The Progress of V0.4 - The Influence System (Patreon)

Greetings Conquerors!

It has been some time since my last update here. I apologize for that. I've entered into a new career and have had to spend more time on that, which takes out a lot of time for me to work on the mod and keep you all updated.

However, this does not mean that I've taken a break from the mod. In fact, my daily schedule consists of waking up at 4 or 5 in the morning and working on the mod for a few hours before I go to work at 8. I've also taken this next week off work to get as much done with the mod as I can. Most every day I've worked on this mod and I've invested way too much time to stop now.

Anyway I'm sure you're all wondering what the current progress of the mod is. In my initial post about V0.4, I talked about the main idea behind v0.4 would be diplomacy. After working on this, it started to make me realize what "Diplomacy" actually means. In simple terms, it's when two sides have their own wants/needs that the other side can provide. In the current version the main diplomacy feature is the peace negotiations in which the "want" of both sides is peace. When negotiating with other Jarls, I needed to determine what they would want.

Now the wants of a Jarl are pretty simple: a prosperous city and (for some) a happy people. But how could the player negotiating with the Jarl possibly lead to either of those things? Why should the Jarl want to join the player's faction if their city seems to be running fine on its own without the player?

A lot of these questions popped up and it eventually led me to a realization. The current city management system is simply not good enough to incorporate the diplomatic features that I want to add in this update. Therefore, a large amount of the time I've spent these past few months were to enact major changes to city management to pave the way for future diplomatic features to incorporate these elements. I'll go over one of these changes in this post:

The Influence System

This is effectively a reworked version of the Loyalty system from V0.2, however it provides much more depth. Influence is like a currency that can be gained or lost with specific groups in a city depending on the interactions you or the city's Jarl has with them.

Firstly, "Loyalty" is now replaced with "Stability", in which the stability of a city is determined by the crime rates, unemployment rates, food, and overall well-being of the city. If stability gets too low, rebellious actions will start to take place.

Secondly, the population of each city now consists of four groups:

- The Commoners:

-- These make up the bulk of the population. They are the typically workers, beggars, and lower class citizens that you see as you tour the streets of the city. Their wants consist of having enough gold to pay for necessities, having the same privileges as the nobility, and ensuring they are being represented in the decisions their Jarl makes. The player can raise influence with them by doing missions for them, donating to the poor, hiring public speakers to speak positively about the player, or convincing the Jarl to pass a law that benefits them. If the player controls the city then the influence can also be gained through passing laws that benefit them, organizing public festivals, and parades. When your influence is high enough with them you will be able to start a coup, in order to gain control of the city without use of an army. If the stability of the city is too low and the Jarl has low influence with the Commoners, they will start to strike until you give them what they want, halting a large amount of resource production. For players who want to be a "man of the people" raising influence with this group is what you'll want to do.

- The Nobility:

-- These are the upper-class of society, the ones that most of the commoners work for. They are the ones that own the buildings that produce resources, pay the commoners' wages, and sell them the food they acquire through resource production or trade. Their wants consist of building up their wealth, maintaining the privileges they have over the commoners, and ensuring they have a hand in the operations of the city. The player can raise influence with them by attending feasts and flattering/intimidating/bribing them during it or by marrying a member of the nobility in that city. If the player controls the city, then the influence can also be gained by passing laws favorable to them and organizing the feasts. Marrying a member of the nobility causes the player to join that noble's family, meaning the player would be able to arrange marriages between their new family and another family they want to gain influence with. A higher influence with them causes them to donate more to your government through tributes as well as makes it easier to marry them. The difficulty of getting them to marry you is also based on how "famous" you are. After all, who wouldn't want to marry the Dragonborn, leader of the Companions, the Archmage of the College of Winterhold, etc. If the stability of the city is low and the Jarl has low influence with the Nobility, they will plot to try to remove that Jarl from power one way or another.

- The Guards:

-- Pretty self-explanatory what this group is. It can be pretty useful to have the guards in your back pocket, especially when you need them to overlook a crime or have someone arrested. The player can raise influence with them by performing tasks for them (i.e. patrolling) and donating to their funds. When the player controls the city, they can pass laws that help make their job easier such as increasing the amount of authority they have or improving their funding.

- The Jarl:

-- Finally, the Jarl is the person that tries to figure out a balance to keep the above groups happy. The player can raise influence with the Jarl by doing missions for them, becoming their Thane, being a major trading partner with their city, attending their feasts, and much more. Now, this adds a whole new element when you start your faction and start appointing Jarls. Those Jarls will now have wants that you need to make sure you are providing for in order to keep your influence with the Jarl in check. If your influence with a Jarl starts to get too low for one of your cities, that Jarl will start to have rebellious ideas. This reintroduces the rebellion system in a different way. If your influence with the Commoners of the city is also low, the Jarl will rebel with a large army. If your influence with the Nobility is also low, that large army will be more well-equipped. However, if the Commoners of the city have high influence with you during the rebellion, the rebel army will be small but well-equipped if the nobles are still on the Jarl's side.

This influence system is the main idea on what this update will revolve around. You as the player will need to decide what groups you want to influence in order to further progress your goals.

This system is the main idea that this update revolves around. There is still a load of other things I've done but I'll save those for future posts. Thank you all for continuing to support me through all of this time!