Goblin Squad Member
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dear GW,
Have you considered options (buldings, laws) for NPC law enforcement in player settlements?
If NPC settlements can be patrolled by AIs responding to certain crimes, there's no technical reasons why player settlements couldn't have the same in their settlements.
Done correctly, AI law enforcers could help avoid "shoot all non-blue" tactics and give just enough safe havens for casuals/pve-types - especially in off-peak hours. It could also create tangible differences between settlements of different alignments. I predict that most of us would prefer to work on the economy game trying to keep the law enforcement running rather than patrolling our own hex over and over.
* it should obviously require relevant buildings and upkeep, ideally influenced by settlement alignment and government type. Upkeep should be high.
* it must not conflict with player law enforcement (ie designated player watchmen should have the licence to kill without being ganked by their own AI)
* AI police should be limited to enforcing laws, not defend against siege. (AI defense levy could be another branch though)
wishlist:
* settlement government should have the ability to define laws, ie. how the AI police reacts to certain actions (one settlement could have AI attack you for starting a fight, another could allow duels to death but mark you as criminal for looting the corpse).
far future wishlist:
* diplomacy/espionage/bribery mechanisms to subvert the AI enforcers and levies in rival kingdoms!!
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Goblin Squad Member
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I get the impression that we will be able to write laws for our Settlements, and that the system will probably be able to determine when and if those laws are violated, but I think they're being deliberately tight-lipped about it so far because they don't have a fleshed out system.
Hopefully, this thread can serve as the anvil upon which this system is Crowdforged! That seems to have happened perfectly in the Capstones thread.
1. Criminal Flags - I definitely think the Criminal Flag should definitely be applied when a PC Settlement Law is violated.
2. Marshals - I personally would rather not see Marshals in the PC Settlements. I think that would serve to lessen player interaction rather than increase it.
3. Laws - There should definitely be as wide as possible a variety of laws, to give freedom to the Settlements to really define the environment they want to promote.
4. Subversion - Oh, hell yeah! This would be very, very nice, and I think something like it is already in the works based on Ryan's assurance that Assassins would be able to reach their targets even in "safe" NPC Settlements.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@RandomWalker
I agree with everything you said except where they can't be used in siege defense. I am generally in favor of anything that makes defense of holdings easier. Taking an active holding should be VERY difficult. Requiring the enemy to fight the guards they may have invested a lot of money, time, and upkeep into is entirely reasonable.
I suppose that does depend on the strength of the guards. I think they should easily be strong enough to put down individuals and small groups but require player assistance to push back a large and organized raid. Their stealth detection should also be good enough to challenge someone with good stealth skills but not so good a player skilled in stealth can't sneak in to sabotage/steal things or make an assassination.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Considering I don't see an all player soldier profession as viable in anything but the largest guilds without NPC's to fill out the soldier ranks, I think a siege should probably be bring its own soldiers to counter an NPC city defense. These forces should balance out making the real battle still between the players and not NPC's.
I think its kind of unreasonable to expect a guild to maintain 24 hour player surveillance of their settlement to defend against siege and for law enforcement. This means NPC defenses are pretty much essential.
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Goblinworks Lead Game Designer
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Hey guys,
While a lot of the tech is still being worked out obviously, the goal is to have upgradeable guards as part of a settlement's progression. These guards attack people with the criminal flag, those with too low Reputation to enter the town, those who are members of enemy settlements or Alliances, etc. Their detection is not automatic and they'll stand guard or patrol, so if you are using Stealth or are just good at keeping an eye out for them you could sneak into a town, do terrible things, and leave before they know you are there.
Guards can be upgraded in gear, level, skills, appearance, etc by building structures in the town and expending resources.
Guards will be part of the defenses of the town during sieges, but how much remains to be seen.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Forts—The penultimate expression of power. Forts provide a significant strategic advantage to their owners. Forts are large and complex buildings and require substantial time and resources to construct. Forts have extensive local storage and allow characters to be logged out of the game safely. Like watchtowers, forts have a detection radius. Forts also have public spaces where characters can directly interact to conduct business or to socialize. Forts also have a limited number of private spaces where small groups can gather for private consultations.
Typically, a given hex will contain only one location suitable for a fort.Advancing a fort can improve its structural integrity, increase its local storage, increase its detection radius, add facilities for smithing and repair of weapons and armor, and add offensive weapons that can be used to automatically attack approaching hostile forces.
It sounds like we’ll be abel to upgrade forts (and by extension settlements) to have offensive capabilities. This will help keep a settlement safe, and this is probably just the tip of the iceburg in how we will be able to protect our settlements 24/7
Personally I'm hoping that Shadow-Haven will be able to be protected by undead creatures that the players have created, as well as nasty spell traps and wards.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@RandomWalker
Requiring the enemy to fight the guards they may have invested a lot of money, time, and upkeep into is entirely reasonable.
I'm definately in favour of an "AI defense levy" that spawns defenders any time a settlement is under attack. I just think that law enforcement and home defense should be separate systems or separate aspects of the same system.
Why separate?
One settlement could be a police state with hellknights scanning your aura on each street corner. Another could be an anarchy where you have what you hold, but where everyone band together against outsiders. The wealthy 'crafter town' with strong allies but plagued by bandits should plan differently from that with aggressive neighbours.
If police is coded not to go after those legally declaring war, or military not attacking 'allied' criminals, fine by me, but the main difference I see is that law enforcement is 'always on' while defense levy only spawns when the settlement itself is attacked. For this reason, police should be much higher upkeep than military defense (which should be fairly cheap).
Due to cost, police should typically be scaled to handle individuals or small groups. Maybe the marshal/baron/whoever could invest in the option to declare martial law and spawn defenders in response to large-scale assassination etc. Or maybe he should rather invest in elite police training, or build relations with the Hellknights.
The "AI siege defense" should have a separate thread though, as this is strongly connected to warfare (especially across timezones), resource control and soldier profession, whereas "AI law enforcement" is about laws, crime and anti-ganking. Similar means to different ends.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think its kind of unreasonable to expect a guild to maintain 24 hour player surveillance of their settlement to defend against siege and for law enforcement. This means NPC defenses are pretty much essential.
I agree that 24 hour defense is unreasonable. They could have it cost gold per hour to use the NPC defenses. This way it encourages you to defend on your own during prime time. But it isn't critical to have 200 people online at 2AM. I think that would be a great way to keep the players involved without encouraging midnight raids.
What I worry about is a big guild scouting the an oncoming army and deciding that even though it is prime time they've got the money to blow on calling up the NPCs to do all the work for them. Or a small guild keeping a few people on for scouts and waiting to activate the NPCs until the last possible second before the attack. To prevent this it could be setup so the NPCs have to be scheduled X hours ahead of time and have a minimum duration. Maybe you pay once per week and you pick a week of midnight to 9 AM guards. Then the next week you can pick more or less hours starting at different times of day. After all those soldiers want a shift schedule and don't want to be woken up for a 30 minute shift.
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Goblinworks Lead Game Designer
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So, we've got an idea on this front, but like all ideas this is not implemented so may not survive contact with the code. So many good ideas are killed in such conflicts.
To give you some background, each hex and settlement at it's heart has a set of Development Indexes. These are effectively ability scores for the hex; instead of Intelligence you have Civilization, instead of Charisma you have Morale, etc. These vary from 1-1000. These are advanced by dealing with threats in the hex, building structures in your settlement, acquiring artifacts, etc. The higher your development indexes, the better your settlement, the more and higher level structures you can build, the better your settlement runs, etc.
The leader of a settlement can set a PvP window, during which time their NPC guards get drastically less numerous, thus providing a window for outsiders to attack without having to worry much about the NPC guards. If the settlement does not have a PvP window, it's development indexes can never go above 200 (so if you have a small just starting out settlement you can keep your PvP protection up full time to allow settlements to get some time to build up and get their feet under them before they start getting attacked). This means your settlement is safer from PvP, but is really going to be limited in what it can do.
As players set a larger and larger PvP window for their settlement, their development index limit increases. The settlement gets to set the window, so if they are open for PvP 4 hours a day they get to choose those four hours so they don't have to worry about being up at 4 AM just to defend their territory from some guys in another time zone. Eventually to get the highest development indexes you have to be open to PvP 24 hours a day, or at least a substantial portion thereof. We'll have to see how it works out.
During your PvP window your NPC guards will be present, but in far fewer numbers than outside the window so you will need your players there if you are attacked. Meanwhile outside the PvP window the guards will be numerous enough that attacking the settlement will be extremely difficult if its player population shows up to defend it, but it is possible.
Player settlements will never have the equivalents to wardens, auto detecting crime and such. Though a paladin at the main gate detecting evil on everyone who comes in, players could totally do that.
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Goblin Squad Member
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So, we've got an idea on this front, but like all ideas this is not implemented so may not survive contact with the code. So many good ideas are killed in such conflicts.
To give you some background, each hex and settlement at it's heart has a set of Development Indexes. These are effectively ability scores for the hex; instead of Intelligence you have Civilization, instead of Charisma you have Morale, etc. These vary from 1-1000. These are advanced by dealing with threats in the hex, building structures in your settlement, acquiring artifacts, etc. The higher your development indexes, the better your settlement, the more and higher level structures you can build, the better your settlement runs, etc.
The leader of a settlement can set a PvP window, during which time their NPC guards get drastically less numerous, thus providing a window for outsiders to attack without having to worry much about the NPC guards. If the settlement does not have a PvP window, it's development indexes can never go above 200 (so if you have a small just starting out settlement you can keep your PvP protection up full time to allow settlements to get some time to build up and get their feet under them before they start getting attacked). This means your settlement is safer from PvP, but is really going to be limited in what it can do.
As players set a larger and larger PvP window for their settlement, their development index limit increases. The settlement gets to set the window, so if they are open for PvP 4 hours a day they get to choose those four hours so they don't have to worry about being up at 4 AM just to defend their territory from some guys in another time zone. Eventually to get the highest development indexes you have to be open to PvP 24 hours a day, or at least a substantial portion thereof. We'll have to see how it works out.
During your PvP window your NPC guards will be present, but in far fewer numbers than outside the window so you will need your players there if you are attacked....
Wow! This is some exciting new information. Very interesting approach to the issue of guarding your settlement.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Lee
I would suggest making the window max out at 12 hours for the full index. Warhammer Online showed us what happens in 24hr PvP, groups never fight face to face, they organize a super late night/early morning attacks.
I don't want to see a 'wait until they are all offline' strategy in any capacity. I would like to see attacks on settlements requiring siege equipment, and it should take a number of days, depending on the distance between the attackers/defenders, to transport the siege equipment. Part of the settlement advancement can be automated scouting, with a 2 day notice being the lowest level. And if anyone sees the siege equipment while exploring they can report its location and direction(not destination, just general direction.
As for how siege equipment is dealt with in the world, it should be protected in a fashion similar to the settlement NPC guards, and be on the same schedule as the attacking settlement(It should require the resources of a settlement to attack another settlement). If the defenders choose to go attack the siege caravan, they will suffer a penalty to the level of NPC defense during the attack. Also when you send out the siege equipment from your settlement, you should suffer a defense penalty, like lessened NPC guard. And make your self open for attack.
I want war to actually involve entire companies, not just the graveyard shift against the planned late night attacks. I would like each attack to be a multi-week process where everyone one each side has a chance to do something. A person that plays every other day should never log in to find their settlement has been destroyed.
You guys should take a good look at Warhammer Online's RvR city sieg system, it has some good points, and a lot of bad ones about open PvP.
I'm starting to doubt the original description Ryan gave where PFO was being designed to be someone '2nd game'.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I kind of hope the siege mechanic is seperate from this mechanic. And this mechanic is more about raiding or making it easier to start a siege. When I use the term seige and raid:
Seige: A battle which allows for the destruction or capture of a fort or settlement by enemy forces.
Raid: When a group of enemies attacks a settlement causing limited destruction and stealing limited quantities of resources.
The problem of only allowing seiges within those hours is:
1. That will grant organizations with 24 hour protection complete siege immunity.
2. A city that may have taken months to establish should not be able to fall in a single day.
I think every settlement should be able to set an hour each day that is the siege hour, or maybe even an hour on a specific day of the week. Only during that hour can a seige be laid. Following the pronouncement of a seige there is a battle during the seige hour each day. A certain amount of strength is lost on each side during each battle. So like this:
Based on the NPC forces of the attacker they have an attack strength of 50,000.
Based on the NPC forces and structures of the defender they have an defense strength of 100,000.
During the first battle the attacker wins decidedly lowering the defense strength of the defender by 25k. The attackers pay the upkeep for another round of seige.
The next day the defender shows up in greater numbers. The results of the battle are inconclusive. Both sides lose 10k strength. The attacker pays the upkeep for another day of siege.
In between battles quests can be run by both sides to give their side advantages in the next battle to come. If either side reaches 0 strength they lose. The defender losses control of the settlement or the attacker loses it's army. If the defender wins they immediately regain most of their defensive strength.
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Goblin Squad Member
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1. That will grant organizations with 24 hour protection complete siege immunity.
Meanwhile outside the PvP window the guards will be numerous enough that attacking the settlement will be extremely difficult if its player population shows up to defend it, but it is possible.
The mechanic doesn't grant complete immunity. Even if the player community shows up to defend the Settlement outside the PvP window, it is still possible for the attackers to succeed.
That said, I generally agree with the principle you stated in #2.
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Goblin Squad Member
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To give you some background...
Thanks Lee, this is very good!
Did I understand correctly from your first post that npc guards also give (some) protection from being ganked inside your settlement, via the mechanic that killing citizens (and possibly visitors) inside the settlement flags you as criminal and makes guards attack you?
I see a potential issue here if the 'criminal' flag is global so that successful raiders returning home are attacked by their own guards.
Giving each player a 'reputation score' with every pc kingdom could help solve this (assuming the bookeeping will be quite manageable).
Since "guards" seem to cover both crime and warfare, let's continue discussing both in this thread. :-)
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Andius, I was thinking about that, too. I originally thought that Members of the Settlement should never flag or attack the Members of the Settlement. But the more I think about that, the more I think that needs to be something the Settlement can set.
If you're trying to create a Lawful Good Settlement where no one is attacked without facing repercussions, then having the system automatically ignore that goal when it comes to all the Members of the Settlement is going to be a bad thing.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That makes sense. I guess you would need to have it an option that can be turned off and on. I would want at least my own members exempt from the laws. If they are disobeying them I want a member of our leadership to decide if they were justified. Not an NPC.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Lee, the system sounds great as proposed. I would suggest there be some sort of "maintenance upkeep" for the guards (or the buildings which generate them). So one of the ways a hostile organization could deal with a well established/developed settlement is economic warfare rather then direct assault. Harrying thier caravans and other wealth building activities to lessen the strength of defences they can afford to maintain. It would also make for a good drain for player coin.
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Goblin Squad Member
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A modest proposal:
Have separate systems for a Watch (police) and Settlement Guards. This will allow the watch to carry out the laws, while guards could do that and/or defend against attacks.
Most PnP settlements of any size have both guards and a watch, so why not PFO settlements? Watches are usually just hired to protect against criminal activities, but guards are for settlement defense, and only if needed do they assist the Watch. In most large fights, the Watch are simply out armed and armored along with usually being trained in simple combat skills (this could be altered for evil settlements, such as a LE one where most laws have a death penalty, as one example).
Thus, the laws are enforced, if a settlement has them, and the siege mechanics include a settlement Guard who assist in defense.
Goblinworks Executive Founder
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I totally agree with that. Especially because most guilds cannot expect to have 24h a day a number of players that sufice to defend a Settlement.@Lee
I would suggest making the window max out at 12 hours for the full index.
That's what alliances are for so you can have some others watch things in the off hours for you and you watch things in their off hours. :)
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Goblin Squad Member
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A lot of great info here. I also like the sound of small settlements being limited in size, but immune to PvP as well. That means that a Kingdom could choose to have a network of small settlements, all immune and just one central location, more developed and partially immune.
This way you can't lose "everything you built in one day". You might lose your capital, but not its surrounding support settlements. Having those remain intact wil help you retake and then rebuild you capital.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I also like the sound of small settlements being limited in size, but immune to PvP as well.Your phrasing "immune from PvP" is extremely misleading. Lee's phrasing was "safer from PvP". They will always be attackable, even outside of their PvP window.
Yes I can see were I thought of it as being "immune", maybe too literal. Then there is the question of, is there a difference between "outside of the window" and "no window"?
We will have to wait and see, but it does sound like a great system if it works as intended.
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Goblin Squad Member
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That's what alliances are for so you can have some others watch things in the off hours for you and you watch things in their off hours. :)I totally agree with that. Especially because most guilds cannot expect to have 24h a day a number of players that sufice to defend a Settlement.@Lee
I would suggest making the window max out at 12 hours for the full index.
I still think 24 h is way too much. People have stuff to do in the game other than guarding settlements.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I think some in here a missing the grand scale of this game, when it comes to settlements.
I do not believe in the intention of the game was to make settlements available to every Chartered Company that wants one. Settlements aren't the sort of thing a group of 10 or 20 are going to be able to maintain on their own, you're thinking way to small here. Owning territory is going to be the realm of alliances (read: Kingdoms) of players. Many Chartered Companies working together.
I REALLY like what Lee posted about how the NPC guards will work. This game is about players and if a group of players wants to own something, they need to be able to defend it on their own. Plus, we've all seen how effective NPC guards are at holding back players.
Will your kingdoms be attacked when you’re not online? Most certainly. How do you defend against that sort of thing? EVE Online figured that out a long time ago. Spies. Espionage is the name of the game here. If you know when and where you enemy is going to attack, it’s much easier to plan a defense.
We haven't seen a lot about the siege mechanics in this game, but I imagine sieging a large settlement is not going to be a 30 minute affair. I remember the heady days of Dark Age of Camelot. Siege battles could last for hours, sometimes resulting in a stalemate as the defenders slowly rallied their people. Eventually you would see 200-300 people on a side, slinging it out in a massive game of tug-of-war. It was some of my most memorable experiences from my time in MMOs.
That’s my piece. I think GW has the right idea here and I can’t wait to see more info on the subject. I plan on keeping the Bloody Hand small and tight knit, but we also have no plans on owning land ourselves. We take, we don’t hold.
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Goblin Squad Member
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It's been quite a while since this thread was started, so I'm hoping GW has a bit more they're willing to share on some of the settlement mechanics. My latest question deals with the UI of the settlement in relation to laws that prohibit entrance into a settlement.
Nihimon suggested that he thought settlement leaders will be able to write their own laws, but my question is how and to what degree? Will leaders have a check-box menu with all the possible criteria for flagging characters as criminals, and they simply check the boxes of the laws they want enforced? What might all these be?
Certainly alignment and reputation are already planned. Could you also choose to allow people into your settlement who are wearing flags that normally make them open to attack? In your chaotic settlement, could you click off the "target criminals" box so that NPC guards don't attack criminals, and make your settlement into a thief's haven? Could you do the same for heinous, so that your evil settlement could raise undead to their hearts content? What about certain races? In a xenophobic settlement of humans, could Dwarves and Elves be targeted as criminals? In a very superstitious settlement, could magic be distrusted to the point that magic-users are banned?
Surely, some of these are far less likely to be used, but to what degree will we be able to decide what is okay and what is taboo in our settlement?
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Goblin Squad Member
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I really think this topic merits its own thread, but here we are and done is done.
The problem with writing our own laws and expecting their automated implementation is in the variety of syntactic variation that would involve. Using a checkbox or equivalent method is more programmable since the system that measures behavior is to be known by those who would code the UI.
There is also the question of who will have control of that UI? It has to be accessible to the settlement founders before even the government type is set. Controlling that UI will be critical to settlement security.