Married on stonehearth

i think it be so cute seeing 2 halfings getting married 2 boy or 2 girl and mix and later there can have kids

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While I would love to see more social interaction among hearthlings, the dev’s have previously said that, lets call it traditional methods of population growth were not something they were planning on adding.

And I get why. To go through a year of in game play time takes quite a bit of effort. So unless you want hearthling kids to grow up in the matter of a few months, I don’t see this being practical.

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True True i know what your saidng but let said there grow up fast as like its 5 days in stonehearth.

Ah, this is a concept that was often brought up on streams and here at the discourse

While it isn’t impossible to featurely add a marriage and children from what i know, the main reason this was avoided is because of controversial happenings

Ofteb brought up as an example; if we have childern, what if they get attacked? If they die, isn’t that sort of an issue? Because it’s realistic, but not a good look at-all

This was a thing in the elderscrolls games, in oblivion, there are no children, because if they added them, and if you could kill them, that’s just bad, but if you can’t kill them, that’s unrealistic(and then not having them is unrealistic too)
For Skyrim, there are children, but you can’t kill them, for the same reasons above

There can always be a mod making thees possible, we’ve seen mods go further than this, it will be hard, but I have no doubt it’s possible, but for the core game? It seems like a mess to even go through

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Also that. No dev wants to add the possibility of dead kids to their game. Although for me it would just be more incentive to beef up my defenses.

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While I understand that adding children can be problematic, it doesn’t mean we can’t have marriage. 2 hearthlings could marry for example and then in turn need a room for 2. But the advantage is, that they both get a kind of marriage buff (love can do anything!). It would add some more interaction between hearthlings, without adding children. :slight_smile:

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it never stop spore and the the Walking dead.

One way to do children could be to make them slightly faster than other enemies, and if they are chased too long, they “run away,” moving to so far away from any Hearthling buildings and then despawning.

Another way to do it would be to have enemies kidnap children instead of killing them. Then you could either rescue them, or they’d be lost forever, and random invaders could have “lost” Hearthlings attacking with them sometimes.

But ultimately, I have to say I like the game without children. 25 Hearthlings at one time is pushing the limits for some people, could you imagine if 5 of those were children who couldn’t even work? I like to imagine that my Hearthlings are all people who are coming to my settlement with no ties, because the location it is in is known to be dangerous, wild land. The few who arrive at the beginning are the bravest, and those who arrive after them are hearing of successful living for those people from the traders who visit them. My Hearthlings are there to pioneer the way and establish a safe community that one day might grow to be a larger town or small city, and can save the babies for later when they know the area is safer.

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Ah, yes, they definitely do thrive on that part

The difference here is the theme of the game, [Spore]… well, that’s just a wacky game in many fashions,
but for [The walking Dead] that game thrives by it’s story and it’s tragedy, it’s not ‘Okay’ to kill a child, but it happens in such tragic scenarios, and it’s good drama, and the game thrives with it, it could live without it, sure, but it’s a good plus to show the state of the world that is so dangerouse and unforgiving that the game is set in, and there’s tha fact that you can’t just kill a child for fun there

Elderscrolls have a different setting, you are the Hero, and the people are mostly civilian, not a infected or war-torn place, and if the player kills a child(if they could) it won’t be as a storyline, it’ll be a choice that the player makes, and one that doesn’t reward them, it’s a blatent choice, which is a lot of controversy because you techinically can ‘Kill a child for fun’

StoneHearth isn’t Really a Drama game, it’s quite tame and peacfull for the main part, sure it’s a story you write, and a child’s death can be in that story, buuuut No, not in everyone’s story, that’ll be a problem, which is why it’ll likely be up to the modders to make a children mod, and deal with the contreversy which is weaker with mods

i can see where your coming from hyrule_symbol but the kids would die like the guys said there would run much fast or there just vanish of the map or just no kids and just have married.

Well I really hope that at some point down the road they will have optimized performance enough that a town could have hundreds of hearthlings. In that context, I think having kids who don’t do anything but take up resources for a prolonged period of time could work.

I actually had an idea about a mechanic for how we could make it an investment. All newborns have a 1/1/1 for stats. They could spend time with clerics to boos their spirit, spend time with warriors or farmers or workers to boost their stamina. We could maybe introduce a new teacher profession that will boost the intellect of children as they develop. If a town is set up right, the kids born there would be smarter, stronger and braver than those born in a smaller or poorly organized town.

If they ever did add children I wouldn’t want them to be invincible, yet i’d probably be sad if had to watch them running hopelessly from an enemy. If I had my own system for it I’d make it so that children will be ignored by enemies but they despawn if both parents are dead before they grow up. I can imagine adorable mini hearthlings following the adults around for a few days before becoming adults. It would add a family dynamic and realism to the game and I love the idea of that, but on the other side of the coin, I don’t feel like I’m missing on out much with the exclusion of children. I do think that with time, modders may be able to introduce it into the game one day.

So then the adult hearthlings die of old age after what, 10 days, if that?

If they ever went that route to make aging a thing then yeah that would add another level of realism, but I’ve heard through streams both aging and children are not in their plans. Probably a very complicated process.

I dont see why a game needs to be fully realistic. I think most players would hate an aging feature that is not optional, since you may lose someone important (a lvl 6 knight for example) at some point, which can ruin your game and not everyone wants to keep track of the age of 30 hearthlings and prepare for the death of one after another. But having a child for 10 dies running around is not such a bad idea.

I also dont see why children couldnt help with the work of grownups. I mean, they couldnt do jobs and cant mine/build stuff, but hauling things around could be a thing. In medivial age it was quite normal that children help out where they can. Dont think that would count as child labour. And after 10 days they get grown ups.

About death: Well, instead of dying they could implement a “run away” feature. The child will run away and the player will never know what happened to the child. But this way the notification about “death” and a gravestone for a dead child can be prevented. So you have to protect your children, but they won’t die. Also that children can run faster then enemies/adults is also a good idea, Would fit into the “run away” solution. :slight_smile:

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My thinking on this topic:
Marriage: Two Hearthlings can get married (no need for a priest, creating unnecesary jobs). You can create a zone for marriage (10X10 max). Once your village has at least one married couple, the carpenter can make a double bed. For the couple, sleeping in separate beds can make them sad. Once they bboth have their own house and their own bed, they CANT HAVE CHILDREN for two reasons:

1- Controversy (read the whole post for more info)
2- It would make the “town requirements” a joke, and let your villagers reproduce like bunnies

For the couple to be successful, you need a double bed and letting them both a little idle time so they can have a relaxed talk.

Good things of marriage: It boost the couple’s happiness for a fair bit and gives a period of happiness to people close to them (just like knights with courage)

Balances:

  • The couple can split up if you dont give them enough free time with each other, making them glum for fivedays or less.

  • They both need a ring (made out of steel) crafted by a blacksmith lvl 1 and a Fancy Dress, crafted by a weaver lvl 3 (thus making clear the level of progress your town requires for marraige to happen)

  • You cant marry two hearthlings, they randomly decide to get married when you have two rings and two fancy dresses

  • If one of the couple died, the other couple would need a private bed for himself and will feel forlorn for five days or more (7 max) and would not be able to work for that time

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