Reply To: Strategic map.

[GOD]

Sarissofoi wrote:

But restocking now is fairly easy.
Food is plentiful and cheap and you can get enough money from fetch quests.
There is no reputation or fame now so now it will be just choice of slaughtering few peasants to steal their food and few crowns.
Not mention that pillaging will hurt you because you will local settlements weaker and poor so there will be less supplies, less gold for contracts, less militia to fend bandits/monsters, less items in shops. In current game it will be suicidal.

Precisely, hence my comment about adding more locations to the world map. I’m just throwing the idea out there now and agreeing with adding more locations, because I expect those things to either change as the game goes on (orc invasion!) or for new challenges to be introduced as development continues (larger map, events that affect supplies, etc.). It’s meant for when a desperate situation comes up and how you as the player react to that, rather than a mechanic that the player can rely on as an alternative play style. I’m also assuming that some sort of reputation system will be introduced to act as a check on taking and then throwing away contracts.

Rap wrote:

I know, and I quite like your example. That general idea of the player having to make tough decisions with logical (and somewhat randomized, for the sake of replayability) consequences is exactly where we want to go with the coming event system. This will also afford the player actions of less than exemplary morale – though to what extent exactly is still something we need to figure out. Sorry that I can’t answer more thoroughly to your very comprehensive suggestion, there’s just a lot going on right now.

No problem. I’m just making suggestions about stuff that I feel might become relevant in the long run. Planting the seeds in your minds, so to speak. :)

As for the extent towards which to allow less than moral behaviour, the current atmosphere you have got going on to me seems to be brutal, but not depraved. Harshness without edgyness, so to speak. It’s the difference between getting decapitated by an orc warrior and getting decapitated by an orc warrior covered head-to-toe in skulls, having the orc piss on your severed head and then rape your still warm corpse.

So my suggestion as for the players: yes to waiting for the militia to die so that you can loot the bodies; no to using villagers as incendiary pigs.

Rap wrote:

Indeed, it would require the introduction of a reputation mechanic first. Like you said, we might want to go with 2 values here. A ‘business reputation’ and a ‘moral reputation’. People might hate/fear you for the atrocities your men commit and not agree with your methods, but you might still be their best shot at getting a job done.

A reputation system like that could also lead to different kind of mercenaries becoming available to the player or maybe influence the asking price of certain mercenaries. An idealistic squire might ask for less at being given the chance to fight for a highly moral mercenary group, while a sadistic brawler might lower his price at the prospect of working with someone who lets him cut loose. Backgrounds, perks and maybe some hidden personality modifiers could all affect asking price or what kind of events they trigger.

It could also affect the contracts. In that if you’re trustworthy, but a scumbag, people might come to you with dirty deals that they wouldn’t show to mercenaries with a high moral reputation. You would still get questionable offers as a highly moral mercenary, but the lowest ones are reserved for the less morally upright.