Papers, Please! - An Improved Way to Gain New Hearthlings

Suggestions
1

PAPERS, PLEASE! - an Improved Way to Gain New Hearthlings

Hello everyone! It’s me again, Zilla! The guy who appears every few months to do one post and then disappear again! I’m here because I love the new update so far, and it has reinvested me into Stonehearth in general! I find myself spending hours just designing great looking buildings to have what looks like a real town! So good work to the Team for making this great update! Stonehearth is starting to feel like a truly fleshed out game, and I’m glad I’ve been apart of the ride since 2013!
Anyways, on to the main point of this thread. While I was playing the game earlier today, I decided to start fresh and make a whole new town. When it came to pick my roster, I decided to do a themed game so I made all of my starting group ginger, and I named the town Gingerton. Things were going well for Gingerton until the first daily update rolled around, and a new person joined my town. At first I was happy to have a new friend join the growing settlement, but sadly, tragedy struck. The new towns member was gasp blond. Suddenly Gingerton, the sanctuary built by Gingers, for Gingers, became nothing more than any regular settlement in the middle of nowhere. Despite this crushing defeat, something flashed in my head. An idea. No, a vision, of a new way to do the Daily Update in general, something that I feel would flesh out the game to reach a new level of customization and town specialization.

Here’s the Idea:
Doesn’t it seem odd that when you complete the Daily Update, a new Hearthling just appears out of nowhere in the middle of the forest not too far from your town? I sure think so! So why not have the new Hearthlings actually be applicants looking to be hired by you to join the settlement?
Whenever you complete the requirements for the daily update to gain a new citizen, a menu will pop up if you accept the citizen. The menu shows about four different Hearthlings, and it shows each one’s stats, traits, and more. What is this menu? Well, this menu is Applicants Looking to Join Your Town of course! Every time you pass the Daily Update requirements, you’ll get a roster of randomized citizens looking to join your growing settlement. You’ll get to choose one of these applicants to join your town, but only one! After that the other randomized characters will be lost to the coding, and the next roster you’ll see will be randomized as well. From this menu you would be able to change the appearance of the applicants, but not the stats or traits (Ya to Gingerton! All will be Gingers!).
Another ability in this menu though would be to request certain traits or stats, so now the player could reach a whole new level of town specialization! When you request these certain things, there will be a higher chance of a Hearthling with those specific requests to be in the next Daily Update, bringing the idea of the new Hearthlings being applicants looking to join your town back into full circle, instead of them just being random people who just appear in the forest. Need a new farmer soon to help feed your hungry town? Request an applicant who is skilled in farming (Green Thumb Trait!), and hope a Hearthling with that skill applies next Daily Update! In this way it feels like that the Hearthlings are real people looking to join your town, and you can accept them based on their skills depending on what you currently require to help the settlement grow, helping to add another level of immersion to the game overall.

Thanks for reading my suggestion everyone! Thanks to everyone for keeping the community going strong through all these years, and big thanks to Radiant for being the best development team I’ve ever had the pleasure of knowing! :smile:

13 Likes
2

I was going to make a ginger joke as soon as I saw your post, but I see you’ve already made it for me. Nice to see you here again :jubilant:

I’d definitely like to see more control over new Hearthlings, especially at higher tiers. But for now, for Gingerton, at least there’s always HoMF (also now on the Steam Workshop, though apparently buggy with multiplayer.)

2 Likes
3

It seems like, and always has felt this way, that the Hearthlings that join during the update are travelers that decided your place seemed like a good one to put down roots. Hearthlings overall seem like a friendly bunch (if you take notice of how often the little jerks stop working to gossip and gab at each other), so welcoming a new member into their midst would be done easily and warmly.

Putting the hearthlings through an application process seems a bit excessive during a time when the little guys would just be happy for an extra set of hands to help distribute the work load. You don’t apply to live in a new city when you move, so why would you apply to join a village in the middle of nowhere? In Rayya’s Children, the Iskander rep says that they’d be pointing traveling Hearthlings in your direction if they were looking for a new home. That’s really all that’s happening whether it’s Ascendancy or RC. You’re getting Hearthlings who want to find a new place to live.

Admittedly, I’d love to select what new members I get out of a group of perhaps three… If only so I can keep out the people with pets that like to get into places they shouldn’t and then starve themselves to death without any kind of notice to me that something’s wrong. If my guy’s going to suffer a -20 hit to his or her morale, I need to be made aware of it so I can do something to stop it. So, until I do, I avoid Hearthlings with pets altogether and only put ones with low spirit as trappers so they don’t end up with a freaking menagerie.

5 Likes
4

Haha! I always have a bunch of starving critters running about. I don’t store food in open stockpiles so the little buggers can never find anything to eat. Be nice if they foraged off natural resources like berry bushes and carrots.

2 Likes
5

That’s a really good point! Perhaps I should have explained better where my idea came from. My apologies. :sweat_smile:
Let me try to explain, my idea with the applications was based off of how centuries ago when new settlements were formed in places like the New World, the settlements would be ran by companies (Like for example, the state of Virginia got its name from the company that originally settled there to begin with: the Virginia Company!), meaning that most of the people who came first to these settlements would be individuals looking to make a new living (and a lot of the time the pay they accepted was being able to have their own land to farm and build a home on!). It was only after the settlements became self sufficient did they start to become more like actual communities.
So the applicant idea basically comes from the outlook that you’re a company looking to set up in a new land, and the applicants are people looking to join you. Thus it would make more sense as to why you could request specific people, because you’re looking for specific workers to fill those jobs!
Thank you though for what you said, because reading your outlook on it really helped to show me how just having the Hearthlings roam in adds a sense of charm to it all! :smile:

1 Like
6

I really like this idea! Nothing worse than really needing another Hearthling to help out to see that your newcomer has stats that are 1,2,1.

I know there are mods to give Hearthlings 6,6,6 stats but that’s cheating in my eyes but being able to select which one you want would be a nice change.

1 Like
7

Even that 1/2/1 hearthling has a use. Just as a general worker or as a trapper. With a 1 spirit, he’s not bringing home every bunny, squirrel, and fox without even bothering to ask “Can I keep him?” I’m also not above sticking a hoe in their hands and making them till the ground.

I’ve no qualms about shuffling Hearthlings in a quick game of musical professions to make that new lowbie fit somewhere.

3 Likes
8

I played a lot back when a militia was a viable strategy and my trapper would be out pretty far, so I’ve been stuck with the habit of promoting trappers that can somewhat fend for themselves.

1 Like