You don't need AI. The starting simulations and agents don't need to be that complex. You make a toy first, and then see if it's of use. (I think Europa univers

You don't need AI. The starting simulations and agents don't need to be that complex. You make a toy first, and then see if it's of use. (I think Europa universalis and other games from that house may suit you?) Matter of fact, if you have time, use the bay12 Way. Write a story of what you'd like to see. Then break it down into interactions, atomic items, compound items, and then go from there. Do note, that DF allows for hugely complex interactions and emergence partly because it has the advantage of a millions year of development time, unburdened by having to conform to market or business expectations. So this allows for moderately deep systems to interact with shallow systems and yet more systems which are very deep. The sheer number of systems results in all sorts of emergent behavior, without having to resort to depth of simulation. So for example, you don't need a z axis when you start out. You may well want geography though, since that determines ecology and weather. These inform resources, nutrition, growth, abundance and derive from there to economy. Assuming you don't simulate evolution, and hard code races/civs - you have the basics to define conflict. But unless you write a story down, it results in an antiseptic sim. A story or text helps you identify quirks of your style, which you want to see reflected in your sim (you may want people to always have a predilection for ponies, or prefer cats over dogs. You may hardcore pacifism as a civ trait which leads to other results ) This keeps some sort of emotional and narrative hook, which makes the simulation worth engaging with.