base-building.md

music/base-building.md

Base-Building — Home-Bases · Personal Dimension · World-Homes · Fast-Travel

CANON SUBORDINATION — this document is PROPOSAL-TIER: it serves canon and never outranks it.

The canon: the CVD · the T1 foundation docs · the T0 registries (registries/) · the spine

(docs/spine/CH_*.md) · the region pages (_source/02_Tier_2_Region_Pages/). Authority order: docs/DOC_MAP.md § 0.

Canon served (scanned from this document's own citations — widen it by hand where it is thin):

CVD §5 · T1_Ability_Tree · T1_Build_Pipeline_Contracts · T1_Integrity_Paths_Worldstates · (+4 more tier) · T0_Chapter_Index · T0_Hard_Lines

READ THAT CANON FIRST — open it and derive from it before you build anything from this document.

If this document disagrees with canon, CANON WINS and this document is the defect — fix the

document, never the canon. Nothing here is applied until it is ratified into canon.

Status: PROPOSAL (Opus 4.8 design pass, 2026-07-13). Builds on Josh's 2026-07-12 Layer-v2 fun mandate + the AAA_REARCHITECTURE_BRIEF §4 two-tier stub, and expands it to a THREE-layer buildable-space system. Nothing here edits the CVD, the spine, or any registry until Josh ratifies the flagged forks. Canon anchors read in depth: T1_Trades_Master §3 / §6 / §9.2 (home-bases, compounds, trade economy), HL_0033 + HL_0082 (T0_Hard_Lines), T1_Ability_Tree §823/§825 (Dimension Pocket), T1_Integrity_Paths_Worldstates §8.9 (integrity-visible aesthetic), T1_World_Geography_Master §4/§7 (walked-geography + Vimana traversal), T1_Build_Pipeline_Contracts (Personal-Dimension deferred spec), the homes_established spine field, DOMAINS_VEHICLES_AND_ENRICHMENT_BACKLOG (one build-grammar frame), CVD §5 Component 5 (knowledge/trade-route MONOPOLY = the antagonist's signature).

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1. Vision

Building in *Humanity* is not one feature — it is three answers to three different desires, and the game is richer for keeping them distinct rather than collapsing them into a single menu. You put down roots in the real world (the ten culturally-rooted trade home-bases, where you learn a craft from a living tradition and command its supply chain), you build a home you chose anywhere the road takes you (free-placed dwelling-homes for your found family — the Minecraft/DQB2/No-Man's-Sky layer, physics-real, defensible), and — only once you have climbed far enough to open the Crown — you build a world that is only yours (the Tier-6 Personal Dimension: unbounded, physics-free, and visibly shaped by your moral path). The three are a progression of freedom and a progression of intimacy: the world's home, your home, your soul's home.

The addictive core is that the same trade-crafted build grammar threads all three, so every hour of gathering and crafting compounds across all of them; and that your morality is legible in what you build — most sharply in the Personal Dimension (canon integrity-visible) and, by extension, in how you wield a trade's economy. That last point is the design's sharpest edge: *monopoly is the villain's crime in this game*. Letting the player monopolize a market is therefore not a neutral tycoon toy — it is a moral mirror the game deliberately holds up.

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2. The three layers at a glance

The three are deliberately NON-redundant: A is *the world's* (rooted, given, cultural), B is *yours* (chosen, physics-bound, social), C is *only yours* (private, physics-free, moral). A player is never asked "which base menu is this" because the fantasy each serves is different.

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3. Layer A — Trade Home-Bases: structured build + the economy loop

3.1 What stays locked

HL_0033 is untouched: ten trades, one ancient + one modern home each (with the two canonical exceptions — Trade 7 Culinary single-home at Ch 42 Haiti; Trade 9 Inscription ancient-only, two ancient homes Ch 15 Egypt + Ch 29 Sámi). HL_0082's four compounds (The Forge / The Apothecary / The Atelier / The Workshop) are untouched. No 11th trade, no new home-base slot, no new trade-slot. Base-building at Layer A is *craft-station and compound upgrade only* — you improve the facility you were taught in, you never found a new one.

3.2 Material gathering (the shared feeder)

Gathering is the single economy that feeds all three layers. Per T1_Trades_Master §9.2, scarcity is REAL: materials are region-specific and require physical presence (you cannot buy your way past geography). The loop:

• Extract — region-authentic raw materials via the trade field-mechanics (ore at the mining home, plants at the herbalism home, timber/stone/hide anywhere). Gathering nodes are tuned per biome and gated by tool/tier where canon supports it.
• Refine — raw → refined at the home-base craft station (ore → wootz ingot at Ch 7's crucible tradition; plant → tincture at the Apothecary).
• Craft — refined → goods, trade-crafted modules (the shared build grammar), consumables, and gear.
• Every downstream layer consumes the same refined-material pool — Layer-B world-home modules, Layer-C Personal-Dimension construction, vehicle upgrades (Watercraft/Vimana), and gear all draw one economy. This is what makes gathering *compound* rather than feel like busywork.

3.3 The market-monopolization loop — as a MORAL MIRROR (the design's sharpest move)

Josh's seed is "control a trade's supply/economy — market monopolization." The critical canon fact: monopoly is the House of Velheim's defining crime — the Phoenician trade-route monopoly and information control over the Atlantic passages, the "Knowledge-Monopoly Vessel," sole-inheritance-of-the-substrate (CVD §5 Component 5, Pillar 1/3). A neutral "corner-the-market tycoon" loop would put the player in the villain's exact posture and *say nothing about it* — the single biggest thematic miss available here.

So the design reframes monopolization as Trade Sovereignty: you genuinely can seize command of a trade's supply chain in a region — but the game gives the act an integrity valence and makes the world respond, so it is a *choice with a soul cost*, not free money.

• The extractive way (the Velheim way). Corner a region's supply, hoard, gate access, price-gouge, buy out rival crafters. Yields raw wealth and hard economic leverage FAST. Drives integrity DOWN toward Evil; the world-state responds per T1_Integrity_Paths (scarcity, resentment, degraded community-recovery band, hostile fauna). You accrete the villain's silhouette — and the game lets you feel the resonance without narrating a lecture (show-don't-tell). This is the assimilation-integrity choice (§5.5) expressed in economic terms: participate in extraction, or subvert it.
• The stewardship way (Trade Sovereignty as flourishing). Break existing monopolies (often Velheim-held), seed abundance, open supply, stand up cooperative guilds and fair prices. Yields slower material wealth but deep RELATIONSHIP and REPUTATION capital (the entity-persona/faction system), which opens paths, allies, and later-chapter leverage. Integrity UP; world-state recovers visibly.
• The drifting middle. A working monopoly held pragmatically (secure your own supply without gouging) sits in the L3 band — neutral, self-sufficient, no moral swing.

This makes the economy loop *diegetic to the whole game's thesis* rather than a bolt-on tycoon minigame, and it composes directly with the integrity paths, the three endings, the journal artifact, and the entity-persona/faction relationship system. It also gives the modern arc (Ch 39-58, corporate-extraction chapters) a player-side mirror of exactly the mechanism they are fighting.

3.4 Compounds as the upgrade ceiling

The four compounds (HL_0082) are the Layer-A "megastructure" ambition — two paired trades sharing infrastructure, unlocked to full facility by the modern-adult chapters (T1_Trades_Master §6-7). Upgrading a compound is the Layer-A analogue of "building your base up": better stations, faster refine, unlocked recipe tiers, and higher supply-chain command radius. Trade 1 (Animal Communication) and Trade 10 (Fishing/Navigation) sit outside compound architecture (relational + field mechanics) and upgrade as field-infrastructure instead.

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4. Layer B — World-Homes: free-placed dwelling-homes (the NEW category)

This is Josh's new seed: *explore, adventure, and set up NEW homes wherever you want (No Man's Sky-style), and build them (Minecraft / DQB2-style).* The reconciliation that makes it HL_0033-safe is already sitting in canon.

4.1 Why this does NOT touch HL_0033 (confirmed reading)

HL_0033 governs trade home-bases — craft anchors tied to the ten trades. World-homes are dwelling homes — a categorically different thing, and canon already tracks them separately: the per-chapter spine field homes_established, and CH_07's explicit ruling that "a trade home base is a trade anchor distinct from a found-family dwelling home" (homes_established stays none there *even though* two trade homes root). The third category is therefore not an invention — it is the formal naming of a field the spine already carries. HL_0033 is not violated; recommend Josh ratify "world-home / dwelling-home" as the canonical name for the homes_established category. (Flagged in §9.)

4.2 Siting (the No-Man's-Sky layer)

Free placement on the real map, gated by real-world and care constraints:

• Buildable zones, not literally-anywhere. RECOMMENDED shape (fork A): free placement *within* region "claimable zones" — most wilderness/neutral ground is claimable; sacred sites, protected-culture ground, and story-critical locations are excluded (a hard §17.1 care rule — you cannot plant a fort on a Sámi sieidi or a Dogon cliff shrine). This preserves the *feeling* of "put a home wherever I want" while protecting geography and care canon.
• Siting matters mechanically: biome (materials + climate hazard), water access, defensibility (terrain choke-points), and proximity to a region hub / trade home / gathering density. A well-sited home is a better base; a remote one is more private but harder to supply and defend.
• Persistence: world-homes persist on the real map and remain returnable via the fast-travel network (§6). They are the anchor for the found-family/companion layer — the place your bonded NPCs and companions actually live.

4.3 The building grammar (the Minecraft/DQB2 layer)

One grammar, shared with every domain per the DOMAINS frame:

• Trade-crafted modules are the building blocks — walls, roofs, floors, stations, defenses, decor — crafted from the §3.2 material economy. Free-form module placement (DQB2 room-recognition + Minecraft freedom) rather than fixed floorplans.
• Era-and-culture-authentic palettes (an L1.5 daily-life immersion win): mud-brick and reed in Ancient Egypt, stave timber in Norse Greenland, adobe in the Southwest, bamboo-and-thatch in Island SE Asia. Materials available reflect *where and when* you build — this is culture taught through construction, not a lecture.
• Function tiers: rest/save, storage vault, a subset of craft stations (portable versions of the trade stations — never the full compound), companion/NPC residency, a garden plot, and a small creature paddock — the pre-Tier-6 home for bonded creatures *before* the Personal Dimension unlocks the 200+ housing. (Paddock cap is a Josh number — fork §9.)

4.4 Defense (opt-in, via already-declared systems)

Base-defense is where the "combat never stops" mandate (Pillar 1) meets base-building, and it is opt-in so builders who want a peaceful home are not forced into it (a difficulty/accessibility choice per the difficulty system):

• Attackers come from the systems already ratified: Velheim intrusion (Pillar-1 Aggro-Magnet / Velheim-Hunter triggers — the canon reason combat reaches you anywhere), regional fauna, and era-authentic raiders. No new enemy category needed.
• You defend by building — walls, wards (vril-inscribed per the Inscription trade), traps, choke-points — and by garrisoning: bonded companions run the FF-gambit / strategy-token AI (the RUNTIME_GENERATIVE_LAYER) as an autonomous garrison while you are away or fighting.
• Nemesis-grade memory: attackers remember your defenses and adapt (the strategy-token layer's persistent-memory product) — a raid answered the same way twice won't work twice. This is the "novel, addictive" edge on an otherwise-standard base-defense loop, and it costs nothing new because the engine is already specced.

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5. Layer C — Personal Dimension: the unbounded, integrity-visible sandbox

5.1 Canon (do not contradict)

The Dimension Pocket (Ether-Crown, Tier-6 Adeptus Minor, T1_Ability_Tree §823) unlocks at Crown numerical 100 + the Crown Adept-tier questline. It provides: creature housing for 200+ bonded companions, garden cultivation with no real-world growth-rate constraints, and home-construction with no building-permit or terrain-stability constraints. It is integrity-visible per T1_Personal_Dimension_Spec (deferred to post-book-processing): L1 Truly-Good → verdant-light substrate; L3 Drifting → neutral-grey balance; L4-L5 Evil → shadow-substrate variants. This is a LATE-game unlock — the reward for climbing the Crown.

5.2 What the design adds (within the deferred spec's scope)

• The unbounded creative sandbox. This is the layer that answers "build a world only yours" without physics limits — the streaming-worthy build. Where Layer B is constrained by real terrain and materials, Layer C is the free-canvas: terraform, float islands, impossible gardens, a menagerie of 200+ creatures.
• Breeding lives here. The Layer-v2 monster-BREEDING mandate (beyond the 22-slot familiar canon) is housed in the Personal Dimension — the growth-rate-free garden + creature housing is exactly the husbandry sandbox breeding needs. (Breeding genetics/counts are Josh's system canon — routed to the breeding proposal; base-building just provides the *venue*.)
• The astral hub. Because the Personal Dimension is reachable from anywhere once unlocked (astral sub-space, not a map location), it doubles as the universal fast-travel hub (§6) — thematically the "crossing-function" the endgame realms teach, foreshadowed here as a personal astral step.

5.3 The integrity-visible streaming hook

This is the AAA hook (§10). Your base *is* a portrait of your moral path — verdant paradise, ashen shadow-realm, or the razor-balance grey — so no two players' Personal Dimensions look alike, and a screenshot tells your whole playthrough's story. The design recommends extending integrity-visible aesthetics to Layer-B world-homes too (an Evil player's fortress accretes shadow-substrate; a Good one's home grows verdant) — but *not* to Layer-A trade home-bases, because those are a real culture's home and letting your morality visibly corrupt them is a §17.1 care violation. On trade home-bases, only *your added modules* read your integrity, never the cultural fabric. (Aesthetic-authority extension is flagged for wiring — §9.)

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6. The fast-travel network — the "Hearthway"

The design goal: quick-travel between all your homes — WITHOUT breaking the arc's foundational walked-geography rule (the outbound Ch 1-58 journey is deliberately traversed on foot/era-craft; the whole point is that the road home is *walked*; T1_World_Geography_Master §4, §6.7).

The reconciliation: fast-travel is return-only to places you have already reached — never a forward skip over unwalked ground.

• Nodes = every established home: the trade home-bases (as the arc roots them), your world-homes, and the Personal Dimension (always a node once unlocked).
• Pre-Vimana (Ch 1-54): the Hearthway is a *return* network — from anywhere, hearth back to a previously-established home; you still walk every *new* stretch outbound. Justified in-fiction as the returnable-rootedness canon (a home you have made is a place you can go back to). Optionally gated to safe/rest moments to preserve tension.
• The Personal Dimension as universal connector (post Tier-6): once the astral sub-space is open, it is reachable from anywhere and connects to every node — the single hub that makes the network feel instant, and canon-clean because it is an *astral* step, not a geographic one.
• Post-Vimana (Ch 55+): canon already grants it — "the Vimana enables free travel between all locations visited, five world-state versions per location" (§7). The Hearthway simply surfaces the home nodes on the Vimana's existing free-travel map. This is also where Layer-B world-homes across continents become a genuine network.

RECOMMENDED philosophy (fork C): walked-out / hearth-return-only until the Vimana, then full network. It protects the single most load-bearing geography rule while still giving the player convenient backtracking from hour one.

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7. How integrity · trades · creatures · vehicles feed the bases

• Integrity → the visible skin of Layers B & C (verdant/grey/shadow), the valence of the Layer-A monopoly loop, and the world-state that decides whether your homes are besieged or flourishing.
• Trades → the entire material + module + station economy; the ten home-bases; the compound ceiling; the supply-chain command loop. Inscription in particular wires base *wards/defense*; Engineering wires *structural* modules.
• Creatures → paddocks (Layer B, small) → 200+ housing + breeding (Layer C); garrison-AI defenders (any base); gathering/hauling helpers. Bonded via Trade 1 / Vril Communion (canon).
• Vehicles → the Watercraft and Vimana are *mobile* domains on the same build grammar (DOMAINS frame); the Vimana is the fast-travel backbone post-Ch-55 and (if Josh promotes it — flagged in the vehicles proposal, touches T1_Vril §6) a buildable flying home itself. Familiars housed in the Personal Dimension deploy as mobile crew on both craft.

One economy, four consumers (home-bases, world-homes, Personal Dimension, vehicles), one moral lens over all of it.

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8. Alternatives considered

Fork A — the shape of world-home placement.

• *A1 Full free-placement anywhere* (pure No Man's Sky). Maximum freedom; but collides with §17.1 (sacred ground), story geography, and streaming-of-your-fort-on-a-shrine risk.
• *A2 Curated plots* (designated buildable sites per region). Safe and authored; but kills the "put a home wherever I want" fantasy Josh named.
• *A3 Hybrid — free-placement within claimable zones, hard exclusions on sacred/protected/story ground.* RECOMMENDED. Keeps the free feeling; protects care + geography.

Fork B — the monopoly framing.

• *B1 Neutral tycoon economy.* Familiar, satisfying; but puts the player in the villain's posture silently — the worst thematic outcome.
• *B2 Integrity-valenced moral-mirror (Trade Sovereignty).* RECOMMENDED. Novel, canon-true, composes with integrity/endings/journal/factions. The *degree* of darkness allowed is a Josh call.
• *B3 Cooperative-only (no monopoly possible).* Safest thematically; but throws away a genuinely interesting player-power fantasy and the villain-mirror payoff.

Fork C — fast-travel philosophy.

• *C1 Full free fast-travel anytime.* Convenient; guts the walked-geography rule that is the arc's spine.
• *C2 Walked-out / hearth-return-only until Vimana, full network after.* RECOMMENDED. Convenience without breaking canon.
• *C3 Personal-Dimension-as-hub only.* Elegant and canon-clean; but locks all fast-travel behind a very late Tier-6 unlock — too little convenience for 55+ chapters.

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9. Forks for Josh (options + recommendation)

1. Ratify the world-home / dwelling-home category (naming + canon status). It is HL_0033-safe (it is the homes_established field, distinct from trade home-bases per CH_07). Options: (a) ratify as canon category named "world-home", (b) name it "dwelling-home" to match CH_07's phrasing, (c) keep informal. REC: (b) "dwelling-home" as the canon term, "world-home" as the player-facing/system label — matches existing spine language, minimal new canon.

2. The monopoly darkness ceiling. How far may the extractive/Velheim-way economy go? Options: (a) full — the player can build a genuinely oppressive regional monopoly (deep Evil-band, strong world-state blight), (b) capped — extractive play hurts integrity but cannot fully immiserate a region, (c) cooperative-only (fork B3). REC: (a) full, gated behind the Evil integrity band and always mirrored by world-state consequence + the journal — the moral weight is the point; a §17.1 care check applies so it never targets a protected-culture community as the victim.

3. World-home numerical caps (all Josh's system canon): max concurrent world-homes, module budget per home, and the pre-Tier-6 creature-paddock cap. REC: propose a small home count (e.g. one active dwelling-home per continent/act) + a generous module budget + a paddock cap well below the 200+ Personal-Dimension figure so Layer C stays the aspirational creature-housing unlock. Numbers await Josh.

4. The Layer-B entry unlock. When/how does free-placement world-home building begin? Options: (a) an early "hearth/camp" item unlocked in the ancient arc (build from ~Ch 7+), (b) gated to the modern arc, (c) gated to a specific trade tier. REC: (a) an early hearth/camp — gives the build fantasy early, scales up as trades/materials grow.

5. Integrity-visible aesthetic extension to player structures. Canon owns it for the Personal Dimension + protagonist + fauna (T1_Integrity_Paths §8.9). Extend to Layer-B world-homes? REC: yes for world-homes, NO for trade home-bases (care firewall — only your added modules read integrity there). Needs T1_Integrity_Paths authority sign-off + a Pipeline-Contracts mesh/shader note (already flagged there as a Personal-Dimension-spec-populate item).

6. Trade-10 modern-home ruling + the stale-label fix (from the brief's flagged bug). VERIFIED: Trade-10 modern home = Ch 56 Arctic (Greenland) — locked at v1.0 in T1_Trades_Master §3.10 ("Pacific Northwest" label already retired there), and confirmed by T0_Chapter_Index v1.2 (Ch 56 = Arctic, explicitly "TRADE_10 Fishing/Navigation Arctic return"). Ch 63 is a *Pacific Revisit* chapter but carries no Trade-10 home. RESIDUAL BUG: T1_Trades_Master §7 line 206 still reads "Ch 56 Pacific Northwest" — a stale leftover the §3.10 retirement missed. REC: Ch 56 Arctic stands as canonical (no change needed to the assignment); authorize the one-line correction of §7 line 206 "Pacific Northwest" → "Arctic (Greenland)" to kill the last stale label. (This is a grounded label-fix in a living source doc, not a canon change — flagged only because it touches a T1 doc.)

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10. Opus-now vs Fable-5 split

OPUS-CAN-SPEC-NOW (lock + wire this session):

• The three-layer architecture and the non-redundant distinctions (§2) — the design frame.
• The HL_0033-safe reconciliation: world-homes = the canon homes_established dwelling-home category (§4.1) — confirmed against CH_07 + the spine field.
• The moral-mirror economy design (Trade Sovereignty; §3.3) — the shape, valence, and canon composition.
• The Hearthway fast-travel rules composed with walked-geography + Vimana canon (§6).
• The shared trade-crafted build grammar + material-economy feeder (§3.2, §7).
• Opt-in base-defense routed entirely through already-declared systems (Pillar-1 triggers + strategy-token garrison; §4.4) — no new enemy/mode canon.
• The care firewalls (monopoly-as-villain-mirror handled, sacred-ground siting exclusion, trade-base integrity-skin restriction).
• The Trade-10 Ch 56 ruling + the §7 stale-label flag (§9.6).
• This proposal doc + a DOC_MAP entry; a recommendation to formalize a homes_established → world-home schema later.

NEEDS-JOSH-RULING (genuine canon/numerical/§17 forks — §9): world-home category ratification + name (9.1); monopoly darkness ceiling (9.2); all numerical caps — home count / module budget / paddock cap (9.3); Layer-B entry unlock timing (9.4); integrity-visible extension to structures (9.5); authorization of the §7 line-206 label fix (9.6).

FABLE-5-HANDOFF (deep implementation / tuning / final prose — targeted instructions):

• *Author T1_Personal_Dimension_Spec* (the deferred canon spec): integrity-visible mesh/shader variant model (separate meshes vs shader-override — the open question flagged in T1_Build_Pipeline_Contracts §491), the unbounded-construction ruleset, 200+ creature-housing + breeding-venue schema, garden growth-free model. Scope tightly to the §823 ability canon.
• *Per-region world-home material palettes + claimable-zone maps* — the era-and-culture-authentic build palette per region (Egypt mud-brick, Norse stave-timber, etc.) and the sacred/protected/story exclusion masks. Ride the region-build cascade.
• *The module catalog + build UI* (DQB2-room-recognition + Minecraft-freedom hybrid) — module list, snapping/free-placement rules, build-UX.
• *Economy tuning* — supply-chain command radius, monopoly thresholds, price/scarcity curves, integrity-swing magnitudes per economic action, and the world-state feedback tables. Balance against the difficulty system.
• *Base-defense encounter tuning* — strategy-token garrison behaviors, Nemesis-memory adaptation depth, raid composition per era/region, ward/trap module balance.
• *Integrity-visible aesthetic assets* for Layers B/C — the verdant/grey/shadow structure variants (coordinate with the Pipeline-Contracts populate items already flagged).

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11. The AAA hook

"Your base is your soul, your home is your story, and the world's supply is your moral test." Three building layers that each answer a different craving — put down roots in a real culture and command its trade; carve out and defend a home you chose anywhere the road runs; and, as the ultimate Crown reward, build an unbounded world that visibly *is* your moral path (verdant, grey, or shadow — no two playthroughs alike, every screenshot a confession). The addictive twist no tycoon game makes: the market you can monopolize is the exact crime the whole game is about — so seizing a trade's supply chain is never free money, it is the villain's mirror held up to you, and the world (and your own base) shows what you chose.

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*Cross-refs: AAA_REARCHITECTURE_BRIEF §4 · DOMAINS_VEHICLES_AND_ENRICHMENT_BACKLOG (build-grammar frame) · T1_Trades_Master §3/§6/§9.2 · T0_Hard_Lines HL_0033/HL_0082 · T1_Ability_Tree §823/§825 · T1_Integrity_Paths_Worldstates §8.9 · T1_World_Geography_Master §4/§7 · T1_Build_Pipeline_Contracts (Personal-Dimension deferred) · CVD §5 Component 5 (monopoly = antagonist signature).*

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