SP - General Bandits and Looters systems

[willholton1]

Bandits: Most bandits should have a "home", that they try to patrol around. This should either be a city or a hideout. They should at times enter back into the city or hideout; the numbers should change depending on how many are out on the map patrolling.

City Bandits: They should be able to enter back into the city from a distance, not have to go through the front gate. For the city looters, you should not be able to know their numbers unless you have decent roguery. Many cities already have these sort of "underbellies" where rogues are.

Hideout Bandits: They should not patrol with more than 10 without a higher level troop to lead them (villager killing parties). They should not patrol as more than 30 without a named leader (caravan killing parties, raiders). Their groups should have goals, such as "gather food", where they raid a village for hideout supplies. To deal with them, it should be an option to either sneak attack (small group skirmish battle, meant to "cut the head off the snake", using the same mechanics as it does now, but you only face a small portion of the hideouts numbers), or an all out attack (siege battle with the entire hideout, at their main fortification, which should have more troops now).

"Dream goal": Bandits with different bases could be able to fight one another and take over each others hideouts. They could have their own generated "clan name" (The Hidden Mouse, The Lost Youth, etc). Multiple different ones might be in cities (similar to how multiple gang lords can be). These bandit factions could spread across Calradia like ants, each hideout a little ant hill trying to push forward and gain additional territory, move into a new city, and spawn out from that.

Looters: These are bandits with no "home". However, they should spawn under specific conditions instead of being a feature of the map. They should have varying types based on how they spawned: normal looters should spawn from displaced villagers when a village is raided or has very low morale/wealth, various soldiers who have been routed from battles where their commander was captured, deserters from low morale, etc. All of these are "Looters". If they are not dealt with by an NPC warband, they should disperse over time -- villagers returning to their homes after the "raided" effect ends, soldiers joining local militia or garrisons, deserters joining local Bandits.

 

[willholton1]

Once the population of looters or bandits gets to a threshold, settlements should expend resources to spawn patrols to fight them (of adequate size, for adequate cost). Lords should also give some priority to going back to their lands to deal with brigand issues. Once the brigand population dies down for a set amount of time, the patrols should cease (saving that settlement money) and the lord should prioritize other things.

This will give an area a means to fight back versus larger groups of brigands. This will also help keep prosperity in check and give cause for lords to return to their kingdom rather than only focus on war efforts.

On the opposite side, if an area loses prosperity and the bandits/looters do not gain enough wealth or food to sustain themselves, they should deteriorate. This will help prevent a loop where an area can not recover from its brigand issues.

 

[Ugbukk]

From a game dev perspective this may be complicated to code in. But from a player perspective this sounds awesome and gives more meaning and reason to the 'wild life' on the map.

 

[willholton1]

From a game dev perspective this may be complicated to code in. But from a player perspective this sounds awesome and gives more meaning and reason to the 'wild life' on the map.

Exactly. This suggestion needn't be taken wholesale, bits and pieces would help, but my main hope is that looters and bandits become more than a random feature on the map, and more of a living breathing faction, like any other, with named leaders and goals, but on a much smaller scale.

 

[willholton1]

For Looters, fighting them shouldn't be your only option. If they are heavily outnumbered, they should attempt to run, or surrender if they can't outrun you. It should be an option to pay them a larger sum to dissipate immediately, as they have enough money to go on with their lives (again, the idea is they should have some goal, not just be random).

If they beat you, they should simply steal from your inventory, rather than capture you if you're of no renown. Whatever they steal should go towards their goal, and possibly be enough to have them dissipate.