Leader Character?

[BlockCrafter89]

Why not add a character that is the leader of your kingdom that is selected by the player when the game is being set up?To me it seems weird that in Stonehearth, your kingdom has no character that is a leader to the hearthlings.I think that there should be a leader character who collects taxes from his/her subjects that get gold from doing what their class is.If that leader is killed however it would be nice to have an heir to the kingdom that is chosen by the player.It would also be nice to have rebels of the that leader character that came from the player’s kingdom that try to take down the leader character. To help speed up the game the leader character would be able to interact with the hearthlings and make them work faster by giving them a coin or more depending on the job.

Who else is with me on this?

[SirStafford]

He collects gold… from his own people. That does not make more money. That just moves money into the leader’s pocket?

I think politics should be left out completely, to be honest. They’re settlers. They don’t need a leader, they need to work together… or they will all die alone.

[thorbjorn42gbf]

New class - Leader (chieftain, king, etc)

So I’ve read a few posts about this though they didn’t really explain what exactly the role or point of a city leader might be. Anyway, so at some point in your game you will be able to choose a basic type of government. This point may be available from the start or after you reach some set population count. At this point you can choose to have your city led by a single ruler or a council. The person’s class will define what type of ruler they are and also start to define what kind of civili…

Kings/Queens/Leaders

I think it would be awesome if the towns we create have Kings/Queens/Leaders. Not sure if this has already been discussed or a prospect, but I think this would be an awesome addition. They could either be elected by us, arrive with the initial villagers, be elected by the people in the game, ranked up through the levels. What does everybody else think? Should they have roles in the town? Special Pre-Defined Outfits? Coat-of-Arms?

[AtakanOzel]

No monarchy, this game is like “smurfs”. Communist utopic vortex ideas.

Edit: Goblins have monarchy in their camps and theyre your enemy. Thats the point in games like that actually. Fight with constraints for full freedom and give yourself to your own work for your kind.

[coasterspaul]

When I’m telling my people what to do I don’t want one of them doing nothing and pretending to be me. Since there’s no personal possessions yet, taxes really wouldn’t have much purpose.

[BlazingAcies]

if i remember correctly one of the things in the kick starter is to add politicians into the game so i’m guessing that implies
their will eventually be some sort of government system(s) added though its any ones guess what they will be;
though i agree that it is weird that you have a kingdom with out a king and would love a leader class, though if i remember correctly i read some were that the title of your country would change depending on your choices though that might have been here say so who knows

[DontCallMeSurly]

Hey @BlockCrafter89,

First off, good topic! Although I’ve seen this topic before, it’s not often discussed as much as I’d like.

With that, I can agree with you for the most part. Most of what you mentioned are really cool ideas. However, I think it should be drawn back just a little, meaning I think it should just be a bit simpler… or perhaps more complicated. I don’t know… Anyway…

Now, I’m very excited for this game and all of it’s possibilities, so please forgive me for going overboard here, but here are my thoughts on such a feature:

First,
I think the main reason for a such a character to exist would simply be to represent the player. That being that when I build a castle and throne, I want the ‘builder’ of the kingdom to sit in that chair. With that, representing the player, I think there should be a bit of customizing here. Now before I continue, I already feel like adding such a feature would be too much for this game and the developers, considering the amount of work they have to do with a small team, but this is just for fun and just to throw out ideas and what have you. So let’s keep going!

• With customizing, it should be relatively simple. Before you begin the game, you can create a, let’s say ‘Hero.’ With this character and creating him/her, you can choose from the various facial features in the game already and shape how you want your ‘Hero’ to look. Once in the game, you can further customize your ‘Hero’ by crafting different clothing for him/her to wear, different armor to wear, different weaponry to use, and or equip your character with special loot from, which I believe to be planned for the game - dungeons, that are specifically for ‘Heroes.’ Also, not to mention, this would be agreat addition for modders to go crazy-bonkers with.

Second,
With the idea on taxes, I can agree, again, for the most part. I don’t think the ‘Hero’ should actually go out and collect taxes him/herself, but instead just enable them to happen. To explain, my idea was, well… let me provide an example:

• Let’s say you start off with your ‘Hero.’ At this time, you’re town is only a small farming community like most games start off to be, so taxes won’t be enabled; meaning the only source of gold during this time would be through trade. Once your town reaches a certain level of ‘Net Worth,’ you can select your ‘Hero’ and enable taxes to be collected and raise or lower that tax.

Umm, well that’s it.

Longest reply ever… Or not. I don’t know. … I’m a loser…

Haha, anyway, again cool post!

Have a good one,
-Surly

[BlazingAcies]

actually a way to do it would be to have three gov. types: a monarchy/republic/theocracy kinda thing and when you reach a sirtian mile stone, x number of hearthlings, or you have x amount of money/ resources you get to choose a leader
and gov. type each would have a buff to one of your groups of hearthlings, ex. a monarchy adds a buff to soldiers
while a rep. adds buffs to craftier’s, a theocracy would then buff workers, miners, fisherman, ect. this would allow you
to focus on a particular set of skills for your nation, you could use this to sure up weakness’s like making rayya’s children
a monarchy to give them a military buff for example of you could use them to excel in an area, make rayya’s children a
rep. or theo. you could even make it so you need them to create sertine class’s such as knights, tax collectors, ect
well theirs my idea on how this could work,
also please for give spelling

[AtakanOzel]

The leader can be a “Coordinator” but not a king or queen or any other executive thing. For example, need a Headsman for warn idle workers (that means activating or deactiveting some codes with an in game character).

[BlockCrafter89]

You are really right about the smurfs part.

[Moai]

One idea I had was less of a Leader character and more of a Lieutenant character. Basically, some kind of a Legendary hearthling that only moves in after your town meets certain criteria, a la Dwarf Fortress’s nobles, but unlike the former, it will have actual utility. For instance, it could be a craftsman that makes very rare, powerful armour – your settlement could then prosper economically from selling it, and militarily from outfitting its troops; it could be a legendary warrior, able to repel all but the most fierce assaults; a master engineer, able to create some sort of doomsday weapon; and so on.

[Biggs]

I’d like to be able to have my character in as like the general of my kingdom, can lead troops with bonuses and is a killer fighter or something. That would be bad man.

[Mohawkless]

I think this is a really bad idea… I don’t like the idea of having a king or picking you choice of government. Anarchic Capitalism all the way!!!

[mCharger]

Dwarf Fortress has nobility who add unique challenges to the game by demanding quality goods, extra space, and extra food. The nobles provide bonuses depending on their titles/jobs, but will sometimes make arbitrary rules the lower Dwarves have to follow, which makes them upset. A lot of DF players don’t like the nobles themselves (because they are such a pain in the butt) but I’ve never heard or seen someone complain about the nobility mechanic in general. Maybe have a leader character be sort of like DF’s to where they provide a bonus to the town, but also need extra resources and occasionally make demands that are taxing on the town’s resources or harmony.

[Mohawkless]

@BlazingAcies

if i remember correctly one of the things in the kick starter is to add politicians into the game so i’m guessing that implies
their will eventually be some sort of government system(s) added

Think Gnomoria there aren’t really nobles etc. in that game but there are ambassadors whom you host in order to trade with other settlements. Perhaps this mechanic can work more like that? You chose an ambassador to send away and they generate demands from other kingdoms witch you can chose to ignore (provoke) or fufill (passify) ?

[Hugh_Jelly]

Nice idea.

Another possibility would be for hearthlings to have a “leadership influence aura” or area effect where as they level up in their class they boost other hearthlings near them.

The power of the boost could be dependent on the hearthling’s stats so for example a high level footman with high spirit and body will give a strong boost to others near him or a high level farmer would inspire other farmers near by to work harder. Smart crafters could inspire other creator classes near them.

The range of the effect could be dependent on class level.

[coasterspaul]

I actually really, really like that idea.

[LionWhite]

the way i envision a leader is something necessary to interact with other tribes, cities, nations and players… like a leader would be unnecessary until it becomes necessary to present a “face” of your people to represent your people in front of other “faces” of other people. More of a diplomacy mechanism than a governing mechanism. Like it would be a good method for multiplayer so people cant just get any old information they want on your town. they would have to do stuff only the “king” can do, like hire spies and propose trade agreements, coalitions against a common enemy or stuff in that nature. Which that could be what you collect taxes for. where does the money come from? well again all this is irrelevant until you want to interact with other players be it AI or human. so once you get to that point, you will open up trade with them and thus outside wealth is generated for taxing. would love to get thoughts. also, i am completely uneducated in how games are developed so if any of this is impossible, apologies for wasting time.