Oldschool
Sergeant at Arms
I would like to make village ownership and enhancement a more dynamic and rewarding experience in the game, so...here is my "Big Idea" post. While there are a lot of things I would like to mod in the game, the focus here is strictly on village management. I think that will make it more useful to other modders who may want to incorporate it or for players who just want to enhance village management without a lot of other game changes they may or may not want.
Also, the attempt here is to make village management more fun and rewarding without drastically changing the balance of the game. i.e. not to turn them into an easy source of income or high level recruits or pseudo castles. And, lastly, the emphasis is on functionality over fluff. If I can find a way to change the village in a dynamic way in game, then it would be great to be able to add buildings to it as they are built. However, if it requires making a ton of duplicate scenes for the various combinations of enhancements, it just wouldn't be worth the download size, IMHO.
I don't usually like to post in the "idea" stage. I have a lot of research and testing to do to see what is feasible and what is worth the effort before I can actually lay out a plan of action, but in this case, I would be interested in any ideas or thoughts about village management while it is still just a rough idea in my own mind.
That said, here are my basic thoughts on the existing management options, and how they might be changed for the better:
Messenger Post
Add a messenger troop to the village. For a few dinars, you can send your greetings to other lords. After a short time, he can return with the lord's response. If the lord is imprisoned, you will have to give him the bribe money as well. If you are like me, and keep track of other lords personalities, this could remove the tedium of having to hunt down every lord in the game just to find out his personality. As an added tweak, the personality could then be displayed on the Lord's character profile once it has been found out.
Obviously, there could be a lot of other uses for a messenger, but for now, to get the basic functionality in, that's what I have.
Watch Tower
Just add a visible watch tower to the village if possible to do without creating a duplicate scene. The current functionality is fine and I can't really think of any other logical uses for it. One possibility might be to add to the party's spotting range while they are in the village. That could be useful if you are in steppe bandit territory or in a hot war zone and trying to avoid battle while you are tending to village affairs or spending the night in the manor.
Mill
To my mind, this should be a permanent bonus to the village prosperity, but not a huge one, and the grain quest should not trigger until after you have a mill built. I would say building the mill, doing the grain quest, and doing the cattle quest should combine to add a slight boost to the overall prosperity. As long as the village isn't raided or infested with bandits, this prosperity should maintain itself and not be subject to random obscure game mechanics. (i.e the cattle shouldn't just disappear over time) If the village is pillaged in some way, though, the grain and cattle quests should reset and then need to be done again to get back to the new ideal prosperity level.
Manor
Either add a building if reasonably doable, or just a working door into an existing building if that turns out to be the better option. Not a place to garrison troops or a wife, but a chest could be added for temporary storage. If the village gets raided/infested, then you would lose whatever you had in the chest.
School
This is the biggest change. Turn the school into a village training ground instead. This also should be tied to the "train the peasants" quest. After building and training, the village should remain safe from bandit infestations, and when you have to defend against raiding lords, it should spawn in a mix of tier one and two troops instead of farmers as reinforcements. Also, it should up your village recruits from tier one to tier two.
I would like to completely do away with villages giving you higher tier troops simply because they like you. I don't know if that can be done or not.
The basic idea here, being, if you build the enhancements, do the village quests, and protect your peasants from pillagers, you should have a more prosperous village and a source of better recruits. The rewards may be small, but, I think, over the long term, worthwhile.
Obviously, these are some pretty basic changes and a lot more can be done to enhance villages, but, I think, taken as a whole they could make owning a village and managing it more fun and rewarding as the game plays out. Also, by keeping the focus simple, it increases the chances of actually getting the mod done in a timely matter and could serve as a foundation for future, broader changes.
Any idea, thoughts, feedback? What say you all?
Also, the attempt here is to make village management more fun and rewarding without drastically changing the balance of the game. i.e. not to turn them into an easy source of income or high level recruits or pseudo castles. And, lastly, the emphasis is on functionality over fluff. If I can find a way to change the village in a dynamic way in game, then it would be great to be able to add buildings to it as they are built. However, if it requires making a ton of duplicate scenes for the various combinations of enhancements, it just wouldn't be worth the download size, IMHO.
I don't usually like to post in the "idea" stage. I have a lot of research and testing to do to see what is feasible and what is worth the effort before I can actually lay out a plan of action, but in this case, I would be interested in any ideas or thoughts about village management while it is still just a rough idea in my own mind.
That said, here are my basic thoughts on the existing management options, and how they might be changed for the better:
Messenger Post
Add a messenger troop to the village. For a few dinars, you can send your greetings to other lords. After a short time, he can return with the lord's response. If the lord is imprisoned, you will have to give him the bribe money as well. If you are like me, and keep track of other lords personalities, this could remove the tedium of having to hunt down every lord in the game just to find out his personality. As an added tweak, the personality could then be displayed on the Lord's character profile once it has been found out.
Obviously, there could be a lot of other uses for a messenger, but for now, to get the basic functionality in, that's what I have.
Watch Tower
Just add a visible watch tower to the village if possible to do without creating a duplicate scene. The current functionality is fine and I can't really think of any other logical uses for it. One possibility might be to add to the party's spotting range while they are in the village. That could be useful if you are in steppe bandit territory or in a hot war zone and trying to avoid battle while you are tending to village affairs or spending the night in the manor.
Mill
To my mind, this should be a permanent bonus to the village prosperity, but not a huge one, and the grain quest should not trigger until after you have a mill built. I would say building the mill, doing the grain quest, and doing the cattle quest should combine to add a slight boost to the overall prosperity. As long as the village isn't raided or infested with bandits, this prosperity should maintain itself and not be subject to random obscure game mechanics. (i.e the cattle shouldn't just disappear over time) If the village is pillaged in some way, though, the grain and cattle quests should reset and then need to be done again to get back to the new ideal prosperity level.
Manor
Either add a building if reasonably doable, or just a working door into an existing building if that turns out to be the better option. Not a place to garrison troops or a wife, but a chest could be added for temporary storage. If the village gets raided/infested, then you would lose whatever you had in the chest.
School
This is the biggest change. Turn the school into a village training ground instead. This also should be tied to the "train the peasants" quest. After building and training, the village should remain safe from bandit infestations, and when you have to defend against raiding lords, it should spawn in a mix of tier one and two troops instead of farmers as reinforcements. Also, it should up your village recruits from tier one to tier two.
I would like to completely do away with villages giving you higher tier troops simply because they like you. I don't know if that can be done or not.
The basic idea here, being, if you build the enhancements, do the village quests, and protect your peasants from pillagers, you should have a more prosperous village and a source of better recruits. The rewards may be small, but, I think, over the long term, worthwhile.
Obviously, these are some pretty basic changes and a lot more can be done to enhance villages, but, I think, taken as a whole they could make owning a village and managing it more fun and rewarding as the game plays out. Also, by keeping the focus simple, it increases the chances of actually getting the mod done in a timely matter and could serve as a foundation for future, broader changes.
Any idea, thoughts, feedback? What say you all?
