Neighboring Settlers are NPC’s that live in randomly generated settlements. I think that they can eather attack you and steal your stuff, or form a good relationship, trade with you, helping your settlers, etc.
There are a number of possible outcomes that could result in your neighboring settlers attacking and looting your settlers/settlement, or trading with your settlers, helping your settlers, etc.
I think this would be a fun and unique thing to add to the game. if you have an opinion about my idea, please reply to my post! Thank you for your time! :wink2:
Perhaps they are even from the separate kingdom of the one you picked, and messing with their town means you wont get trade from that other kingdom. (e.g. You pick Rara’s Children and trade with the other to kingdoms caravans, but you attack say, an Ascendancy town, you will no longer get trade from their caravans.)
I think this is an excellent idea! In fact, I assumed that the developers would make NPC settlements with an AI ‘player’ that builds into cities like the human player, so if it’s not I definitely think it should be a complete built-in game type.
This is how many successful RTS games are such as 0 AD, Empire Earth, Age of Empires, etc.
The problem with making them auto-hostile means there’s no surprise and fewer options to interact with the world - every interaction with those foreign settlers will be military. Rather, I’d like to see a system of traits assigned to the settlers that will make them respond to you differently. Examples:
The settlement of Amazon warrior-women will only respond positively to female diplomats.
The group of druids will automatically attack if your settlement is known for cutting down excessive numbers of trees.
Maybe the dwarven settlement will respect you greatly if you’re known for your smiths and mining.
That way you can either earn their respect and get their “loot” as gifts or you can bribe them, steal from them, or flat out kill them. Options for different scenarios is far preferable in a sandbox game to automatically doing something in all scenarios. Just my 2 cents.
and well spent… i love this approach, as it ties into the need for context i mentioned… as you said, having an outright aggressive stance doesnt lend itself to many gameplay options… as you have described, it opens the door to a host of new options…
I’ll just throw my opinion out there no matter if you want it or not
Out right aggressive AI-players sounds like a bad idea in my ears…
It will limit the play-styles a great deal and since I can com up with some mechanics, the devs
could implement to avoid aggressing certain mobs and other villages, I’m sure you guys can as well.
If you want other enemy’s than monsters, maybe a banditencampment will cut it. Making it so you have to bring them a present when you meet them first time in order for them not to attack.
You could make military city’s as well so if they don’t see any need for you (as in trade partner or such) They will try to put some pressure on you in order for them not to attack (Pressure=We want your gold, young men, women and more gold)
One fun AI element would be to give bands of settlers a “group AI” of sort. Each individual unit has an AI, but then if you tie groups of AIs together into a band of monsters or a small village of settlers, then they can have shared goals.
In this context, you could have rival settlers who have a specific goal in mind. That goal may come in direct conflict with the player, such as wanting some choice farmland or access to a strategic waterway or something. In this scenario, if the player really wants that river for a watermill, the settlers may offer to sell the land or you could simply displace the rival settlers by destroying their homes but not killing them. Perhaps that displacement would replace their previous AI routines with banditry ones, thus setting up a Hattfields vs. McCoys.
Alternatively, instead of banditry, maybe the displaced settlers get vindictive and rebuild upstream and build a dam on the river (actually, that might be my first mod - trying to get the AI to modify the landscape).
The key to a sandbox game (in my mind) is an evolutionary response from the world itself. If your actions can directly alter how other entities behave over the long term, I’m going to be sold on this game forever.
That’s a funny idea. But you have adjust the AI to the level of you settlers. It wouldn’t be fair to new users to run into a more advance group of people and get destroyed by them.
i dont like the idea of them to be allways hostile, but i do like the idea of another human settelements that can have a relationship whit your people.
a nation that will always try to eliminate you sounds to me like a bad idea. it will force players into focusing on millatery, what will limit their options. unlike the aggression that exepected from goblins that will force you to build basic defenses, but will also have other ways to handle beside a war.
And keep sharing. If it’s not something that gets added to core gameplay, it’s just as likely some modder will say “hey, that sounds nifty” and add it that way.
:wink2:
In fact, I assumed that the developers would make NPC settlements with an AI ‘player’ that builds into cities like the human player, so if it’s not I definitely think it should be a complete built-in game type.
