Hi there! I’m loving early access and all of the additions!
An idea that I had would be to have city ordinances available to turn on and off in the town centre building. These would be orders that would shift the villagers prioritization of tasks. They could also impact happiness levels (which is a mechanic that I think could have some great visualization in the game).
Some examples of ordinances could be:
- Food rationing: if I’m trying to weather through some low food stocks or starvation, it’d be nice to decrease the amount that villagers stock their shelters with or they could prioritize food about to spoil first than smoked or preserved foods. This would, understandably, lower happiness quite a bit (and could possibly impact birth and migration rates?).
- Emergency shelter: if there is not enough housing, this allows the town centre to be an emergency shelter (similar to using the bell for raiders) to protect villagers from exposure. It would also mean that villagers would stock the town centre with firewood and food too.
- Town Watch: when villagers become intoxicated and that begins to impact production (or soldiers start to get violent), this order could limit the number of drinks served to villagers. This would decrease the happiness/entertainment of either pubs specifically, or of the town overall.
- Founders Festival: This could cost money and luxury goods to have the town celebrate a holiday. This could let villagers interact with things like the festival pole (kids dance around it) and decorations (admire the statues, sit on the benches, play in plazas and parks). Festivals could run for a few months and would increase happiness.
- Mid-Winter Mass: during winter months, villagers visit either the temple or shrines/altars or the graveyard to pay respects to their faith and ancestors. This could lower production (be means of the villagers not working as much) but could increase happiness based on what buildings are available? It would also have some interactivity with the new shrine preachers and with graveyards that aren’t used (aside from burying people).
Even if ordinances aren’t feasible, I think having labourers and villagers who are unable to work, rather than walking aimlessly, interact with decorations would be cool and interesting and make the town feel a bit more ‘alive’. The decorations look lovely but feel a bit empty as no one walks through them or uses them.