To go along with the changes for RPCSS as individual estates not guilds the following changes will be made in the following order.
NPCs (Complete)
The main cities are spawned with NPCs, including vendors. Some of the non-city forts were also spawned with a handful of NPCs. All new estate owners can request a banker and a postman but nothing further at this time.
Guards (Complete)
Estate owners can request that the hexacre around their main fortification be established as a guard zone. This guard zone is then set up for the next restart. Estate owners can request that guard be spawned in this area. At this time there are not rules on how many guards are allowed, but rules might be implemented at some point.
Sextants (In Progress)
Sextants will be used to investigate hexacres on the mainland, establish an estate stone, and set up an RPCSS team. The estate stone will also allow you to evict other players from houses in your land, as well as abandon your land and re-establish your estate elsewhere.
Change March
The march command currently does both "March and Attack". We are separating march into two commands, March, and Attack. This won't mean much to anyone who hasn't played before but is necessary for gameplay.
Allies/Enemies
Players will have the ability to set other estates as either ally or enemy, as well as to choose an alliance (guild). Estates within the chosen alliance will be allies.
Army in game
Armies-at-rest will appear in-game. If the army is inside a populated or fortified hex only the captain will appear as a place holder to indicate where the army is -- he will be non-aggressive. If the army is in a wilderness or arable hex they will be aggressive towards estate enemies and all neutral parties. However, warnings will be issued before they attack so a player character stumbling across the spawn can retreat.
Henchmen
A new skill, called Leadership will be implemented. Leadership can only be trained by raising court level in RPCSS and it does not count against your spec'd skills. The higher your leadership, the more henchmen you will get.
BODs
Bulk order deeds will be implemented. Estate owners will be able to release a selection of bulk order deeds to their estates Quarter Master Vendor. BODs will be obtainable on the Quarter Master by players. Completed BODs will give that estate advantage in combat by improving their initiative.
Harrying
Henchmen will be used to "harry" another player's army. A harried army will not move from its position but its effectiveness will be reduced for that turn.
A massive update as to how RPCSS managed combat with more than two armies has been designed. The current process with multiple armies was a nightmare to plan between players and could take weeks to resolve. The new design will be a great deal more intuitive, a good bit faster, and systematically smarter. This will require a significant amount of testing.
Champ Spawn
Prior discussions of implementing armies at champ spawns have been shelved. Getting them balanced to the player base just didn't pan out, so the concept is on hold.
NPCs (Complete)
The main cities are spawned with NPCs, including vendors. Some of the non-city forts were also spawned with a handful of NPCs. All new estate owners can request a banker and a postman but nothing further at this time.
Guards (Complete)
Estate owners can request that the hexacre around their main fortification be established as a guard zone. This guard zone is then set up for the next restart. Estate owners can request that guard be spawned in this area. At this time there are not rules on how many guards are allowed, but rules might be implemented at some point.
Sextants (In Progress)
Sextants will be used to investigate hexacres on the mainland, establish an estate stone, and set up an RPCSS team. The estate stone will also allow you to evict other players from houses in your land, as well as abandon your land and re-establish your estate elsewhere.
- Move Estate
- Eviction
Change March
The march command currently does both "March and Attack". We are separating march into two commands, March, and Attack. This won't mean much to anyone who hasn't played before but is necessary for gameplay.
Allies/Enemies
Players will have the ability to set other estates as either ally or enemy, as well as to choose an alliance (guild). Estates within the chosen alliance will be allies.
- Alliances - Can declare war, but not ally. (This is how the guild system currently works and we are not going to change it until we have to, lots of stuff to do!)
Army in game
Armies-at-rest will appear in-game. If the army is inside a populated or fortified hex only the captain will appear as a place holder to indicate where the army is -- he will be non-aggressive. If the army is in a wilderness or arable hex they will be aggressive towards estate enemies and all neutral parties. However, warnings will be issued before they attack so a player character stumbling across the spawn can retreat.
- Dye cloak: A selection of colors will be made available for players to choose from. This color will be used to dye the cloaks on soldiers.
Henchmen
A new skill, called Leadership will be implemented. Leadership can only be trained by raising court level in RPCSS and it does not count against your spec'd skills. The higher your leadership, the more henchmen you will get.
- Grimmwold taming: Have Lyrrin check to see if the Grimmwold taming code got moved over to Sanctuary, if not ask her to do so. We'd rather use that system to command henchmen.
BODs
Bulk order deeds will be implemented. Estate owners will be able to release a selection of bulk order deeds to their estates Quarter Master Vendor. BODs will be obtainable on the Quarter Master by players. Completed BODs will give that estate advantage in combat by improving their initiative.
Harrying
Henchmen will be used to "harry" another player's army. A harried army will not move from its position but its effectiveness will be reduced for that turn.
- Attack and defend changes: Currently attack and defend properties are the same for infantry and knights. We will be breaking them out into two properties. Infantry will be better on defense, and Knights better at attack. This should make having infantry useful - which it currently is not.
A massive update as to how RPCSS managed combat with more than two armies has been designed. The current process with multiple armies was a nightmare to plan between players and could take weeks to resolve. The new design will be a great deal more intuitive, a good bit faster, and systematically smarter. This will require a significant amount of testing.
Champ Spawn
Prior discussions of implementing armies at champ spawns have been shelved. Getting them balanced to the player base just didn't pan out, so the concept is on hold.