Would be interesting if we too were able to send soldiers off to battle against cities and raid them as they raid us. Allows us to gather resources from them, and even if a political system is added, subjugation and a net income of gold as tribute.
Would also be more fun to attack and destroy enemy villagers, obviously starting a war and being at risk of total annihilation but still, would increase the “combat” part of this game by tenfolds and make it far more fun.
AI cities you can send your own merchant to trade to, and even visit (and for the last mentioned idea, raid)
You can also send a diplomat (would require a building + employee with atleast advanced education) to negotiate with another village/settlement for peace (while at war), alliance (certain requirements must be met, allows the construction of an embassy) and decleration of war, as well as trading and aid. This would all be visible on a world map.
I’m sure this idea will become familiar as they are present in many other RTS games, and considering this game isn’t exactly “Banished” since it has combat and warfare in the game already, It would make sense to extend this game to more in-depth into warfare and combat.
I don’t think the intent of the raiders in this game is to “pillage and loot” as much as the intent appears is to disrupt your resource chain, stressing it. You’ll notice that the raiders are attracted to non-valuable destruction such as gates and fences for planting fields and pastures, compost yards, and markets. In the markets they can get some loot, but for the most part the destruction seems more designed around disruption, similar to a fire. Everyone stops what they’re doing in the supply chain, and rushes to extinguish the fire, or hide from the raiders or predators. To me, that seems the intent of the game design.
A good example would be when a fire happens your rat catchers stop what they’re doing and rush to help put out the fire, even if they’re never going to make it to the fire before it’s already put out (begs the question how they even knew there was a fire?). That month or two of disruption causes the population of rats to increase which consume your food and cause greater disease. The farmers also stopped what they’re doing, and that may include leaving perfectly good produce on the fields to rot. All of this is meant to stress your chain. Do you have sufficient resources built in to allow these constant disruptions?
If we were to go your route with raids on other villages, then I wouldn’t want to be raiding an ai village, but YOUR actual village, and I don’t think interplay between players is built into the programming.
I would like the opportunity to find the raiders’ camps, like barbarians in Civilization 6, and then choose to kill them, ignore them, buy them off, or attempt to convert them into my city.
I like this idea. I don’t think raiding other villages, starting wars, aligns with the spirit of the game. And I don’t think raiders are from other villages, some are desperate people banded together to survive, others from the aristocracy to stop our little rebellion. To actively seek out raider’s camps, with options when we find them, makes sense for protection of our village.
To expand, maybe the devs could segregate raiders into two groups: those doing destruction and murder, and those trying to obtain food and resources.
I think if the game have soldiers, that of which is meant to do both offensive and defensive attacks, and theres talks of adding siege engines for raiders (which should also be added for the village) then an extensive warfare would make sense and “aligns” with the intention of the game. Otherwise we may aswell cut off the barracks and soldiers part of the game, as guards are more than enough to defend a village against a raid. Two guards for instance can kill off 6 raiders alone.