If this is more appropriate for an existing thread, kindly merge, but it's a fairly specific request so I thought it might merit a look on its own.
It's pretty clear that in Warband, what's available in the villages that send their peasants to a given city affects what the city has for goods. That said, I'd really like to try to take advantage of that fact, at least in a limited way, and play it up for increased game depth by allowing players to invest in a village.
Each village should have one or two products they can add to their repertoire with a little financial support from a benefactor. A desert village, for example, could add Olives or Grapes if you invest because your investment went to Irrigation. Northern cities could add Grapes because of an additional hothouse, or increase their output of Linens, Furs, etc. Some villages could have underdeveloped Iron mines or other special stuff. It would be a list of 2 or 3 options, and the product would affect the goods balance and price in the town it was being moved to. Clues for what you could invest a village into producing could be available on the village maps making a tour of the village a smart idea rather than a waste of time.
You could even go the whole hog and have 4 investments you could make in any village -- Irrigation, Prospecting, Milling, and Tanning. Irrigation makes new food and textile products possible and increases Grain, Prospecting digs around looking for metal, Milling improves production of the whatever more finished goods the village makes, Hunting increases Fur and Leather production, with how much of an effect each improvement can have based on the region the village is in (Tanning better in the North, Irrigation better in the desert, Prospecting in the mountains, etc).
The concept is coming from an idea I had about how to make Velvet more common, basically there should be a few villages -- and which ones they are should NOT be made obvious, the player should have to FIND them -- that can start producing silk with a Milling investment, (originally in my head, this was simply for building a Mill) setting up a new town as a source of Velvet if you can supply the dyeworks and the dye. It'd be an involved and complicated process with the result of increased profit and a chance to make a real mark on the game map and change the economic balance as a result -- the best kind of fun for some players. THe reason I expanded it from that is that it shouldn't just be velvet -- the player should be able to make an impact on the economic climate of the kingdom in any of a number of different ways. That mechanic is kinda present in current Warband but would benefit from being developed further.
I think this system could make for a far deeper trading game and a much more involved economy with a more realistic flavor to it, not to mention far more of a sense that you can get your hands dirty and affect the world you're in in another different way. It also makes villages something worth protecting rather than just something to sort of ignore and let the rent roll in when it isn't currently burnt out. It's something players would be free to ignore, but could enjoy playing around with, might increase immersion slightly, and would give them much more control over the map -- and more reason to care if a given village is burnt out, possibly even setting up a player to play Robin Hood and kick an interloping lord's butt in order to protect his investments. I just think it'd be a fun addition.
Also, as a side note -- can we please make it so that protecting a village from a raid by a foreign lord (and possibly the bandit rescue missions as well) count in your favor with the lord of the village? After all you did just preserve his income, and according to the text of the rescue quest it's not necessarily the lord's fault his underlings didn't let the peasant plead his case directly.
It's pretty clear that in Warband, what's available in the villages that send their peasants to a given city affects what the city has for goods. That said, I'd really like to try to take advantage of that fact, at least in a limited way, and play it up for increased game depth by allowing players to invest in a village.
Each village should have one or two products they can add to their repertoire with a little financial support from a benefactor. A desert village, for example, could add Olives or Grapes if you invest because your investment went to Irrigation. Northern cities could add Grapes because of an additional hothouse, or increase their output of Linens, Furs, etc. Some villages could have underdeveloped Iron mines or other special stuff. It would be a list of 2 or 3 options, and the product would affect the goods balance and price in the town it was being moved to. Clues for what you could invest a village into producing could be available on the village maps making a tour of the village a smart idea rather than a waste of time.
You could even go the whole hog and have 4 investments you could make in any village -- Irrigation, Prospecting, Milling, and Tanning. Irrigation makes new food and textile products possible and increases Grain, Prospecting digs around looking for metal, Milling improves production of the whatever more finished goods the village makes, Hunting increases Fur and Leather production, with how much of an effect each improvement can have based on the region the village is in (Tanning better in the North, Irrigation better in the desert, Prospecting in the mountains, etc).
The concept is coming from an idea I had about how to make Velvet more common, basically there should be a few villages -- and which ones they are should NOT be made obvious, the player should have to FIND them -- that can start producing silk with a Milling investment, (originally in my head, this was simply for building a Mill) setting up a new town as a source of Velvet if you can supply the dyeworks and the dye. It'd be an involved and complicated process with the result of increased profit and a chance to make a real mark on the game map and change the economic balance as a result -- the best kind of fun for some players. THe reason I expanded it from that is that it shouldn't just be velvet -- the player should be able to make an impact on the economic climate of the kingdom in any of a number of different ways. That mechanic is kinda present in current Warband but would benefit from being developed further.
I think this system could make for a far deeper trading game and a much more involved economy with a more realistic flavor to it, not to mention far more of a sense that you can get your hands dirty and affect the world you're in in another different way. It also makes villages something worth protecting rather than just something to sort of ignore and let the rent roll in when it isn't currently burnt out. It's something players would be free to ignore, but could enjoy playing around with, might increase immersion slightly, and would give them much more control over the map -- and more reason to care if a given village is burnt out, possibly even setting up a player to play Robin Hood and kick an interloping lord's butt in order to protect his investments. I just think it'd be a fun addition.
Also, as a side note -- can we please make it so that protecting a village from a raid by a foreign lord (and possibly the bandit rescue missions as well) count in your favor with the lord of the village? After all you did just preserve his income, and according to the text of the rescue quest it's not necessarily the lord's fault his underlings didn't let the peasant plead his case directly.
