New class - Leader (chieftain, king, etc)

first, welcome aboard @nlfidelitas! :smiley: (you guys are probably getting sick of hearing that…)

second, i think this topic should probably be merged with this existing thread… so, by the powers of grayskull!!

The game is, besides a builder and RTS game, partly an rpg and when you’re creating the history of a civilization records of the government can’t be absent.
Maybe the council or king could be the interface to designing buildings or something or what formation soldiers will get in when attacking something.
I just like the idea that a town can feel real and organic.

Whilst i understand the problem of people switching government, i don’t like the idea of increasing bonuses over time.
Two alternatives which IMO are better are:

  1. only 1 type of government; I dont think there necessarily need to be a lot of different types of governments in a game like stonehearth, a game which doesn’t take itself that seriously and which isnt some sort of super realistic city sim. of course you could change it up a bit between factions and make it progress over time, but not much more.
  2. Once you pick a government u are locked in it, either permanent or for a considerable period of time.

I like the first option more.

Choice two reminds me of this song for some reason:


Do not click if you don’t want to hear cussing.

1 Like

I think I’ll interject the social system from Alpha Centauri, an old but really awesome space civ by Sid Meiers. They had a number of different categories such as population growth, environmental impact, etc. and your choices of government and trade policy would have both positive and negative impacts on each category. (random screenshot from google).

One possibility would be to have something similar that would allow different class types to influence these categories. So you could have not just leader classes but other specific classes and building types that would affect these categories. That would enable you to have leaders that affect the categories but not pigeonhole you, allowing you to still play how you want not how the game dictates - if your monastery doesn’t care about trade, you shouldn’t be forced to care. But if you go for a pure smithing “mine everything” civ, there should be a few environmental drawbacks there.

As I’m thinking, instead of having direct negative effects, it could just mean something like increased number of druid attacks, or fire elementals are drawn to your civ b/c it looks so much like their home plane or whatever.

As a caveat, with enough research, the end game of Alpha Centauri did allow you to have mostly positive traits in those categories, but it took a lot of effort to get there (if memory serves).

Just another alternative that I thought I’d throw out there for implementing leaders without pigeonholing.

2 Likes

What do you say if there would be a social system in this game?Not only professions produce a product! I am thinking also of offices, which regulate life in a city or kingdom. And that these offices can be selected, for example. The incumbent, then of course have certain rights and powers. I would find totally great!

Can you give a more detailed example? What offices do you have in your mind? What influence could they have? What would be the added value (instead of just adding complexity)?

welcome aboard @boeserfrodo! :smiley:

i believe the general idea of this thread could fit within this existing topic… merge-tastic!

My idea of social system is the following:

The whole game seems to play so in a kind of medieval. So why not a similar social system with different offices? If there is to be three kingdoms, then each will of course also guided by its own king. The king is head of state of each kingdom. This in turn is elected by the electors. An elector is the leader of a certain part of the whole empire. It manages this area an all towns an villages in it. An elector is elected by the rulers of cities of this area. A ruler is elected by the knights of a town.

This only a crude extract of social system. Of course this can be expanded or simplified as desired. But firmly integrate the idea of dedicated and loyal players in this medieval world, i find it very good.

Needs to reach the top ranks this one meet special requirements: so in our example:
The player must have only reached the rank of a knight to be elected as rulers.

The player must have only reached the rank of a free citizen to be elected as mayor.

The player must first have the rank of a priest to be elected as a bishop.

@boeserfrodo So you suggest to have this kind of social system within one game you are playing or somehow covering the whole community? Not sure I get it, still. In Stonehearth you will manage one city and you can chose between 3 different “kingdoms” once you start a new game… at least more or less this should describe it. I have difficulties to imagine how such a “social system” might fit into a game. What I could imagine is such a system as kind of a “highscore” between all players in the community. So e.g. if a player reaches a certain score, he could be granted a special rank, depending on the others playing on the same ladder…

it is only an idea. In this way it can be a very complex game.

I don’t necessarily dislike the idea, I just kind of like more scaling it to our purposes. While mods could be anything the understanding at this point is your settlers come from an existing Kingdom. At BEST they would have some kind of noble leading them that was definitely not a King. The King is doing King stuff back at the center of your civ/kingdom. He might drop by some day and require lodgings and food at your expense and maybe taxes.

But he’s not out settling. Either he sent your group which may or may not have an actual noble leading it if anyone is leading to begin with, or he heard about it and didn’t disapprove when one of his vassals or advisors sent you.

Although, it would also be fun to eventually have your own petty would be King. This would have consequences, and possible benefits if you have actual interaction with your parent Kingdom. They might send someone to thump you for your treason. They might also stop trading with you.

I think that the leader / king avatar can be used to add some interesting and fun game triggers.

Fun game elements could vary from Pumpkin pie tester at the Harvest Festival to Beer Judge at the Oktoberfest. In game triggers like your guards bracing to attention and saluting as your leader walks by could also be fun. I find it amusing to imagine a portly chap wandering round sampling pies and things… maybe it’s just me.

Another reason to have a leader style character is PVP.

Imagine if you will, 4 players playing together on the same server shard. Each has their own zone and can trade with players in their respective zones.

As the game progresses and each player develops and increases the size of their settlements, their leader avatar progresses through the ranks. Lets say Foreman, Mayor and then on to Lord for arguments sake.

After a certain amount of time, the players will most likely be well established Lords.

However, player one decides that he wants to be King of the shard and declares himself King. (Long live the King!)… The other players realise that player one has a tactical advantage at the moment and are happy to submit to his kingly demands of 3% of variable blah (i’m thinking gold, or something).

Eventually player two decides that he is in a position to take on the King, and declares himself King (“King of the North!”). Now everybody knows that there can’t be two Kings right?

Basically, by declaring yourself King, you are turning on a PVP flag that cannot be toggled for say 48 hours. During this time, any other shard King can attack your city.

In non-hardcore modes, if your king is defeated, his title is removed and demoted to Lord, some variable blah is stolen from his hold, and perhaps his walls are damaged.

In hardcore mode, if your king is defeated, your settlement is destroyed and you must rebuild.

Anyway, this is purely an idea and constructive criticism is welcome.

3 Likes

Haven’t read all the comments so maybe this has come up but, maybe a military leader is like a secondary thing, e.g. the highest ranking soldier is protected by petty footmen, maybe even jumping in front of an attack that would be fatal to the captain (or whatever) this would mean you could almost have squads that could be defined by a single guy with followers, they could even group up out of combat.

I must admit, that would be a neat little touch, to have a officer and his troops swaggering around.

Hey maybe a corruption in your makes them evil. :smiling_imp:

Hey guys I don’t know if any of these ideas are going to be read but I feel it is worth a try.I think it would be a great idea if there were multiple kingdoms in a game and if you conquer a kingdom there is a high chance the people of that kingdom revolting, and you have to do micro managing to make a peaceful compromise to their problems, but of course you can always send you army to crush them but you don’t want to be killing the peopling of your kingdom. There should also be an option at the main menu allowing you to choose the level of management you would like to have in your game, getting to the more advanced level you would have to choose a worthy king and nobles for your kingdom the nobles would own bigger houses and possibly slave if that is the way you wish your kingdom to be ruled, the king is also vital in your game leveling up the way an animal trainer would, first possibly being a village chief at level one and an emperor at the top, I believe it would also be a good idea that the game allows you to choose(I’m not trying to be racist here) weather your people are all white, all black, or a mix of both. The options give you useful traits in your people like the white option will allow for your kingdom to be better with money and big structures, and the black option will give your people better means of training, hunting, and possibly fighting, the mixed option will give your people the best of both, but you will in turn have to deal with discrimination problems in your kingdom and will have to deal with it in ways that you see fit. Oh yes and I almost forgot that in the game there should be other kingdoms more advances and more built up than your and others. Since your people had to come from somewhere.

These are just a few of the ideas I have for this game, and I hope they are of good use for anybody using them.

hi @Quinn… welcome aboard! :smile:

i’ve merged your thread here, as it seemed to deal (mostly) with kings and such (somewhat difficult to read, given the formatting to be honest)…

have fun!

You should be able to choose whether you are just a group of settlers with no king or leader, or a group that elects one, or one is decided, because everyone wants different things.

Im late to the this thread but i had to give a nod to this reference.

Good ideas all around.

1 Like