My suggestion is to add a system in the game that will allow you to level-up your weapons.
My idea on how to level-up your weapons:
You will need a Blacksmith and a weapon (eg.Sword)
It will take some time for the Blacksmite to level-up the desired amount of weapons.
I feel the weapons should stay at a constant damage/enchantment rate to avoid back flow for the black smith. I believe the troops the should level up to make the weapon stronger. But I’m not knocking it completely cause its an interesting idea.
Equips +1000 damage wooden sword
well Personally I feel that leveling up weapons would not be a good idea,I feel that the game is more based around crafting better weapons instead of leveling up individual weapons.Just my opinion.
I feel that leveling-up weapons is not a good idea because i can’t think of a way you could level-up your weapons without making the game less fun.
If the smith levels-up the weapons, you’ll be stuck on a weapon type for a long time.
If you would level up your weapons by making your warriors fight with them, you are kinda restricting the player in its options. he will almost have to fight with his soldiers, so if he can’t find enemies, he’ll have to search for them, and that can be a pain.
One way i could see weapon levels work, is that when your smith becomes better, the equipment he makes becomes better (higher lvl), even from the same material. Lets say you have a lvl 3 smith, at lvl 4 he can craft gold weapons or something, but u don’t have gold. U now still have a reason to lvl him up because the wood stuff he makes will also be better.
I dont exactly like the idea of levelling up a given weapon type.
But I do like the idea of upgrading weapons.
So if you progress in the tech tree and a better type of spear becomes available you would have two options, let your blacksmith just make the new weapons, which needs more resources or have your soldiers return the weapons for recycling, which would downgrade the soldiers for a certain time but needs less resources.
I very much like the upgrading idea, because then you could also require the returned weapons/tools to have performed certain tasks.
Maybe special weapons could as prerequisite require swords that have at least killed 100 enemies or such… to forge legendary weapons and so on.
Also you could have tools as input for weaponsmiths, weapons as input for mages that enchant them and so on.
we absolutely need the option of having upgraded versions of a weapon type, yes… upgrading a specific weapon to a newer version however? i dont think that works as well…
you can still get that feeling of progression if you have an initial silver sword (you found, or was crafted), but when the appropriate advancements have happened in your game, you can now acquire or craft a more impressive version of the original sword…
It would be like building upon that section of weapons to be better( i.e. a serrated edge, balanced pommel etc.) It’s exactly like upgrading the carpenters workshop to make it more efficient. To keep it on a crafting aspect, you could make the upgrade worth time/resources/training to learn and create this new version of the blade. So overall, not individually but crafting an upgraded weapon sounds good.
Lank crafted wooden sword with a serrated edge
I’ve always liked the idea of ‘leveling up’ your weapons - have some fond nerd memories of magical weapons in Earthdawn, and achieving new functionality and power by further binding the item to your character. This is somewhat similar to the elite items in recent heroes of might and magic games, slightly grindy in nature by requiring ‘item experience’, but one that I enjoyed myself.
One option to avoid the grind is through developing an ‘affinity’ with your weapon. This would not necessarily need to be linked to an individual villager, but the weapon could gain some special properties through achieving some ‘feat’. I.E. you slay a random number of Ogre’s, ergo your trusty wooden sword becomes Wooden Sword of Ogre Slaying with some appropriate +1 vs Ogres sort of modifier. This wouldn’t have to be designed around kill count or # of uses/swings/etc and could look at item time in existence, alignment of the moon, random happenstance, etc.
SteveAdamo swings the Lumpy Cotton Pillow of Geoffers Smiting
However, I’m inclined to agree with most of the other posters so far and worry that a leveling system, outside of craftables, may be outside the original intent for the game (city building and crafting - as I understand it). As you reach the appropriate skill level and have the resources available, you can either craft the new and improved weapons, or potentially have an option to ‘enhance’ your older versions (if of the same base material).