Goblin Squad Member
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This was written prior to Tuesday's blog about subdividing hexes. So working on thoughts about that. The original doc is on Google docs if you wish to read it there
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This is a design suggestion for managing the effects of alignment on a settlement. The primary two points of contention are the Lawful-Chaotic axis and the Good-Evil axis. There has been some discussions where it was suggested that a Lawful Good settlement would benefit more than any other alignment type; I find this to be unnecessarily one sided. I built this design based on providing mechanical benefits for the settlement across the Lawful-Chaotic axis and flavor changes to the settlement on the Good-Evil axis. The general purpose is to create a meaningful experience for every alignment grouping without over penalizing.
As I am not a developer, I will not be setting hard numbers into my calculations but generalized thoughts on design. Each hex in PFO will, in theory, be slightly different from the other hexes so by this design some hexes would be more prone to certain alignments than others, but it should be manageable with simple number adjustments to be fair. For a basic concept we will start with the idea of a hex where the settlement/fort is placed in the center and is surrounded by 9 watchtowers.
My basic reference terms will be as follows taken from the Goblinworks blog “Player Created Buildings and Structures”:
Watchtowers—Created as an initial step in securing a hex, watchtowers allow a character or group of characters to establish a secure base of operations in hostile territory. Watchtowers have a "detection radius" that determines when and if the occupants are alerted to the presence of potentially hostile forces in the hex. Watchtowers have storage and they allow characters to be logged out of the game safely. When a character enters the detection radius of the watchtower, there's a chance that the character's location will be revealed to the watchtower's occupants, who can in turn pass that information on to others. Avoiding such detection requires specialized character abilities.
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.
Settlements—In order to create a player settlement, a fort must be advanced using a special settlement construction process. Before this can begin, the hex must be cleared of any watchtowers or forts owned by any character not a signatory of the settlement's charter. Building a settlement requires massive amounts of resources and extensive amounts of time.
Lawful-Chaotic axis
The lawful-chaotic axis will have the largest impact on the state of the settlement. The biggest challenge is determining how to calculate where on the axis a settlement falls. In my opinion a lawful settlement would not simply a matter of having laws but possessing the ability to enforce those laws within a significant portion of its territory (hex). So my basic proposal will link progression across the axis to the detection radius available within the hex.
How it works.
For the purposes of this document we are going to define Chaotic alignment as 0-30% detection radius, neutral as 31%-70% detection radius, and Lawful as 71-100%. The starting fort will provide between 15-20% detection radius; mostly within the walls of the fort. This means that every settlement will begin as Chaotic. This is meant to represent a settlement newly formed lacking the ability to govern itself. Staffing or Maintaining a Watchtower should add between 5-15% detection radius. However, a watchtowers detection radius will be centered on the watchtower.
The percentages I am giving is assuming that detection radius can be upgraded via improving the structure as the blog discusses. This also gives settlements that wish to be Chaotic some room to improve without sacrificing all protection. A chaotic settlement may with to place or use a watchtower near a mine for instance to help with protecting the crafters. Lets consider our base hex again (9 equally spaced towers).
If we wished for this to be a chaotic settlement, we could easily have the base fort at 15%, and three watchtowers at 5% each. That would have us skirting the line at 30% total without totally sacrificing some basic defenses. If we needed to move our watchtower’s coverage we might push into neutral until the old towers were decommissioned, but nothing major. Next, lets improve all 9 towers at the base level.
This would put us at nine towers at 5% (45% total), plus our base settlement at 15% for a total coverage of 60%. At this point we are close to Lawful but not quite there; going to take us spending some more money to improve either the fort or towers to push us over the line. I’m sure you can see the inconsistency in the math; three fully upgraded towers would give the same bonus as 9 active. Now, equally spaced watchtowers might work this way, but it is unlikely that will happen in every hex in the game. In fact, it will also depend on if watchtowers are static objects or if they can be freely placed within a hex. For the time being we will be ignoring this for the sake of example; it would be my hope that the developers would not count overlapping detection radius toward the requirements for movement on this axis.
That’s a lotta work!
Yes it is, but the overall difficulty will be based more on the Economy (in/out cash flow) and the cost of the structure’s construction and maintenance. If the watchtower cost is too low, everyone will be able to have a lawful settlement; too high and only the top end guilds will be able to afford it. However, I designed it for most settlements to end up in the Neutral range for this axis.
What do you get outta this?
Laws - Even the most chaotic settlements normally have some rules, even if unspoken. So for every 10% on the axis you gain the ability to create one active law for the settlement. This means even a starting settlement can make one law to enforce; may only be enforced in the settlement, but it’s there. This is also just the option for law, you don’t have to make a law. At 30% a chaotic settlement would have the ability to set three laws. In addition to this, add five more when the settlement reaches a Neutral status and ten when reaching Lawful. That would give a 71% lawful settlement seven base laws, plus 15 bonus laws for being lawful.
Maintenance costs - This will be the largest mechanical benefit available for the axis. In a tabletop game a chaotic settlement would be more prone to corruption and difficulties in holding onto personal. So my thought to represent that is by giving a higher maintenance cost on buildings within the hex, as well as higher cost to hiring NPC guards. As the settlement trends toward lawful the cost per building/NPC will lower. Of course, as the watchtowers are the primary requirement for a more lawful settlement, your overall costs will still increase. The intention is to give a company the ability to grow without needing enormous overhead to maintain the settlement. Now of course the biggest settlements who want the finest facilities will still require a high overhead. However, a smaller company could still have a reasonable amount of facilities to entice players to visit.
Good-Evil Axis
I really feel like this is more a matter of flavor then the other axis. However, it is also the axis that will likely take the most work and your residents or government will have the biggest impact on the settlement. That said, I also feel like it should have the least mechanical impact on the hex has a whole. Because in the end you still want the systems to remain fair between those choosing to play evil empires and those controlling the most holy nations of the world. This axis will reference concepts from the “Put it in Writing” blog on the goblinworks website; you may wish to go read that before continuing.
How it works
Much like the Lawful-Chaotic axis we are going to start with a sliding scale. From 1-100, Evil will be considered 0-40%; neutral will be 41-59%; and Good will be 60-100%. All settlements will begin at 50% or neutral. Unlike the Lawful-Chaotic axis, you’ll notice that neutral is a very small range. Most settlements and players will not have a problem moving toward good or evil. Actually attempting to remain Neutral in this world of frequent combat and wars should be difficult to maintain, just not impossible. Could even be easy, so long as you don’t mind being a dictator; which brings us to governments.
As I said before, government will have a large impact on this system. The blog “Put it in Writing” mentions three primary governments available for settlements to choose from. Feudal is the classic king or dictator type of government, one person determines the fate and rules of the settlement. Oligarchy is more of a council design; a limited group of people will have equal decision rights in how the settlement is maintained. This may be council till death (or deletion) or it could be an elected group of representatives. Finally, Democracy, is every member of the settlement will have equal rights as a voter in any decisions made.
So how do you tie the alignment of the city to the government? It is determined by who is in charge. City is run by an Evil dictator? It will slowly trend toward evil. Council of Neutral representatives? Back toward neutral you go. You get the idea; the major difference in these is how fast things will happen.
In a feudal government the slider will move rather slowly. Mostly because the person in charge just has to maintain their alignment. It’s only affected by one person, however it’s a solid guarantee that you will go one way or the other. Might take longer, but there is no risk. For an Oligarchy you have a few more people; the average will be taken and the settlement will move in that direction. If everyone is the same (good/evil/neutral) it will move faster toward those ends; one person who’s not on the same alignment and it slows down a little.
Democracy is where it gets real interesting; everyone who is listed as a member of the settlement is tallied and the slider is moved appropriately. Being as this would have the greater number of voters, it will also move the fastest on the slider. It is also prone to the biggest swings if you had an influx of people from the opposite side of the alignment you could find yourself backtracking toward neutral unexpectedly. Now you could lock enrollment in the city to people only being admitted by vote, but never underestimate the efforts of a truly ambitious company of spies. Just look at some company takeovers in EVE online.
That’s awful simple, wouldn't it be easy to exploit
Yep, that’s why I said I wasn’t a developer but there are easy ways to limit growth. It’s a pretty basic system, you could do one person equals one point; then one good and one evil cancel each other out. You could do a percentage of people determines which direction the slider moves. You could do penalty points for citizens who gain criminal or attacker flags. Sadly, we just don’t know enough about mechanics to determine that one. However, I like planning long term; hitting the very top of good or evil should be a serious endeavor and take at least a year to fully max out.
Where’s the good stuff!
As I said at the start, the bonuses are largely flavor; you could even say cosmetic. Altered appearance of guards or even cooler special NPC guards. I was thinking the ability to hire Paladin/Antipaladin at the bottom levels. For the true bastions on each side perhaps look at celestial or abyssal themed NPCs. Now in the back end neither one should be any more powerful than their counterparts. The point is to reward the efforts that went toward getting the settlement there. If Goblinworks put some NPCs visible in the town they could be changed by the side of the bar you sit on; think undead NPCs. You could also change the textures of the buildings for a darker or lighter feel for the city overall. Perhaps a good city would have immaculate streets while a more evil one may have bodies hanging from the ramparts. There’s a lot of ways to go.
In closing
It’s rough, it’s not specific, but it’s a solid idea in my opinion. I am interested in what some other people think, but if you put TL;DR I’ll smack ya with a wet tuna. :P