CotN's Class System

[Caesar Alan]

One of the many things that's interested me about CotN is how the population is divided into different classes. I thought I'd collate what I've gathered thus far in one place. If you've spotted something that you feel should be added, let me know :)

In real terms, the various classes are separated largely by their wealth. In gameplay terms, this seems to be most clearly represented by the number of family members that need to work. This, of course, makes sense: the higher up the social and economic scale you are, the more time you ought to have to enjoy the fruits of your labours.

From what we've been told thus far, the lower class comprises the following professions:


Farmers
Entertainers
Servants
Common Wares Shopkeepers (this includes Potters, Weavers, Basket Makers, Mat Makers (?)).


In a lower class family, all members must work in order to survive (the one exception seems to be the Servant family, where the child does not appear to work). The wife also needs to attend to the household's shopping.

The middle class comprises the following professions:


Wealthier Shopkeepers, who produce luxury wares. This includes the Jewelry, Cosmetics, Perfume, Furniture, Sculpture, and Sandal shops.
Craftsmen producing materials required by the government (for example, papyrus or bricks).
Bricklayers (and presumably stonemasons and carpenters).
Doctors/Herbalists/Dentists
Government employees, such as scribes and priests.


In a middle-class family, the husband works, the wife looks after the household. The childen of those families at the lower end of the middle class (papyrus makers, brickmakers) either assist the husband in his work, or do not work at all (bricklayer). Lower-middle class families buy only common wares.

The upper-middle class families (priests, scribes) shop in both common and luxury wares shops. Again, the husband works, and the wife looks after the household. The children would typically be educated in a school.

It's not clear where in the middle class the proprietors of luxury wares shops and those providing healthcare will fall, but my guess is they will be upper-middle class.

Finally, the upper class is the nobles. Again, little detail has been released regarding them just yet, but they certainly have a lot more leisure time than most of your population. They are rich enough to employ the occasional servant to help with the shopping.

[Keith]

According to one source, ancient Egypt had 4 societal classes.

Upper Middle Class
Middle Class
Lower Middle Class
Bottom Class

Ancient Egyptian society was basically divided into four classes. The upper class included the government officials, nobles, and priests. The middle class included the scribes, skilled craftsmen, tradespeople, teachers, artists, and soldiers. The peasants, mostly farmers, laborers, and servants made up the lower class, which was the largest class. Finally the slaves (mostly foreign captives) made up the bottom class.

Another source puts it this way:

The Pharaoh was at the top of the class system. He was thought to be a god reincarnated into a man. He supposedly had absolute power over all things, though there is evidence of the priests having been in control during several pharaohs’ reigns. The priests were the next step down after the pharaoh. Below them were the princes and the noblemen, then the artists, the craftsmen, the farmers, and at the bottom were the slaves. Slaves were attained through wars, and hereditary placement. If the father was a slave, then the son was a slave.

One source I have says there was only three:

Upper Middle Class
Middle Class
Lower Class

The upper class consisted of the royal family, rich landowners, government officials, high-ranking priests and army officers, and doctors. The middle class was made up chiefly of merchants, manufacturers, and craftworkers. The lower class, the largest class by far, consisted of unskilled laborers. Most of them worked on farms. Prisoners captured in foreign wars became slaves and formed a separate class.

Ancient Egypt's class system was not rigid. People in the lower or middle class could move to a higher position. They improved their status mainly through marriage or success in their jobs. Even slaves had rights. They could own personal items, get married, and inherit land. They could also be given their freedom.

So it depends on which system the developers chose to follow.
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[EmperorJay]

Good posts :) I don't think there's much to add.

[vovan]

Well, that's very nice collection of info, Caesar Alan, but it seems to me like common wares shop keepers actually belong to the middle class category?

There was quote by Tony (I think), somewhere around these here parts, which said something along the lines of "when you set up a potter's shop lot, a poor peasant's family, which wants to move up into the middle class might immigrate into the city, and set up shop in the designated lot."

[Caesar Alan]

vovan Good point. The class system in CotN is more of a spectrum than a rigidly-separated tiered setup. I put the common wares shopkeepers in the lower classes because all the family members have to work, which is something shared by the rest of the lower class families. That said, I'd expect shopkeepers to be slightly wealthier than the rest of the lower class, as they'll have a regular source of income from their products.

It may well transpire that luxury wares shopkeepers have to do a similar amount of work to common wares shopkeepers, but until such details emerge, I think I'll stick to my current classification :)

Something I'd like to hear about is how healthcare is managed in CotN. Healthcare buildings certainly exist (as they've cropped up occasionally in comments made on other threads), but I wonder whether your herbalists and dentists are more like shopkeepers with a different specialisation, or another service that has to be provided by the government...

So many questions :D

[vovan]

Something I'd like to hear about is how healthcare is managed in CotN. Healthcare buildings certainly exist (as they've cropped up occasionally in comments made on other threads), but I wonder whether your herbalists and dentists are more like shopkeepers with a different specialisation, or another service that has to be provided by the government...

Hehe, I'll bet you have to put the herbalist's hut somewhere where there's lots of herbs. Nothing worse than coming to a doctor and seeing a note that he's gone for the week collecting herbs. ;)

[EmperorJay]

LOL... I'm wondering if the Doctors can make mistakes too.. instead of curing someone they give him the worst diarrhea in human history. :p

Thinking about it, I don't agree at this point about the lower (or lowest) class including common wares shops along with farmers and the like.

Rather, I think that it more depends on who's the boss instead of if whole the familiy works.

Bottom class (works for someone) - Servants, Labourers, Beggars etc.
Lower Middle Class (relatively poor but own boss) - Common wares shop owners, Entertainers (all visitors of common wares shops only)
Middle Class (richer than LMC (Lower Middle Class) but own boss) - Luxury wares shops, non-noble government employees (all visitors of both common wares as well as luxury wares shops)
Upper Middle Class - Nobles and perhaps Royal Family

That does leave the question if wealthy potters would then become members of the Middle Class. I do think so.

[Azeem]

LOL... I'm wondering if the Doctors can make mistakes too.. instead of curing someone they give him the worst diarrhea in human history. :p

According to a history professor that I know, many doctors were much more harmful than helpful before the advent of scientific medical research. Doctors in the past often didn't really know what they were doing. One of the wierd ironies was that people that could not afford doctors were better off than people who went to doctors. :D

[vovan]

Well, that citizen evolution thread kinda made me think.

Here we are trying to sort our citizens into different classes, and yet, if you think about it, the whole concept of classes is quite subjective to the society in question, and is all around quite an artificial idea. For instance, what may be considered middle class in modern Great Britain, could be thought of as upper class in a third-world country.

So this thought kinda made me wonder if there is even such game concept as "classes" in CotN. I mean, classes in previous games were simply an abstraction to distinguish different people. They weren't very fluid either. You have your wealthy middle class; one step up, and all of a sudden they are patricians, and don't do any work. :)

In CotN, however, the whole concept of population is entirely different. Before, we never saw individual people. The walkers were mere abstractions of goods and services flowing around the city - you could click on the market lady, for instance, but you could never pin-point where she lives, for instance.

In CotN, the approach is different. Every individual person is simulated by the game, and is not abstracted out by a "number of occupants" statistic of houses we saw before. As we have seen, each individual performs a certain duty, and his general welfare determines how well he performs it.

Hence, I can't help but wonder if the whole concept of classes is not needed any more. You can figure out how much grain a certain family has, and from that and the general situation in your city, you can infer whether it is wealthy, poor, or some grade in between.

[tobing]

According to a history professor that I know, many doctors were much more harmful than helpful before the advent of scientific medical research. Doctors in the past often didn't really know what they were doing. One of the wierd ironies was that people that could not afford doctors were better off than people who went to doctors. :D

Side remark: I suspect, this isn't much different today... :D

[EmperorJay]

You have a point there vovan, but there will always be classes. What the classes are and how they are determined is the question I think.

Each society has classes but as you say, they are determined diffirent. We're indeed dealing with individuals here so other people will not only have an opinion about you, the ruler, but about other people as well and that's why I thought that Common Ware Shops (and the like) and Farmers (and the like) should/would not fall in the same class.

Individuals will have a certain respect for wealthy people (along with some jealousy of course) but a wealthy potter will not earn the same respect as a wealthy jeweler. However, because farmers and servants have bosses, they might even earn less respect.

I am of course speculating, but they're trying to make the people as real as possible and real people have feelings towards other people (fights between families have been confirmed too and you need feelings towards other individuals for that).

[wodinoneeye]

Hehe, I'll bet you have to put the herbalist's hut somewhere where there's lots of herbs. Nothing worse than coming to a doctor and seeing a note that he's gone for the week collecting herbs. ;)


Except that that one week of collection can keep them supplied for a year...
(herbs also being seasonal as well)

Will be interesting to see how they balance the 'walking for supply' behavior for different professions.

Dont want to see them out strolling towards the river to gather another one pound of clay (each pot). One trip's load (strong back : 50-80 pounds) can keep a potter busy for a week depending on what he's making.

Brickmakers on the other hand deal in bulk and can go thru alot of raw material fairly quickly (making it more critical to have them closer to supply of raw material)

[Bizkit]

When he starts his small business, the potter, for example, could go to the river himself and get a pot at a time (he's not manufacturing a lot of pots anyway). As he gets more prosperous, maybe he could hire a couple of assistants to get the clay while he's busy doing more and more pots. His spouse could do that as well, while the kid learns his father's profession by watching him at home after school.

[wodinoneeye]

When he starts his small business, the potter, for example, could go to the river himself and get a pot at a time (he's not manufacturing a lot of pots anyway). As he gets more prosperous, maybe he could hire a couple of assistants to get the clay while he's busy doing more and more pots. His spouse could do that as well, while the kid learns his father's profession by watching him at home after school.

School?

Kids in general (majority being lower class) didnt goto school.

They learned from their parents and assisted them.

Will be interesting if the craftsmen have apprentices (those who are self employed anyway, as government workers will be organized differently)

[wodinoneeye]

The upper-middle class families (priests, scribes) shop in both common and luxury wares shops. Again, the husband works, and the wife looks after the household. The children would typically be educated in a school.

It's not clear where in the middle class the proprietors of luxury wares shops and those providing healthcare will fall, but my guess is they will be upper-middle class.

Finally, the upper class is the nobles. Again, little detail has been released regarding them just yet, but they certainly have a lot more leisure time than most of your population. They are rich enough to employ the occasional servant to help with the shopping.


Upper classes (especially nobles) had large households which even in a scaled down representation might be more than a dozen people (instead of hundreds).

Gardeners
Cooks
Guards/footmen
Nurses
Maids/Grooms
Majordomo
Extra relatives
Scribes

Servants would do most of the actual shopping.
The wives would do more lounging and visiting...

It sounds like the buildings will have interiors (all that talk of peeking into cupboards). I will be interested to see how they handle the interiors of the larger residences (more than a one room unit that might be sufficient by
most huts/shops/workshops) and what variations/ different contents will be portrayed.

[Miut]

From Tour Egypt on schools.. ;)
http://www.touregypt.net/magazine/mag11012000/magf1.htm

"Learning

As soon as they could walk around, kids helped their parents and imitated the life of an adult. Girls learned household chores and boys learned how to tend the fields with their fathers. But both girls and boys played and helped in the fields.

In general, girls did not attend school, although we have some evidence that girls from wealthy families may have been literate. At the age of four, a boy began being trained by his father in his particular craft. Royal children were taught reading, writing and mathematics in the palace. The kids (boys) of wealthy parents could join temple schools and become scribes—a very prestigious profession—or army officers. Boys who attended these schools started at the age of four and kept going until for ten or twelve years before being assigned a position. Often the boy’s father was instrumental in deciding the subject matter of his son’s education.

Alas, the carefree childhood of most ancient Egyptian kids was over by the time they reached puberty. By age twelve to fourteen, they would be married and begin to have children of their own. Even though the ancient Egyptian life span was short (average—40 years or so), new parents joyfully brought forth children, remembering the love they received from their own parents."

So there were some schools, but not for peasants, as you said.

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