N/A

Agreed!

Seems like the bandit mechanism can be handled by reducing income via trade routes (as in, they're attacking the caravans and stealing some). This is already closely through reducing income, so it seems like an unnecessary mechanic. I understand the intent to make it important to watch the homefront, but I'm sure it detracts from the fun of the game, too. And the AI would also need to handle that new threat, too. LE is already spread out and long enough we don't need minor threats taking away the fun!

@ Frogboy

Please don't waste the code.

Perhaps create an event out of it? When the even triggers, it looks at all cities and if unrest meets threshold, then bandits attack.

I suppose it would be most similar to the skeleton spawning event. However, instead of many groups randomly spawning, the X number of bandits would collect in only a few (if any) locations where the unrest requirements are met.

There's a LOT more monsters already in LH 1.7 but they don't spawn inside your territory. They originate due to the wild land players.  

Has there been consideration in having 'expanding wildlands'(1 radius every X turns) to add additional late game pressure on the player?

With the increase of wildland monsters, how does the AI handle against them? Will the AI be competitive in the late game?

I'd say unrest as implemented is pretty unfun.   Maybe necessary to prevent overexpansion, but still unfun.

Makes it where there is little point in taking cities instead of razing them

There are ways to mitigate it so I don't think it's all that unfun. You don't want the player having dozens of cities and a hard cap would be even more unfun.

I'd love to find a better unrest system for 4x games.

To throw out an idea:

Expand my idea from earlier. (#15 @ https://forums.elementalgame.com/452034/page/1/#3443809). In addition to the X buildings allowed per level, tack on Y% unrest per building. The larger your city becomes, the higher the unrest becomes, and the more care you need to take in planning out your city design and the more focus you need on buildings that provide rest bonuses. Add to that a tax modifier that acts as a multiplier instead of a summation, and your cities become creative works of art; a gentle balance of functionality, practicality, and sense.

Personally I think it is currently workable the way it is. Build a Onyx throne and your unrest goes down by -30% Prison for other -10%.

Or just build those improvements which decrease all unrest to zero in all cities. They're level 2 upgrades if I remember right, I seen an AI build one of those once.

Two related ideas:

1. Make expansion technology dependent. You can only maintain X cities until you research something to increase the number by X.

2. Reading about Endless Legend. If you raze a city, it causes the roads to it to disappear after a few turns due to decay. Cool mechanism for penalizing Razing.

 Warlock went there, and it was pretty fun. Better than pressure to city spam + repeat same builld queue over snd over. It tied nicely with other mechanics as well in that game.

(One thing it got wrong is free cities costing no unrest at all, resulting in yet more city spam + hexagonal close packing minigame...would have preferred them costing 0.1 unrest or sthg)

How precisely didi you implement this? I was looking forward to bandits as a feature that would make unrest even more interesting and vital...

Also, it would represent a natural buffer vs. single stack of doom blitzkrieg, i.e. you conquer enemy city, almost inevitably rebels spawn, you cant proceed unless cleaning them or leaving strong garrison behind.

I'm sad to hear bandits spawning was axed, though I could see how it would be difficult to implement. If the bandits are too easy, then there is no drama to them spawning, it's just a chore to "manage" them with a few units. If the bandits are too strong, then they raze your city and salt the earth? Well there goes my favorite conclave...If they are strong, but don't attack cities, it's still not that exciting, because they aren't a real threat. You can let them trash a mine or two while you bring your stack of doom over. 

 That said, I'd really like to see something like this implemented, so here a few suggestions for people to kick around:

• Make it optional. Have a quest that hero can pick up in a city to "Quell rebellion" which spawns rebels or starts the battle immediately. If the hero wins, then unrest is lowered for x turns during which you can't pick up the quest in that city. The rebels should spawn units with equipment/army size & group size based on your empires capabilities or scaled in such a way that you can't steam roll them easily.
• If you empire or any x cities has high unrest the rebels might send an assassin after your leader. This could be a 1 on 1 fight similar to the bacco encounter. I think it should lean towards being more rare and a harder fight to make it more exciting and less of a chore. Some "rumors of plots" might precede it by 1 - 3 turns.
• Rather than "bandits" If you empire or any x cities has high unrest the rebels will start organizing a revolt. Again this should lean towards being more rare and a harder fight to make it more exciting and less of a chore and again I think some some "rumors of plots" might precede it by 1 - 3 turns. Once it starts a rather large army or empire wide spawning of rebels would be good, similar to the undead. The logical flaw here would be that if they take a city the rebels raze it? Or could they create a "wildlands city"

That's brilliant! ugh. I wish we had thought of item #1.

Or make them dependent on heroes. Where to found a new city you need a hero to appoint "Lord" and each hero can only be Lord of one or maybe two cities. Similar to a feudal system's fiefdoms.  

I actually really like the lord system idea.  It fits the original idea for the game doesn't it.

Sarcasm or compliment? Hopefully a compliment as I was just trying to help. I love talking through ideas and options and want to make SD products better. I've been an SD customer for a long time and plan on being, but if that's sarcasm it seems unnecessarily harsh...

I most certainly did not detect any sarcasm. From the looks of it, had you mentioned this during beta of the game, Frogboy would have implemented it as a mechanic.

It looks like genuine appreciation....though only Karma would tell for sure.

I doubt it's sarcasm too, tho given he has Derek and Soren you'd imagine they would have thought about that already...

Anyway not to harp on it but that's another thing Warlock had, and got right IMO. Just add nerve stapling and you're good to go

That first one seems unfun.

The second one, just build a new city or an outpost to prevent that.

yes!  i thought about trying to mod this a long time ago.  remove pioneers and just let each champion found 1 city (like sovereigns).  incorporate the champions name into the city name to enhance the story.

Number one.... I kinda already seen it before through civ 4 in different form , economy maintenance based expansion. As long as you keep your economy in good shape and growing you can keep on expanding although newly founded city is a burden on your economy until it grew to some degree to the point where it makes you money then you can plant another city again xD.You also had options to form an colony but I never exercised that power because i'm a dictator. Plus AI sucks at fighting anyways.

One drawback to the expansion technology is the capture cities problem. As I capture cities am I required to raze the cities if the number of cities is larger than the number of cities that I can maintain? Not that I don't mind that you can only have X cities until you research expansion techs. I don't claim to have a good answer to address this issue, but I'm curious what situation would be good for this situation.

You can only keep conquered cities if you have a hero who is a commander (base benefit of the class) or a warrior that has a new "Conqueror" trait selected at level-up in the conquering stack.  Once the city is conquered, the army and hero are immobilized in that city for 2 turns per level of the city + 2 more turns if the capital.

If you conquer a city without an available hero with a corresponding ability it burns itself to the ground (razes).

I am also in favor of linking city building to the fame/hero mechanic.  I would make it where you could choose either of the two heroes or a free pioneer unit instead.