifts of miners aren't organised properly and production falls behind. Improperly prepared and incorrectly cooked food leads to bad moods and food poisoning. You might then 'distract' the replacements or pose as one yourself.
• Buy Them Out. Simple. If you're light on might but heavy on coin, why not become their new employer? If these Orcs are mercenaries, why not just through money at the problem? And if they're not, you'll always find some ambitious little whipper-snapper who'd gladly take some coin for you to remove their rival and look the other way when you come calling.

You could, of course, simply grind away until you are strong enough to take them all on or find a band of like-minded adventurers to help you. But see how many possibilities you have when you introduce a plausible need and reason for the enemy to be there? I've only listed a few of the possible options, and I'm sure the more creative amongst you could postulate your own scenarios until the cows come home.

Introducing non-combatants as a part of a larger social group is an interesting concept. I know that D&D has a set of arbitrary numbers to represent these groups, but you don't really see it that much in general. It could lead to all sorts of new game mechanics - if you slaughter all the adults but let the children live, you create new opponents that would track you down at a later stage to have their revenge, for example. Or, the ability to attack only a particular part of the society would cause the rest of it to collapse into anarchy, in a form of cunning brutality. By introducing your opponents not only as enemies, but as a society, then the sky is the limit as to what you can manipulate to your ends. And it's far more satisfying to say 'I brought down the entire Crooked-Tooth Orc civilisation' than it is to say 'I killed them.'

Of course, you'll find that the above isn't really implemented in a lot of games. Why? Because it's so much simpler to code AI that says IF player = near THEN crush, kill, destroy. The above AI needs something that I call Needs-Driven Intelligence, which is largely what we humans run on. If we need something, then we attempt to fill that need. If we need food, we find it. If we need money to pay for that food, we work for it. If we need to kill the player to ensure our job is done and thus get paid, then we kill the player. This kind of intelligence makes it far more realistic, but also adds a level of complexity to the code that simply isn't needed for the vast majority of games. Most game's idea of immersion is how immersed the player can get in pools of blood. I believe, however, that more and more games are implementing it - such as The Sims and Oblivion, which drives the NPCs (however simply) via their immediate needs.

So how does this Need-Driven Intelligence (NDI) work? Well, you'd need a set of variables that define the basic needs of a character - Job, Wealth, Hunger, Shelter, and probably something like Family and Social as well. Each need would feed another - so Job would increase Wealth, that would pay for Hunger and Shelter as well. Job would only increase Wealth at the completion of a set task - Guard or Patrol or something (remember the non-combat roles - Mining, Bookkeeping, Cooking, etcetera) And as part of that Guard, there would then be motivation and reason to actually want to inflict harm upon the player, in order to increase their aforementioned Wealth and thus buy Food to fulfil their Hunger Need. The creature's Family Need would motivate it to care if you attacked the village and took their children. Another, more remote character's Wealth Need would be the reason why the Mining operation would be set up in the first place. Of course, it's probably far more complex than I'm letting on, but knowing the basics and implementing it from the beginning would make it simpler in the long run.

By introducing enemies that respond to needs we move much closer to them actually being a society rather than a random grouping of creatures that share the same racial type. And that's what immersion is. It's not making you the pivot of the known universe, it's making you feel like the universe would happily exist without you. That you're just another small player in the cosmic theatre.

But anyway, those are just some ideas. Feel free to add your own.