What is the purpose of banners?
There is a lot of potential for this banners mechanic to emphasize the uniqueness of a town. There should not be several bonuses bundled into three distinct choices. While this might seem like it’s allowing players to focus on different town types, I think this bonus structure is attempting to pre-imagine the three types of towns people will want to create.
What If i wanted my town to be a beautiful agrarian town, with fine cooks that export delicacies to greater hearth? The “vitality” banner seems like it’s intended to fit that, but in reality all those spread out farms actually benefit MORE from the road speed bonus and the sell value of the “cunning” banner.
If I wanted to create a militaristic mountain dwelling people, exporting intricate stoneworks and the highest quality weapons and armor, I’m likely to have settled as high up in the mountains as I can get away with, where arable land is limited, and might really like to have the faster plant growth. Faster wood production to fuel the fires of the blacksmith would be nice too.
Overall, I like the idea that your town can be personalized with some bonuses (and you can’t get them all!), but a greater number of smaller bonuses, and the ability to chose more of them, would actually allow the towns to be personalized meaningfully. Say 20 bonuses, and you can get up to 4 or 5 of them for example. Just a few things i can think of… (edited after a bit more thinking)
Lets call them "Banner Virtues"
Virtue | Bonus description | Describing Adjective |
---|---|---|
Courage | Bonuses from armor increased | Courageous |
Bravery | Bonuses from weapons increased | Brave |
Enthusiasm | All Hearthlings gain road speed bonus even when not on road | Enthusiastic |
Beauty | Appeal of stone, cloth, and clay furniture and decorations increased | Beautiful |
Nature | Appeal of plants, crops, trees, and wood decorations increased | Natural |
Prestige | Appeal of trophies and monuments increased greatly | Prestigious |
Gallantry | Attitude bonuses from combat thoughts increased, penalties reduced | Gallant |
Generosity | Attitude bonuses from eating tasty food increased, sale price increased | Generous |
Creativity | Attitude bonuses from crafting thoughts increased | Creative |
Kindness | Attitude bonuses from social thoughts increased | Kind |
Mindfulness | Mind stat of all hearthlings increased (by 1?) | Mindful |
Tenacity | Body stat of all hearthlings increased (by 1?) | Tenacious |
Spirit | Spirit stat of all hearthlings increased (by 1?) | Spiritual |
Excellence | Sale price of higher quality items increased | Excellent |
Fertility | Perks for producers strengthened (farmer, trapper, shepherd) | Fertile |
Industriousness | Increase stone, timber, clay, and ore yields. | Industrial |
One of the key mechanics to use for town customization is to amplify the happiness and attitude effects of things that make your town a little special. So, a significant number of good ones I can think of are related to happiness.
The mechanic for adding more virtues to your town could center around a towns actual banner, which has space for a few symbols of virtue, and events allow you to add new symbols to your banner, that establishes the towns identity in a very customized way. Clicking on the town banner could open a special menu for this, where your banner can be visualized. You could add requirements to adopt each virtue, or make the advancement simple and incremental, or perhaps tie it to the township quest line directly. This banner could feature prominently in your game saves as a way to identify the town as well.
Maybe this is more detail than some players want, but I can already think of several fun combinations of these banner virtues to try out.