Hearthling Attribute Re-Roll

Hey folks!
My current city, so far, consists of 27 hearthlings. 7 of those 27 are just ordinary workers. I have all possible craftsmen, but I want to expand my army. Unfortunately my RNG isn’t strong and these workers have very low attributes (Mind, Body, and Spirit) which makes them less than ideal to be part of my military.
I think it would be interesting if there was something you could craft that could re-roll your hearthling’s attributes. Like a Caravan to take a hearthling away to a neighboring city. They can be absent for a few in-game days and when they return, they’re like a new person! wink wink
We cannot have an item that improves attributes, because then over time all hearthlings can have max attributes which would make the game very unbalanced.
That was a lot of words for a simple concept, but I’d like to hear others’ thoughts! Is re-rolling unreasonable, and should I just accept what I have?
My only other alternative at this point is to feed my hearthlings to the wolves over time, so I can recruit new people…

3 Likes

I’d prefer, as others have recommended, a system where you can see the stats of the Hearthling who is about to join you, so you can choose to accept them or not.

That way, if you want to have a specific Hearthling, you can keep trying. The opportunity cost is game time; one game day each time you pass on a volunteer. So you can get what you want, but especially early on, is it worth having a tiny village when the wolves come at night? :wink:

But your idea wouldn’t be bad either. You’ve built in a cost so it’s not a no-brainer. Either one would be better than what we’ve got now.

7 Likes

Being able to send your heathlings away to “train” would especially be helpful for heathlings with “Passionate” traits as their stats aren’t always ideal for the jobs they wanna pursue. Unless the traits get rerolled too…which I guess would be fair cause you could always get a better combo for what you’re after. It’s a unqiue way of dealing with the issue. I love it!!

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I too have considered re-rolling the hearthlings. [quote=“ScarlettJinxx, post:1, topic:29875”]
Like a Caravan to take a hearthling away to a neighboring city. They can be absent for a few in-game days and when they return, they’re like a new person! wink wink
[/quote] I have not considered to send the person with a passionate trait to another town. We could also do so where a person who is a heart of a crafter learns a trait that when he/she comes back, that hearthling can set up shop. IE blacksmith, mason, cook. What if we use this caravan method where a person with a green thumb goes for a couple of in game days and becomes a cook, or a person with a glutton attribute goes to become a trapper. Ahh the possibilities. Heart of a crafter becomes a herbalist. Etc.
There are questions with having your hearthlings leave for training. How would we implement this? How many hearthlings can be sent off, and once they come back, what level would they be? These are only a few of the questions that I have come up with.

Re-rolling the hearthlings during the update would be wonderful too. It could be similar to the customization of the hearthlings one roll where we can still get what we are looking for. For instance we can have a similar theme of everyone having an animal companion trait or a passionate trait. Or heartlings with mustache men and ponytailed women.

2 Likes

I don’t know much about the technicalities of implementation, but this is how I imagine the “caravan” to work:
The caravan itself must be valuable to craft. It doesn’t necessarily have to be made of gold, but it would have to have a high value considering what you’re getting out of it. As for the number of hearthlings that can be sent away, I believe it should be one at a time. I think that re-rolling should be an occasion and not something that can be done too frequently. I think the number of caravans that can be crafted should be limit to one, but similarly to turrets and other engineering items, it should be repaired after “x” number of uses. Like I said in my original post, I don’t think that the re-roll should be a guaranteed improvement. If it would improve the traits every time, then hearthlings can become over powered. I believe the re-roll should be completely random like the re-roll feature used while creating your town, so there’s no determining or certainty what the level of the hearthlings will be when they return. The idea is that you send hearthlings with low or undesired traits away, and they return with a completely new make up, hopefully improved.

It would be hard to make sense of WHY a hearthlings entire personality changes just by visiting a different town. @MostlyLost 's suggestion is much more practical, and it makes my idea look so unnecessarily complex. [quote=“MostlyLost, post:2, topic:29875”]
I’d prefer, as others have recommended, a system where you can see the stats of the Hearthling who is about to join you, so you can choose to accept them or not.
[/quote]

On a side note, I think having the opportunity to change the appearances of your hearthlings could be fun. Maybe a hairdresser / barber type of feature, but that sounds like a discussion for a different post :sweat_smile:

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You are right about the hairdresser/barber type. I let my imagination run away from me. :smiley: But I do like your suggestion. And thanks for posting.

2 Likes