New class idea: Mayor

Suggestions
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So I just have some basic idea that might be a good idea. Just gonna spit them out and hope some may be added. I don’t really know I just want to be active in this community since I enjoy this game a lot. So I was thinking about this and I thought this could dull down a lot of it while adding a cool class. So the mayor,s job would be simple. It can organize what workers do, for a lack of better words, prioritize. If you want one worker to work on one building and that building only or haul only loot or say gold ore after being mined the mayor can set that. I think it would be better to add a none modded feature where you can control the path the military takes. Not only that but we could add a better trading system where we have routes to set economics or something like that and we can set that as mayor. All in all this idea needs some refinement so feel free to respond with more suggestions and maybe we can get noticed and it can be added in by the devs.

IMPORTANT!!!
@nikosthefan is the only one who has really truly understood what I wanted to mayor to be. I never expected the mayor to take away from what you can do. I wanted to have him open up a new door for the game.

Btw im gonna be copy and pasting what @nikosthefan said, if you dislike that tell me to remove it and I will.

3 Likes
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Prioritizing work Tasks would be very useful!
And perhaps, as the mayor’s level grows, he could raise taxes? :slight_smile:

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Nice to see someone else contributing with suggestions (I hope you get active in others suggestion thread as well :slight_smile:).

This is just my personal opinion: I usually dont like classes which dont have a “real” job and just providing some passive bonus for the town. Currently, there’s no job which doesn’t do anything with their hands.

Besides the unpromoted hearthling, that mainly mines/hauls/builds, there are:

Jobs that produce (and mine/haul/build stuff):

  • Carpenter
  • Mason
  • Potter
  • Smith
  • Engineer
  • Farmer
  • Cook
  • Hunter
  • Shepard
  • Herbalist

Jobs that fight:

  • Footman
  • Knight
  • Archer
  • Cleric

The mayor would be a promotable job which doesn’t produce and doesn’t fight. Therefore I’m not really sure how that would fit into the game. I think there were other suggestions already would wanted to see certain classes who only provide a passive bonus to the hearthlings/the player (I remember the architect being such a class). I wouldn’t mind a class like the mayor, but it has to do more then just provide the player the ability to prioritize work imo. :slight_smile:

3 Likes
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Aye on @AaronD 's word!

The concept of a mayor class has been brought up in the community quite often, mainly for taxes and organizing the Hearthlings, the problem is not only that the Mayor has no real role, the problem is that such mechanics are not creatad by making a class, a action cannot be sprouted from a entitiy, in other words, you cannot make a Hearthling do the job, the game does, and the only purpose the Hearthling stands to do is represent the system, and it does nothing to actually carry the role

Though with all respect, it seems like the players that suggest the Mayor class don’t have a lot of understanding on how a game works, not to say that i’m an expert, but the Hearthlings are not poeple in a common sense, a system drives them, they do not drive the system, it’s not as simple as making a role called ‘organize task as commanded’ it means making a system/tech, that supports such actions by the player, and so a Class for such a function is unnecessary and meaningless, since the class does nothing to Make the system, because you cannot make the Hearthling do the Thinking, they do not think, because it simple to think of a task being dealt by the hearthling, — How do you organize task priorities? Well, make a Hearthling do it —,is easier said than done, and again, does nothing

In my opinion, such a system should be a ability of the player that is always available, taking taxes if we ever will, can be done by just adding some coin to the inventory, a mascot only needs to be a picture the player choses if we ever need one, and even that’s assuming our role is a mayor or king of some sorts, instead of a God

Not to say that such a class is totally meanigless though, sinse it can bring some cute esthetics, for example, you could have a bulletin board, and the mayor goes an posts the priority/to-do list and all Hearthlings that are looking to do something will walk up to the board and look up(well, act as thay are looking up) the list and go to do work, it’s a cute concept and surely one that may work, but at the same time, we still don’t need a dedicated class, any hearthling can write on a pice of paper, and you, the player seems to have godly powers of ordering, you still don’t really need a class for the posting, just like how everyone can light the fire-pit, it could be a everyone thing

But please don’t take me wrongly, i do not mean disrespect or insult, i am a critique at most, and i truely value your ideas and suggestions, and i really do look forward for more from you

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I find your reply to be very helpful, thank you so very much for your response. You are right about my knowledge of the workings of the game being less than needed to make a reasonable reply. The points you bring up are very helpful and it will be useful in furthering my ability to suggest new classes or roles. Thank you for your time in your response.

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I can fully understand the reason why you don’t like classes that don’t have real jobs. It makes sense we don’t want to have tons of useless classes. This was a simple small idea that I hope can be worked on by my fellow players. Maybe in the future I can come up with better points. I currently only have 26 hours into the game so I have very little time in it. I will continue to think of things he can do to further persuade you and the community that this would be a valid class.Thank you for your helpful response.

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Maybe, we have to further his ability so that he can become a helpful and needed class. If you have any further ideas please feel free to bring them up.

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Phew! I’m glad I managed to not offend you in any way, i’m quite good at offending without knowing

I’m glad i could shed a little bit of light into the whole class/job thing, though, ideas are always more valuable than keeping within a decency of reason, a wacky idea is as good as a reasonable one, since that all inspire more ideas from it, and even the most ridiculous idea can have a variation of it that is more reasonable and refined through discussion, a suggestion of having a gunner just for the looks can bring up the possibility of a gunner, and more ideas from it,

Knowlage should be use to critique a work of yours and others, and shouldn’t stop you from making more ideas before the are fully formed

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But what would be enough to make things a real job. A cleric of a suficciently high skill level has a healing aura around them. It kindof is a passive bonus, but only to anyone who is near the hearthling. So would that be a job.

If so, any class that organizes hearthling tasks could be set up in a certain way, so that it only affect hearthlings a certain distance away.
So let’s say a mayor can summon workers near a build project that is prioritezed (AI change from normal), he can only call so far (thing the hearthling does), so not all hearthling workers will respond.

Other work - organising classes could be set up in such a way, military leaders (formations, ordering low-health hearthlings to retreat if ordered by player,etc), architect (better building AI), postman (don’t know a better name, but he makes sure [if we ever get stockpile prioritisation] that goods are hauled by workers to the right place) or a goblin chieftan (heard in a stream one day the suggestion that goblins are dummer without their chieftan).

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Maybe the mayor does stuff by writing orders, He has a desk (workbench), where he can write orders (craft order / build priority order). These orders would be procedures that the player can do him/herself, but exist in mutilpe steps. This way the player can do this more quickly (moving to more macromanagement). Getting things done easier is exactly the point of streamlining organisation. The mayor would only be unlocked at town tier 2, for balancing reasons.

Example: craft order: order a thing to be crafted. This places the recipe of said item in the crafting que, but also all its ingredients that aren’t already produced. This is useful for things that require lots of manufacturing to get the ingredients.

Build priority order: You get to place a banner in ghost form (like the town or safety banner) near a building that needs to be build first. Any new one will override the old one (balance). The mayor will then walk around town summoning workers from their current tasks to the new ones, but he can only call within a certain range. This is not an example for the thing described on top of this post, but one of my previous post.

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Knights also have a passive bonus, granting higher morale to everyone as far as I know. But those passives are only a small aspect. Knights/Clerics still do more then just that. The cleric actively heals single units and the knight obviously fights enemies. And lets not forget that we are talking about military units here. They are usually idle 90% of their time. A mayor however would be a non-military unit and therefore I expect him to do more then just providing passive bonuses.

This would make the game way more complex. Something I guess the developers dont want to have. Dont forget, that you need a new hearthling for every new job you just suggested and they just idle around, granting passive bonuses. Not sure if the players and devs really want that.

Sorry, but letting him “craft” orders is the same as letting him provide a passive buff to the town. I dont really see much difference between letting him craft the order or just provide them in a passive way. The mayor would still not produce a real product for the town.

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(FYI: In this post I make the assumption that idle time will be filled with animations, so doing stuff while idling looks like they are doing stuff [does that make sense?])

But in a sense, isn’t crafting and walking around granting bonusses, the same thing?
Animations play and ingame systems make stuff happen. correction: ingame systems make stuff happen, while animations paly, and a heaarthling is involved
Isn’t fighting also a buff (albeit a negative one) on health with animations on top of it?

What I was trying to say is, where is that line between them, what is enough for something to be called a job?

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As i stated in a reply above, a Hearthling does not drive a system, the System Drives the Hearthling

It isn’t the case where the Animation playes and the thing happenes, it’s that a thing happenes, and a animation is played to signify the action happening

The functions you suggest are more mechanical - clockwork if i can say so

In other words, the way you suggest is more like a piston and redstone based machine in minecraft, were a action results in a result; this moves this way, pushes this, that enables this, and so on

Read the reply above if you can, but to put it simply, a job has no reason to exist if the job has no physical role, or super important/late-game, the jobs that currently exist can still function without any animation, the millitary could do no animations and just have stats roll into play, the carpenter doesn’t need to do the animations, just wait X seconds and make the product, that works, but the concept of the Mayor, or, the concept brought up, doesn’t need ot exist, the function can exist independantly from the job, you don’t need a person running around pointing at stuff for prioritie’s to work, it’s like we don’t need someone placing a banner every time we give a military order, it is a meaningless class because it’s representing unit has no real function

The crafting cannot exist if someone doesn’t go around picking up stuff and making the item, military cannot work without someone actuall riskin their lives out there, but the Mayor, well, y’see the point

3 Likes
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I see a mayor being added into the game going one of three ways:

  1. The mayor is added in as a way for the player to access more administrative abilities such as the ability to change tax rates.

  2. The mayor is added in as a way for the player to give this one hearthling however many mundane/convenient jobs like making sure that 1/3 of the population is always either a cleric, footman, archer, or knight, or perhaps the player tells the mayor hearthling to make sure that no matter what the materials needed to complete so and so template(s) are always in the town’s inventory, perhaps even enough materials to make several of such template(s), so that if you had the townsfolk construct such a template all the materials would already be there, and if you wanted two the materials would also be there already. And maybe to accomplish this you’d assign the mayor certain ways to gather materials, such as growing trees and chopping them, trading for materials, gathering berries that you want him to make sure are in stock only from designated berry bushes, etc. And yes I realize you can already set an order to hearthlings with jobs centered around crafting to always have x of y item, however the template part makes it more convenient and berries can’t be crafted, just like all other materials and foods (in game at least). Another example of the mayor being able to be a mechanism to make things immersively convenient for the player is if when the mayor levels up they get some sort of charm rank that inspires hearthlings to work better in your town. For example you could tell the mayor to have a certain amount of wheat in the granaries, so to speak, by the end of the week, and such amount could be achieved even if it is slightly above your productive capabilities as the mayor will inspire people to work harder, or maybe you want however many buildings currently in construction to be done by the end of the week, you can tell the mayor that and he or she will inspire hearthlings set to be able to build to work harder to speed up the building process, and as a way to deter players from setting goals to high this is how the mayor earns xp: by reaching player set goals, but they can’t be too low or else the mayor won’t earn much xp, and if you miss a goal maybe because it was too high don’t worry either nothing will happen, just that you will have more materials than normal because everyone was working extra hard to meet a goal set by the mayor that you told him or her to set that was perhaps too high. Maybe this “charm to inspire n’ stuff” is just a boost to speed of your hearings to make them gather building materials and such faster, a way to make the troops fight harder with more strength by inspiring them, an actual straight up efficiency boost where they have a 50% chance to get double the resources when mining or something like that, or a combination of such. Basically the mayor is a medium for the player to have certain things automatically done for them to help them out a bit in terms of dealing with the morale, materials, and work ethic of the town among other things.

  3. If not either of these things I imagine a mayor in Stonehearth being a combination of the two, someone who allows the player more administrative powers, perhaps explainable as due to there now being double the people to administer the town it is easier to keep things…well…administered (those two being the player and mayor). And as a side effect of there being two such people administering the town you can assign the mayor certain tasks to complete as though a little toady sidekick that’ll do your bidding to make the sla-hearthlings work better, faster, fight stronger, gather more by a certain time requirement, etc.

4?) Basically just other things that I haven’t thought of

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+1 to this, I love the idea of a Mayor.

He would need a fancy office, and essentially “waste” a citizen. However he would unlock the ability for craftspeople to automatically queue production of items needed for a building blueprint, as well as being needed as a story\progress mechanic. It also adds more challenge and “burden” to running a town, like nobles in Dwarf Fortress.

So you design a building with 4 windows, have none in storage and no build orders, automatically the carpenter gets build 4 windows command.

The idea that every job HAS to have some “physical” function is absurd. Stonehearth is all about the atmosphere and personality of the game.

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-10000

I’m the mayor of my town, I don’t want to lose a gathering robot to a redundant class.

If you want a mayor class you should write an AI that plays stonehearth for you.

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Automation in general is a big mess, so many variables and in reality it does little impact to play, ususally the player doesn’t have too much that they can’t do stuff manually, plus the game has to know what the player wants, not only is that a big investment in tech and systems, if it doesn’t produce a perfect result, it’ll be more frustrating than useful, and for the idea of the Mayor’s existance ulocking a system is not that bad of an idea, but the problem would be that you really don’t need it to be that way, you don’t need a Hearthling doing nothing just so the player has some automation capabilities, for the harvest idea, well, it sounds good, but the problem is how you make it happen, you can’t make them run around placing tree’s at random, that 's just priblematic, and making a designated area would be nothing more than waste of space, many’d rather just place them where they want, and use space more effectively, what about mining? Do they just dig a random hole? That’s not that good, and setting an area would be no different than just mining it in the first place

Promoting by population basis would be a big problem, not only does the game not know who to promote, what if you had no good fighters? What if all the remaininf workers had 2~3 body stat? What should they be? Footman? A cleric,knight and archer need jobs prior to that, how does the game know when and who to promote?

And besides that, the name of ‘Mayor’ isn’t a job that goes out and plant trees to get wood and mine stuff, and the player is the manager of the town, why would there be a mayor?

That already exists, if you build a plan for a structure, the crafters of each pice of furniture will automatically que the needed pices, and thees also do not need a Class to make happen, it can be internalized within the system and not effect play

For the story part, that’s problematic, what if the mayor dies during a quest? You don’t notice and finish the quest(say, kill goblins) and the mayor isn’t there to complete it?

We could have a system to compensate for it, but wouldn’t you rather have that development time be used in some more essential ways?

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True, but if someone’s looking for just some roleplay involving a mayor then just rename one of your hearthlings into having the title “Mayor” before their name and give them a nicer house than the other plebs (which is what I’d recommend as that’s what I normally do if I want a leader figure out of my citizens).

But besides the roleplay your right the player is the mayor

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Know what man I have nothing to say to this but your right bro, completely goddamn right and I know it

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I didn’t mean to offend you if i did, i find it necessary to critique eath other’s ideas, so that each side learns, as an example, i’ve found it quite interesting of a concept of a class that unlocks a system, since it is quite a good idea, i’m just not sure if a Mayor is a good candidate for it