Protection

[Offsaider]

Would be nice if we can make a payment to a town so they can sand some soldiers to protect the player for a time, for example the player is starting a town near outpost brink so i pay 7000 gold to the brick outpost and they sand some soldier to defend my starting town for 10 days and after that i can contract the service again or don't pay and they get back to the outpost.

The cost of the service will have differences depending on the number of soldier the player want and the time they will stay on the players town. I suggest a high price to this option, because with a lot of fights around the players town they will have easy money selling the bandits equipments and if the cost is low the player will find a much easy way to start the game. And for the future plans that i read about the game this service maybe could level up to escort or something like that..

Sorry my bugged English ^^

[killerx243]

Or even they will protect the player from anyone he is attacked by while near their settlement.

[1337]

The price certainly should be far higher.
I mean lets say 8000cats for 10 days that's 800 a day, the equivalent of one bread and rum lol. They would also be risking their heads out there.

I'd say, realistically imo, 8000cats would be for one squad (4guards) per day. The player then has to actually really tink about whether the protection is worth it or not.

[arthoz]

Perhaps even hire them as an mercernaries to support you in combat or to attack cities. The price of hiring not only depend on quantity but should also depends on their quality. Guards armed with wooden stick (security guards?) or wooden bow should be dirt cheap compared to heavily armed samurai. You could control them by giving orders to their squad leader like guard, follow, defend, hold ground, skirmish, attack.

That way you could keep a small elite squad and raise a large army of mercernaries or levies only when needed to act as support like sieging a city, defending against invading horde or hunting monstrous beasts. So players need to carefully plan their operations focuses on the quality of their squad member.

Simplify the fuction to allow it to go both days and you could also hire out you own squad for money. Your soldiers could become a valueable commodity. Reminded me of the Free Companies during the medieval age. Become a peace keeping force or soldier for hire looking for plunder.

[Someguy]

Loving this suggestion.

Squads of four @ 8k/day (minimum) sounds spot on to me for a developed community cash sink.

However, for a startup, perhaps a one time special offer from The Bureau of Settler's Affairs or somesuch, in a specific major faction city (looking to build and expand their national influence/loyalty base), perhaps any city with a police station. If your settlement is within a certain range of the faction city you may contract this service, if not, you're not eligible.

If eligible, player is given/purchases a "contract" that has descriptive text containing a tutorial outlining it's use. Player uses said contract within X range of one of his structures and places a flag or whatever, just like a structure.

Said squad will travel to your flag. They then guard a medium sized aggro radius with police AI for ten days and head home.

There's a problem with needing to establish a settlement before you can get the contract, but I like the feel of this mechanic, and the fluff. I think it's important that the flag be placeable only within a certain range of a player building rather than a certain range from the faction settlement for obvious reasons, but perhaps that could go.

As far as hirable short term Mercs, I'd say have them follow the hirer around (or an object he carries, like the aforementioned contract) just like caravan guard AI, and adopt the player's diplomacy while under contract. Being able to give them orders may be a bit much, I'd rather them be more autonomous personally. If you want guys that'll do every crap task you give them, then hire, feed, clothe, house, and train them (squaddies).

With a feature like that your squad members could become more like squad leaders if massive engagements are projected...