Map Expansions - Colonies -

Suggestions
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HI.

I was playing around with the relation between objects in the world and people and practically anything that exists in the world (i.e. in the game world) at a average sized town with 25 citizens and the effects on what this demands on the computer - basically testing out the new optimizations while planning larger cities. Then it hit me.

What if, I could select 2 Knights, a carpenter, a herbalist and 3 workers, and send them to build a colony?

The obvious answer would be to have larger maps, so as to send them to some other spot and have some system to make them operate on an independent set of stockpiles and beds and stuff from the original base. I think that this can be done by having something like border flags for each town, but this would take a lot of coding and time and effort to make

But then, I thought, what if there could be a button, maybe near the military group button, to send an expedition, with the criteria of the question posed above, and maybe stocks of food, wood and stuff which can be carried by the workers, carpenter and herbalist and also the trapper for that matter - this is something that is already implemented: the citizen himself can carry stuff from point A to B, and there can be more than one object within the backpack of the citizen already and they can be sent, to an independent world of the same size but with it being different. essentially, a new world would be created at random but instead of being an independent ‘save’, it would be only accessible through this button in the military tab. since they would essentially be separate worlds, they can (i think) be treated as such by the game and hence reduce the amount of code and stuff that would be necessary

These two independent colonies in independent worlds would not have the need to be on the actual map, they are far apart - one wouldn’t establish a colony nearby, it wouldn’t make sense, but far away, maybe in for new resources.

There can be the option to send convoys of supplies from one to the other. Say, one world is done, and its potential and playability is reached, instead of being replaced and one starts over, he could send shipments of supplies to the new colony.

This essentially doubles the playing value. Also, since this is not a new world per se, the opponents of the original town may have followed, maybe goblins would try to assault it and maybe a disgraced orc chieftain would want revenge?

Also, there could be the opportunity that in later updates, with the addition of AI kingdoms and other things, they could fight with colonies against colonies - trade - explore ruins of some abandoned randomly generated village, be it goblin, orc, or human, dwarf or rabbit race -

There could also be a system put in place at a later point where by the colony may rebel. Imagine that the Colony reaches the population of say 30 persons and is a military town, whereas the original was a merchant town.
The option could pop up giving the choice of the newer town to rebel against the rich merchant town, and then you could go and send a force on a campaign.

Military Campaign’s as a concept is not new, and I remember it being thought of at around alpha 11 or 12 (remember those days?) yet the twist is that you’d be attacking your own town.

This is just one of the many paths I envision the game developing towards. I obviously would love that this gets implemented or made a mod, but obviously this is just a suggestion.

I hope this made fun reading and maybe gave an idea to a mod maker. I myself am hopeless with code and modding and stuff, but I can write, so here it is :smiley:

I anyone has any comments, thoughts or what not and want to put it below feel free to do so. i may add stuff too, who knows.

Anyways, thank you if you stuck around and read my ramble :wink: :astonished: :blush:

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2

Okay I like this idea and I actually think it ties in to this thing here Quest for [Name]ship! pretty well as something that would be unlocked as a teir three town.
Quick question though. Are you still in control of the previous town or has it become a separate entity now?

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You would still be in control of the original town, up until the choice to rebel against them or attack them by conquest. Then, it would be under an AI similar to that of the Goblin Camp with every structure getting a HP bar.
However yes, you can still continue playing in that town, as obviously a new colony after angering so many enemies would surely be beset by them as soon as they catch wind of the whole thing - they may also try to hit the original too, as it would be weaker. There would be separate alerts and daily updates for both towns obviously

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Ah, I see! Perhaps we could also make alliances with others races on the map after the map expands to prevent them attacking us when we colonize somewhere!..(bribe them with cake)

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I would love the idea if this becomes a AI that you can do diplomatic things with but when I am to manage a few dozen to hundred people I’d prefer to have it all in 1 spot. Maybe having an option to send settlers or envoys ? making the envoys a different cost but they would create an AI town.

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6

One thing I loved about the old Sierra games like Zeus: Master of Olympus was the part of the campaigns where you’d take a break from your main city to go found a colony. Not only would it create a nice change of pace and let you explore other resources, play styles and so on; it also meant you could come back to your main city with new trade routes and resources available.

While it would be difficult and time-consuming to implement something like that into Stonehearth, I reckon it’s worth some dev-time to come up with concepts and try out a few ideas. While our towns are already a colony of sorts which form part of a larger empire, I love the idea of creating smaller hamlets or burghs.

OF course, it would be even better if we could settle colonies in different biomes; or even just somehow link two existing saves with a trade route.

I think that perhaps the easiest option to implement would be to give each save a new folder which collects their “trading output” – all the things they can potentially build, grow, hunt and so on with their current unlocked classes and recipes. Then, when a market stall is added to that town, it becomes available to trade with; so the “trading output” gets a value changed/added to tell the game that this town’s output is available to all other towns. The game can then generate custom traders, whose stock is drawn from the list in that “trading output” file, alongside the normal traders. Once the new town has a market stall, it can also allow the player to choose between a random trader and a trader from a specific town (which might take longer since messages have to be sent first; whereas the random trader is simply a case of opening the market to anyone nearby.)

I think that system is feasible within the systems Stonehearth already has, and it gives us a new way to establish and play around with a sort of trade route system. Unfortunately it doesn’t incorporate the colony idea, each save simply acts as a separate colony; but it at least lets us link trading between them.

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I used to play that game, it is in fact where my idea stemmed from. I like your idea of trading outposts a lot, indeed I do. The outpost still could have a population of like 5,6 which is a lot for this game, (2 Footmen/Knights, 2 Archers and one or two workers (maybe a merchant class?)

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This seems to revolve pretty heavily on the “edge of the world” concept that’s been a point of notice for team radiant recently, I think. I’d be really interested to see how, along with a graphical difference in the edge of the world, perhaps there could also be a larger abundance of connection with the world outside of your pizza box terrain slice. I’d argue that it would make the game seem a lot more like a real functioning universe if the rayyas children caravans and the traders you called in actually came form the edge of the map, or if the travelers that give you construction quests actually wandered across the terrain. This might even create some interesting gameplay options, where it would be beneficial (or even necessary) to construct a safe passage from the edge of the world to your town.

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