Life is Feudal Official Forum

[Seawulf]

Hello. I was brainstorming with myself a bit about the races presented in the game and the overall impact of their presence in it. What occurred to me is that when you start playing your character or group really resembles a more tribal society than a full fledged feudal system. So I had the idea that would be more interesting and RP friendly if your culture progressed along with the technologies you unlock in your skill tree and so on.

My ideas are basicly a transition from a more tribal society and evolving to a ancient culture or early medieval culture, and then finally advancing to a more feudal and advanced culture and tech tree. The cultural impact would involve the architecture, armors and weapons, tools and several other things. Of course the game is about the feudal age, but the sudden transition between tribal to feudal is rather awkward. Going from stone tools to iron ones in matter of days or hours is practical but not very nice immersion wise. Even if you pass through these ancient/early medieval cultures, your ultimate goal is to reach the feudal system, so it stays loyal to the game premise.

Here are a small examples of the idea I had of the 3 basic culture trees, that evolve and branch out to other several archtypes that reflect aesthetically to your progression and perhaps even with different traits in the game mechanics (cheaper ships for Norse, faster horses for Huns, stronger monasteries to Teutons, stronger bows to Britons, large stock space for Latin). Of course the game has its own lore and races, but they are obviously based on real world cultures, so all of those names can be adapted to fit the game's lore. I think it would be a great addition to the game and make it even more enjoyable and RP friendly for those who like immersion.


European

Tier I:
- Tribal Euro
Tier II:
- Celts/Britons, Germanic/Goths/Franks, Greek/Roman, Saxon/Norse
Tier III:
- Scots, British, Holy Roman/Teutons, Frankish/Charlemagne, Spanish/Italians/Latin, Normans/Vikings

Eastern

Tier I:
- Tribal Eastern
Tier II:
- Slavs, Huns, Hindu
Tier III:
- Rus, Carpathians/Cossacks, Magyars, Mongols, Indian

Middle-Eastern

Tier I:
-Tribal Middle-Eastern/African
Tier II:
- Babylonic/Egyptian, Persians, Eastern Roman
Tier III:
- Arabic, Moorish, Turks, Byzantines


Give your opinions and comments here, I'm sure there is much more to adapt and change on these trees I placed here. I'm not an history expert, so I'm sure people can bring much more to it. And I also don't know if anybody had that idea before, so feel free to leave your message here, you are not alone. And I hope the developers see this and consider it and have their own thoughts about it.

[Seawulf]

Still looking for some feedback and input in this. It's an idea I'd like to see maturing into something better so perhaps developpers could take a look.

[glenncariaga]

what would the incentive be to progress down any of the paths?

[trashman]

I see your point about how it is a bit unrealistic to go from working with stone one day and in a few days be working with metals. Perhaps there could be a slower rising subskill of some kind that determines the overall advancement of technology you can produce. Im not sure how the skill would rise, but it would make more sense that someone playing longer would have access to more advanced tech. That would also mean that a group of players would advance faster as they have a larger base of knowledge. Like I said I'm not sure how this would be implemented, but it sounds kinda cool

[Seawulf]

The incentive could be mostly aesthetic or in fact give certain minor bonuses for people in various tasks. Britons and huns craftings bows and hunting, norse with bonuses on fishing, ship building and seafaring, byzantine with bonus health points on constructions, teutons with cheaper holy buildings, franks breed stronger horses, huns build stronger siege weapons, and so on.

[Dranana]

This is not a bad idea and has merit. I think this would also be kind of like a reward for those who have been dedicated and played for so long. I sometimes don't like it when I have played for months on something and some one else has only played a few hours and it seems like they have pretty much caught up to me in almost everything, it make all my hard work seem like it was a waste of time. So yes, I do kind of like this but it would have to be more thought out and implemented in a way that would be favorable to those who have already been playing for a long time.

[Seawulf]

Yeah, the reward for witnessing the advancement of your settlement's culture and power would be much more intense and meaningful as it would be conquered not as quickly. Also the unique look each culture would help make the settlements around the world more diverse, and each one with its minor advantages.

[Seawulf]

Still hoping people add their opinions here to make this idea evolve.

[Darius]

I am missing a major point in your suggestion and that is the conditions how and when you will 'advance' your technology.
What do I need or how long do I have to wait to get access to these 'advanced' technologies?


As a big guild you build an entire city with architecture buildings in 2/3/4 weeks time. (With the current x1 skill multiplier and 600 skillcap) So you don't see yourself as tribal, you see yourself as professional advanced laborers, building another settlement.

So, say we start on a new server today, then in a few hours you would have metal tools, a mine camp, a blacksmith camp, a farm, a treefarm, a herbgarden.
All of that can be done in the first day, so how long would you have to wait and not be able to do anything, because I don't have the technology to build the buildings you need?

[Airco]

when i read the label i was thinking u ment sertain technology depending on your race wich i can relate to in a sertain way (like it was done in "age of empires" ) bhut that aint easy, i would love to see more racial buildings and materials/weapons tho!
would give a nice twitch to the game to require/desire difrent races for every guild/kingdom
or make guilds/kingdoms to go for a specific gameingstyle

[Seawulf]

Darius. The advanced civilizations and technologies would be unlocked just like the game is now, which is by increasing your skill points.

And Airco is totally right about the Age of Empires link. My idea came from it. Civilizations having more distinct buildings, technologies and advantages in their skill trees.

[Willbonney]

Not a big fan of templated designs in sandboxes. Forcing player to do this and that for this and that bonus or to unlock this and that technology. Starts to take sand out of the box. I'd rather see what type of cultures just naturally occur in the game.

Also, your op leaves out the americas (yes, it certainly existed before the europeans "discovered" it), and thus the Mayan, Native Tribes, Aztec and several others. Also you put the Greek culture as Europe, but the Greek Empire in the Feudal era spanned from Macedonia all the way to the borders of India all the way down into Egypt.

I hope you see where I'm going with this. It's difficult as a designer to choose one culture over another, to give certain bonuses for some but not for others. You start getting into the labeling and prejudice stuff you try so hard to steer clear of.

[Seawulf]

I am missing a major point in your suggestion and that is the conditions how and when you will 'advance' your technology.
What do I need or how long do I have to wait to get access to these 'advanced' technologies?


As a big guild you build an entire city with architecture buildings in 2/3/4 weeks time. (With the current x1 skill multiplier and 600 skillcap) So you don't see yourself as tribal, you see yourself as professional advanced laborers, building another settlement.

So, say we start on a new server today, then in a few hours you would have metal tools, a mine camp, a blacksmith camp, a farm, a treefarm, a herbgarden.
All of that can be done in the first day, so how long would you have to wait and not be able to do anything, because I don't have the technology to build the buildings you need?

You would advance to more complex era and features obviously by advancing on the skill tree just like the game already is. What I'm suggesting here is having more ample and specific features for each race/culture.
For example, instead of unlocking just the single type of small-sized house (which currently looks pretty much the average architecture of catholic european cities) or the single type of clothing weapons, you could be able to build the houses and craft wares which are assigned to your culture. Like a clay based and arabic looking house for middle-eastern cultures for examples, or a yurt-looking house for mongol tribes, or a wooden long house for nordic people, etc.
And the more skill you have, the more you'd be able to go deeper on specific cultures, like goths advancing to teutons, romans to italians, huns to tartars.