Valkrionn
The Hamster King
As I posted a while back in the Download thread, I want to renovate the guilds. I dislike the whole "Get X commerce for Y bonus" mechanic behind them, they can be massively unbalanced with the ability to spread resources, and are on the whole just boring, though I know some people disagree with me there. 
Basically, my idea (up until just about an hour ago) was to have guilds grant access to improved buildings/units. This would be done using some code Ahwaric wrote, allowing buildings to obsolete others (Say, walls obsolete palisades. Build a wall, the palisade is removed and can not be built). Essentially, each guild grants several UU/UB's... Somewhere between a Religion and a Civ in uniqueness. To go with this, I'd have two guilds that oppose each other, granting related (but different) bonuses. Two guilds for engineering, one with Siege and one with Golems, and so on. Having these in the same city cause bad events, and guilds cost maintenance. Headquarters make a comeback.
My NEW idea was spawned by a discussion on #Erebus. It works along the same lines, but expands on it... I'm thinking enough so that it's a very solid mechanic.
There are two basic points.
And here's some further refinement, from our Wave on Guilds...
What do you think? Personally, I like it. As does Grey Fox, which means both C++ modders on the RifE team like it; Most likely will go in as a result. Of course, that has nothing to do with me being the head of the team... Course not.
Feel free to post ideas on what types of guilds we should have.
One last thing... This may seem like a large feature to detail before release, which is counter to the way we've been operating, but the awesome thing is that it's honestly average for the scope of work we've been doing for this patch. So I'm not really giving much away.
Basically, my idea (up until just about an hour ago) was to have guilds grant access to improved buildings/units. This would be done using some code Ahwaric wrote, allowing buildings to obsolete others (Say, walls obsolete palisades. Build a wall, the palisade is removed and can not be built). Essentially, each guild grants several UU/UB's... Somewhere between a Religion and a Civ in uniqueness. To go with this, I'd have two guilds that oppose each other, granting related (but different) bonuses. Two guilds for engineering, one with Siege and one with Golems, and so on. Having these in the same city cause bad events, and guilds cost maintenance. Headquarters make a comeback.
My NEW idea was spawned by a discussion on #Erebus. It works along the same lines, but expands on it... I'm thinking enough so that it's a very solid mechanic.
There are two basic points.
- Merge the Mastery buildings with Guilds. You then have opposing guilds, where one provides new units/buildings, and the other provides the means to improve your units. Makes for an interesting choice, and one that will vary from civ to civ... For example, if you have one guild provide better melee and another provide access to forged equipment (for all unitcombats), the Svarts would tend to go for the second, as melee is pretty useless for them.
- Unfortunately, this system exaggerates an issue inherent in my original idea... While you don't want two opposing guilds in the same city, there's nothing stopping you from having them in different cities. Meaning you could get the units in one city, and the gear in another. This flaw led to my next idea.
- Each guild has a 'GuildClass', which it shares with it's opposing guild(s). For each class, you can only have one active guild at a time; This is controlled on the guild screen. (Think civics, here, with each CivicOption corresponding to a GuildClass... Civics would be Guilds) The active guild provides it's bonuses, whatever they may be. The inactive guild(s) do nothing but cost maintenance. To go with this there WILL be a 'guild-inquisition', which targets inactive guilds. Switching guilds causes anarchy, and causes any buildings requiring that guild to stop granting their bonuses. Shouldn't require them to be rebuilt, but the buildings do nothing for you until their guild is active again.
- You can think of the basic system as a cross between religion and civics... Religion for the effects, civics for the method through which you activate them.
And here's some further refinement, from our Wave on Guilds...
Spoiler :
What do you think? Personally, I like it. As does Grey Fox, which means both C++ modders on the RifE team like it; Most likely will go in as a result. Of course, that has nothing to do with me being the head of the team... Course not.
Feel free to post ideas on what types of guilds we should have.
One last thing... This may seem like a large feature to detail before release, which is counter to the way we've been operating, but the awesome thing is that it's honestly average for the scope of work we've been doing for this patch. So I'm not really giving much away.
cost; 
, 
... Anything that doesn't change depending on entirely unrelated events. If you must have percentage penalties (-10%
, so on), can increase attack, defense, over all strength, withdrawal, movement, whatever. 
