Starting from a minor crime, pretend the player hurt or kill a farming animal: this would trigger the reaction of the villagers beneath a determined radius (otherwise the act go unnoticed) asking for compensation or threatening the request for intervention from the guards. At this point, you pay what is due with a loss in relationship (depending on the gravity of your actions) or guards get spawned (number and tier based on prosperity of the settlement) and come asking for higher fee or, if you resist, to arrest you.
If you decide to fight the guards, the general behaviour would be the same as fighting thugs, with townsfalk running away for their life and a sphere of influence outside which the fight ends, possible with a cooldown.
That's all, in my opinion this is simple yet effective and easy to implement at this stage of game's development, of course it would be exponential depending on the crime, the type of settlement and its prosperity and, in the worst case scenario, you are put in prison awaiting the execution, activating a timed quest to escape.
If you decide to fight the guards, the general behaviour would be the same as fighting thugs, with townsfalk running away for their life and a sphere of influence outside which the fight ends, possible with a cooldown.
That's all, in my opinion this is simple yet effective and easy to implement at this stage of game's development, of course it would be exponential depending on the crime, the type of settlement and its prosperity and, in the worst case scenario, you are put in prison awaiting the execution, activating a timed quest to escape.