Bay 12 Games Forum

you play as a single character, rpg style. there aren't any stats, not really; only skills. skill percentages that actually effect how you play as they level up. literally the animations change as you hit 20% markers. a 0% swordsman basically swings it like a stick, 20% is like a beginner sometimes over striking and throwing their shoulders, 40% they have some basic skill and hold the blade tighter and angled, 60% they're semi pro and can perform better ripostes, 80% could be considered masters able to effortlessly block and deflect attacks and use quick strikes, 100% is the grandmasters able to perform amazing combos. it is not easy to get above 60%. it will literally take hours of combat and sparring/training to reach 80% alone.
all npcs that aren't critters or monsters use the same system. its not about pumping numbers, its about training and equipment.
these npcs are all also truly independent. since they use the same system, they need to eat and you'll see them gather berries and fruit and mushrooms to eat and in enemy towns, the npc villagers and soldiers will gather at inns to eat. npc villagers farm inside in the palisades and bring the crops to the inn, where its distributed above.
for gameplay purposes, the npc towns will generate new npc villagers and soldiers depending upon its "food cap", which is a quick summary of the food generated for the day and how much is needed to feed a certain amount of npcs; which fluctuates slightly over time unless something happens.

the map is randomly generated and filled with enemy towns (that are pregenerated and placed randomly in the generated world), bandit camps, monster caves, critter nests and refugee camps. there'll also be ruins and burnt out villages as the enemy towns fight one another for dominance but they're basically caught in a endless struggle with none of these scattered nationstates getting an upper hand; even if the squads they send win the skirmish, they'll raid the farms but then they'll be stopped at the castle walls and die. this will lower the towns "food cap" and stifle the enemy npc generation. the npc villagers will attempt to expand the farms and palisades again but then get raided again; it continues in this cycle unless you intervene, one of the npc lords gets lucky or by random happenstance a monster takes interest.

there is building and you can take a hand in it yourself as well. you can find a nice hill, carve the top off of it and build your home. you can set up a basic farm and sustain yourself without hunting and gathering. farming doesn't take skill, but is very time consuming ala harvest moon without those level benefits, which is why manpower is more important than gold or leveling your skills. in many ways its alot like UnReal World at this stage. but eventually, if you being stockpiling excess food, refugees from the camps or escapees from the enemy towns will find their way to you. hence your home begins it's own "food cap". these refugees start with no skills but are useful for transporting materials and farming, VERY VERY useful things that require no skills but lots of manpower and time, so you'll want these guys. as your home generates more food than current needed npc manpower, you can take one of these peasants with you as a companion. in fact, you can tap the head of any of your npcs and have them follow you and fight. in this way, you can recruit an entire army in time. but. you don't wanna take them all, cuz if you lose too many, your manpower can drop too low, and the food cap will drop and you'll have to put time in there again, starting over from scratch and leaving yourself vulnerable. and with that simple system, you now have consequences that actual medieval lords had to take into account when raising fyrds or levies.

as part of that independent npc system, you can assign your followers to tasks like farming, mining, crafting/smithing, building, manning defense points or working from buildings. you have to do this manually and they'll get into a work/life balance of sleeping, eating and working. and running from enemies unless they're armed. eventually when you make a lords hall, you can build a command table,
 like what you see in game of thrones, where you can command from a birds eye view of the keep. from here its basically like rimworld in 3d, you can construct the keep further from here, you go from a homemade little vikinghall to an actual town and castle. and the area of control from the keep expands as you have more followers there. and also, once you get to this point, you can assign "bosses" who control keeps for you and manage basic tasks, like reassigning workers after raids, recruiting spare idlers for militia duty, and basically keeping the status quo as you left it. alongside "bosses" are "lieutenants" who are basically your permanent companions and subleaders. these guys can be asked to either grab all the idlers to join you, equip them at your blacksmiths, and/or grab everyone. once you reach this point as well, you can leave the "boss" in charge while you go out....and redo the whole thing, making another keep and assigning your new boss there. this is how you'll build your kingdom from the ground up to compete with the giant city states.

this all sounds very complicated but i actually see it being very mechanical. like, in my head, the graphics are minecrafty or voxel turf. an npc that you just assigned as "boss" of "Jimbohome", who has 20 workers about and you only did some basic building, will begin running around and assigning farmers and setting up some VERY basic buildings, like inns and a palisade. pretty soon, you have a modest hold.

the game isn't ment to be wildly automated; your "bosses" will never be able to match the enemy cities. you need to manually build the keeps and assign them there, they'll get it up to snuff and generate some idlers, your "lieutenants" can gather and ready the idlers at each keep, you can order them to a small siege camp you made and that's how you build up an army to assault the enemy. of course,
 the enemy lords will see what you're doing and match you. and if you've made too many holds and gotten too powerful, they will unite against you. better the devil ya know, right? you will have to get personally involved at some stage; either from keepcommand or on the front lines. oh, and those other keeps you build expand your area of control. so you can command your outer forts to expand,
 send your "lieutenants" out to gather the army, build up a force slowly over time, transport food from the holds to feed the army. and then you siege! the enemy lords are held by the same standards as you, so no magically generating 1000 solders just because you're reached their door step past their military camps and bandit holds. they will press everyone they can for the defense and the siege will play out like mount and blade; you can sit there and starve them out (you'll have to transport food to the front and the caravans are very tempting targets for bandits) or you can assault them! build a trebuchet and some ladders; break the gate down and scale the walls! if you try starving them out, when they reach rock bottom (that can take a couple weeks and you're open to being attacked by other lords during this time), they will sally out for a brave final counterassault! this could take the entire cities population, which can number in the 1000s!

however, that works both ways. they will come to you as your "food cap" rises. and they'll use the same tactics as you but they don't have to worry about their caravans getting raided by bandits. thats their only benefit. so you can order your lieutenant to raid their food supplies and force them to retreat.

whew. this would be an epic undertaking but as i imagined it, it's very mechanical and simple. start out exploring, harvesting, crafting some basic gear, find a good location for a city. build a small home and a farm. stockpile some radishes. eventually a peasant that was actually already on the map in a refugee camp will run to your home to offer their service. run up on peasant. tap e to command them, hold e to talk to them. tap e to accept their service. talking to them allows you to denote bosses and lieutenants. tap e again to command them, and point at your farm and hit e again. they'll quickly fashion a basic waterpot and hoe from wood. they begin working the farm. once assigned, they'll generate a bed roll just off the farm. they'll wake, eat, work and sleep. you build them a nice little hut with a cot in it. they'll auto detect the nearest unclaimed bed near the farm and claim that cot. you put a storage crate near the farm and hold e on the box to assign it to the farm. the npc will farm, harvest and dump the produce in the box. congrats, you've manually started your first farmer and started the cycle of lordship.