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I very much like the idea that assassinating a single PC target can significantly impact a settlements on-goings. A few of you seem really concerned that it will be too "powerful" in the fact that it may cause a kingdom to be dissuaded against war, but I really don't think it will be as simple as killing a general and boom, you win the war. There is no way they are building the system to work that way, quit over-reacting to a hyperbolic example they tried to provide you in the blog post.
To give you an example where a Kingdom may be significantly impeded and would lead up to a decision to end, or delay a given war, think about all the things that a given settlement will need to actually <Declare War>.
1) Military forces with a command structure
2) Weaponry and Armor
3) Spellcasting
4) Equipment Supplies & Food
This is just a very short list but each of these items will have pretty basic, and fundamental tie to one or more actual Player Characters, which will be actively fulfilling a given role for the Kingdom (As mentioned in the Blog). In exchange for this role they play, time they invest, and skills they will help contribute to the settlements basic statistics, and general well being in one field or another.
I plan on playing the Farming, Animal Husbandry, and Mercantile Cleric PC, and have already extended into a CC who I will work closely with to develop my character. This means I hope to securely benefit the settlement I will be attached to. I plan on organizing the food supply, animal needs, and resource supply deliveries for a substantial portion of our settlments economy, that is the plan at least.
Now lets say we are on the brink of war with a new upstart 2 hexes south, and diplomacy having failed the alliance begins to prepare for war. Supplies are mustered, NPCs are trained, weapons are sharpened, and all this time I am slaving away on the supply lines making sure all the trail rations, bread, leather, ore, and timber arrive where it needs to in order for the "Machine" portion of our "War Machine" is still functional.
Then Sunday morning comes and I'm our working the fields, the day of our first planned raid is scheduled, and I am assassinated. For argument sake I believe the intent here to otherwise occupy the player, prevent them from continuing whatever their last task was, and cut off any settlement/hex/kingdom/personal benefit they may provide in whatever "role" they play.
So I'm dead, ok. I'm gonna say this lasts for less than half-an-hour, ok I can start recovering my things, re-equip from a backup set, and maybe get back to work (If the assassin has already been dealt with). Any benefit I could have provided during that time is null, and even if I can start providing something from my role, it will be severely diminished.
Mechanically that very well mean my farm will lose whatever PC improvement my farm will provide, my caravans will go under-defended due to my absence, could easily be ambushed without a PC there to provoke a Stand and Deliver (Or as I'd like to coin now, Pulling a Bluddwolf), so the entire shipment is lost.
What does this mean for the settlement?
I had X output from the "homestead" of
Food
Armor Supplies
Weapon Supplies
Mounts
Unrefined Material
If I am there to attend the "homestead" I will increase the productivity to something like 1.2X.
All this headed off to the Circle of Gold to be distributed. Even if the shipment makes it through the wilds on the way back to town with the help of other allies, the amount of coming their way to help achieve certain kingdom, or settlement benchmarks which will certainly affect the "War Machine."
I don't want to make the case that the assassination of a farmer will stop a war effort, but it will almost certainly influence the underlying decision making processes that drive the wars.
Now apply all this to a General at the battlefield just prior or during a mass combat scenario (50+ units per side), and you will see the effect quite clearly in real time I am sure. Now imagine the time, simultaneous assassinations of several (Think 4+) Player Characters at the same time during a crucial battle, and then I am sure that is will help decide a war.
Goblin Squad Member
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A band of Bluddwolf's, for example?I say "Kill 'em all!" Having a wandering band of Bluddwolfs in your settlement would definately be a not good thing!
This is very short sighted, just think of how much rum and ale we will drink in your taverns, in celebration of another successful day of banditry.
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I have a disturbing mental image of Nihimon as a librarian-assassin.
It's the strangest thing. On the body of each victim is a note containing a single non-word:
"Nihimon'd".|
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This is very short sighted, just think of how much rum and ale we will drink in your taverns, in celebration of another successful day of banditry.A band of Bluddwolf's, for example?I say "Kill 'em all!" Having a wandering band of Bluddwolfs in your settlement would definately be a not good thing!
That's the problem - if only you would pay for it!
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Goblin Squad Member
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So, you're suggesting that if I take out this structure, the entire settlement just self destructs? If it has the same effect as wiping out the settlement, then it's just the easy version of win. Settlements should be difficult to destroy.
Can't believe peeps are actually proposing that the destruction of a single building, no matter what it was, or the assasination of a single manager, no matter who that was, would win somebody a war.
What I was meaning, was that the destruction of a the single building would be a potential trigger to end a war. DeciusBrutus has said it best, in that this would lower (or potentially lower) the development index under a certain threshold, as would assassinating certain personages from a settlement.
One of the reasons I like this is because it gives attackers something specific to go after (namely, specific buildings or personages) as opposed to steamrolling everything. I'm not really opposed to the 'destroy the whole settlement' idea either, I just think it is neater and gives more roleplay potential if you can go after something specific. Also note in my initial post about this, I suggested a time delay between the building destruction and the DI triggering the end of a war. This needs to be there to allow the defenders to rebuild said building (or maybe give them time to ponder a surrender).
If people a leery of this because they don't want to see wars run by either just assassins or just siege, maybe have it so the DI only gets lowered under the threshold if multiple triggers are met at the same time. For example, the destruction of the 'war room' building AND the assassination (or regular death) of the 'war marshal' or 'town founder'.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This blog. I like it. At the rate things are going, I may need to have one of every class in this game.
Strictly speaking Assassin is a role you can take on, Wizard is archetype of skill selections. Combine these roles, skills and positions within player groups... and there's A LOT of different choices snowballing!
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Goblin Squad Member
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So, you're suggesting that if I take out this structure, the entire settlement just self destructs? If it has the same effect as wiping out the settlement, then it's just the easy version of win. Settlements should be difficult to destroy.Can't believe peeps are actually proposing that the destruction of a single building, no matter what it was, or the assasination of a single manager, no matter who that was, would win somebody a war.What I was meaning, was that the destruction of a the single building would be a potential trigger to end a war. DeciusBrutus has said it best, in that this would lower (or potentially lower) the development index under a certain threshold, as would assassinating certain personages from a settlement.
One of the reasons I like this is because it gives attackers something specific to go after (namely, specific buildings or personages) as opposed to steamrolling everything. I'm not really opposed to the 'destroy the whole settlement' idea either, I just think it is neater and gives more roleplay potential if you can go after something specific. Also note in my initial post about this, I suggested a time delay between the building destruction and the DI triggering the end of a war. This needs to be there to allow the defenders to rebuild said building (or maybe give them time to ponder a surrender).
If people a leery of this because they don't want to see wars run by either just assassins or just siege, maybe have it so the DI only gets lowered under the threshold if multiple triggers are met at the same time. For example, the destruction of the 'war room' building AND the assassination (or regular death) of the 'war marshal' or 'town founder'.
That doesn't answer the question, though. You say "end the war" but nothing about what that means. I attack your settlement, get in, smash your war room and drop your DI. The game now automagically declares the war over. I, what, pack up and go home, good game? Or does your settlement self destruct so I can take the territory?
Remember Ryan said that there are ways to take a settlement without destroying every structure. He didn't go into detail, but did confirm that they will make it possible.
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Dario, forgive me if I'm missing context, but I think there is something significantly different between "Making War" and "Sustaining a Delcaration of War".
I can make war on your settlement by attacking it and your people. However, the game is going to create systems that acknowledge a state of Declared War, that will give bonuses and penalties to specific actions.
The way I see it, your ability to sustain a Declaration of War is what the blog is talking about, not your ability to "make war".
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Goblin Squad Member
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@Dario, forgive me if I'm missing context, but I think there is something significantly different between "Making War" and "Sustaining a Delcaration of War".
I can make war on your settlement by attacking it and your people. However, the game is going to create systems that acknowledge a state of Declared War, that will give bonuses and penalties to specific actions.
The way I see it, your ability to sustain a Declaration of War is what the blog is talking about, not your ability to "make war".
Maybe I'm confused and misreading the conversation, but what I read in the blog was that assassins might undercut your abilitity to successfully wage a war (ie, you are now in a fight you are unlikely to win), while what people are discussing here is that assassins (or the destruction of some specific building) should end the declaration of war (war's over, everybody go home).
I like the first option, the second makes no sense to me.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well, the actual quote from the blog is:
When a settlement leader is assassinated, the Development Indexes associated with that position take temporary damage, potentially causing buildings to shut down, lowering benefits, and even forcing the settlement out of an expensive war.
The way I read that, if a Settlement is forced out of a war, it will be a result of the Development Indexes being reduced.
This makes sense to me if something like this is true:
[list]
This example actually goes against the distinction I was trying to make above, and I should point out that this is all pure speculation on my part. I don't think there's been anything clearly defining how this process would work.
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Goblin Squad Member
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I very much like the idea that assassinating a single PC target can significantly impact a settlements on-goings. A few of you seem really concerned that it will be too "powerful" in the fact that it may cause a kingdom to be dissuaded against war, but I really don't think it will be as simple as killing a general and boom, you win the war. There is no way they are building the system to work that way, quit over-reacting to a hyperbolic example they tried to provide you in the blog post.
To give you an example where a Kingdom may be significantly impeded and would lead up to a decision to end, or delay a given war, think about all the things that a given settlement will need to actually <Declare War>.
1) Military forces with a command structure
2) Weaponry and Armor
3) Spellcasting
4) Equipment Supplies & Food
...
Nicely thought analysis Carbon: well done there I must say. I would point out that over and above the bonuses a particular leader may have afforded his settlement, the level of morale/unrest in the NPC population, the working folk, should have a significant impact on productivity, and this morale may be affected by an assassination. Notice there was mention of disruption and sabotage. Further, trainers require positive conditions to train and may suspend their efficacy in consequence to assassination, disruption, and sabotage.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Remember Ryan said that there are ways to take a settlement without destroying every structure. He didn't go into detail, but did confirm that they will make it possible.
Wasn't that in context of taking over a settlement by infiltration into the populace to change its alignment? Where an NG settlement is established which accepts NN settlers, and so many NN settlers join the average alignment changes to NN allowing NE settlers, who then also shift the alignment balance to NE forcing the original NG settlers to be banished?
Remember Ryan said that there are ways to take a settlement without destroying every structure. He didn't go into detail, but did confirm that they will make it possible.Wasn't that in context of taking over a settlement by infiltration into the populace to change its alignment? Where an NG settlement is established which accepts NN settlers, and so many NN settlers join the average alignment changes to NN allowing NE settlers, who then also shift the alignment balance to NE forcing the original NG settlers to be banished?
I "thought" that his wording indicated that settlements could surrender their control of the settlement in situations other then takeover by infiltration. But perhaps I misread his wording? I'll try and dig around and locate the thread so I can check.
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Goblin Squad Member
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This is very short sighted, just think of how much rum and ale we will drink in your taverns, in celebration of another successful day of banditry.A band of Bluddwolf's, for example?I say "Kill 'em all!" Having a wandering band of Bluddwolfs in your settlement would definately be a not good thing!That's the problem - if only you would pay for it!
The bloke has a point bludd.....want me to "remove your tab?" <evil grin>
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Goblin Squad Member
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I "thought" that his wording indicated that settlements could surrender their control of the settlement in situations other then takeover by infiltration. But perhaps I misread his wording? I'll try and dig around and locate the thread so I can check.Remember Ryan said that there are ways to take a settlement without destroying every structure. He didn't go into detail, but did confirm that they will make it possible.Wasn't that in context of taking over a settlement by infiltration into the populace to change its alignment? Where an NG settlement is established which accepts NN settlers, and so many NN settlers join the average alignment changes to NN allowing NE settlers, who then also shift the alignment balance to NE forcing the original NG settlers to be banished?
I think you're both recalling this post:
There should be no way to take a Settlement with hostile action for all the reasons Bing cited. Capitulation in a negotiated resolution seems legit to me.
So, the only way to take over a Settlement is to get the current leaders to agree to those terms. You won't be able to conquer it and take it over against their will, but you could destroy it completely and then rebuild it.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Well, the actual quote from the blog is:
When a settlement leader is assassinated, the Development Indexes associated with that position take temporary damage, potentially causing buildings to shut down, lowering benefits, and even forcing the settlement out of an expensive war.
I think the bolded bit is key. It doesn't say any war, it specifically says an expensive war.
The blog already mentions having a Seneschal in charge of a building can reduce its upkeep cost. If a settlement's upkeep costs rise significantly by having multiple Seneschals assassinated, they may well no longer be able to fund a war effort (which may be a voluntary decision, or it might be something like "our treasury is drained to the point that we can't pay the weekly fee to sustain the war, so it's cancelled automatically"). I don't think there's direct mechanical trigger involved.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Interestingly enough, right below it says:
Why do you put out an assassination contract on someone? Because you want to cripple the institutions he represents, either for temporary competitive advantage or to make it easier to win a war.
As such, it's highly possible that a war cannot be automatically canceled. I hope that if you lack the resources to sustain a war, it just stops giving you the benefits of one, while not completely canceling it. So your siege engines fall into disrepair, your NPC wall guards stop coming to work, etc. but the state of war still exists.
A good example of the way I hope settlement resources work is the old (but gold) game Total Annihilation. If you weren't producing enough resources in TA to keep your buildings running, they just ran slower. Your construction would slow, unit production would crawl, and even your gun's fire rate would drop.
Starting of speculation.
Back to PO, with raw numbers, Settlement A could be producing 3 siege engines a day, while Settlement B can only destroy 2 per day. If left unchecked, A would win. But a bit of assassination could restrict A to only building 2 or even 1 siege engines a day, leading to B being able to chase A's armies away, and possibly mount their own siege.
End of speculation.
Back to my main point, I hope that just being in a war doesn't cost anything. However, actively pursuing said war will require a large expenditure of resources.
{rambling} Things like siege engines, army forward posts, portable respawn locations, wall guards etc. will cost you lots of money, so losing discounts on normal upkeep will mean that there is less money to keep the war going. Resources should not just vanish into thin air just to keep a particular state of mind going. If the enemy starts attacking the walls, you need to spend money to repair them. If he tries to bash the gates in, you need to reinforce them. You need to build catapults to destroy his catapults, ballista to break apart his formations, hire mages to disrupt his spellcasting, and so on and so forth. However, if the defender suddenly loses his ability to defend (assassination), the war should not come to a screeching halt. He should just be rather quickly overrun, and lose the battle.
{/rambling}
There should be only 3 ways a war ends:
1. One side surrenders.
2. One side's settlement (or capital) gets destroyed (or close enough to it.)
3. The aggressor backs off, and a treaty is made.
I don't want some fairy to wave a wand, and suddenly the world cup boxing match is stopped because one guy is getting punched too much, and once he is better, the match starts again.
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As such, it's highly possible that a war cannot be automatically canceled. I hope that if you lack the resources to sustain a war, it just stops giving you the benefits of one, while not completely canceling it. So your siege engines fall into disrepair, your NPC wall guards stop coming to work, etc. but the state of war still exists.
[...]
However, if the defender suddenly loses his ability to defend (assassination), the war should not come to a screeching halt. He should just be rather quickly overrun, and lose the battle.
The automatic cancelling that I was thinking of was related to the way wars work in Eve Online, where a non-consensual war has a weekly fee associated with it paid by the aggressor. The defender pays nothing in that case.
Back to my main point, I hope that just being in a war doesn't cost anything. However, actively pursuing said war will require a large expenditure of resources.
What then prevents a group from simply declaring war on absolutely everyone indefinitely and completely circumventing the system of reputation/alignment penalties for attacking other players?
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If a settlement's upkeep costs rise significantly by having multiple Seneschals assassinated, they may well no longer be able to fund a war effort (which may be a voluntary decision, or it might be something like "our treasury is drained to the point that we can't pay the weekly fee to sustain the war, so it's cancelled automatically").
A character named Shylock slides up to the remaining Seneschal and says “O, my ducats! I hear you have a small problem."
AFAIK the official War system in PFO is inherently consensual (between Settlements, individual players might not consent to their Settlement's decisions, but that goes for everything and you can always quit the Settlement).
Although once it's started one side probably can't just decide to end it (although they can just stop fighting of course).
If they don't consent, you just use the normal killing and destruction rules with normal repurcussions, but War means it was consensual.
I'm not quite sure on the implementation of War, whether it means members of each group can freely attack each other, whether it means all attacks happening within their territories are exempted from alignment/rep consequences (important to avoid exploits like using officially non-affiliated allies/mercenaries), or some combination of those. It would make sense for Chaotic/Criminal/Low-Rep repurcussions to still apply if the Warring parties take their battle into some other 3rd parties' own territory with laws against killing, but if they take it into uncontrolled Wilderness (or NPC areas?) then it makes sense for the War absolvement to still apply.
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The official War system in PFO is inherently consensual (between Settlements, individual players might not consent to their Settlement's decisions, but that goes for everything and you can always quit the Settlement).
Are you really meaning this? That if kingdom A wants to declare war on kingom B that they can only do so if Kingdom B agrees to the war? Can you point to a goblin works statement supporting that view because that sounds completely idiotic if it is true. No kingdom will ever agree to a war if they think they won't win
I'm going to agree with ZenPagan on this one. Why would a kingdom ever agree to a war that wasn't vastly to their advantage?
Hm, I'm not sure where I heard that, or if that's exactly what I heard, but I don't see what's 'idiotic' about it, if the other kingdom doesn't agree then you just face normal repurcussions for attacking them. BTW, throwing around words like 'idiotic' hardly seems very respectful or constructive.
If it is the case that War doesn't need to be consensual to start, then I'm not sure if there is anything to prevent a Settlement from just being at War with everybody all the time, effectively able to act Chaotic/Evil/Criminal with no repurcussions since they are absolved of the Attacker flag? Certainly you might as well be at war with any Chaotic Neutral/Evil settlements, since being at War isn't really de-penalizing any action for them vs. not being at War. If Paladins or LE Clerics are permanently at war vs. everybody, they can freely act like bandits?
A Blog just on War would probably make alot of sense to do. Perhaps there are other balancing factors planned, e.g. being War flagged is expensive for your Settlement, etc. I wonder if it will be public knowledge which Settlements are at War with what other Settlements (and thus, what Settlements they are NOT at War with)? Although if a mass-War-flagged Settlement is allied with another Settlement for trade, etc, they could have a 'gentleman's agreement' to be War flagged (to conceal that this is their ally used for a trading front, etc) but not actually engage in combat.
I was not referring to you as idiotic just the idea of consensual war. If there is one thing that should not be consensual it is war. Without the ability to goto war the penalties from normal sanctions will cripple any community trying to wage a war without the official declaration.
If you have consensual war as the way things work there will be hardly any war waged ever
I was not referring to you as idiotic just the idea of consensual war. If there is one thing that should not be consensual it is war. Without the ability to goto war the penalties from normal sanctions will cripple any community trying to wage a war without the official declaration.
If you have consensual war as the way things work there will be hardly any war waged ever
Unless there is some innate incentive to go to war, I agree.
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I have to agree, the concept of consensual warfare is deeply flawed. I do understand that GW does not want a system like there was in EvE a few years ago, where a 1 man corp could declare war against a much larger corp and tie that larger corp up for a week or more. They also don't want a large settlement, just gobble up smaller settlements, with little resistance.
There should be several requirements involved in declaring a war. Wars should be very expensive, both monetarily and in resources ( human and otherwise). Settlement wars should require certain structures to be present and functioning in order to initiate a war. The defending settlement may or may not have this structure, but it is not necessary for it to defend against war.
Wars are never consensual, not in the real world, and to my knowledge not in any MMO either. This is quite honestly a silly idea, wars should not require consent by both parties.
I also don't believe that wars need to be based on settlements. There should be a system were more loosely organized groups ( perhaps Charter Companies), could wage war against each other or join forces vs. a settlement.
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I was not referring to you as idiotic just the idea of consensual war.
I wasn't taking it aimed at me personally, but even throwing the term around in reference to ideas doesn't seem like it's conducive to discussion. I feel that I manage to not need to call ideas idiotic, while critiquing, sometimes bluntly, their content. Just trying to keep the tone of discussion high.
Without the ability to [non-consensually] goto war the penalties from normal sanctions will cripple any community trying to wage a war without the official declaration.
Except if you use Alignment PVP flags, which function like open-ended War flags in a way, except that individual players can toggle them on and off as needed. If one side is already flagging as Champion/Enforcer/Outlaw/Assassin/Traveller[really also Harvester/Crafter] anyways, then agreeing to flag for War isn't much change except that it expands their [repucussion-less] options.
A player settlement that is just at War with everybody all the time is not going to be around very long. That's the repercussion.
How so? Say, in comparison to any PVP-flagged group?
Or simply non-War-flagged Chaotic/Evil settlements? (any Good character can freely attack them with Champion Flag)It seems like the main difference is that the War-flag lets you have Paladin and Lawful/Good Cleric members and high Reputation, while acting contrary to the expectations for those.
GW has gone into how Assassin PVP-flagged characters suffer Alignment/Rep repurcussions for killing 'incidental' targets, but if you War-flag then those go away, enabling you to do this stuff while keeping Rep high (economically helping settlement), and in fact allowing LG Paladin types to participate in Assassin jobs vs. Good/Neutral targets (the Assassin skill itself is Evil-only, but the War-flagged Paladin can Disguise and engage in combat for the Assassin job). It's fairly easy for a War-flagged settlement to be allied to (or de facto be a non-official subsidiary of) a non-War-flagged Settlement, who can protect them and handle economic interactions, etc. That sort of thing (de facto alliances between opposite alignment settlements) will happen any ways, but the question is whether Lawful/Good classes can behave like they are CE, and high rep settlments can behave in a low rep manner while gaining the benefits of high rep.
I don't really know about the consensual/non-consensual thing, but it seems like either way there needs to be some other mitigating factors... maybe some of those will be shared if GW does a blog on the War system.
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It's the strangest thing. On the body of each victim is a note containing a single non-word:
"Nihimon'd".
God willing, we'll be able to manufacture in-game post-its and write notes on them...
This is very short sighted, just think of how much rum and ale we will drink in your taverns, in celebration of another successful day of banditry.
Who owns the tavern after it's been taken over by the bandits?
I fail to see how I can profit by this.
Unless we postulate a purely fictional old maid pining the day away in a lonely kitchen, dreaming of molestation by a horde of roaming rascals who, upon seizure of the lodging, make good their lusty inclinations.
Purely fictional, mind you.
Willing to bet GW is planning a rather less... blue-lit gaming experience, though.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Doesn't a concensual war follow the rules of Chivalry? IE it's the heroes/knights doing the battling so the peasants don't have to be slaughtered? But obviously there's codes of conduct; maybe a precursor to just war?
Idk, I'm sure there's grounds for a "Consensual War" to have an impact on reputation and alignment it follows, potentially?
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@Being
Imagine how valuable people who have trained up perception, and/or have spells of true seeing might become.
True seeing, however, does not penetrate solid objects. It in no way confers X-ray vision or its equivalent. It does not negate concealment, including that caused by fog and the like. True seeing does not help the viewer see through mundane disguises, spot creatures who are simply hiding, or notice secret doors hidden by mundane means.
So true seeing as a way to see through disguises should not be applicable. But it may help you find that guy who does have invisibility cast on himself.
Or people using magical means for a Disguise, e.g. Disguise Self.
But GW isn't following tabletop mechanics slavishly, so the spell also just giving a boost to Perception is completely plausible.
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Thank you. I was thinking it would enhance your perception significantly.
On a side note the thought occurs that if every chartered company has to be chartered by a settlement, and that settlement is destroyed, the chartered company will no longer have a chartering settlement. One consequence most likely would result that that company could not continue fighting under a war banner.
I was not referring to you as idiotic just the idea of consensual war.I wasn't taking it aimed at me personally, but even throwing the term around in reference to ideas doesn't seem like it's conducive to discussion. I feel that I manage to not need to call ideas idiotic, while critiquing, sometimes bluntly, their content. Just trying to keep the tone of discussion high.
Sorry some ideas really are so bad that you need to phrase your opposition forcefully. Consensual war would ruin any sandbox game. It is one of the silliest ideas imaginable.
Without the ability to [non-consensually] goto war the penalties from normal sanctions will cripple any community trying to wage a war without the official declaration.
Except if you use Alignment PVP flags, which function like open-ended War flags in a way, except that individual players can toggle them on and off as needed. If one side is already flagging as Champion/Enforcer/Outlaw/Assassin/Traveller[really also Harvester/Crafter] anyways, then agreeing to flag for War isn't much change except that it expands their [repucussion-less] options.
The pvp flags do not allow you to attack everyone from a settlement without repercussions in any way shape or form. There should in a good system often be kingdoms of similar alignements fighting. They will do this because they need resources. How will alignement pvp flags help? Thats right they wont.
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God willing, we'll be able to manufacture in-game post-its and write notes on them...
I posted a request for User Objects that could be used for this and so much more.
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That doesn't answer the question, though. You say "end the war" but nothing about what that means. I attack your settlement, get in, smash your war room and drop your DI. The game now automagically declares the war over. I, what, pack up and go home,...
Not to keep harping on this topic, but sure, why not? If your settlement want the land and to completely take over the opposing settlement, don't destroy the 'war room' until the end of the campaign.
Otherwise, how does a defending settlement ever win a war? Maybe they don't want to just hunker down and get bombarded by siege engines until the enemy gives in - but additionally, maybe they don't actually want to take more land or wipe out the enemy. They just want hostilities to cease. Taking out the war marshal and destroying the war room gives them that option.
I understand where you and others are coming from. You don't want some game mechanic automatically ending wars via some arbitrary happening in game. Maybe it needs to be far more complex than my suggestions, but there has to be more than just 'ride out the storm and hope they give up' and 'wipe them out completely'.
The idea of 'chivalry' mentioned by AvenaOats is exactly how I had been imagining the War system.
The Alignment system seems to lose relevance if you can unilaterally recuse yourself from it completely (more than PVP flag limitations) simply by accepting that the opponent is also recused (never mind if they are weak enough that it doesn't matter).
Like I wrote, I'm not sure about the consensual/non-consensual thing, I had picked up the idea that consensual was the plan, but I have no real idea... Non-consensual does seem like it has several issues that would need mitigating factors we don't know about yet... If that is the plan, I'm interested to know what those would be.
EDIT: Having a 'test' of relative power, so that official War (with no repurcussions on alignment/reputation) can't be unilaterally triggered by a strong group attacking a small one, seems a plausible limit... the power difference must be small enough that both sides have a chance of winning, and thus the scenario of consensual war isn't as far removed from non-consensual war. To deal with multiple settlements ganging up on one, the test would need to take into account any existing wars they are engaged in - Although CE allies attacking them outside of official war would be an easy way to manipulate the system... Perhaps some measurement of current death rate/ building damage rate would also be needed to account for non-officially declared wars or other offensive actions going on at the same time, although the CE allies could join up after War is declared to evade that.
That there does not seem to be much incentive for CE groups to want to use the War Flag (vs. just killing or robbing possibly via Outlaw SAD) does make me wonder about some more issues... Will the Murderer/Brigand (repeat offender Attacker/Criminal) flags further escalate their duration beyond 24 hours (and possibly shift to Heinous) if you repeatedly trigger them, i.e. are pursuing unofficial offensive wars? How does the strength or scale of Alignment, or how long your have been at that Alignment, affect things? Would extreme Chaos/Evil (either numeric rating at the moment, or how long you've had that rating) tie into the Murder/Brigand mechanic, i.e. make it faster to trigger? Would Alignment-based class features be tied into how strong your alignment is in that direction?
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Goblin Squad Member
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Not sure at all of the validity of this but isn't going to war going to cost some amount of currency (M) where periodically a fixed amount of money is removed from your organization's coffers?
That's how it works in EVE, at least. The aggressor in a non-consensual war pays the bill. If they can't pay, the war is cancelled automatically for them. That sort of mechanic is pretty much what I was referring to in my previous post.
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Goblin Squad Member
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Off of the war subject which has threads of its own and back to disguise. Here's a few questions I may have missed.
1. When you create a disguise, is the equipment still functional in the same aspect as before it was a disguise ?
2. When your disguise is blown, can the equipment be used again as a new disguise, and does it recover previous naming ?
God willing, we'll be able to manufacture in-game post-its and write notes on them...I posted a request for User Objects that could be used for this and so much more.
It's got my +1 now.