The way the village is set up in VV can lead to really weird sexual relationships. Yes, I'm thinking of all the possible cases of incest.

Does it bother you? Or do you try to make sure that people don't mate within their immediate families?

Sometimes it's hard to control because the villagers do things behind your back. But I try as hard as possible not to have someone mate with their parent. It's harder to control between siblings and half-siblings, especially when you don't have a diverse gene pool to start off with.

Also, short of writing down names on a separate sheet of paper, you can't really encode all the lineage information in the name (unless you give them names like Lapita-Kokopu instead of a given name, since it's not all gonna fit on the line. And what would you call this person's child?). In some games I give them a Icelandic-style patronymic, like if the child of Okau is called Mali, I'd rename him to Mali Kokopuson/Kokopudottir (depends on the gender of the child).

That lets me know who are siblings and whose father is whom. But it doesn't help me prevent someone mating with his mother (the name "Mali Okauson" doesn't tell me who his mother is). And I can't fit the mother's name in the line (I tried using the mother's initial as a middle initial, but there are too many duplicate initials!).

So, in the next game, I decided to name the kids after the parent of the opposite sex. So, if Lapita and Kokopu had a son called Kayak and a daughter called Kissa, the son would be called Kayak Lapitason and the daughter Kissa Kokopudottir. This way I know that Kayak can't mate with Lapita and Kissa can't mate with Kokopu. I thought I was very clever.

Then I realised that I couldn't keep track of who are full siblings. >_>

Now I just pretend I don't see it when siblings mate. (I still try to break up people with the same hair colour, though, because that could be an indicator that they're closely related.)

Shalom;

I know that this is a survivor game, but frankly it is my main beef with VV 1& 2. I do have a major problem with parnets/siblings mating.
I do take much control of the game; I use 1/2 speed much of the time and pause if I am going to be away awhile. There have been a few times I'd forgotten to pause, with interesting results.
I keep notebooks with family history, birth, marriage and death records. For many this is work; for me, it makes the game more interesting. And until the game mode itself changes, that is how I play it.
And there have been a few times, dispite my best efforts, I'd had a few 'take a liking' to each other and hae to come up with an interesting storyline.
Like the one I have going on on "The Song of Spice."

I had one village where I kept a family tree in PowerPoint using the org chart feature. It got really, really complicated, but I prevented incest for the early days of the tribe. Since there were more women than men in the beginning and I wanted to grow my population, I had one male tribe member who was "married" to a female and he also had a mistress. I kept track of all the "illegitimate" children in the family tree org chart too. It was a fun little project.

Then, as the tribe progressed and they began to waste time doing laundry and enjoying the pond, I noticed that, while I wasn't keeping watch, my men were spreading their seed to females within their own family. I tried, at first, to keep track of that too in my family tree org chart, but it became too difficult. I decided that it was impossible to prevent incest.

It is my #1 beef with VV 1 & 2 also.

I give the kids last names... first 2 letters of each parents name... then I dont let anyone mate with anyone who has any similarity in the first or last name. ie Ema 's father is Kayak and her mother is Banga.. last name is KaBa. Ema isn't allowed to mate with anyone who's name begins Ka or has Ka or Ba in their last name. No mating with your parents or siblings that way. Cousins is another thing tho lol

It actually didn't bother me that much in VV1, probably because the parent's info don't show up for the kids (so I can pretend I forget who's parents are who). My villagers in VV2 tend to be fairly well-behaved when I'm looking, but once I caught someone "going out" with his mother. I literally yelled "stop that!" at them and broke them up and sent each of them to work in a different corner of the village. I was so angry (yeah I know it's just a game)!

I think I can turn a blind eye to siblings who try to mate with each other. I draw the line at parent/child, though. Even though I know these are just pixels with some strings of 1's and 0's attached to them, the whole idea just disgusts me so much. I guess there are lots of creation stories in different cultures were the first siblings had to mate with each other, but going with your parents seems to be universally considered a bad thing.

I think when I get bored with just running the village, I might try the notebook/spreadsheet method (I was thinking more along the lines of Excel or Access; didn't think of using PowerPoint! Then again, I hate Ppt with a passion so I don't think about it when I don't have to...lol).

LOL if you want an interesting creation story go google how the Ancient Egyptians believe the world came into being... makes virtual villagers dating their parents look tame.

When I first started playing VV1 I decided to ignore all matters of inter-family mating. It was just too difficult, maybe impossible, to keep track. I was pleased to see the addition of the parents' names and pictures in a child's details for VV2, although it didn't matter that much to me.

I know that lots of players enjoy making geneological charts of their villagers, but that's not for me.

Ditto on the cousins. I do the same with the last names as well for the children.

I kind of wish LDW would have programmed an anti-incest measure into the villagers' AI. It's really hard to keep track of who's related to who(though it would help if the images of the parents didn't dissappear when the villagers turn 18!). I suppose we could request a 'family tree' that keeps track of who's related to who and keeps them from mating with each other. Or at least ask that the pictures of the parents didn't dissappear.

I try to keep track of who's kid is who, but I usually focus on trying to breed parents with a high level (Master or close to it) of certain skills so I'll have kids who will inherit that skill and go to work on it automatically at age 14. Sadly, a lot of the time this puts me in the awkward position of figuring out how to continue the 'bloodlines' without having to resort to inbreeding. >.> Usually, if two parents -say, a pair of scientists- have a child who is born with no 'innate' skills, I'll use his/her likes and dislikes (if they have any) to determine what I want them to go into. Often I end up throwing them into something other than what their parents do and voila! New blood for another skill line.

y'all have to realize that different societys have a different definition of incest

in almost all societies, parent/child relationships are a nono.

sister/brother relationships are generally frowned upon, although not unheard of- especially in cultural mythology (not just greek and roman)

when one goes to cousins it gets more complicated- in a lot of societies, it depended on which side of the family they were on. in a matriarical society, cousins on the mothers side were off limits, while cousins on the fathers side were fair game, and frequently it was even encouraged...in a patriarical society, the opposite was true... and it has only been a recent thing that first cousins are considered off limits, after we began understanding genetics... before that, it was common to see first cousins marry, because of the stagnat populations...not a lot of people moved around, so their choice of mate was the people they grew up around, generally family- also,, there was the desire to keep money and land in the family

the smaller and more isolated a population, the more likely the people are to have a system of acceptable cousin marriages, etc...

Yeah, in fact, traditionally in China first cousins (on your mother's side) are seen as marriage partners of choice, partly due to the desire to increase the ties between the in-law families.

Like I said, I'd turn a blind eye to brother/sister relationships in the game, but if they'd implement an anti-parent/child-incest thing in the AI, it'd be sweet.

The other thing I wonder about is the promiscuity in the game. Not that I'm expecting VV to be a game about sexual morality, but I'm curious if anyone here had to explain the game to their kids (I don't have kids myself), when they see the villagers just having sex with everyone else in the village?

Kids don't see villagers have sex. Kids see villagers run around kissing people. Like a primary school playground (well, on occasion, anyway). And then they go in the hut and get a baby if they want one.

Yeah, it seems unreasonable in such a small isolated comunity to expect cousin incest taboos. But it would indeed be nice if direct ancestors and decendants, as well as brothers and sisters could be kept from mating. And I'm no anthropologist, but I seem to recall hearing that anti-incest taboos regarding those particular relatives are even STRONGER in isolated comunities because they have more to lose from recessive genetic disorders and other problems associated with incest.

Honestly I would love an auto-genealogy page just for its own sake. It would be so cool to keep track of that, and from comments here I see that even avid village-genealogists can't keep track of it themselves once the population gets to a certain point.

Also, this is my first post here. And it's about incest. Lovely. Well, hi everyon!

Even in this country (the US), cousins married cousins. When I first started working on my family tree, I was appalled at the interfamily marriages. After talking with other tree searchers, I found out this was fairly common.

Guys, don't try to ascribe modern concepts of relationships and lineage to remote, primative tribes, especially ones that aren't real. If you've only got 6 people in your tribe, you're going to have some inter-familial breeding. Siblings, parent/child, cousins, aunts/uncles, whatever.

It is "just" a game.

Tess

Tess: don't worry, I think we're all pretty chill about it. We just like to whine because we can.

Like I said, having a auto-ban on parent/child mating is sufficient to satisfy me.

Iustinus: when you said direct ancestor/descendant, you mean parent/child, right? I've seen some really crazy stories while working with indigenous languages in the Pacific Northwest (including one where this woman dies, then reincarnates as a man and has sex with his/her granddaughters O_o), but I have yet to come across anything where a parent/child relationship is condoned.

Seagull: Ha! Yeah, I mean it would be nice if parent/child could be prevented, but not only that: since vilagers never lose their fertility (er, in VV1, I haven't played VV2 yet) and since mating begins at 18, it's quite plausible that you might need to worry about grandparent/grandchild as well. And I definitely didn't say such relationships were commonly condoned, if that's what you thought I meant.

Tess: Yes, it's just a game, but it's a game that's fun because of our human tendency to anthropomorphize. We all know that the characters aren't real, but I doubt I'm the only one who finds himself fleshing out the action of the game into more developed stories and fleshed-out characters. So it is quite understandable that users would care about incest, and other things that don't actually affect game play.

It is quite true that attitudes towards (and definitions of) incest vary significantly from culture to culture, but the concept is hardly unique to our society. In fact, I'd say that just about every culture has the concept (again, I'm not an anthropologist), even if the details vary. (And as I said above, inhabitants of Isola, if they existed, could never be as fastidious about cousins and more distant relatives as we are.)

And as for lineage, it seems to me that not only is it not a modern concept, but it's even LESS important in our modern culture than it was in antiquity.

I find it too complicated to control
especially with a max population
what I have done though is if you pair off a couple exactly the same age them its probable they will have different mothers as the mum nurses for 2 years and twins/triplets are always the same gender

what really makes me go eurghhhh is when you pick up a child from the "toilet" area to fetch a mushroom then realise they haven't washed their hands!!!

I for one would not like to see an auto-ban on parent/child mating in the game. In real life? You bet! And I believe it is against the law here in the US. But in the game no, it would make it too difficult during the onset of a new game. You would be limiting the rate you could grow your population, so when you need 10 new babies, it would take several generations to do so.

Or in some situations you need to get lucky and get multiple additional villagers events to help the gene pool.

In a VV1 game I have, I never bought L3 Farming. This means that the village is not "stable" and if I forget about it for too long a time, I can get a near starvation situation with only a couple of villagers (as well as the GC.)

Once I had two males, one kid and one that was "reset" in age, so he didn't starve along with the rest. A little girl showed up and the village repopulated.

Just a few days ago, I had two twin boys and a younger girl (she might have been a sister, but I don't know.) They finally grew up and the girl is busy having babies. I've been mating the girl with only one of the boys, so the uncle could mate with his nieces, but eventually there may need to be sibling matings.

But in most of my games I'll set one male (late) or one female (early) to be a parent, so the chances are that all the kids of the same generation are at least half siblings.

I just had that scary gong event that makes all the women in your village pregnant. Now they're done nursing. The info on the kids show that their father is some mysterious "?" person (person?).

The question is, are all these kids born virginly (?), or do they really have a father? And if the latter, are they all half-siblings?

Hmmm ...

Someone should write a dissertation on the villagers' gods. The Guiding Hand (the player) is obviously a god. S/he will interact with the villagers all the time, picking them up and setting them tasks. The villagers have an event when they "Greet the Guiding Hand". However, the Guiding Hand is not omnipotent. We all know that if the GH attempts time travel the villagers' lives can be completely messed up, for instance.

When a villager bangs the gong the effect is unpredictable, by the GH as well as the villagers. Is the gong a god? If so, is it more powerful than the GH?

Arnie: "The Guiding Hand (the player) is obviously a god. S/he will interact with the villagers all the time, picking them up and setting them tasks."

And I think that it is that we like so much. The feeling to be quite powerful? Or to master the destiny?
At least, the various characters of our villagers make them to us really attaching, especially the first to arrive! Who are also the first to go, and, every time, it broke my heart

Laurence, I know we are just splitting hairs here, but the GH is LIKE God. A god would be omniscience, omnipotence, omnipresence, of which the GH (you and me) do not possess in the game. Doest that make sense? Again I think this is just splitting hairs, but it still needs to be pointed out.

In getting back to the incest question...I too have tried to keep less then desirable couplings from happening. It does get too confusing in later generations even with last names created from the parents' names. I do remember an incident where I caught a mother going off to the "Love Shack" with her son. I pulled them away from the hut, but it was too late. Momma had a son, and Son had a brother/son. Ick. In later generations, I just give up and let "nature" take its course. Lol!

I'm with you there Patroy. Since the game does not discourage it (i.e. nothing bad happens when it happens) I just let the little fellers breed with who ever they want.

Maybe this could be the compromise. If a mother/father breeds with a son/daughter the offspring life expectancy is cut by 2/3rds or the like. hmmmm

i don't think it should be changed

the control freaks (no offense, i'm like that with some -ok a lot- of my villages too) can babysit and just try to keep it from happeneing, its part of the challenge

Gods (with a small "G") need not be omni-everything. Look at the Greek, Roman, Norse, and other ancient gods. They were felt to be like super-powerful human beings with human failings and weaknesses.

Now, if we were referring to God with a capital letter, that would be a different story ...

Point taken Arnie, and I would agree. I guess through my eyes God implies a being who is omni-everthing. But int he Greek/Roman gods they are not.

It's good to have you around.

I'm happy that Arnie answer you. My post was a quote from him with my reply (at the 2d paragraph. I still don't know how to insert a quote, but I learn!)
And I agree with him about our powerful, it looks like the powers of a god.
But, maybe it is for an other topic!

He Laurence, to quote a post from someone, all you need to do it click on the "QUOTE" button on the bottom of the post you want to quote. Give it a try. Go ahead and click on the Quote button below this message and you will see how it works.

Is it here that I write my reply?
I think so! yippee!
Thank you and sorry for my poor head!

By george Laurence, I think you got it!!

Thank you. I'm proud

I really like this idea. I had given up on preventing incest in my villages, but this would help with some of it. But then there's the issue of cousins like you said, and even grandparents (ewwwww!).

Gee, I've been encouraging incest in the hope of concentrating desirable traits, mainly running and quick learning.

Problem with that is that the traits aren't passed on, only the physical characteristics

Yeah, I know. But it pleases me to try to get children of two runners..

Edit: I just mated two runners, and she had triplets.

I don't really care about incest, i have enough headaches without family trees (including my own =p) but major props to those that take the time. I've played VV1 on the palm since it was out, and have VV2 as well, just didn't seem important.

Tonga just named her new kid Seven, wonder if George Costanza is freaking out yet