World Generation
The world generation right now feels a bit too open to me. You can see everything on the map from the basic terrain to all of the resources on it. Because of this our intrepid hearthling explorers and settlers know too much about the world they are discovering. A lot of chat during streams has to do with fog of war and game systems like that and i think it could work well.
My thoughts are on initial world generation and exploration through a fog of war type system. Perhaps when generating a world to settle and explore the entire world you see before you plant your town banner is visible but basic, like you have been given a rough map of the region instead of a god’s eye view of everything in it. No resources like berry bushes, animals, or flowers will be visible. Only the shape of the terrain, water and trees will be seen. Perhaps to bolster the effect of this being unexplored territory all terrain and trees could be set in a sepia or parchment tone until explored instead of the usual fog of war style of being completely obscured with darkness or fog. you can direct your town defense out to clear some of the fog of war, but there should be a better way:
Adventurers
Another thing that is talked about on stream is adventuring and questing, making a party to go out in the world to find caves, monster encounters and treasure. I’ve been thinking about adding this as a new combat option. Right now we have the town defense and that’s all, with those 4 party banners in it. What if just one or 2 of those party banners are for town defense, with the other two for adventurers. To make an adventuring party there would have to be some required items/resources.
I’d suggest a packmule/packhorse. This animal would follow the party wherever you send them. It would serve as a type of mobile storage and in a way shelter. It will carry food, act as storage for loot you find, and have a campfire that will be deployed for your camp when they require sleep. When sleeping at this campfire hearthlings in the adventuring party will not get the debuff for sleeping outside. Making the pack animal would require 3 jobs to make it. A shepherd for the animal itself, a weaver to make 2 storage packs (one for food one for loot) and a mason or blacksmith to make the deployable campfire/campsite.
In order to set off on an adventure first you need the pack animal made. Once you have the animal you can add the people you want to the adventuring party. The party cannot be created without the animal. A new command button, set off on an adventure, would start the journey. Once selected you can choose where they go like the move/attack commands for town defense, but before they set off the adventurers will begin to gather supplies. They will fill up the food pack completely before they head out.
Adventuring could be automated too, perhaps they will wander around aimlessly if not given direct commands. When their supplies get low, perhaps when they are down to 1/5 food capacity, they will head back home to resupply and empty their loot bags. Returning with loot from an adventure could perhaps be a big morale/mood boost to the town. Perhaps there could be a debuff for adventuring too long as well, like homesickness which will make the team return home early.