I intend to document who comes and goes, as mine is a Barony and as such isnt somewhere strangers should be visiting. So anyone who visits will be documented and hopefully escorted...or shadowed ;)

To be completely honest if this is even possible I doubt it would be a good idea.

Unless you have a tiny village in which everyone is a PC you will have NPC citizens. NPCs are governed by needs, need for food, shelter, to have children Ext. These needs drive their behavior. As was said a while back if an NPC can not provide for themselves or views a players rule as tyrannical they can and likely will run off and create a bandit or rebel camp attracting others who have similar feelings about their leader.

Or another way to look at it, if an NPC blacksmith cannot well their wares because there is no traffic in or out of your town except the few people living there the blacksmith likely won’t be able to provide for their family and will either turn bandit or simply leave.

People need to realize this isn’t an RTS where anything unknown is bad or a phone game where you lock down a region and keep others out. Towns are supposed to function like their real world counterparts. You need fresh blood to buy and sell things, and add new genes to the pool cough Lannisters cough.

Posted By Malais at 5:18 PM - Tue Dec 11 2018

To be completely honest if this is even possible I doubt it would be a good idea.

Unless you have a tiny village in which everyone is a PC you will have NPC citizens. NPCs are governed by needs, need for food, shelter, to have children Ext. These needs drive their behavior. As was said a while back if an NPC can not provide for themselves or views a players rule as tyrannical they can and likely will run off and create a bandit or rebel camp attracting others who have similar feelings about their leader.

Or another way to look at it, if an NPC blacksmith cannot well their wares because there is no traffic in or out of your town except the few people living there the blacksmith likely won’t be able to provide for their family and will either turn bandit or simply leave.

People need to realize this isn’t an RTS where anything unknown is bad or a phone game where you lock down a region and keep others out. Towns are supposed to function like their real world counterparts. You need fresh blood to buy and sell things, and add new genes to the pool cough Lannisters cough.

Don't you think that there will exist small towns that are not connected to the trade route. So they need to move to a market

Just my two cents worth. Yes keeping bad guys or gals out of your settlement is good. But bear in mind that the vast majority of travelers on the roads are not going to be bad guys. If you make it too hard for merchants, traders, and suppliers to get into your town they will bypass you and you lose out on their trade. In this case you would need to be totally self sufficient for everything. That may be hard to do. The settlements of town size or larger should have local law enforcement and maybe even local military forces to keep bad people in check. The local count should have patrols out (hopefully cavalry or mounted infantry) to keep watch on the roads and smaller communities. Personally I am planning on a Marine force to provide an Anti-Piracy patrol and ground support for the local sheriff. I am supporting this unit, it is not part of the counts troops. As for one of the comments that the small settlements will have to move to a larger settlement with a market I ask why? There is no reason why a hamlet or village is not sustainable as long as they have food, water, and shelter. if they need other things they take their excess crops or goods (they may have a potter, tailor, or some other trade skill in the settlement) and go to the market in the larger settlement. Or they buy, sell, or trade with traveling merchants and traders. This is open world, the options are there.

@MagistrateMondra

For a town to grow you need more people be that NPC or PC. Without increasing population you won’t be able to have new plots to place new buildings some of the civic ones require a certain population threshold to confer their bonuses to the town.

Without sufficient notoriety, or reason for NPCs to remain not only will a town stagnate but they will shrink and at some point be completely abbondoned by NPCs. Depending on what you are doing (pirate/deviant haven for example) this may be a good thing, but a hollow town in general isn’t something a count wants as towns generate taxes and tax collection is the counts job for their duke.

So most likely your count will try their best to drive commerce and trade through your town. Keeping strangers out is counter productive to this goal and may put you at odds with the count.

At the same time NPCs perform a lot of the things players don’t want to do such as standing guard all day in a single spot. Without NPCs in your town it will be harder and harder to maintain control and do anything of note.

There will likely be small villages or hamlets of a dozen people or so off the beaten path but they still owe taxes to the count and if they cannot pay them well the count may come knocking even at these far flung tiny outposts.

In short there are far better ways to maintain law than simply forbidding strangers from even entering a town.

I expect many/most towns will have walls. I expect walls will have gates. And if they don't, you'll have the tools to add them during Exposition at the cost of EP. So what kind of town you run, who you choose to let in or out of it, is and should be entirely up to you for as long as you remain mayor. If NPCs can't manage this properly, you'll need to rely on PCs to handle it.

Ultimately, it's your sandbox. It's your story. Make of it what you will.

Posted By Labbe at 03:36 AM - Tue Dec 11 2018

Posted By MagistrateMondra at 03:16 AM - Tue Dec 11 2018

But if i can control my guards...or give them tasks ... this is the question.

Maybe I just want any new person to proof that he is worth to enter my town.... the question is: would this be possible to handle by game mechanics. (Wall/moat/conrolling guards)

Moats are not a thing, SbS confirmed no terraforming, no moats.

Walls though, yes. And as Alteogre said just said it up so they have to go through checkpoints.

If you are trying to ask if the game mechanics will be robust enough to specify to a guard that only people with x qualifications can enter the town then a good solid...maybe?

There is the knowledge system so you might be able to say any known thiefs are denied entry. There could be a system where they have to apply for entry and you personally confirm whether they can come in and issue them passes or visas in which case you tell the guards, if they have this visa they can come through my gates.

I don't think you will be able to get guards to make a logic based judgement call though, without a dedicated opc and a lot of scripting.

Moats may be thing -- might be purchasable (like a wall) rather than the result of player terraforming. But, you are probably right, probably not a thing.

That doesn't mean you necessarily can't build something that functions like a moat. A moat is dug from the ground because that was cheaper than building a wall on an elevated foundation. However, in COE, if there is the possibility of stacking architectural elements, it may be possible to build the equivalent of a moat by building walls on walls or walls on elevated foundations or somesuch.

I know COE is maintaining control of the buildings -- rather than allowing players to build their own buildings (to prevent immersion breaking architectures). However, they may give us pieces to work with, such as walls, gates, and fences, that can be used to create complex defensive barriers that serve like a motte and bailey (or more complicated) structure.

Posted By Hieronymus at 9:51 PM - Tue Dec 11 2018

I expect many/most towns will have walls.

Eh, I hope not, for several reasons. I would expect like one in four settlements to have walls and maybe one in two towns and cities, and most of them near historical borders / regions that had gone through turmoil and war. I guess the events during Kingdoms of Elyria could be determinant for many settlement fortifications.

If players have purchased so much EP that they could wall off every town they will manage, I do hope SBS will raise the costs of wall erection and maintenance to ensure Elyria will get a more 'realistic' percentage of walled settlements.

Historically, in some parts of Europe all towns were walled, and in others there were hardly any walled towns at all. All depended on the intensity of the sometimes centuries long lasting game of thrones they played regionally. I do hope Elyria will have similar 'historical' arguments for walls, next to the obvious 'walled capitals' ofc.

Posted By AlteOgre at 1:18 PM - Tue Dec 11 2018

Posted By Hieronymus at 9:51 PM - Tue Dec 11 2018

I expect many/most towns will have walls.

Eh, I hope not, for several reasons. I would expect like one in four settlements to have walls and maybe one in two towns and cities, and most of them near historical borders / regions that had gone through turmoil and war. I guess the events during of Kingdoms of Elyria could be determinant for many settlement fortifications.

If players have purchased so much EP that they could wall off every town they will manage, I do hope SBS will raise the costs of wall erection and maintenance to ensure Elyria will get a more 'realistic' percentage of walled settlements.

Historically, in some parts of Europe all towns were walled, and in others there were hardly any walled towns at all. All depended on the intensity of the sometimes centuries long lasting game of thrones they played regionally. I do hope Elyria will have a similar 'historical' arguments for walls, next to the obvious 'walled capitals' ofc.

I do hope that maintenance costs are a thing. For me, that would help immersion by forcing mayors to implement historical medieval taxes -- such as murage, the toll for building or repairing a wall. It would also force mayors to think properly about costs and prioritization. An unthreatened town, in the interior of a stable and well defended kingdom, without a brigand problem, and good laws and low enforcement, should have no reason for walls. It should be meaningful if you find a walled town in the middle of such a kingdom. That should mean they don't work and play well with their neighbors, for whatever reason -- and that should prompt curiosity. Is this a rebel town? Is there a local bloodfeud between aristocrats? Etc.

Posted By Beathan at 3:27 PM - Tue Dec 11 2018

I do hope that maintenance costs are a thing. For me, that would help immersion by forcing mayors to implement historical medieval taxes -- such as murage, the toll for building or repairing a wall.

I think this is highly likely. SBS has said that everything will deteriorate over time once it's placed in the game, so we can infer that either ongoing repairs will be required or just a flat replacement cost once the wall/object completely deteriorates.

I just love the idea among all the players who are working hard recruting and trying to get as many people as possible to their settlement, there is one trying do do the complete opposite: keeping people out from his/hers settlement.

Posted By Beathan at 1:10 PM - Tue Dec 11 2018

I know COE is maintaining control of the buildings -- rather than allowing players to build their own buildings (to prevent immersion breaking architectures).

Do you have a source for this?

Posted By Beathan at 1:10 PM - Tue Dec 11 2018

That doesn't mean you necessarily can't build something that functions like a moat. A moat is dug from the ground because that was cheaper than building a wall on an elevated foundation

This is actually a really interesting idea. Have a gradually sloping ramp of sorts, with a steep drop off to the ground, and then tall walls on the far side.

It isn't so much digging the moat down, as it is building it up. I like it.

I know COE is maintaining control of the buildings -- rather than allowing players to build their own buildings (to prevent immersion breaking architectures).

Curious what you mean by this? If you meant CoE will be controlling what we can build via the Architecture tool, then I guess you would be correct. But if you meant that players cannot design and build their own custom buildings then I'd like to know where you got this idea?

Posted By Labbe at 2:46 PM - Tue Dec 11 2018

Posted By Beathan at 1:10 PM - Tue Dec 11 2018

Curious what you mean by this? If you meant CoE will be controlling what we can build via the Architecture tool, then I guess you would be correct. But if you meant that players cannot design and build their own custom buildings then I'd like to know where you got this idea?

I think that the commitment to immersion will greatly limit the customization options in the architecture tool. Maybe it won't -- but I definitely expect that SBS will either have a very limited architecture tool or a build approval and veto process.

Posted By Beathan at 11:48 PM - Tue Dec 11 2018

Posted By Labbe at 2:46 PM - Tue Dec 11 2018

Posted By Beathan at 1:10 PM - Tue Dec 11 2018

Curious what you mean by this? If you meant CoE will be controlling what we can build via the Architecture tool, then I guess you would be correct. But if you meant that players cannot design and build their own custom buildings then I'd like to know where you got this idea?

I think that the commitment to immersion will greatly limit the customization options in the architecture tool. Maybe it won't -- but I definitely expect that SBS will either have a very limited architecture tool or a build approval and veto process.

You will be limited in materials, but I have no idea why you think they will restrict you in architecture. Maybe in dimensions, or unstable structure, but nothing more.