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Adding town loyalty/governor system to Fel and how it could work..

Velvathos

Lore Keeper
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
Hello, Governor of Skara Brae - Europa here! And I want to get this out of my head because it has been in it for sometime.. I am going to share my ideas on improvements that could be made for each town in UO that has a citizenry/town loyalty..

Currently, the only interaction between governors and their citizens is through the trade deals which costs a governor a good 24 million or so each election, on smaller shards the trade deal is literally only used by a couple people and it is hard on less-populated shards to get people to donate and when you try and get citizens to donate they will complain about it, yet they are the ones getting the free-trade deal cause you as a governor are using your own gold and that's not right.. So, the system is broken.. Trade deals need to be cut WAY DOWN, they're a good idea, but the system is broken and it doesn't cater towards everyone when it should.. I will explain that in a moment.

Diplomacy

Diplomacy is something that should be done with each town, Governors should be able to get together and forge alliances, or start wars (which I will get to) or remain neutral. The township should consist of THREE different aspects.. The citizenry and militia.. Militia would be a heavy PVP similar to factions, in fact, every aspect about it would be just like factions for those who go the militia route, essentially making each town into its own faction, the only difference is there would be no sigils to capture.. Instead we would have our own Chaos/Order system back into play, a Governor could either go Order or Chaos. Order and Chaos mean war: raid an enemy's treasury and steal their town's gold, get access to rewarding dungeons or by conquering the town itself.

City Stone

Tax Rate:
Guard level:
Active Citizens:
Active Militia:
Exiles(Reds):
Town Bonus/Trade Deal:

Yes, to be a citizen of a town you should HAVE to pay taxes, governors should be able to set tax rates, this means you would have to keep your loyalty up and to do that you would have to pay a little bit of gold which would go straight to the treasury, everything we do from buying banners to utilizing the trade deal should cost gold, gold that goes straight back into the treasury. And we and everyone else should be able to know how many active citizens and militia there, who are the citizens of my town? I have no idea, but I would like to find out..

Felucca

Yes, this system would take place in Fel and replace factions entirely.. As governor of Skara Brae in Tram though I should also be governor of Skara Brae in Felucca, there should be no separate governor as I fear there is a lack of players on most shards to be able to cover all those seats.. The militia aspect could very well work in both Trammel and Felucca however.

Treasury

Treasuries of each city would accumulate money based on the tax rate set by the Governor, and the amount of goods purchased in that city by players. Money could not be added to the treasury manually, only by purchasing goods. This way there is more involvement from the players and interaction between the Governors and their citizens and militia..

Treasuries should be able to get broken into by a town that conquers it.. the Stones could be defended by say walls and in rather very well hidden spots and protect by guards. Make it so a tinker would have to blow up the walls to get into the treasury, and militia would have to move in and kill the guards, etc.. A guard level would take place similar to factions, a governor could hire specific guards and control them in certain ways.. And once a treasury is broken into perhaps you would need a certain key that only the governor of that town has. (A treasury key) It would exist under my idea, but a treasury would be very, very difficult to break into and steal from..

Dungeons

How great would it be if every town had its own dungeon where citizens & militia could get extra skill gain in said dungeon we could also have town specific "artifacts" and crafted items that ONLY a citizen of said town could wear from that dungeon and if a town was conquered then the citizens of said town that conquered it would get the benefits from that dungeon.. (Extra skill gain and so forth..)


Towns

Under this system towns would have to have some kind of a boarder limit.. I believe citizens should be able to somehow tie their houses to the city stone and get crafting bonuses when crafting inside their homes and extra skill gains (again, this would make citizens more involved in their towns..) Each town's crafting areas such as forges should feature extra skill gain for its citizens & militia and towns that conquer it..

The Governor of a town can set its towns allegiance. The options are Order, Chaos, or Balance.

Order, Chaos, and Balance militia are flagged as enemies to one another (orange).

Since we wouldn't need sigils anymore I haven't worked out the kinks of how capturing a town would work but I would like to see some kind of "nods" that the militia would need to capture and hold for an X amount of time.. Or something like capture the flag almost.. Something along the lines of capturing something and holding it..

Vendors

An interesting idea.. A benefit for being a citizen? Paying a little bit of gold (that would go to the treasury as it should) to have your own vendor in your town somewhere, essentially creating a town market.

Silver

If the devs did a system like I am suggesting, they could take the opportunity (and they should) to turn silver into a real in game currency.. Similar to how you can gain silver off certain Fel creatures when in a faction, with factions retired under this system, silver has a new purpose and is the only currency accepted for the city treasuries (silver could become the official currency of Felucca, and that is that silver becomes the drop instead of gold and is the only place where you could get it..) and allow players to use it for purchasing good from vendors (Fel Vendors) Either way, silver is a PVP currency, but should still be a real currency in the game.. For example

Let's say you want to change your hair from a hair stylist, usually it costs 500k instead of 500k, it could also cost 12k in silver.. (that's just an example..)


Guards

As with factions, official town guards should be controlled by governors and paid for by the treasury as above, they would protect the treasury along with nods or certain points that could be captured by other towns.. All guards in Felucca should be this way though, fought off by players who come after them.. I am also in favor of a prison system if a guard kills you, taking your character to a jail that you could break out of it, bribe the guards or have your friends bust you out, or serve your time.. Even though this part doesn't have much to do with the governor system I am proposing, it would help change the landscape, I am also in favor of bounties or at least a bounty for every crime one commits in UO and as your commit more crimes, the bounty goes up..

Off Topic: This isn't entirely done yet but I will finish it soon, feel free to add ideas or comments.. I highly believe in order for the governor system to work more functional that there needs to be risk vs reward involved and that interaction between the governors and the citizens MUST happen in order for it to succeed in the future and these are ideas I have come up with.. Also, the devs have always wanted to replace factions with an order/chaos system, it has been discussed and I think this would be the best approach..
 
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BrianFreud

Lore Keeper, Wiki Maker, & Doer of Crazy Things
Professional
Stratics Veteran
Wiki Moderator
UNLEASHED
Campaign Supporter
Wiki Editor
The tax rate thing seems a non-starter. Start charging me any tax in a city under this scheme, and I'll respond by stopping shopping there. Between Ilshenar, the gypsies, Luna, Umbra, Cove, etc, there's plenty of other, un-taxed, NPCs.
 

Dot_Warner

Grand Inquisitor
Governor
Stratics Veteran
Stratics Legend
UNLEASHED
Blackthorn doesn't rule Felucca, Minax does. She has since Lord British and Nystul ran away. (The fiction surrounding the creation of Trammel is just terrible.) So a governor from Trammel is more likely to be killed on sight, rather than be listened to.

While I agree that this system is floundering from a complete lack of direction or tools to DO anything, having the governors play warlord is a bad idea. Several shards went through a period of plot-driven civil strife/war that went along with the introduction of the loyalty system, culminating around the time of Blackthorn's ascension to the throne. On GL, several cities actually ceceeded from Britannia and had to be coaxed back. The notion that Blackthorn would let little internecine conflicts fester would paint him as a terrible ruler...more so than he already appears.

I also don't see the dev's rushing to create nine new dungeons, even small ones, when the antiVirtue revamp is still incomplete.

While PvP could be brought in somehow, making this system heavy with it is a bad idea. Most Trammel people have zero interest in that kind of "risk" outside a relatively controllable guild war, that kinda stuff belongs in the new Virtue vs. Vice in Felucca where players can go crazy with it to their heart's content.

The governor system shouldn't become Factions 3.0.
 
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