@Omegasa, @coasterspaul, @MelOzone, @Freedom. Thank you for your concerns, what do you think about this idea I came up with? Pls leave comments if you have concerns about this general idea or any specific proposed perk (it’s always not too early to balance).
It’s an interesting idea, don’t get me wrong here, but i honestly dislike it. It’s min-maxing at it’s best and while very smart, it’s not within the spirit of the game’s general design.
I didn’t quite get what do you mean by min-maxing. Specialization have already been there in main game, from crude producer-professional-protector, to more specific jobs. And we are assuming the experience system of game isn’t changing, so the 4th job is assumably the last job of everyone.
Even that, I still didn’t seen the typical min-maxing in my current proposal: just take combat as example: trapper-farmer protectors are definitely best recons and first responders when you need to save that remote mine or that careless trapper. However, herbalist-cleric protectors can soak up much damage in large-scale campaign, while protector-protector-protector are ideal damage-dealers. If you don’t want a very professional army, an ex-engineer can use refined gears to let rookies become reliable protectors.
I guess if you can get 4 different arrangements for 1 problem, It’s not min-maxing, at least the typical ones.
BTW, I’m also interested in your attitude about the 2 ideas started this conversation:
1, players need access to “Elite hearthling” gameplay.
2, hearthlings deserve more reward of leveling other than 10 points of HP.
So what do you think about these 2 ideas?
I don’t think hearthlings need to be elite.
They’re a village of little people.
The idea you’re proposing is that hearthlings gain a boost from having multiple professions. It’s encouraging the idea that you ought to max out a profession for it’s boosts then switch for another professions boosts and do the same thing. It’s musical chairs for professions which is exactly what the game discourages.
The only reason you build up a profession now is because another class requires that skill before you could do the job.
So you think hearthlings should stay in the same profession as long as they barely can (exclude extreme events like red clin campaign)? I think it’s awkward when you have got 8 crafters, 2 farmers, then found that all newcomers can only choose between fighters and workers.
Especially for fine crafters, you may started with a 5 mind, but later a 6 mind joined your town, so for getting more fine stuff you willingly give the job to 6 mind and make the 5 mind a worker or fighter. More probably a fighter, since he/she have extra 60 HP to start with. And you just have enough raw material to let the new talented crafter to practice so you sent an order of 100 low level product and wait to see both of the leaver and new-comer(regarding this professional) to grow in their strength.
So do you dislike such scenario? If yes, why? If not, what do you really against?
Follow up question: Have you ever seen Warmun, Newmun and Azuremun? If you did, guess you should know how lame it feels if vast majority of your hearthlings are not leveling:sweat:…
@Xikai_Jiang I regularly play up to the 50 hearthling limit. I enjoy the game now and look forward to what it will be in future versions. However, I agree with @Omegasa that the way Radiant has aimed this game works for me.
By the way, I usually run 4/5 farmers, 3 trappers, 3 shepherds, and 9+ crafters at least (always 2 cooks in the late game - frequently doubling up on carpenter/potter for making trade goods), in addition to aiming for my military at 12+. I like keeping everyone busy building and crafting and mining.
I will admit to choosing my starting hearthlings very carefully to get a good carpenter/potter (depending on whether or not I go with Rayya’s Children or the Ascendancy). At this point only the one crafter can make fine goods anyway. Also, if there is a point where I really need one particular class on THAT DAY, I do restart for good stats if needed. 
I’m sorry that it bothers you that we don’t all agree with your ideas, but you could maybe get a mod made for it?
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No you definitely not bothering. It’s normal. People disagree with each other on all topics all days.
I’ve been in the thread about mayor system and I saw fights between “comestic/no mayorist” and “administrative mayorist” in earlier thread , it was a hot debate.
Same things happen here, just between “hearthling enhancist” and “town expansionist”…
(By the way I posed a “utility mayor” proposal on the new thread and you may want to see it, since it’s a third position from two existing ideas)
Back to this thread. Now I’m thinking about making this happen and the thing I really want to know is to make it in game or mod. And now I’m waiting for Josh, for he have been thinking with me, and deserve to go with me on the trip of modding.
It seems the main game not intended to do anything alike for it does not match the game’s “spirit”, I still want to know what that “spirit” exactly is. Because if the official Wiki is true, it’s a strategy and RPG game, so there should be some kind of optimization as well as character development, and my proposal can hit both of those two categories by developing a system where players can strategically plot development plans for hearthlings along their careers.
And I think it’s also fits to let my proposed “retaining perk” to replace current (A20) HP bonus for leveling. For HP bonus only benefit Trappers, workers, and all fighters, it’s even more unbalanced than my idea.
Still, why a so -called "town expansionist"will ever want to see this mod to came out (although still not sure I can make it)? Interested in your answer, and what do you think this game “should be” in terms of leveling.
PS: only 12 fighters for town of 50? you are in normal mode?
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@Xikai_Jiang let me ask you a couple of questions… I’ve seen what you have to say and now I am curious.
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Do you sit at character creation for a long time to find the absolute best starting group of hearthlings you can possibly get?
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Do you kill off hearthlings that do not have the best attributes that you desire for your town?
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I see that you focus on making the finest items with your crafters and only desire the best for any job. Do you feel that this game would not be fun if you didn’t try to make the finest items and have the absolute best?
As far as the spirit of the game goes. This game is a game of strategy, but that doesn’t mean you have to focus on getting the absolute best of everything, it means using what you do have in an intelligent way. It is an RPG game, however, at the current state of the game that RPG element is severely limited.
I honestly don’t even like that hearthlings carry over their HP bonus between jobs. This system you have suggested would demand a complete rebalance of the entire game otherwise you would overpower and dominate far far too easily.
Answers:
1, Yes or no depend on your definition of “long”. I tend to roll until I get someone with a sum of 13 and one 6 on something.
2, Nope, If your people are dying, that’s not flawless, not even excellent (Yeah, I play XCOM…).
3, I can go without fines but it’s here by now. I tend to sell off normal items and leave the best for my people. Even the most recent new comer can get into a 15*15 room of two with a comfy bed, writing desk, dresser and comfy chair all on fine for each dweller. The room also have at least 4 window and fully carpeted.
And i think I’m not getting the best of everything, but “building” the best of everything with resource at hand.
For your 2nd question, I’m wondering if you are portraying an image of ruthless elitist in your head. And in case you did so, no. I’m not that kind of person, at least not exactly.
However, I do want to make human resource become more important in game. By now, all your wealth is from landscape, from buildings, corps, to the gears your soldiers used in battle. After looking at the combat efficiency between high level solider with or without gears, you may even find that your gear fought majority of the battle, not the valiant soldier wielding and wearing them. If that’s the case, why not let your people become your “wealth” as well, other than resource collectors and armor/station operators.
So @Omegasa, how’s that?
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And that’s exactly how it should be, equipment is very important. If I tried to build something or fix something but didn’t have the right tools for the job, i wouldn’t be very valuable in doing that job. I might be able to manage a minor fix but it wouldn’t necessarily be done correctly and it wouldn’t last as long as if i had done it the right way.
As far as human resources being important, they already are. I will agree with you that they could use a touchup, but that is coming soon. The dev team is working on a trait system for our cute lil hearthlings to give each one more personality and character.
But that’s nature, and we are talking about nurture, about learning.
Also, now the game hardly cares about skills and experience, just too little. Even apprentice archer can shoot target 100% accurate, just as a lv6 do. But that difference should be someone who misses time to time to some who shot in target’s eyes and throats time to time, even lv6 wielding basic bow while app wield recurve, miss is still a miss, and crit is still a crit. While there are something you can’t do without tools, there are also things you can’t do without skills.
Also, by your word of “Human resource”, I saw your acquiesce that hearthling should just man stuff, so I think you are just looking for “someone” to man the station, hoe, bow or whatever, while I want to make HR a realistic hiring, where you are looking for “the one” with appropriate skill, potential and experience in relevant fields. You may also let some potent but inexperienced hearthlings go through “training” to get the things they they would better have when facing their real jobs.
About balancing, this can’t be easier: Just let enemy have everything you have. It may become the “Epic 5” difficulty for raids: watch out for enemy veterans. Those Red Clins raiding your town may be sprinkled with veterans, so when your footmen chasing a Kobold, they might bash one of them off, or when your archer shot a knight, the shot got countered, and set archer herself on fire, or maybe a footman who is too fast for your archers to kite, even come back to life when you thought he’s dying. More dangerously, you don’t know who is/are that/those veteran(s) until they reveal themselves with action…
Ironically, even Radiant themselves don’t use such strict balancing: what’s the last time you saw Red Clin footman perform power strike? Never. So such strict should be more than enough.
What do you think about that? Pls don’t dismiss this thread yet.
PS. It seems you still didn’t tell me what the “spirit” exactly is. And I’m also interested in how you know where is this game going: seems you know much about future develop directions.
Well, since it is a small village, you’d think that they’d all need to be combat-ready and generally trained so if someone does go down, another can fill in. It would produce an interesting challenge to make it to get all those levels and combinations, but since it is more of an late to endgame thing, all the original hearthlings would be elite anyways, and not gaining exp, so why not make them more efficient? The game may currently have a stopping point for level progression, but I think allowing it to go farther is a good idea for those who want to.
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Sorry to keep you waiting. I’d be interested in tackling such a project, but I’m afraid that I haven’t had much in the way of time.
So far my only attempts ad modding have been a “Better Hearthians” mod, which tweaks the starting stats upward a bit (3-9 for A, 2-8 for RC, wanted to figure out 50 bonus starting gold for RC but haven’t cracked that yet.) and another crack at the problem of making movable plants storable. (It works sometimes, but only after the plant has been moved once and seems to rest every time the plant is harvested or restores harvistability. I see someone else on this forum made a similar mod and ran into the same limitation.)
Still, if you don’t mind the fact that I’d only be able to spend a few hours per week on it, I’d love to tackle it. Also, bonus, I have access to an artist who can handle ability icons - and has made a standing offer to do such work for me for free.
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See, I think this is the fundamental point that I disagree with you on. Ultimately, the game doesn’t need a rebalance with this, and having every hearthling go through every job would not be an optimal strategy, unless you were playing on peaceful.
My reasoning is this: Hearthling is generous in terms of resources, the primary limiter in your game boils down to three things (Note, I’m disregarding peaceful in this analysis.)
- Work - If you don’t have enough workers, you cannot meet the demands of your citizens, gather resources to feed your industry, or (and this is the important one), meet the daily quotas to attract new citizens.
- Time - The campaign places a certain pace to the game, if you fall behind, then an army will crush you. Yes it’s fairly forgiving, especially with the way event-messages work, but there’s still a limit there. You do not have unlimited time to prepare
- Military Strength. - If you don’t have a strong enough army, you will obviously get crushed.
The proposal above does not allow you to create more work or military strength without sacrificing time. You are still investing into your citizenry in order to make yourself stronger. Yes, you can carefully cycle your entire population through every position inorder to min-max them, but the cost of that is twofold - you are spending a significant amount of time with your citizens performing roles other than their final professions at diminishing returns, and you are spending an even more significant amount of resources for your craftsmen to produce that which you don’t need (but can sell). While you are making all this extra work, the event clock keeps ticking, armies and raids are getting stronger.
Therefore, I argue that the min-maxing play-style you fear would not only not require a rebalance, but in fact would not even be an optimal play-style. Unless you are trying to build a mega-city in peaceful, where time is much less of an issue.
The other angle, outside of that, is that it’s more realistic for previous experience to have some bearing on your skills. For example, I used to be a Librarian, I am now a Software Engineer. My experience as a librarian does not have much direct impact on my current career path, but it does help in several ways: I’m better at researching issues, which can help me track down obscure error messages or details on archaic systems or laws and regulations relevant to my code. Also, I have a better sense of organization, and other programmers who need to work with my code tend to find it easy to locate the pieces they need within my solutions.
From my perspective, it makes no sense to me that simply changing a profession, say from a potter to a stonemason, involves losing out entirely on all of that related experience and skill.
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Oh, yeah, you’re back 
! Of course I’d like to go modding. I don’t have much time neither, but I don’t want this mod get away from us so I want to try how far can we get. I’ve got some ideas about skill icons but your artist friend is definitely needed, because I can only draw scratchy drafts with Powerpoint (It’s true…). However, the problem is I didn’t touched any kinds of codes before, I’m a complete rookie. Considering this, maybe we can recruit a coder? or I can learn about coding somewhere?
And I think we can name the mod project and the mod itself after this comment of yours: “Hearthlings’ Bearings”.
Guess I can earn some bearings as well if we worked on this 
.
Did this mod get made? I think this would allow for deeper gameplay, I kinda hate that my carpenter is my carpenter and nothing else.
Sorry, no mod get made yet.Josh and I are simply to busy to do this.
However, we are more than happy to see some modder grab this idea and make a mod of it.