About a month ago my friends and i decided to vreate a strategy game which focused on cultural expansion and simulation rather then simple military simulation. We also wanted it to be less restrictive then games like cilvilisation which force the ideal of capitalist, scientific, and democratic society on you. This requires a system which can create a group of citizens, shape thier desrires (ie. nationalist, consumerist, etc.), and determine thier relationship to other groups. After giving it the degree of thought that a grade 11 history student can, I came up with a basic design. People are divided up into population division of 1000/10000 people. Each division are givin to basic ideas, the high and the low. The high is what they want, the low, what they don''t. The high, for example could be material gain. They will thus be commanded by the economic power in the society (the player), and givin material in exchange. Or, the "high" could be the deity, and they would thus be ordered by the church in exchange for gains in the afterlife. This could, VERY basically, simulate cultural power structures. "cultural groups" are like minded divisions of the populace. One problem is how to give it flexibility, how to make the computer fill in the blanks with a social stratosphere, to generate the middle ground between the CEO and the begger. The second problem is in the distinction between "reason" and "spiritualism" etc., as this is a very big part of society. Any help would be greatly appreciated, thanks.

Have a look around on the web for a game called Trpico, devoloped by PopTop studios. It seems to mirror what you are saying, assuming I''ve correctly interpretted your idea

Perhaps i should clarify a little.

The object of the game is to be at the center of a religion or something of that sort, and spread the religion throughout the galaxy. there would be 2 ways of doing this, the first would be outright conquest either through armies our missionaries. The second way would be to cause a planets citizens to choose your ideology over that of the other players.

As far as I can tell, this requires the computer to know how various groups of people behave, at least on the general level.

Anyone have any ideas? thanks.