A new take on owning property

[okiN]

It just occurred to me that now that we have the level editor, we could finally implement the idea of owning property.

My idea is this: armagan adds two locations to the world map, one on the Vaegir side, one on the Swadian side, named "Insert Character Name Here's Grounds" or something. These locations would be flat and become accessible after you've attained the rank of knight for the corresponding country, at which point you're given a title, land and a personal servant. When you go to the location, your man (Or woman) will be waiting for you.

He'll tell you the situation of your estate, give you the weekly income for your lands and let you rename your homestead. You can move him around and construct a neat fortress or ranch or whatever around him using the edit mode. Every rank you achieve in the army after knight will give you some kind of an option to develop your estate which can be activated by talking to your servant. These would increase your weekly income and grant additional bonuses, for example you'd get a steady flow of grain from farming, collectible from your servant.

The system could be developed as M&B progressed, in the end the whole thing would be much more interesting and complicated and you might have to defend your castle from hostile forces. This would also solve the motivation problem for doing faction quests. Sound good?

 

[Juno]

*clappy* yesh good idea... lol that would be so cool

>:EDIT:< working wink smilie

 

[Hardclyff]

That wouldn't be too difficult to mod. I was already thinking about making a mod along these lines, but decided to wait until new version and mod tools... But having it in the vanilla game would be great.

But of course being able to create locations brings this idea to another level.

 

[Gilrain]

Great idea okiN

 

[Narcissus]

Okin ... you did it again.

Great idea.

 

[ThVaz]

Great Idea!
Maybe you servant could give you quests to be done too - like end with menacing bandits near your lands, solve the food problem of your people, negociating trade routs to supply your land needs...there is a lot of possibilities.

 

[General_Specific]

Hey I get it! The feudal system. You could even get more servants for your property, so that you could farm and sell the food for gold, or even have your guys go work at the salt mines or...

I go crazy when I hear a good idea.

 

[Luthius]

Bring prisoners back to your ranch for some beats and call it 'Camp X-Ray'.

'Pursuade them' to join your forces and in a few days they may see things differently, see things... your way.

Another idea is being able to train your troops here to a level dictated by your rank in the army. No more having to hire peasants when you can hire veterans from your estate

 

[Garth]

Errr...


Well, at least I'm all for okiN's idea. I don't know about this Alfred-style servants giving quests and prisoner psychological breakdown camp and the butler farming corps stuff.

 

[Kaine]

i love the idea, but you shouldnt be able to build a fortress of any sort
either it is already a keep, tower, whatever or you stick whith what it is just from the beginning, like a manor, estate, ranch.

why? because of the timeframe in which the game takes place. what is your longest game, 12 months ingame time? what sort of fortification would have been accomplished in that time? right, none.

so with the aquisition of that realty, you have just become a member of the lowest layer of nobility, a vassal without further vassals (which would have to get land from your land) nothing more!

so, of what use would be that kind of estate, apart from little income?
(shouldnt be too much, maybe even grain only)

first, you should be able to station troops there (such a realty need guards, we are at war), let's say 10 to 15 people in 2-3 party slots. so it would serve as your troop backbuffer, troops there would heal but not get any xp.

then you could build some minor utility buildings there, only stuff which would be plausible to build in a few weeks or maybe months.
or maybe your recently aquired estated has all these things already installed, but went to reck after it was raided and the former owner diseased (without having heirs). so the buildings are already there. but nedd to be repaired/renovated. this way it could be a matter of weeks, rather than months or years and still be plausible.

and of course it should cost quite some money, at least 5000 and more (50k before 0.7)

ideas for building upgrades:
--------------------------------
buildings should become more expensive and longer to build in the order as listed.
you can only build one building at a time

stables:
-works like a chest, can only hold horses
-horses heal at increased rate

barracks:
-increases garrison size by 5, 10, 15 and slots by 1,2, 3 - your choice
-edit: the ability to rest with all your troops, like in a tavern

practice range:
- maybe needs barracks first
- stationed troops would get a little xp (maybe like trainer level 2-5) but
- option 1: only until they could level up and then stop
- option 2: not exceed a certain level, e.g. militia (after which they could split to melee/ranged units)
- option 3: only level up as long there isn split in the unit tree
- option 4: not exceed the player's level or half of that
- needs barracks

blacksmith: (only for repairing items)
there could be a chest, you put cracked, chipped stuff in there and after quite some time the item become normal
or you make it dialog based (talk to smith) and he can only handle one item at a time

weaponsmith (improving items or forging new one)
-upgrades from blacksmith
-can upgrade weapons further from normal to balanced
-can upgrade armors and shields further from normal to reinforced
-maybe could create complete new items (e.g. heavy <weapon>), but i expect this to be far more difficult to implement.

-smiths should cost maintanance while being active (have upgradable items in their chest)
-item upgrades should be measured in weeks.
-would be extremely cool if item degradation is implemented as well

horse trainer:
-upgrades from stable
-even more increased healing rates
-horses might have a small chance to become spirited (it's like a horse's vacation *G*), maybe every month 1% chance (upgrade to heavy wouldnt make sense)
-hunters upgrade to warhorses (train them to wear armor and carry a fat heavy guy without moaning)
-warhorses upgrade to charger (train to charge into a mob of crying primates is quite a challenge imho)

horse trainer should cost maintenance while active

enough brainstorming for now, it's your turn to spam more time consuming, difficult to implement features *G*

oh and i think vaegir and swadians should have some special buildings, maybe only swadians have horse trainer and only vaegir have weaponsmith

 

[LetterAfterZ]

Why not even take it further. If it were possible. You could have farms and such that are actual locations on the map. You could actually ride out and visit them, sometimes to defend them from attacks, even possibly to raid non-player controlled lands...

but maybe i'm jumping ahead too fast...

 

[Luthius]

I like the idea of the blacksmith. You could then find rare powerful weapons which are broke and have to fix them, though it could be annoying that they are all bust.

What would be cool is having a mission given to you at your ranch/villa/homestead which is either to escort/save a blacksmith and bring him to your ranch, or.. capture an enemy one in the style of the nobles quests!

I was joking about the whole camp x-ray thing, i hoped, somewhat foolishly, that it would be funny. You could however need people to run your ranch and slaves would do the trick. Specialist characters could be caputured but these may run away if your ranch gets successfully raided! Hired help is loyal but expensive.

What happens if you are raided?? To have the raiders destroy the place is a bit rubbish. Maybe they pillage your gold and supplies until you come back home and stop them. A bit like in the Oddessey! A rider vould ride out to you when your ranch is being attacked to tell you they are in trouble, and at the speed of other battles in the game, you may get back in time.

 

[okiN]

Kaine, that was a very good post and I agree with you on almost everything. Just two things: I'm not saying you should be able to build a huge stone castle, but some sort of motte & bailey fortifications would definitely be plausible. Maybe you could design the area and parts of it would appear over time, maybe a couple elements a day. This would encourage players to keep it relatively simple so that they wouldn't be defending a half-ready fort when the enemy decided to attack.

Another thing is the troop buildings: I think you ought to just ditch the practice range, give the barracks a reasonable garrison size and troop training facilities but make it a very expensive upgrade. Also, the structures could eventually all be added to the area, but it might be easier to just have the servant perform all the functions to begin with. He'd be the middle man who handles transactions between you and the local peasantry.

LetterAfterZ, I'll tell you why not take it even further: Less work, faster implementation, greater chance of success. I think it would make sense to first add a pretty simple system like the one Kaine and I outlined. Then it could be expanded upon if possible/necessary.

Luthius, I think that if you had troops garrisoned at the barracks they should be able to hold the enemy off, otherwise they'd automatically pillage the place, stealing stuff, cash and possibly damaging structures. However, if you had troops stationed there, then they'd hold the enemy off and send out a rider to get word to you. He'd have to be extremely fast and exempt from attack in order to reach you, though.

 

[Merticois]

However, if you had troops stationed there, then they'd hold the enemy off and send out a rider to get word to you. He'd have to be extremely fast and exempt from attack in order to reach you, though.

And with that comes my Idea. I was thinking that messengers would be an easy thing to implement and would help make some elements make more sense.

Example; I ran into a group of Swadian deserters. You have the option of fighting or paying. I chose to pay them off. My standings with them rose from -20 to -1.

To me that sounds like diplomacy is in the game so I have a few ideas.

1. You can send a messenger(s) out to request aid, send tribute, send a warning etc. This way if you are a member of the Swadian Army and you are being harassed by deserters you can request aid from another Swadian Kingdom. Granted then you would have to wait for your rider to reach the kingdom you tell him to travel to and wait for the support (if you get any). Tribute would also maybe stem the tide of war long enough for you to be ready or even forge an alliance

2. You could have merchants eventually working for you. You could outfit a merchant caravan to work aside from your group so that when you are fighting wars or other matters at hand you have a merchant constantly doing trading to bring in cash flow. Granted the caravan could be intercepted but that is a risk you have to take and also you are the one who decides how well the caravan guard is equipped (IE how much your willing to spend on outfitting the caravan.

3. Your servant should have a conversation option in which you can ask him/her "What are my diplomatic standings?”. A menu would pop up showing your relations with all the factions you have dealt with so far. The game already keeps track of that anyways so why not use it.

 

[LetterAfterZ]

LetterAfterZ, I'll tell you why not take it even further: Less work, faster implementation, greater chance of success. I think it would make sense to first add a pretty simple system like the one Kaine and I outlined. Then it could be expanded upon if possible/necessary.

Ahh well of course i didn't mean it as a "straight away" fully complicated thing. I was talking more long term. With anything that is newly created, baby-steps of course. Otherwise troubleshooting and bug fixing becomes quite hard.

More just throwing ideas around

 

[Khalid ibn Walid]

Not to deflate this, but isn't this scheme a little too, um, RTSish?

As far as the edit mode is concerned, that sounds nice, but why? Outside the aesthetic pleasure of building stuff, I am hard pressed to see what relevance it will have to gameplay as it is.

Furthermore, it seems that with an estate you'll only get wealthier. But at the higher levels, we are already too wealthy. We should be looking for a money sink, not a money fountain. I suppose cash would be spent on the building process, but these seem like investments with pretty good returns. Your wealth will be jumping up by leaps & bounds.

If you're looking for something complicated to do at the higher levels, my temptation is (naturally ) to direct you towards the political scheme I suggested a while back (it's a lot of reading!). That involved appointments to city offices in existing cities (rather than designing new estates). It was quite the money sink and you were saddled with new responsibilities, but all of which were roughly of the same kind as the rest fo the game.

I suppose some of the edit mode things you propose (e.g. designing battlements) could be merged into my administrative officer's functions. But I'd still have the same reservations about that.

 

[Narcissus]

You should be ashamed of yourself!

You turned a post (which has a valid point) into a shameless plug.

The estates could be seen as an investment, I agree. They could have good returns, also. Yet if it were geared correctly ... these estates and properties could easily become a money sink ... a money sink that gives a good showing for what you've accomplished. Prestige could be the motivating factor in having a person pour everything he has into his estate even though he might not get an equal return.

It all would depend on how it is implemented and what goal it is geared towards. This idea easily could be the money sink that the high-end game needs so badly.

Narcissus

 

[Khalid ibn Walid]

You should be ashamed of yourself!

You turned a post (which has a valid point) into a shameless plug.

'Tis indeed shameless. I am a terrible, terrible person.

But, hey, there are things suggested in the estate scheme which I like and I am always looking to steal & merge ideas.

The estates could be seen as an investment, I agree. They could have good returns, also. Yet if it were geared correctly ... these estates and properties could easily become a money sink ... a money sink that gives a good showing for what you've accomplished. Prestige could be the motivating factor in having a person pour everything he has into his estate even though he might not get an equal return.

Prestige for prestige's sake? Money for money's sake?

The point is there has to be a purpose to all this estate-building, something that is game-relevant. And ideally, something that won't involve all that much extra coding.

What is the consqeuence if you build a magnificent estate? Are you going to be attacked? At the moment, there is no siege process and I don't know how (if) it will be incorporated.

And what is the price you pay if you don't build? I am guessing many people who are into M & B for the skull-bashing will pretty much ignore their estates and do zilch with them. What are the consequences of that?

Things should fit with the rest of the game, not insert an altogether new, different & separate game in it for the heck of it. To put it crudely & rudely, it is like suggesting "And when you reach a high enough level, you get to play tic-tac-toe". Why?

Furthermore, any new things at the higher levels should make playing harder, but everything on this estate seems to make things easier. Stuff gets repaired, money grows automatically, etc.

I apologize if I sound unduly rough. But if you want to run with the estate idea so that it has a chance of being implementable, it is worth pausing and answer some of these basic questions before getting over-excited about internal details.

 

[Cesar]

It would add another thing for people to do at higher levels. Like if you get board of fighting you could go to your little area and build a castle, or something of the sort. It just makes the game more diverse.


Yes im new..

 

[Kaine]

well as i said, with the aquisition of that estate or whatever it will be, you are then finally landowner.

you already have the rank of a senior knight (where i find this ranks actually too much, advancing too knighthood should be the final step in that timeframe, even at wartime noone ever advanced tht fast in a military hierarchy).

so you are noble(wo)man now, that could trigger a spawnpoint for hunting parties of the enemy faction, which are only after you and dont care about petty river pirates. that should improve the difficulty.

also it could trigger another faction, maybe it is a border fort and since it's owner changed recently another faction of wearmongerers got it's attention to the conflict in calradia and choses to join the fray. i am not talking about another nation, just some sort of elitist trouble makers, similar to the khergit's, but different fighting style (maybe nordic berserker like?)

there are enough posibilities and even more work to implement them *G*

for the beginning i would say, have the ability triggered to get aquisition of that or one of 2 reatlties (i would like a bit of story and an difficult quest to get it), being able to travel there and talk to the manager. would be the first greater milestone.

attacks on the keep or whatever are imho beyond scope of the whole thing, until ai get's better.

also concerning the money sinks, item upgrade/ creation could cost even more than buying them or at least make more work (maybe you would have get coal and iron etc.). but it gives you the ability to forge special equipment, e.g. a heavy glaive which you want but couldn't get from the vendors.

and as i said, let the buildings cost maintanance, then let them even have a basic maintance (the smith wants his loan, regardless of if you get him special tasks for weaponry, there is enough to do in an estate/keep) and extra if it does special jobs for you.