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CAUTION THIS IS LONG (que the that’s what she said joke)
So, I can see a lot of potential in this game and honestly I’ve always wanted to make a game just like it. Alright, now here’s my ideas:
Defining Enemies
As said in a previous post, every good game needs unique enemy’s and characters. Obviously Stonehearth’s unique character is it’s rabbit people, but what about it’s enemies. After much thought I’ve come up with 2 creatures. One has been used before the other is totally different.
Gnomes
Know I plan to be an author and I’m kind of copying my own ideas for this, so if I get famous you owe me some gratitude. Ok so gnomes, I see gnomes as very innovative little dwarves. My gnomes are craftsmen and can easily create magnificent pieces of armour and buildings and all sorts of machinery. I don’t know yet whether gnomes would be an aggressive passive or even future playable race yet, but it sure would be awesome to see them in the game. One last thing, I think one of the gnomes strong suits should be cavalry which is a number one needed feature in the future game, and it’s also another one of my topics. Oh and to model gnomes what you would probably have to do is stick with the dwarves template and resize it. Also, colour scheme I would say blue and white but that rips off of the smurfs so I think blue and orange would look awesome.
Lizardmen
Lizard men will be a lot like an ogre. So, big fat and made up of a lot of pixels for easy modeling unlike the gnomes. One use of Lizardmen could be as a mercenary so they could work for you or the enemy. Also if or when the feature is implemented the Lizardmen could establish their own little camps, but not like in the campaigns. These camps could either be aggressive, passive, or friendly. Aggressive would mean they attack you, duh. Friendly would mean that you can trade with them or hire them. Passive would mean they don’t do anything and the player will have to sway them to one side before making the allies or enemies. To sway them you could kill them or give them gifts. Doing either will give you a certain number of relation points like with city states in Civ 5. So when you do good things you get a positive, when you do bad things you get negative. After you reach a certain number of positive or negative relation points they will become aggressive or positive. However, after time your relation points will degrade and they’ll go back to neutral. Also the lizard men will probably use up surrounding resources and join the goblins faction so that may be a reason why you’d want to kill them. One last thing, in scenarios one of the different outputs from completing an event could be that a certain number of Lizardmen would join the enemy. A way you could make these guys worse, if needed, is that when any hearthlings or goblin gets near they’ll be very like to run.
Defense, Walls and Sentrys
Defense is a big issue in the future when you have very large armies charging at you. So, I’ve come up with a few ideas on protecting your town. One obvious one is towers walls and gates the current fences are usable but they definitely aren’t the majestic walls of a castle. I know that the debs probably plan to add fortifications in the future, but let me share my ideas: For one thing you could easily include prebuilt structures of walls or simply use slabs or the basic drawing tools to create defensive structures. You would of course need two story building to make towers, but that’s not important. I propose a new defensive implementation, the sentry. The sentry would be a footman or other military unit such as the archer used to gaurd certain areas. When creating a building or prebuilt building there would be an extra tab on the building menu called sentries. This would allow you to place points or even trails along the building that the sentry would gaurd and follow. You could also use this in normal building if you want them to gaurd the door to the Kings chamber or something. Then at night your guards would take turns watching one by one using the same system as you did for workers to allow them to all get the same amount of sleep. Where this singular gaurd stands would be another option in the sentries tab. The benefits of this would be to increase the effectiveness of defense. Not only would walls keep intruders out, but for every block above the ground the building is it would increase the sentries range by one. So if you had an archer in a two story tower he/she could see an enemy from twice as far away and begin shooting, of course you’d have to lower the accuracy but it would still remain effective.
Buildings
There are so many building types you could have, currently buildings are there for the purpose of morale and net value. Although with the introduction of shops to the mix you could create a lot of buffs, of course the building would need some requirement as in how large it is and its proximity to certain resources. Some example of these buildings could be a barracks, stable, forge, market place (a little more complicated to make) and much more. For instance if you created a barracks or training ground your soldiers would be stronger and if you add a training dummy the idle units could train (the dummy’s would need a durability though). Markets could improve relations and options with merchant or if npcs were added you could have a merchant sell items to them. You could also add arenas or circuses for morale.
Classes
Everything that I just said would require it’s own class such as: merchant, tool: satchel o’ goods; crafted by tailor, battle master tool: baton; crafted by carpenter, ringleader tool: whip; crafted by tailor. Also you could add commanders who also give buffs to their troops like a commander of the gaurd tool: commander’s spear; crafted by blacksmith, or a general, tool: general’s banner, crafted by tailor. And there’s a lot more ideas from that.
Farming, Mounts
The farming system is already very smooth and easy, but there’s still room for improvement. For one you could add fruit, you could cultivate the berries, add fruit bearing trees or watermelons and more vegetables if you wanted to. Another cool idea for the future when there’s seasons is greenhouses so you can grow crop in the winter. Mounts caould easily be tamed versions of the shepherds animals. They don’t even have to be mounts you could use the carpenter to make a plow and attach it on to a sheep or ox and let it til the land super fast unlike the slow farmer. Or in the obvious case put them to work in the cavalry department. Also one last comment, make animals and ore more common! I have spent hours looking for a tile that says something for animals that is more than common or a tile that has a lot of ore but still a fair amount of trees.
Seasons, Biomes
I’m sure that you guys are already planning this so I won’t say much other than get working on it, it will make the game so much more diverse. Plus make sure to add new enemies and animals depending on the biome or season.
Scenarios, Maps
Scenarios and campaigns have a lot of potential and I cannot wait for more of them. Although, one bit of advice, give them a little more story it will give a better impact and reason. Using the story idea, you could make a lot better campaigns than just enemy camps, so get creative with it. Maps are a great way to emphasize and improve the campaigns. All you have to do is pre-generate maps and the add backdrop pieces and grave stones or little smaller dungeons that could act as side quests for players. And then just add a little options bar that says do you want pre-made maps if so check the box. One last thing in this category, add rival towns. I know how hard and buggy it is to code AI in games but this is something you just must add. You could even expand it further and create second towns on nearby tiles of the same map. First you would construct the parts of to build a wagon or something, then you cloud put items like tools weapons and resourcesinto it, finally you put in as many hearthlings as you want and set off onto another plot of land to expand your kingdom. From there you could switch back and forth between the two towns, but your new town being your second and filled with all sorts of weapons of your choosing would be more likely to be attacked. However, you could send reinforcement or new hearthlings to expand and defend.
Abilities
Alright last thing I promise. I realize this has already been mentioned but just to keep it fresh in your mind. Each clan, race, or nation should have its own weapon, tools, items, buildings, classes, and personalities because well, that would be cool.
Alright that’s all folks I would add more but I’ve been typing for hours and still have more to right. I could especially go on and on about all the items and decorations and monster you could have but for now I’m done.
Sorry for any auto correct mistakes in the piece
And Tom, if you or anyone uses any of my ideas, you’re welcome, and all I ask in return is that Tom gives me a shout out on the next live stream @Thejkw22 because that would make my day
And I literally spent 4 and a half hours writings this so. . . .
BYE
I personally could rattle all day about this. I won’t here as I don’t have the energy to focus on just this atm. But to just to give you a glimpse at what I have in mind, by definition buildings must be destroyable from enemies. If not there would be no point in adding towers and fortified walls etc.