More uses for Village Authority.

[SynthesisAlpha]

So many people are overreacting about the whole authority decay. My village is large enough to have a maximum authority over 1 million, and we're sitting at 850k --- sorry, it went up to 900k since i logged on. Rather than worrying about "Oh no my village will shut down if no one logs in for two weeks", I'm more concerned about a reason to have higher authority. It's very easy to maintain authority in a village with a few active players, even if most of them have minimal intelligence and charisma. What incentive, then, is there to further increase these stats, take the civilization side of the barb/civ slider, etc.

I'd like to see more authority based powers out of the lawspeaker and chieftan, specifically those that benefit the village instead of 'summon two people' and 'blow up claims'. What about a number of powers with village-wide effects.
Ideas for village powers, most or all of them with some time-based cooldown on top of the authority cost.
Rain Dance: Village Ritual that speeds up crop growth inside village influence, costing X authority points per tile of crops + a base cost of Y.
Dig Deeper!: Mines inside village influence have a number of random tiles returned into mine-able walls. Adjustable authority cost, or costs a percentage of total, giving greater effect for more spent?
Spic 'n' Span: Repairs damaged structures inside village influence, costing X points per object repaired. Small effect on a moderate cooldown, to prevent using it to rapidly repair walls under attack.
Weather-Proofing: Reduces or negates natural decay of structures, but increases the village's authority decay.
Natural Balance: Restores quality points inside village influence by a few points, up to the maximum of the quality point. Would include trees. (Because it sucks that trees we plant suffer permanent quality loss from harvesting branches and such)
Midnight Ride of Loftar: All online village members are given a prompt, asking them if they want to teleport to the lawspeaker/chieftan's location in defense of the village. The Russians are coming! The Russians are coming!

Additionally, another idea would be to have Village Belief Sliders that would cost authority to move in addition to a cooldown, and would influence all members of the village. Unlike personal beliefs, the sliders wouldn't have tradeoffs (like losing int/cha when you take barbarism). Each tick of a slider would cost a LARGE amount of authority (like say, 100k per movement per point, 500k to get the fifth point in a slider), so you would need a larger village to even be able to move sliders to their farthest point, and it would take a long time, or a very active village to move every slider to its maximum. I'm sure someone can come up with better names for the settings, but whatever.

Nature/Industry -- Crops in village grow faster (or yield more, or increase quality more easily), or Ore smelted in the village yields more metal (or increases in quality, or mined tiles give extra ore.)
Influence/Education -- Actions that give LP in the village produce additional authority, or actions that give LP in the village give the character additional LP.
Relaxation/Revelry -- Characters in village influence recover stamina more quickly, or Characters in village influence gradually recover travel weariness.
Progress/Preservation -- Reduces decay like a more civilized area without affecting animal levels, or Increases levels of nearby animals (for better hunting) without affecting decay levels.
Fortification/Military Training -- Increases soak and HP of walls on village territory, or Village members on village territory gain a bonus to combat skills (and possibly str/con/per).
Scouting/Concealment -- Gives bonus to tracking performed by village members, or makes village members harder to track.

That's all i can come up with for now. The idea is that a larger, more active village, that has members with better contribution to authority (via better int/cha scores) should get some tangible benefits over the smaller, less active ones. It would serve as an incentive to larger cities and trade centers over smaller mining outposts and such, and give players a reason to value int and charisma.

[Squidgy]

I think it needs a high upkeep, to be fair. The farther you move it away from the neutral position, the more upkeep you need, say (100 * village member online * # of sliders moved), and returning to the neutral slider should give you a terrible partial refund, in case of an emergency "not enough authority" situation. Maybe give back like 1/20th of what was invested.

HOWS ABOUT THAT, HUH?

[Avu]

Love the suggestion.

[Onionfighter]

Sounds good, we are maxed out on authority.

[Riou1231]

You know what, this is the first good suggestion I've seen in a few days now. I'm hoping loftar or jorb will see this and consider adding it.

[sabinati]

A+

[niltrias]

Additionally, another idea would be to have Village Belief Sliders that would cost authority to move in addition to a cooldown, and would influence all members of the village. Unlike personal beliefs, the sliders wouldn't have tradeoffs (like losing int/cha when you take barbarism). Each tick of a slider would cost a LARGE amount of authority (like say, 100k per movement per point, 500k to get the fifth point in a slider), so you would need a larger village to even be able to move sliders to their farthest point, and it would take a long time, or a very active village to move every slider to its maximum. I'm sure someone can come up with better names for the settings, but whatever.

That's all i can come up with for now. The idea is that a larger, more active village, that has members with better contribution to authority (via better int/cha scores) should get some tangible benefits over the smaller, less active ones. It would serve as an incentive to larger cities and trade centers over smaller mining outposts and such, and give players a reason to value int and charisma.

I like the gist here, not some of the specifics. Dig deeper especially seems a bit off. The last sentence, I think, is the most important point of an overall great post.

[ImpalerWrG]

The semi-magical stuff sounds like the stuff thats planned for wyrd so it probably conflicts with some pre-existing loftjorb plans.

The slider stuff will suffer the same problems as personality sliders and I'd rather not see that bad mechanic expanded further.

[Spiff]

even if most of them have minimal intelligence and charisma.

^^goons

[Jackard]

yessssss

reminds me of the miracles from King of Dragon Pass