Update #63: Stronghold!

[Azure79]

I like what I read every update. 

 

I really enjoyed the BG2 fighter stronghold and hope to see similar things pop up, from dealing with larger matters such as taxation, merchant caravan routes and bandits to smaller matters like stealing within the keep, local matters of justice etc. 

 

Taking prisoners sounds really cool and I'm excited that the overall keep gameplay is being integrated into the main story. Hoping to see if you can even turn prisoners over to your side, make attacking attacking an enemy later more satisfying. 

[Vitek]

I also hope there will be way to customise overall appearance of your stronghold.

To either get creepy dungeon with a lot of rustling chains, squeeky doors, ghost wailing, skeletons and iron maiden or fancy castle with pink curtains and cushinons everywhere, with some unicrons and rainbows in every room and pink fluffy handcuffs in duneon.

With some middle ground of course. Skeleton unicorns, pink fluffy iron maiden and rustling cushions.

[metalmunki]

This all sounds great!

 

First a question:

 

How do the adventurers back at your Stronghold go on their own adventures? Do we just get an story from them and the items they acquired, or do we take full control of them and run their adventure?

 

 

Finally, a suggestion:

 

The way you describe it, it sounds like you are teleporting back/forth (game mechanic, not a spell) to your Stronghold a lot unless this is working in some other way. Would it be possible for random events/updates from the Stronghold coming you to via a messenger rather than just a pop-up message? Perhaps this messenger would depend on your class.

 

For instance, A magic user might receive the message via an imp appearing in a puff of smoke with the message, a ranger via a raven or owl etc, a paladin via a squire (Thinking Monty Python's Holy Grail now...). It might also be a fun point to inject some character and humour in these one-off but functional NPCs.

 

 

[Tenebrael]

Hi,

 

I have some ideas regarding stronghold mechanisms. I originally send them directly ro the team, and just pasting them here:

 

1. Taxes. I think a stronghold budget and party budget should be strictly separated. Imho, in the cRPG one of the most rewarding thing is collecting loot and money via adventuring. When You gain income for Your party from something else (here: stronghold) it could limit the joy of getting band richer while exploring the world. I think the stronghold budget should be limited to stronghold updates, hiring guards and merchants and so on, but any items You should be able to buy only with Your own, "party pocket".

2. Companions in a stronghold. It's a good idea. BUT. Teling everyone to wait in a castle for my orders is by some means artificial. Ok, some of my characters dear friends could agree for this situation, but in real life, only the closest friends would wait. What about ones who joined my party only for their own goals? My solution here is: ok, let players "gather" companions in a stronghold, but force them to pay a money for each of them (quite a big amount, which will limit the "wait for a better time" companions to those who a player REALLY need). And the gauge should be paid from stronghold's budget. Want to be able to gather more companions there? Upgrade the stronghold and increase the income!

3. Missions for party members in the stronghold. I'm simply against the idea. It'a adding nothing to the cRPG element of the game, catching the players attention, which should be concentrated on cRPGing, exploring the world and discovering the story.

4. However, additional NPCs could be used in a stronghold as guards, additional to "random" ones, and more powerful than them. Which lead us to the next point...

5. Sieges, attacks and so on. Imho it shouldn't be an option to "auto fight" in this king of battles. The stronghold is Yours, so You are the one who should defence it! You can implement the mechanism of hiring guards (of course, paying them every day...) and companions to defend the stronghold. But when the attack start, the player should have control over the stronghold's whole garrison. It could add a tactical element to the fortress mechanism.

 

What do You think?

[DeathQuaker]

Wow. This sounds more exciting than a Suikoden stronghold (and them're good strongholds!).

 

I LOVE the idea of non-party companions doing their own thing. Really helps to add to the sense of a living world. It always felt weird to have people just sitting around whose lives had no existence or meaning if you weren't bringing them with you.

[karelia]

I forget who suggested it, but I also really like the idea of donating grey items to the stronghold's blacksmith to either melt down for resources, or to equip your soldiers with, or perhaps even to give to villagers who would otherwise be unarmed - and this mechanic could delay any incoming attacks and sieges as an enemy will be unusually delayed by better armed than usual peasants. Naturally this situation won't play out in front of your eyes, it will be "behind the scenes", and act as a variable to how advanced an assault will be before you can intervene.

[teknoman2]

 

I'd prefer to have a regular messenger that can only reach me at particular times (for example while resting), rather than a soul magically relaying messages to me.

 

If a form of "instant messaging" is made available through souls, I believe that would have extreme ramifications on the social structure of the entire world, and wouldn't fit quite as snugly in the setting as one might think.

 

Well two ways of dealing with that come to mind:

 

1. This is unique to the stronghold, old soul manipulation of Aer Glanfath that we cannot fathom, and kind of morally objectionable to deny a soul its rightful place in the wheel of birth, death and rebirth.

 

2. Spirits are common and integral to the setting, like in King of Dragon Pass.

 

But as I say it's merely a suggestion, mainly to avoid instances of being weeks from home and yet still just in time to rush to the rescue. I'm fairly sure Mr Cain and company have allready formulated some viable method of communication.

 

to put it more simply, it's telepathy comunication, with the bonus that you can see as a hologram (ghost) the person contacting you

[igorina]

I'd rather be notified by a raven or something like this if anything happens in stronghold. But it would be the best to have someone there to say "Take care of this place when I am away" as an option.  Also i am a bit against stronghold to consume a lot of play-time, like I spend time on stronghold managment or game will be half shorter . I'd love to have a possibility to travel from place to place without checking if random dragon didn't burn my roof or if my crocodiles didn't eat villagers..

[Messier-31]

Also i am a bit against stronghold to consume a lot of play-time, like I spend time on stronghold managment or game will be half shorter . I'd love to have a possibility to travel from place to place without checking if random dragon didn't burn my roof or if my crocodiles didn't eat villagers..

 

Yes, less housing, more lore

[Tsuga C]

Updates like this one inspire a twinge of pity for those folks who opted against backing the Kickstarter campaign. They truly missed an opportunity to get in on the ground floor of a good thing.

 

Regarding the "Random Events" mentioned, how are they randomized? Do they happen at random times (or not at all, ever) in a given chapter, or might Gargle the Chanter show up only in chapters 1-3 (or not at all, ever) to drive everyone nuts with his off-key performances?

[Lephys]

To all the concerns of "Why does more prestige/better management get you increased 'taxes'?":

 

I'm 99.999999% certain (as others have mentioned) that when they say "taxes," they're talking about the actual amount of collected funds that you get from your tax rate.

 

And yes, while tyrants typically tax people for everything they own, because that's super selfish and bad and all that jazz, if you tax people 95% and all they own is potatoes because you're not taking care of your economy, then you're going to get 95% of several potatoes. If your shop owners can't afford to run their shops and forges and such, and get the supplies they need to create desirable goods, then they're not going to sell anything to anyone coming to visit (or anyone with any money, whatsoever), and they're not going to generate any income to tax from them.

 

So, yes, the better you take care of your stronghold's economy, the healthier people's pockets will be to even collect taxes from, no matter what the tax rate. Even 1% of 1,000 gold pieces is better than 50% of 10 gold pieces. Especially in terms of being able to actually pay that rate for the foreseeable future (rather than running out of funds after a couple of weeks/months).

[Ineth]

I'd rather be notified by a raven or something like this if anything happens in stronghold.

 

Remember the messenger boys for some of the BG2 strongholds?

They loved appearing just when my party was being ambushed by bandits/monsters in between areas, walking right into the battlefield...

 

But it would be the best to have someone there to say "Take care of this place when I am away" as an option.  Also i am a bit against stronghold to consume a lot of play-time, like I spend time on stronghold managment or game will be half shorter . I'd love to have a possibility to travel from place to place without checking if random dragon didn't burn my roof or if my crocodiles didn't eat villagers..

 

+1. Please don't make it as obtrusive as the BG2 thief stronghold (where you had to return on time every 5 days for the rest of the game), or anything like that.

 

I want a cRPG, not a Sims clone...

[Ansku]

Very promising! Much more detailed and varied than I dared to hope, even I don't have much experience with strongholds in general, the only one I remember off the top of my head is the BG2 one (and didn't even remember that there were other options than d'Arnise Keep before reading this thread, I really should find some time for yet another replay), but this sounds leagues of better than any such place I've even heard of.

[Chippy]

Love everything.

 

Since were here to moan (or suggest even more stuff), I was wondering if we'd come across situations where party members gained prestige, and then attempted a coup, that would be cool (maybe then sling them in the dungeon).  Or if they mastered a skill like archery I could get them to train my troops to a level the envy of another city - prompting an attack, and now my archers are p***** off because their leader is doing bird time in the dungeon.

 

Just a few more suggestions.

[Rozkurwiciel]

Ok a couple of things:

 

Economy: Somebody said nordic countries are rich by the way they are ruled. No, they are broke, believe it or not, it's true. It means if we want to keep things at best possible way we will want free market to do all decisions for us. It's just the way it is and in fact, it's quite brutal in the game, cause you as developers may not allow it! Low taxation makes governor rich by making residents rich. Somebody pointed it out, good for you.

 

Optional ways of making money:

Having ignored taxation and prestige system what is left? I want optional ways of making money. Maybe our stronghold is famous for an amazing museum of slain beasts that had unpleasent meeting with us? Maybe some other asset like: mage tower/school (?), famous garrison (where many mercenaries are being trained for a fee), monastery (probably together with gardens) etc.

 

Concerns:

Two big ones. First, how to keep it balanced? I don't wanna be flooded with constant river of money coming either out or into my pocket. So I think most of important stuff happening to our stronghold should have timer set on the big events (perhaps smaller ones too?) that happen into the game while we are adventuring.

 

Second, this time once for a time please give me a way to be a bad, bad guy in this game. I'm tired of saving the world (or world with its surroundings) if I want just power, or money, or power and money and blood of innocents please let me show my evil face also (hopefully ALSO) in stronghold mechanics. Maybe my stronghold is a hidden place full of tortured prisoners and piles of corpses I do my rituals on. Maybe I hide it behind all-good-looking keep and clean streets.

 

Let us be monsters!

Edited September 4, 2013 by Rozkurwiciel

[Oner]

 

Excellent news overall, but I have two points to discuss .

 

1. Prestige vs. taxes

 

Your take: Higher prestige means higher taxes

My point: Common people like it when the taxes are LOW, and then they love BECAUSE of that. So, either low taxes and high reputation, or high taxes and low reputation, that's how the world works. Prestige should have different rewards: valuable NPCs showing up and volunteering for service, more people signing up as guards, and also what you said, lower chance of "bad" events. This creates decisions: do I want MOAR money to upgrade the castle and buy unique stuff, etc., or do I want to become popular with the people, so that I can enjoy other, less material advantages? (see: Castles 1-2, King of Dragon Pass).

 

Could be that "High prestige = Higher tax income" is simply because more people are drawn to your lands because you are so awesome. More inhabitants means more tax payers means more revenue.

 

Also, I don't think people mind high taxes that much provided the government doesn't take so much that people fall below the poverty line, isn't corrupt or doesn't just keep all that tax money for itself. If a high tax rate goes together with serious investments in infrastructure, affordable education and healthcare, a sold social safety net and so on, people won't complain that much (although they will complain because people are people) simply because they obviously get something in return for the taxes they pay.

 

Actually, one of our kings here in the 16th century had the highest taxes (in our history, or relative to every contemporary nation, that I don't know), but nobody cared because people had the money to pay it.

[bearded_dynamo]

I'm not sure if this has been addressed, but I'd really like to see a trophy room of some sort.

 

I know the graphical limitations might make this a poor idea, at least based on the CRPGs of old, but it's something I love to have the option of doing in games. It mainly started in Morrowind, every time I'd find something interesting, I had a huge house filled with shelves, so I'd just fill the shelves up with cool stuff. Obviously this isn't going to have that sort of detail, like I said, but maybe something simple.

 

Maybe you have a suit of armor you like that you've been using for most of the game, and once you find something to replace it, you don't necessarily want to sell it off. So put it on an armor display stand. If you have a couple swords you don't have the room to wield, but you either like them or might use them in a better situation later, perhaps a weapon rack. And if the sun shined just right and I actually had my way, I'd also ask for a display case. If you found a cool deity statue in a ruined temple or a particularly nice gem in a mine, you could stick it in there.

 

This is all depending on the level of detail of the games items. If the detail is pretty nice, why not let us display them in the stronghold? Wouldn't even have to be a 'trophy room', but could just be some spots for these things in the bedroom. Doesn't seem like it would be too hard to add in. Then again I don't make games...

[Tsuga C]

Also, I don't think people mind high taxes that much provided the government doesn't take so much that people fall below the poverty line, isn't corrupt or doesn't just keep all that tax money for itself. If a high tax rate goes together with serious investments in infrastructure, affordable education and healthcare, a sold social safety net and so on, people won't complain that much (although they will complain because people are people) simply because they obviously get something in return for the taxes they pay.

P.E. is set in roughly the equivalent of the 16th Century, not the 21st Century. You're describing a modern, Euro-style Nannystate that is an anachronisim when placed in a late Medieval/early Renaissance milieu and would be soundly rejected by peoples of that feudal-c_u_m-mercantilist era. These people want expansion of trade, land, and a rising standard of living and they don't much give a crap about whom they must step on to secure these improvements to their own lives. High taxes, however well intended, would go over like a loud fart in church.

Edited September 4, 2013 by Tsuga C

[hideo kuze]

The stronghold sounds pretty cool. Lots of cool ideas 

 

However I do have concerns over the following:

 

1) economic balance: please don't make it some sort of cash cow that makes you rich to get and buy everything.

 

--- balance it out with the more valuable the fortress becomes (upgrades/"furniture", item storage, NPCs, prisoners), the more you have to spend on security because the more appealing it will be for someone to try to plunder it

 

 

2) too much happiness: please don't pamper the player too much, some of us "like it rough", so please make this possible in the difficult gameplay modes:

 

--- don't warn the player of all attacks, in fact, being able to know about an attack should be only possible because of some successful outcome. Examples: bribed or intimidated someone; listened (skill check) about it on a bar (simple thieves) or a castle (some lords oppose you).

 

--- on the cases where the fortress is not successfully defended, having partial states of failure would be very interesting, such as: some prisoners escaping, some items getting stolen, losing money, having it completely destroyed (back to square one)

 

--- for some attacks it would be interesting to make the player choose (XOR, exclusive or) between defending the fortress or something else (eg: rescuing the princess) ---- already discussed in the update, so pretty cool

 

--- allow the player to decide if he wants to have the resting NPCs protecting the castle or wandering around for fame and fortune. When having those NPCs protecting the castle you would be able to control them during the siege. So you kind of get 2 parties... pretty cool IMO. ---- already discussed in the update, so pretty cool

 

--- have some of those visitors not be who they are. Have some of them be rich scholars (aka lawyers) and try to buy out the freedom of some prisoner. Or some assassins passing as hirelings or merchants with the sole purpose of freeing a prisoner or killing you.

 

--- let me play evil and jail some "innocent" people 

 

[Loompa]

I hope you can name your castle because if you can I am going to call mine Castle Grey Skull and my character is going to be call Heman 

[Ansku]

Somebody said nordic countries are rich by the way they are ruled. No, they are broke, believe it or not, it's true. 

 

Broke, huh? I guess the World Economic Forum and the credit rating agencies are doing something wrong since they keep listing them pretty high. Then again I was never in the least interested in economics so what do I know, it just goes against my logic somehow.

 

Personally I don't mind one way or another what economical model the stronghold taxation is or will be based on, I'm willing to accept the high prestige -> rich people want to move in -> more money from taxes explanation that was offered earlier.

[Jymm]

Loggin' in special today just to say: this stronghold looks BADASS.  Thanks Tim.

[iridescence]

If for the sake of balance making the stronghold mandatory is preferrable, I hope they do that. If good stronghold management makes the game easier, and therefore becomes critical on the higher difficulty settings, I'm all for that.

 

Agree. I think it'd be preferable to have some kind of NPC you could hire so the people that weren't interested in it could still get most of the benefits (although I think people who put the work into doing it themselves should get more out of it than letting the AI manage it).

 

It would be really bad though if the rewards for doing it ended up really inconsequential and trivial though. It's your home in the game, managing and protecting it should be a big deal.

[curryinahurry]

Like others, I think making the stronghold plot related is the right move on Obsidian's part.  The interesting thing to see however, is how it will be tied to different classes:

 

There are only two classes that might be problematic for a stronghold; Barbarians and Druids.  Barbarians may not be an issue depending on how they are defined vis a vis society and culture within the game.  Druids are a bit more problematic;  Why would a druid have a stronghold; and if they did choose to put down roots (hehe), what kind of stronghold would they have?

 

This also leads us to think about the various classes and how a stronghold might be customized to fit;  

 

Would a priest have an abbey as a central structure?

Would a Monk have a library or school or monastery?

Would a paladin have a chartered lodge-house of his/her order?

 

And then what effect might these structures / institutions have on the local populace?  What if the PC's priest follows a different religion than that which is dominant in the surrounding lands?  What if the PC plays a monk whose order has vowed poverty?  

 

I'm not sure these things will really be in the game, but I hope Obsidian is considering them, or at least devising a system that limits branching possibilities in a believable manner (fealty to a lord with specific requirements or care-taker status until a suitable lord for the lands can be found. etc.)

[WotanAnubis]

 

Also, I don't think people mind high taxes that much provided the government doesn't take so much that people fall below the poverty line, isn't corrupt or doesn't just keep all that tax money for itself. If a high tax rate goes together with serious investments in infrastructure, affordable education and healthcare, a sold social safety net and so on, people won't complain that much (although they will complain because people are people) simply because they obviously get something in return for the taxes they pay.

P.E. is set in roughly the equivalent of the 16th Century, not the 21st Century. You're describing a modern, Euro-style Nannystate that is an anachronisim when placed in a late Medieval/early Renaissance milieu and would be soundly rejected by peoples of that feudal-c_u_m-mercantilist era. These people want expansion of trade, land, and a rising standard of living and they don't much give a crap about whom they must step on to secure these improvements to their own lives. High taxes, however well intended, would go over like a loud fart in church.

 

 

Fine, fine.

 

Building and maintaining roads combined with training and outfitting guards to expand and secure the trade network, allowing merchants to safely and easily do their thing, improving the overall wealth of the region.

 

Also, to get more land, you're gonna need an army. And you need to pay for an army. Possibly through taxes.