Dynamic kingdoms

Thoughts on the further development of Haven & Hearth? Feel free to opine!

Dynamic kingdoms

Postby ven » Thu Jan 05, 2017 9:47 pm

It has been pointed out a few times by different people that kingdoms have no uniqueness to them. I believe many players would like it if kingdoms were made not only more different from each other, but also more interactive. I can think of two ways of doing that.

One is motivating citizens to visit the center of the kingdom often. Daniangione's suggestion of some buffs irradiating from the king sounds interesting, even more so if such blessing were needed to be given in person every month or so, thus encouraging regular visits to the king’s place.

Another option is building public altars associated with the 12 beliefs (industry, nature, life, death, etc) which any citizen could visit and sacrifice EXP for a few temporary buffs. This could lead to continuous movement of people within the kingdom and anything that makes people want to leave their walls is profit.
I also like the idea of kingdoms having a „shrine of industry“ and „shrine of life“ somewhere within them, it seems like something we'd expect in the real world.

In any case, I don't think all buffs should be passive. It would be nice if the more specialized ones (such as increased farming speed %) needed more interaction, or interactive infrastructure.



Another is implementing kingdom policies, which in practice could be just hearth magics or government actions, so nothing too fancy here. The point is that different kingdoms could have different policy choices, and this would possibly make life in one of them very different from in another. A few examples:

Choosing between centralizing power or giving autonomy to vassal villages:
* With autonomy, vassal village lawspeakers would receive a few limited policies of their own, and the authority drain of the kingdom itself would be lower.
*A centralizing kingdom, on the other hand, would have more authoritarian policies, exclusive to the king, like immediate-effect options such as kaios' „law & order“ and „art of war“ examples, or any other intrusive policies really. Its passive bonuses could also be proportionate to the distance from the kingdom’s center.

Choosing between absolute or lawful rule: each could have its own set of policies.
* A lawful rule means that the kingdom follows a few established laws, and this would translate as policies targeted at the long-term and applied to the entire realm, such as building or tree growth speed that is gradually increased over time, cheaper road costs, cheaper knarrs and and mineholes etc, but equally for all vassals.
* An absolute realm would have fewer limitations in its scope, and an absolute king could have policies with specific targets and more immediate effects, such as giving buffs to specific villages and characters, or performing the state funeral. I imagine the „buff emanating from the king“ thing would also apply to this type of kingdom.

On the production side, kingdoms could further differentiate themselves from one another by choosing to make one (among several) unique crafting recipes available to every citizen: every kingdom would then have specialized items. It could be immovable structures or expensive curios. Or something harmless balance-wise as one of the old store hats, or even a cheaper recipe for crafting the kingdom's official banner/sketch.

tl;dr: scrap the passive bonuses, make people want to move within their own kingdom, and make kingdoms lively as a real one.
Venator
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Re: Dynamic kingdoms

Postby NotJimmy97 » Fri Jan 06, 2017 4:12 am

ven wrote:Choosing between absolute or lawful rule: each could have its own set of policies.
* A lawful rule means that the kingdom follows a few established laws, and this would translate as policies targeted at the long-term and applied to the entire realm, such as building or tree growth speed that is gradually increased over time, cheaper road costs, cheaper knarrs and and mineholes etc, but equally for all vassals.
* An absolute realm would have fewer limitations in its scope, and an absolute king could have policies with specific targets and more immediate effects, such as giving buffs to specific villages and characters, or performing the state funeral. I imagine the „buff emanating from the king“ thing would also apply to this type of kingdom.

On the production side, kingdoms could further differentiate themselves from one another by choosing to make one (among several) unique crafting recipes available to every citizen: every kingdom would then have specialized items. It could be immovable structures or expensive curios. Or something harmless balance-wise as one of the old store hats, or even a cheaper recipe for crafting the kingdom's official banner/sketch.


These are fantastic ideas that would enrich the game's social environment significantly. I hope Jorbtar sees this thread.
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