Pre- Suggestion Discussion: Adding armed conflict to war

[Baron Saturday]

What if settlement leaders and supporters could drop an item (a settlement-specific flag, perhaps?) on territory belonging to a hostile faction that adds a spawn of settlement-specific soldier units to that area's spawn matrix? Similar to how certain items can be dropped to increase hostile spawns in an area. Notable features:

- This spawn would ONLY be hostile to opposing settlement's leaders/supporters, and would ONLY spawn when opposing settlement's leaders/supporters are present.
- The spawn would grow if left unchecked until eventually start spawning inside opposing settlement.
- Unlike ambient spawns, the soldier spawn would be possible to wipe out entirely.
- The spawn would only grow to main road areas within 1 or 2 transitions of the opposing settlement.

I think this would go a long way to stopping the cold wars that we often see.

So: Thoughts/critiques/refinements? Cortex? I know you're just waiting to rip holes in this.

[Cortex]

Everything is terrible and I hate you.

On more objective matters:

The time period that they spawn should have a short life span, which would include a fast spread into settlements(say, 30-60 minutes till they spread, and a life span of 5 hours), so it would give incentive for players to be present. The rewards would be based on enemy PC slains or some such, so using it while nobody is online won't attain results, a problem is that opponents can just log off and ignore it.

If the time period is too long, the opposite happens, the ones being attacked can just wait it off till the attackers get bored and log off to clear it out.

[Dalenger]

Everything is terrible and I hate you.

+1

I think it sounds like a cool idea. I think that the resource system needs to be made more RP friendly, and one of the ways to do this could be to add in something like this.

How I think the resource system can be changed:
-Take away any resource drain based on settlement size.
-Instead, counselors can spend resources on stuff, which would have an initial cost then a persistent cost.

Examples could be:
-An extra NPC smithy/carpenter/tailor which would sell better items at a reasonable cost, but only to citizens. This would cost metal/cloth/wood depending on the type of store.
-An extra PC store. This would cost quite a bit metal, cloth, and wood.
-Soldiers, as mentioned above. If a settlement controls certain tiles, perhaps they also get tax from said tiles.
-Better in-town guards. This would be a two step process: A) Make it much easier to pass disguise checks by default B) The better the guards, the higher the DC becomes.

I think this would be beneficial in a few ways. First, it would act to make bigger settlements much more powerful. Second, it would gives quite a bit more power to counselors (as right now, the only mechanical power they really have is exiles). It will help make resource management meaningful, and not just a constant pain in the arse for settlement.

[Cortex]

After a semi lengthy discussion with Baron, here is an idea I've thought of(numbers are just an example, I'm sure there is a very good math balance to be had):

Mechanical Traits

aka so this isn't just a waste of resources and time

In order to initiate an attack, the attackers pay multiples of 10.000 in gold/resources/whatever, up to a very large limit(say, 500.000).
The people of the settlement being attacked(aka all supporters, officials and leaders) will be given a warning like an election warning.
The siege then begins and it lasts three RL days.
During this time, the defenders can spend multiples of 10.000 gold/res./wtevr, up to a limit of 100.000 per 12 RL hours.
During this time, the attackers can spend multiples of 10.000 gold up to 50.000 per 12 RL hours in g/r/w to add to their initial attack supplies.
The attackers cannot add more supplies 12/24 hours before the assault ends.

After the siege ends, a calculation is done between the total supplies spent on defense and attack, whichever is higher wins:
If defense won, the attackers gain nothing, and resources are lost on both sides, but a third of the resources spent from the defense are recycled into their treasury/resource pool.
If attack won, the attackers pillage a fifth of their resources spent, plus the difference(times 2/3 or whatever) from the defenders' resource/treasury.

Notes: The more gold/resources supplied from either side, more numerous/powerful are the troops. Defenders will also be given a population spawn that can clash with attackers. Their number/power is limited/divided in tiers.

War Flair

I call it war flair, so it's not only mechanics, and this will be the more visual part with less mechanics involved. Which is basically the original suggestion with a pseudo-population zone, where if a NPC defender/attacker kills an opposing settlement member, the killer's settlement gains the usual bounty gold.

Bonus: Spionage

Any settlement can spend a significant amount of gold to spy on another settlement's war resources.

[Black Wendigo]

First, I don't see anything wrong with cold wars. That is rp, which I would favor over pitched battles'

Second what you are talking about sounds more like a war game, not an rpg.

Third, it feels like god emoting. You are spawning more power to your side than you really have by virtue of money and resources. And the interaction is indirect. IF you wish to fight for land in the opposition's camp you have to actually work for it and risk death and consequences. This seems like passing that off to npc fodder.

So I would ask this: How would you keep such a system from forcing people into a wargame stlye strategy instead of RP?

[Baron Saturday]

First, I don't see anything wrong with cold wars. That is rp, which I would favor over pitched battles'

Second what you are talking about sounds more like a war game, not an rpg.

Third, it feels like god emoting. You are spawning more power to your side than you really have by virtue of money and resources. And the interaction is indirect. IF you wish to fight for land in the opposition's camp you have to actually work for it and risk death and consequences. This seems like passing that off to npc fodder.

So I would ask this: How would you keep such a system from forcing people into a wargame stlye strategy instead of RP?

My personal interest is more on the cosmetic side of things, the "War Flair" as Cortex puts it. To address your concerns in order:

1. This doesn't mean that all settlement wars HAVE to involve armed conflict. I simply think that two settlements at war should have the option of sending troops to harass the opposing settlement.

2. Arelith already incorporates elements of economical and political roleplay. I believe this opens up an option for those who would prefer a more active style of war roleplay.

3. (a) The soldiers could be considered hired mercenaries. Thus, your expenditure of settlement coins and resources to spawn them is not unreasonable.
(b) I don't imagine that the spawned soldiers would be terribly powerful. Level 10, 15 at most, which would absolutely require the involvement of the settlement's PCs in order to keep the rank and file from getting wiped out by a single epic enemy PC and the settlement's investment from going to waste. Thus, player interaction is still in the mix: The idea is not for NPCs to substitute for players, but rather provide a incentive for opposing players to meet in battle.

That's my interest, anyhow. The mechanical side of things is less important to me - I understand the argument that nobody would use this system unless it provided some sort of mechanical advantage, but after some thought I'm inclined to disagree. I think people would rally their troops just because standing at the forefront of an army is COOL.

[Xarge VI]

Another idea I got from this thread is a simple one:
Settlement leaders can use settlement resources/coins to purchase corporal/general/whatever badge/flag that allow you to summon two henchmen.

The less you pay the lower level soldiers you get, the more you pay the higher level soldiers you get. But the badge would have level requirement so level 7 militia guy can't summon level 20 soldiers.

And if you remove the soldiers from party they'll stay in the spot until server reset or until they're killed. With moderately sized war party you'd be able to form an army.

I got another idea:
If you want to make things more complicated. There could be a soldier reserve the settlement leaders can grow by adding more constant expenditure. If a soldier summoning badge has been purchased it counts two soldiers out of the reserve and from the expenditure.

I leave the numbers to someone smarter than me. But the expenditure should be so high that it's really impossible to keep a good reserve infinitely and that it should take some time to form a good reserve.

And while the number of reserve could be secret, people would be able to speculate that a settlement is preparing for a war if they suddenly start getting poorer.

[Grunf]

Ooooor-do as once was told, leaders can supply opposition to settlement (goblins near cordor, undeads near Andunor for example) that become "friendly" (what we can do now) and they start attacking the town, so if NPC launch attack on settlement if you have spy in that place and get hin "attack on the way" you can join them with your few toons, boost them with wards and such


They stay there until reset.

[Yma23]

Firstly - I like this suggestion well enough. And I think the back and to is interesting to work out how to make wars more interesting. But the basic problem, that is all wars devolving into Cold Wars, is not going to be solved by this.

Why?

Because currently the only way to mechanicaly win a war (reducing the opposing settlements treasury to 0) Is almost impossible to manage. And sadly, for the most part, unless there's a mechanical way to 'win' a war, the war won't be won. People don't like loosing - and the vast majority (and I'm sorry if this sounds cynical) of settlment leaders won't put up the surrender flag no matter what. It will simply drag on until both sides are icly and oocly sick of the situation, so some vauge truce is declaired.

What is needed is a big, decisive mechanical 'win' condition. What is that? I don't know. I think there's various possiblities. Maybe something akin to... (and this is me literally shooting out ideas) After on IG year, the Settlment who kills the most supporters of the opposing settlment wins? Or... once one of an opposing settlments Leaders's heads is handed in? Or... something like that. But yes - if you want to end cold wars you need to give a timer/decisive win condition I think.

[Grunf]

What if there is huge RP effort, either from any side-is it possible that DMs if they all agree ofcourse make some kind of IC outcome? Take the gold from one group give to another or simply spawn huge numbers of NPCs on attackers if they are almost defeated showing them its over and sending some kind of "crusade" to their settlement so they RP defense that can end up is some kind of event, was there ever done something this way?

[Kuma]

Because currently the only way to mechanicaly win a war (reducing the opposing settlements treasury to 0) Is almost impossible to manage.

The only consequences for reducing a treasury to 0 is to boot out the leaders and the other fun stuff. The victors gain nothing. In effect, there is no way to win a war at present. It was erroneously reported that reducing a treasury to 0 in a time of war would vassal a settlement to the victor. This is not true.

[The GrumpyCat]

Currently DM's cannot interfere with the settlement system, and I do not belive we would be allowed to excepting that the Devs agreed to it.