New class - Leader (chieftain, king, etc)

Suggestions
1

So I’ve read a few posts about this though they didn’t really explain what exactly the role or point of a city leader might be. Anyway, so at some point in your game you will be able to choose a basic type of government. This point may be available from the start or after you reach some set population count. At this point you can choose to have your city led by a single ruler or a council. The person’s class will define what type of ruler they are and also start to define what kind of civilization your town is leaning towards. For example, promoting a soldier to leader will mean you are leading a more militaristic society, while promoting a farmer or craftsman would equal a peaceful agrarian society, or a tradesman a trade/economic society.

In addition, promoting more than one person to leader creates a kind of governing council, though early on this would be discouraged because you would be losing too many workers.

Now for their affects, each class type promoted would give your town some kind of bonus, such as various combat bonuses, a harvest bonus, a resource bonus, worker bonus, or better trade prices. However, the more leaders you promote, the more diluted the effect becomes for each one. For example, say you have a soldier king that gives your soldiers a 10% defensive bonus, if you then promote a farmer and a worker you would now have a council of three and your bonuses may be 3.3% defensive bonus, 3.3% harvest bonus, and 3.3% worker bonus. (just as examples) By having a council your bonuses are less, but they are more spread out to allow flexibility and there are advantages to each.

To keep the player from constantly switching their leader, the longer a person is leader, the higher their bonus is to a certain cap. This discourages players say promoting a soldier to king every time they’re attacked and then replacing him with a craftsman afterward. It would also give this person possibly more value over other workers and encourage the player to keep them alive similar to a real king.

Anyway, sorry to make this post so long, and please tell me what you think of this idea.

9 Likes
2

also,

Then there are aesthetic things, such as the title changing as your population grows, for example:
chieftain < mayor < king < emperor
elder < councilman < senator

and their clothing changing to reflect this as well

2 Likes
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Sounds pretty reasonable to me. Much more thought out than any of the other government suggestions I’ve seen so far.

I think that a political system would be much more useful in a multiplayer or multicity situation than a single city gameplay. I think that the government system, if they chose to have one, should have a bigger penalty than just losing one worker. If RadEnt were to do that, then that government officeholder would require several other workers to act as secretary, “vice” king, etc so that one would stand to lose more if they implemented the system, but more potential rewards, such as a 10% coordination bonus between cities or maybe a citywide “tax” stockpile would be available or something like that.

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well i was trying to keep it fairly simple, but you’re right about a govt having more negatives. Though early on when you have 10 villagers and a chieftain do you really need a secretary or a supporting bureaucracy? so maybe the overhead would scale with your city size so as your civilization grew, the govt grows as well?

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Indeed, as a pop of 15 villagers would need 1 chief, 50-60 would need a king +2-3 advisors, and a full sized city of 150-200+ would need 3-4 councilmen with 2-3 secy’s each, or an emperor with 8-10 advisors

1 Like
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I’m not sure how I feel about having a leader unit, I feel it kinda pigeonholes behaviour in certain ways.

The same way regarding governments, I personally don’t feel that there is a need to include types of government in the game, as again it pigeonholes behvaiour.

Gearing your city towards a certain aspect - militaristic, farming etc, it would seem should be done through your actions rather than a specific unit. I mean, if you choose to focus on military, but then think, well, I’d like to explore farming now, the only hinderance you’ll have is that you haven’t really gotten into it yet.

But if you have a military leader, then perhaps he would have a negative effect on an aspect of farming and would just further deter you from focussing on it.

With governments I just feel that they’re more of a civilization style thing.

I don’t know, I’m just not sold on the idea.

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hmm it is true, it is kinda the same with sim city 4 were you have a mayor that takes the blame. but in a way you are the mayor… or more of a random god that control said mayor. but with this you could have a leader unit, that could be used as a control panel for some things. or just have him be one of the things were you can see how you are ruling your nation. like how he is dressed. o-o if he wears devil horns you are doing a bad job :stuck_out_tongue:

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Playing devil’s advocate here -

Who’s to say it’s a bad job!? A morality system like that, to me, then indicates a right way to play the game :stuck_out_tongue: if you have these evil aesthetics appear like in Black and White and Fable, then it’s because you are an evil controller - again I’m not sure if that’s a good way to go about it!

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Maybe the government leader unit could act like a sort of warden from Prison Architect, as in he would be able to research specific things, possibly better military units, better walls for the city, or an interface showing the resources and resource allocation across the entire city, or possibly relations with another city. These “researchings” would take time and resources, and would cost more than the lower levels of that specific thing, but I think that might be better than number crunching and such which would follow the above government systems.

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first of all, i dont think having a negative affect is a good idea, it should all be positive affects of varying degrees. second, it wouldn’t pigeonhole behavior because you could go in many different directions with it by having multiple leaders each giving a small bonus to different areas (if you choose). The developers have stated that they want the AI to adapt to your choices and decisions, throwing armies at players who choose more militaristic decisions. Additionally, you dont have to choose a leader, you could just run a commune and have no leader and suffer no consequences for it.

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OK, but if I have no negative effects from having a leader, then I might as well have a leader, there would be no point in not having one, you would only be disadvantaging yourself if you didn’t. Surely you would need some sort of neagtive affect to balance the gameplay and make you consider which leader to install?

Especially if you’re having a council type system as you suggested in your original post, you would just end up with like + 25% in every aspect,

They’ve previously said in relation to having kings and queens:

“We’ve thought about it, but that’s a tough one because it implies a certain kind of city. If I’m the kind of player that’s building a monastery or a trade-city, then maybe I don’t want a king or queen”

Whether or not that is still the case I cannot say. But I agree with this. I wouldn’t want a leader, but if I’m getting positive boosts for having one then I would feel that the game is forcing me to have one.

What I mean by pigeon-holing is that the leader class would seem to me at least, to cement a certain type of playstyle. I don’t feel there is a need to have a unit that is there because you decided to focus on something - your focus should be displayed throughout your settlement - it’s with your bigger, larger, and more furnished barracks, it’s in the greater weapons and armour you possess, it’s in the actual strength of your army, and not in a military leader unit.

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If you really want to have a king unit, I would imagine such a unit being somebody who can inspire… or cause contention. This could be expressed in a number of ways like constructing buildings faster or slower, using more or fewer resources, and to generally impact the attitudes of the people in the community.

Obviously a strong leader figure would also be an inspiration in battle, where a good leader would allow his tribe to pull off a victory when defeat seemed all but certain, while a really lousy leader would snatch defeat from the trophy of success.

You could even have leaders who are good in some areas as opposed to others, like a leader who is strong in battle, but an economic disaster zone for the community. There could definitely be some very complex attributes for anybody in such a position.

I also completely disagree that any such leader should be only granting positive benefits. There are simply too numerous examples of lousy leadership in history that has caused all sorts of problems, from destruction of companies to even political implosions of the countries and even great empires they ruled. Compare and contrast Alexander of Macedonia to Marie Antoinette if you want perhaps to historical examples, and that is just scratching the surface.

I do like the idea that “promoting” somebody to be village chief from a particular previous specialty would be a good way to show what kinds of things that particular leader initially is good at doing. Over time, they could become “well rounded” through training and experience, but it wouldn’t be something to expect immediately.

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Oh my god i love you this is an amazing idea.

Everything you just said is amazing. Carry on.

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I don’t want to play with a blacksmith, but I’ll be at a big handicap if I try to play without one, so I feel that the game is forcing me to have one.

no civilization can grow and be successful with out leadership of some kind, so having some form of a leader makes logical sense, similar to being able to farm and craft tools, you will be forced to use some systems/units you might not want to for some reason. I tried to make a govt system that is at least varied and gives the player plenty of choice, so they can still play the game in an overall style to their choosing.

1 Like
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Doesn’t the player act as the leader? The functions of a leader are guiding, coordinating, and tasking those under his command. The player should be able to do all that, so I don’t quite see a real need. Besides, I think RadEnt wants to give the player uncontested control over his own settlers actions.

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I understand your point in principal, but you could extend that throughout any class, and say I don’t want to have a farmer, a carpenter, a ‘insert class name’, but these classes to me at least, are integral to the working and sustenance of your settlement (I know you could make the same case for a leader :stuck_out_tongue: ).

I’m realy not sure how I feel about it now! I mean it has to be handled right obviously.

I like the idea that perhaps you have a farmer, and he reaches max level, what happens then? Can you upgrade him to a master farmer? Does nothing happen, are new abilities unlocked as he levels up? Can you only have one master farmer at a time?

And this could go across the board for every class.

I’m just not sold on the idea of having a specific leader unit and the function of it. And as @ManOfRet said, aren’t we the leader? Orchestrating everything and watching it unfold, is there a need for a ‘king’ unit? Just my thoughts on it anyway!

1 Like
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Hey! I’m new here - just watched the live streams and I think Stonehearth looks absolutely phenomenal.

During the last live stream, the topic of both adventuring and leaders (kings and queens) was brought up. I don’t know if this has been considered or not, but has this idea been considered:

Kings and Queens (or maybe a generic “Leader” class whose title can be customized by the player) are established during times when the player wants to take a group of adventurers out of the city. The Leader keeps things running in the city while the player is gone. Maybe during this “adventure” time, instead of totally stopping time, the city enters a kind of peaceful mode where the Leader coordinates basic play (harvesting and such), while the player can run off and do whatever he wants to do with a party of adventurers.

I love the idea of Stonehearth as a city building game. It seems like it could still be even more than that, though.

Anyway, it seemed like an idea that could resolve the whole “What do we do with the city if the player does take some adventurers off to do something?” - he establishes a leader to take care of things while he’s gone.

Just an idea.

In any case, this game looks absolutely amazing. Great job guys. I love it and look forward to playing it. Just wish I’d discovered it during the Kickstarter so I could have contributed!

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That feels like it would lead to the whole “Shedhearth” thing in a different way. By that I mean at first it would seem cool, but what if the AI does things completely differently from the way you do/would? Especially if you’re trying to inject a home-made flavor into the game, like a warlike or peaceful town, what if the leader AI does the opposite of that? It just seems like the idea has the potential to inadvertently mess things up because each person, and the way they run their city, is different.

1 Like
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I suppose I was thinking of it more as a mechanism than anything too huge. I imagine the difficulties that would be involved in programming a true Leader AI would be pretty intense. It would probably be something similar to “time stopping” just without time actually stopping in the town.

I don’t know - it’s not a very fleshed out idea. I was mostly throwing it out there, because I think the idea of time stopping is a little strange. But even if I can’t fit my head around that, if that’s what they decide to do, that’s fine. The game looks awesome enough that I’m sure whatever they do, they’ll do well. They’ve obviously put a lot of thought and creative energy into this.

I was just trying to think of a similar yet maybe more “fluid” (?) alternative.

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I understand what you’re trying to say, and I think its a valid idea, it just needs a lot more fleshing out. The good thing is, we have a whole community here for that :smiley: