New Town Hall Idea
Something I'm pondering over is to create a game mode I'm always playing with friends. Start with just a few players on a huge map. We agree on a few simple rules: players are allowed to extend to other starting locations. Players must try to build these city as independent as possible (own food supply, own barracks, etc.). This is similar to the "controlled regions" concept of the new Settlers 7 game, but better: here it is possible to destroy, build and extend these regions. In that game, however, players can only choose to send resources back to their capital, but not build or control the regions at all, i.e., they are independent.
Overal these games are quite long (4 hours), but great fun: there is building after fighting, instead of a direct win. The same city may be conquored several times by several players (burning down the city, rebuilding it with your own buildings!). Other concequences of these rules are: the real hunt for resources (as the capital runs out of iron, there will be a conquest for the last bucket of iron ore on the map, when we agree on not using the market). The need to demolish other settlements (else you can't profit from the region by building your own workshops and farms).
Other forum users made similar suggestions to this one, but in a different form. For instance, the idea of regions. This idea can also be extended with regard to piece time (not allowed to attack capital first 2 hours, for instance, but this allows for rushing to protect interesting expansion areas).
However, we experience some major problems. Namely, the access roads to and between settlements (let's call them settlements, and your starting city is the capital) are overused by serfs, somehow. Also, it is possible to change alliances mid-game in Joymania's KaM, unfortunately not in the Remake: this option is fun when playing with trusted players (the enemy of my enemy is my friend is often used to prevent one player from becoming too strong).
Now, let's get back on the Townhall track. Firstly, to implement these "rules" in actual game logic, we need to have real regions (I'm actually working on highlighting regions, and will continue with this development during this summer.) that are determined by building range and possibly by troops. Battles are always happening on "region clashes", where both players' regions meet. Secondly, we need some control of seperating economies, e.g., seperate a starving and bad economic settlement from other settlements. Thirdly, we need some political controls: to which settlement do serfs belong.
The Townhall sprite can be used precisely to add additional controls: it shows the region of the current settlement the Town Hall is built in. It shows how many citizens are actually in this settlement (and possibly remove the statistics panel from the sidebar, or somehow link it to the current Town Hall). Hell, we could even give the Market a realistic use: the transfer of goods between (allied) settlements.
What y'all think about this?
Reason: Split topic upon request