Being able to move your settlement?

I don’t know about you guys, but I am definitely going to be a more militaristic (but the good militaristic) kind of city. And as any good tactician knows if you are planning to royally tick off a lot of people, you better be prepared to take the hurt as you give it. And knowing as we all do now that all of the worlds will be randomly generated it is not likely that the first area your settlers spawn at will be a tactically defensible one while also having all of the resources you need to put down roots for the long haul.

But I also do not want to the the next however many minutes (or possibly hours…I am very picky) looking for a comfy lump of dirt and rock to place my royal keister on. So here is the point, will we be able to pack up and move our settlements?

This is not only a question for the war-like city founders, but also for those with more peaceful ambitions. For example, maybe the area you are at doesn’t have many of the higher tier resources you didn’t know you required, but now find yourself unable to progress without them. Maybe you were unlucky enough to have made camp right next to a goblin kingdom and unexpectedly angered them. Now they pilfer your bacon left and right while you just want to plant some tomatoes. Perhaps you are just plain bored of your environment and want to move into the mountains? Point again being that we all would have legitimate reasons to want to move our settlement at some point.

But how would/should this occur? I know I wouldn’t want to just leave all of the resources I spent putting down my initial settlement. Could we ‘recycle’ the buildings we have previously built? And if so how do we transport said materials to the new settlement? There are tons of questions and possible methods, and it is up to us as a community to help translate what we want in a sensible way to the developers so as to help them achieve their, and indeed our, dream game. No suggestion is silly gentlemen!

So fire away!

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In all honesty … I can’t see this being easy, just because if you were to build a settlement, it would be a mission to move everything, unless you abandoned and just caravanned away, the time it takes to get all your resources back from demolishing buildings, would probably just take too long for it to be worthwhile!

Tom mentioned the animal trainers would be able to train animals as beasts of burden - as such I can imagine you loading up a convoy of mammoths with your most valuable things and all the food you need and then just moving out to a location your scouts have discovered that you think is amazing.

Now that for me, would be incredible.

But then if you did want to relocate, it shouldn’t be easy, and you should have to make sacrifices, just like if you were to relocate in reality.

What would be awesome, is if you abandoned a settlement, left the structures, relocated your caravan of mammoths and mules, and after a while goblins moved in to your old settlement.

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I think the general plan was that you have one city and (maybe) some little outposts. I think the best solution would be to gradual move your town to one of these outposts. If you’re not satisfied with your new home you have to build a new outpost, move there, (repeat this step if necessary) … until you’re happy.
But I also like the idea of moving all of your people with those little hand barrows to another location.
But what do you do if you enter the realm of a titan?
I think moving your whole city (or your villagers) is very dangerous so you have to recruit a powerful army .

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@Geoffers747
I love it! I had written out this nice long reply but for some reason it got deleted, so here is the summarized version. I adore the ideas you put out, especially with the mammoths and having to leave something behind.

I agree with you that moving your entire settlement should not be a light decision. The founder should have to weigh in the possible benefits with the consequences of moving an entire settlement. For example yes, the area you would move to would be a dream to build a defensible castle on, but the goblins you have been campaigning against would like nothing better but to attack a caravan full of your supplies and vital workers.

I also love the idea of having an goblins move into your old settlements. Perhaps they could become your rival, seeking more after they have had a taste of what your settlement has done. Perhaps you instead decide to raze the old settlement to leave nothing for the goblins and instead earn the wroth of the forest elemental living nearby, creating a whole new kind of experience.

@Spododo I also like your suggestion, but I can see some holes in it. Such as what could count as an outpost? How large could it be? How many outposts could you have?

I also am not attracted to the idea of having to place an outpost to relocate and leaving behind a string of outposts as my society travels to a place I would be comfortable in. But yes, I agree it is dangerous, and that is what makes moving a settlement such a crucial decision. Your entire people (if you choose to move in one humongous caravan) would be exposed and open to attack. You as the founder would have to be wise about how to handle everything to make the trip with the most desirable outcome.

I like where this is going, both of you put in great input, lets keep this ball rolling.

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I don’t know the definition of “outpost” in the game, but it was mentioned somewhere .
Also you wouldn’t just build one city / outpost after another. I think (if possible) that you tear your buildings in your old town down and use the material to build new ones. A “wandering” city. It would be a slow way to move your city, but a save one.

Other (strange) idea: Tell your villagers the destination of the house and they build giant wheels or use magic to transport them (very small houses) :smile: .

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I actually can’t think of any exisiting/described game mechanic reason why you couldn’t move; if you build new buildings somewhere else on the map and tell your citizens to call those ‘home’ that should be feasible in the game as presented. Dismantling the old stockpiles and setting up new ones at the new home village should be fairly straight foward. There’s huge logistical issues with actually get everything moved as others have pointed out, but I don’t think the game would really stop you. And it would be a VERY cool event from a story telling standpoint; local Goblins tribes getting too strong, or local resources depleted? Pack up and move out!

-Will

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Maybe of your entire population is geomancer a you could move an entire city, farms, walls, buildings and all, to an entirely different location.

That is of course entirely not feasible, as there would be no resources to supply that geomancer army, but hey, it’s an idea.

Another idea is that you might be able to hire several dozen geomancers to move a settlement? Or one could redirect a river to carry the city downstream? All cool concepts, but only an absolute god would be able to afford or even begin that.

Please note that the only idea based on partial feasibility would be geomancers moving individual or pairs of houses by a few hundred voxels.

I think you first have to do some preparations:
build the basic things(: farms,houses,windmills of whatever you need)
Then you just gather all your villagers and let them go to the brand new settlement and let the old one roth in all its shame.

OR

Just build two settlements,
2 times the loot you normally get from one village.
I personally think that would be to hard,
but if you like a challenge…

-pixel

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Perhaps to fill the need for military outposts, you could have tents that could be packed around and set up easily.

As for moving your entire settlement… This is a simulation type game and I like it for its realism and so I think that moving a settlement definitely shouldn’t be easy. You would just have to rebuild and if you don’t want goblins repossessing your town, burn it to the ground.

Kinda makes me sad though… burning my settlement…

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Burn it down,
burn it all down!

-pixel

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Does the game really script a certain place as a settlement? Or are the villagers just living in houses, going to buildings etc., and just living next to each other, looking like a village/town. If this is the case, the outposts would just be a small group of buildings, while the main settlement is just a much larger group of buildings. Is the concept confusing, or am I just confusing myself?

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I think you might be confusing yourself … or maybe I’ve misunderstood things.

I would say you are right in that the game doesn’t script a settlement, you choose where to build it and ultimately it’s just a collection of structures you have built.

As such you wouldn’t be moving your settlement, more like, moving your people and everything you own to a new location.

That in itself shouldn’t be too hard, you essentially just build a new settlement whereever you want, designate new areas, and destroy your old one. I think what people seem to want though, is a recognition that you’re moving? An actual event perhaps?

Moving a settlement sounds like a whole lot of work no matter how you look at it just because the more developed you are the more you lose. What would be much more interesting is to be able to make new cities using a group of people from the old one, add in refugee when dying and it could be very interesting. So like you’ve got a big city and you want to start a new one so you can choose to take a group of units and have them separate into a group of settlers that goes off and starts another city, they’d be able to supplies and have some more skilled units to start with and if it was really cool could even trade with your other city that would become AI controlled. It’s similar to moving without the hassel of having to deal with massive groups and no shelter or supplies, as moving a large city would be a difficult challenge and require a lot of preparation.

I like this idea. But if you do that frequently, I think the AI would be overextended. Maybe some settlers decide to stay and just vanish.