Custow Faction Discussion

[mollsomg / TWC]

I feel like we need to discuss the emergent early Custow Faction in a seperate Topic...

My question is:

Is the emergent early Custow Faction necessary/useful?

I think it is a pain for everyone to have this godlike Power sitting in the middle of the map, conquering settlements, imprisoning and destroying people whenever they wish to.

Yes they do make the map a bit more alive in the beginning, trading caravans, patroling their area etc.

But is it good to have a King + his 9 patrols roaming around right from day 5?
Inevitably the settlements around Custow deteriorate:

Either the prisoners overthrow the watchmen or the bandits take over the settlement ->
What happens? Custow rushes over, razes the settlement to the ground and leave none behind. ->

Eventually bandits take the EMPTY settlement again etc -> Custow retakes it etc...

So naturally that limits the emerging of other kingdoms to Areas where there is no Custow and no Charfield faction.
Mostly Kargala and the Nord and Vaegir lands is where other Kingdoms still have the possiblity to rise.

That kinda destroys the Randomness/Uniqueness of each game...


Now my proposal:

1. Make Custow entirely neutral the whole game, like Zendar. That means NO emerging Faction, Caravans YES, Patrols and Armies NO.

2. Make Charfield entirely Bandit the whole game. NO emerging Faction, but constant supplies of Bandits.

3. That results in all Kingdoms emerging at roughly the same time, at more different locations and with EVEN ODDS!


I know that the Custow Faction should limit the players advantages, so in order to counter that, we'd have to make sure that the player reaches m2e2 at the same time as the other "emerging Kingoms".

 

[wickedshot]

I doubt I'll make Custow or Charfield special and not kingdom emergent, but I do plan to have multiple start settings so that things will play out a lot differently.

The All-camps option or the Completely-Random option will offer a lot more variety in how things progress.  I'd planned to wait til later for such options, but I might consider doing it sooner.

 

[dscape750]

If the early kingdom is only there for the merchants, can't you put "low level" merchants around the training field and call it a gypsy camp? Not that I know what I'm talking about cuz I don't.
But then you wouldn't need the early kingdom.

 

[Berpol]

If you want to prevent the emergence of a kingdom in Custow you can just hire the four heroes stationed there. They are all low level so if you pay them 1k they follow you and as long as they follow you the kingdom can't be formed. While it's possible that another kingdom will conquer Custow later (a lot later) it will now stay neutral for a long time.
If you don't want these heroes in your group you can raise their disposition to 50+ and then reposition them to another settlement. Just use the cheat for the money.

 

[vonsch]

It's easier than that at the moment. Head to Custow immediately and into the tavern. Go make a cup of coffee, check your mail, exercise a few minutes... then come back and hire two of them (your relations will have gone up enough to hire at least two level 1s). Step out the tavern door, come back in... go fill the dishwasher, return and hire the other two.

Taverns boost relations fast. You can boost all 4 to high relations in the tavern by having two in your party and the other two unhired standing there too. That takes a bit longer (need 50 to get them to move to your own new camp and join your faction), but it also requires no actions beyond the initial ones described above. That means they can't escape while your not paying attention and sneak back and found Swadia before you can catch them again (as has happened to me.)

To eliminate this sorta exploit  , spawn these heroes at scattered distances with small parties so they take their time coming "home" so they aren't all there at once. Having them all sitting there slugging back the brewskis at the start is a very tempting (and low effort) target for grabbing 4-5 (Wirt the something there too). I've picked up some other low levels by hitting their camps and patrolling a bit too, but that's considerably more effort than sitting around in the tavern.