Sanctuaries

[Jackard]

It's an interesting idea. Perhaps it could be affected by the civilization of it's area. With more civ, it would wither, and disappear.

for this to work it should probably be entirely unaffected by pcs

not much point to a sanctuary that can be destroyed, kind of defeats the entire purpose wouldnt you say???

[theTrav]

It's an interesting idea. Perhaps it could be affected by the civilization of it's area. With more civ, it would wither, and disappear.

mmm, yeah maybe the spirits would want to leave if there were too many people about (or maybe they'd want to attack the people for enroaching)

If the sanctuaries disappear when there are too many people though, doesn't that make them fail to solve the original problem (no protected wilderness)?

[Erik_the_Blue]

not much point to a sanctuary that can be destroyed, kind of defeats the entire purpose wouldnt you say???

If the sanctuary is supported by deities or spirits, it should be possible (though very difficult) for players to defeat said deities or spirits, which would have far reaching consequences (including deactivating associated sanctuaries). This is starting to assume a lot about how the devs wish to handle religion, however.

[Jackard]

If the sanctuaries disappear when there are too many people though, doesn't that make them fail to solve the original problem (no protected wilderness)?

yes

[EveryTimeV]

not much point to a sanctuary that can be destroyed, kind of defeats the entire purpose wouldnt you say???

If the sanctuary is supported by deities or spirits, it should be possible (though very difficult) for players to defeat said deities or spirits, which would have far reaching consequences (including deactivating associated sanctuaries). This is starting to assume a lot about how the devs wish to handle religion, however.

I say, you could by all means attack another person or any protected thing in this sanctuary, but given the chance of invoking a deities rage in doing so would surely put anyone but the most maddened of individuals off that idea.

It would be like:

"Sure you can attack me, but the God protecting the land will unleash all hell on you for doing that" kind of thing.

Making said sanctuary would also be near impossible to do, if not completely made as the maps are generated.

[Erik_the_Blue]

@EveryTimeV:
Defeating a god might be impossible for an individual, but anything should be possible given a sufficient number of sufficiently powerful people. If the devs decide to have gods play an active role in the world, giving players the ability to go against certain/all gods would give more flavor to witches, inquisitors, and holy crusades. This is to say nothing of players becoming Beowulf-like heroes.

Having things the player cannot do because the game says so is something that goes against the nature of a sandbox game. So, a patch of land on which players cannot perform certain actions without the game itself releasing "holy retribution" is not in-line with the game's many sandbox features. Now, if there were a way to remove this quality from the patch of land, such as by defeating its protector, or perhaps by the creator not paying a regular maintenance cost, then it starts to feel sandbox-y again.

[Jackard]

The world should be big enough to support lots of weird shit. Not everything needs to revolve around pcs.

cant make lakes atm, but i havent heard any complaints about that

[EveryTimeV]

@EveryTimeV:
Defeating a god might be impossible for an individual, but anything should be possible given a sufficient number of sufficiently powerful people. If the devs decide to have gods play an active role in the world, giving players the ability to go against certain/all gods would give more flavor to witches, inquisitors, and holy crusades. This is to say nothing of players becoming Beowulf-like heroes.

Having things the player cannot do because the game says so is something that goes against the nature of a sandbox game. So, a patch of land on which players cannot perform certain actions without the game itself releasing "holy retribution" is not in-line with the game's many sandbox features. Now, if there were a way to remove this quality from the patch of land, such as by defeating its protector, or perhaps by the creator not paying a regular maintenance cost, then it starts to feel sandbox-y again.

Perhaps building an altar that has an area effect, and the altar being more powerful based on the amount of tribute* given, for instance an altar with a very low amount of offered goods to a deity would only spawn a rabbit to guard the area, and that area being small. But a very high tribute to the altar would be able to summon terrible beasties or inflict very significant status effects upon the invaders of the domain.

As the amount of paid tribute to your deity goes up so does the upkeep of that level of tribute perhaps, or it could simply be a one time level system where when you reach certain milestones you'd just have a troll/giant guarding the area which you are happy with.

* The tribute in question could be anything specific to your deities fancy, corpses, objects, minerals or plain old fashioned large quantities of coin.

[Erik_the_Blue]

Perhaps building an altar that has an area effect, and the altar being more powerful based on the amount of tribute* given, for instance an altar with a very low amount of offered goods to a deity would only spawn a rabbit to guard the area, and that area being small. But a very high tribute to the altar would be able to summon terrible beasties or inflict very significant status effects upon the invaders of the domain.

This sounds like it would emulate the "gods are as powerful as the sum of their believers" concept rather nicely. This all still depends on how the devs implement religion, however, so this should really be part of a greater discussion. Sanctuaries without some sort of "higher power" rationale to back them up don't seem like a good idea. A more mundane approach might be to have hireable NPC guards (which is the subject of some contention in its own right). Place them in forests or near herds, tell them to attack anyone who tries to chop down a tree or attack an animal within a certain radius, and you pretty much have a similar effect.

Edit:

cant make lakes atm, but i havent heard any complaints about that

All in due time.

[Jackard]

Sanctuaries without some sort of "higher power" rationale to back them up don't seem like a good idea.

why? dont use the sandbox excuse, things can still be dynamic without players directly affecting them

for that matter, why do things need to be incredibly complicated all the time? K.I.S.S.

also note that the original sanctuary suggestion would solve RoB type problems as well