What are some ideas for gameplay mechanics/content you've had that really stuck and, regardless of the likelihood of our thoughts ever becoming reality, you'd like to share with us?

Over the last few months a candy fantasy mechanic has been wandering through my head and helping me dissuade boredom, so much so that I picked up modding with the ultimate intent of implementing the idea myself. That...is still happening but boy there's a whole lot going on under the hood of this game and the idea has been safely relegated to "not soon" in my head. Nonetheless, it got me curious as to what kinds of things the community believes would improve the game. What kind of people actually like this game, as massive, exhilarating, and uninstallingly frustrating as it is?

Please share some of the thoughts you've had about game mechanics specifically, but content and whatever else, to satisfy my curiosity. I'll share my little concept and a little bit of what I've learned about the game in my pursuit of achieving it.

Endgame Foreign Invasions:

The premise of the mod is that once a specific trigger is reached, be it a single kingdom gaining too much power, enough revolts pop up at once, a certain number of days have passed, etc; a series of neutral "diplomatic" parties will begin to spawn occasionally at one corner of the map and initiate phase 1.

Phase 1 - The diplomats will attempt to travel to the nearest village, town, or castle. Once there they will wait awhile and collect information, and then move to one of the next nearest villages, towns, or castles. They will move slowly and be a small party carrying many valuables, so they will be a hot commodity for bandits or opportunistic lords. Eventually, if they survive their journey (potentially aided by the player via quest), they arrive at one of the capital cities.

Phase 2 - The diplomats will wait for the faction leader to arrive, gathering information from passing lords as they do. If they wait for too long, they will assume an insult and attempt to return to their spawn point, initiating phase 3. If they meet the lord and they get a bad impression, they will also return with an insult. If the lord manages to make a good impression, which will be informed by their already existing opinion from what they've encountered of players, lords, or bandits, they will leave with a positive story, and initiate phase 3b.

Phase 3 - Once a diplomat returns to its spawn point with an insult, it will initiate a raiding campaign. Small parties of mysterious bandits, equipped with culturally unique gear, begin to spawn from the corner of the map. They will raid villages and caravans, attack villagers, and attack very weak lords. Their campaign will last around two weeks, and which point an army of the same unique foreign culture would spawn, initiating phase 4.

3b. In this intentionally difficult scenario to achieve, a small force of largely peasants, guarded by a few unique and elite warriors from the diplomat's unique culture, would spawn on the edge of the map and attempt to make its way to the capital, where it too would await the faction leader. Once there, they would ask to be settled, at which point a new town would spawn in the nearest slot from a predetermined set of fiefs that only appear under these conditions. Instead of forming a new kingdom, they would form a clan and ally themselves to the friendly faction. Eventually they might rebel but that would be on the player. After a period of time phase 1 would trigger again. If they came from the same side, they would represent a new faction of the culture opposed to the settlers.

Phase 4 - Once the grand foreign army spawns, it bee-lines straight for the nearest city, regardless of faction. There, supported by the raiding parties, it besieges and tries to take the city. If unsuccessful, there will be a period of peace until Phase 1 begins again. If successful, it initiates the fifth and final phase.

Phase 5 - At phase 5, the army has taken a city (town, I guess). The army leader founds a new kingdom. I had envisioned reworking the "devastate" option to allow the conqueror to replace the city's culture, but regardless of how its done the city will become the new kingdom's culture. Whatever the case, there would be a new kingdom sporting a chunky army, a horde of ~40 member raiding parties, and a host of unique and powerful units .

I had envisioned legions of Masai warriors and howdah-sporting elephants rampaging across the plains presenting a distinct late-game challenge.

As for what I've learned since picking up modding, the first thing is that it is exceedingly simple in concept. A lot of it boils down to text editing and simply finding the information and placing it correctly. However, there is a lot of information, and there are so many little details here and there that could trip anyone up. It's going to take awhile before I even get the hang of making a change, securing it, and then applying it to the game. Specifically I have found that because the game is so modular and massive, it also requires a monumental amount of leg work. We get to touch almost every little piece of the game, but that means we're also responsible for making sure we don't break it. It's what I ultimately prefer but it is vast and daunting.

Anyway thank you for reading. I'm not sure what this says about me as a player or a person, but I'm curious to see what people think of it and what their own preferred mechanics would be.

submitted by /u/HelpfulPug
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