City walls before butcher?

[Iron-Banana007]

Really?? Can someone explain to me how city walls are more important than a butcher who takes locally bred sheep and lamb to provide meat for the village?

[Agony_Aunt]

The dev put it to the vote and this is how the Discord community voted.

You have an issue with that, take it up with the Discord community who voted for walls.

Personally i think both choices could have waited until we at least got another source of alcohol. Food is plentiful and has many sources, so a butcher isn't that important.

Walls... well, for those who play with raiders on, i can see them wanting it sooner rather than later. As someone who enjoys more the city building aspect, i can see how i would use walls to make my city more city like.

[Incrediblejimmy]

I doubt butchers played a big part in villages and small towns at the time - farmers would probably do it themselves, livestock numbers where rather low, refridgeration wasn't a thing yet, and hunting was often exclusive to the nobility...
I would assume that a butcher as its own shop was something only found in larger settlements, and not an essential component of a medieval village

[Didz]

They aren't important at all. In fact, if and when we do get city walls I can guarantee that the immediate consequence will be crying that there are no catapults to knock them down again. That's exactly what happened with 'Going Medieval'.

[Agony_Aunt]

Originally posted by Didz:

They aren't important at all. In fact, if and when we do get city walls I can guarantee that the immediate consequence will be crying that there are no catapults to knock them down again. That's exactly what happened with 'Going Medieval'.

As I recall from a comment on reddit from Greg, he was leery of doing walls because that would mean adding siege weapons as well, but he wasn't ready to do that.

Either he decided to walls without siege due to the voting anyway, or he's going to add siege to make it worth doing.

Adding walls without siege is going to make towns effectively invulnerable.

[9erRed]

Greetings,

Yes, Greg was also surprised about the walls.
his comment was
"what you thought the walls brought a siege system??"

- The majority of those voting for the walls were looking for that Medieval looking Town image of a walled village or Town. Without considerations for how it will impact the game.
- Pretty pictures. (In my Opinion, I did not agree with it)

Now the Professional Butuchers were a completly different beast from local villagers or Towns folk just slaughtering there meat source. They had specialised tools and the knowledge of various meat cuts. Getting the most from any animal coming to there shop.

- During this time period the Butchers (and later barbers) also served as a semi local doctors. with having years of experience with internal anatomy of animals and wounds from humans. So, not just for meat processing.
- Professional Butchers were one of the oldest trades to form Guilds.
- The professional Butcher should also bring in new forms of food, Sheep, pheasant, and the occasional cattle.

Historically the Butchers shop was not allowed within the village or Town, The smells were a bit too much for most and required this building to be placed just outside, "downwind" and downstream.
- This element should also be tied to the new Salthouse item for the game. (it's in the game code just not developed yet)

[Didz]

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

Originally posted by Didz:

They aren't important at all. In fact, if and when we do get city walls I can guarantee that the immediate consequence will be crying that there are no catapults to knock them down again. That's exactly what happened with 'Going Medieval'.

As I recall from a comment on reddit from Greg, he was leery of doing walls because that would mean adding siege weapons as well, but he wasn't ready to do that.

Either he decided to walls without siege due to the voting anyway, or he's going to add siege to make it worth doing.

Adding walls without siege is going to make towns effectively invulnerable.

Greg won;t get away with doing walls without implementing full siege mechanic's, because that will be the obvious next level whinge from those trying to turn this game into Medieval Totalwar.

[Agony_Aunt]

Originally posted by 9erRed:

Greetings,

Yes, Greg was also surprised about the walls.
his comment was
"what you thought the walls brought a siege system??"

- The majority of those voting for the walls were looking for that Medieval looking Town image of a walled village or Town. Without considerations for how it will impact the game.
- Pretty pictures. (In my Opinion, I did not agree with it)

Now the Professional Butuchers were a completly different beast from local villagers or Towns folk just slaughtering there meat source. They had specialised tools and the knowledge of various meat cuts. Getting the most from any animal coming to there shop.

- During this time period the Butchers (and later barbers) also served as a semi local doctors. with having years of experience with internal anatomy of animals and wounds from humans. So, not just for meat processing.
- Professional Butchers were one of the oldest trades to form Guilds.
- The professional Butcher should also bring in new forms of food, Sheep, pheasant, and the occasional cattle.

Historically the Butchers shop was not allowed within the village or Town, The smells were a bit too much for most and required this building to be placed just outside, "downwind" and downstream.
- This element should also be tied to the new Salthouse item for the game. (it's in the game code just not developed yet)

I like the idea of butchers also being doctors, helping your sick people recover quicker.

[CatPerson]

I don't care about either walls, possible siege mechanics, or more food sources (I don't mind more food sources, but not something high on my list).

I would care about expanding that perk tree, implementing more actual gameplay features that equal more replay choices/paths.

In terms of walls being invulnerable tho - one could make them have hit points at least, and needing repair, so they are not .... invulnerable, nor cost nothing to maintain. Thus ppl would have their pretty walled aesthetic screenshots but not have an immune to attack township.

[Agony_Aunt]

Originally posted by CatPerson:

I don't care about either walls, possible siege mechanics, or more food sources (I don't mind more food sources, but not something high on my list).

I would care about expanding that perk tree, implementing more actual gameplay features that equal more replay choices/paths.

In terms of walls being invulnerable tho - one could make them have hit points at least, and needing repair, so they are not .... invulnerable, nor cost nothing to maintain. Thus ppl would have their pretty walled aesthetic screenshots but not have an immune to attack township.

Hit points are a fantasy trope. On the one hand we have people screaming for historical accuracy while on the other hand we all want a fun and enjoyable game.

Imagine, someone trying to take down a wall with a sword or azxe or polearm. How long would that take?

I'd argue more time than they have before they are killed by defending units. That's why siege was so important to taking out settlements with walls.

[Saxon]

Food is already very easy to (over)produce. Walls will make me give raiders another shot. I hate having them disabled. But it's just too annoying having them pop up at the edge of the map without any way to slow their movements.

[CatPerson]

Originally posted by Agony_Aunt:

Hit points are a fantasy trope. On the one hand we have people screaming for historical accuracy while on the other hand we all want a fun and enjoyable game.

Imagine, someone trying to take down a wall with a sword or azxe or polearm. How long would that take?

I'd argue more time than they have before they are killed by defending units. That's why siege was so important to taking out settlements with walls.

So? How else are you going to represent it in a video game? Even if you have siege equipment etc, they have to damage the walls to make them go down. In coding terms, this would = hitpoints/max damage a wall can take.

People who overly nitpick about realism (I am not referring to Agony-Aunt or anyone specifically, just generalising) are often the same ones who are first to also complain if that realism = "can't carry enough 300 metric tons on my chr's person" or "why does this or that take 40 real minutes to finish" - eg, when it's not convenient.

Historical accuracy is great and all, to a point - but unless one is making a pure no win/lose condition sim engine, gameplay eventually has to come to the front.

Also, if he doesn't want/doesn't intend to implement siege or other things to go with walls, he could simply make the walls be purely decorative - where they do not impede either your armies or enemy armies - they are just pretty. Would it be magical everyone could just walk through them? Sure. But you'd still get the pretty. *shrug*

[Didz]

Originally posted by CatPerson:

I don't care about either walls, possible siege mechanics, or more food sources (I don't mind more food sources, but not something high on my list).

I would care about expanding that perk tree, implementing more actual gameplay features that equal more replay choices/paths.

In terms of walls being invulnerable tho - one could make them have hit points at least, and needing repair, so they are not .... invulnerable, nor cost nothing to maintain. Thus ppl would have their pretty walled aesthetic screenshots but not have an immune to attack township.

I agree it's annoying that one cannot earn enough Development Points to unlock all the perks one needs for a Region and that so many more perks are still unavailable.

[zallo03]

Originally posted by Incrediblejimmy:

I doubt butchers played a big part in villages and small towns at the time - farmers would probably do it themselves, livestock numbers where rather low, refridgeration wasn't a thing yet, and hunting was often exclusive to the nobility...
I would assume that a butcher as its own shop was something only found in larger settlements, and not an essential component of a medieval village

Kinda like how the communal ovens serve our village well while it's small but if you're producing a lot of bread you'll want the bakery.

[Agony_Aunt]

Originally posted by Didz:

Originally posted by CatPerson:

I don't care about either walls, possible siege mechanics, or more food sources (I don't mind more food sources, but not something high on my list).

I would care about expanding that perk tree, implementing more actual gameplay features that equal more replay choices/paths.

In terms of walls being invulnerable tho - one could make them have hit points at least, and needing repair, so they are not .... invulnerable, nor cost nothing to maintain. Thus ppl would have their pretty walled aesthetic screenshots but not have an immune to attack township.

I agree it's annoying that one cannot earn enough Development Points to unlock all the perks one needs for a Region and that so many more perks are still unavailable.

You can make a successful large region without spending a single development point.

[Incrediblejimmy]

Originally posted by zallo03:

Originally posted by Incrediblejimmy:

I doubt butchers played a big part in villages and small towns at the time - farmers would probably do it themselves, livestock numbers where rather low, refridgeration wasn't a thing yet, and hunting was often exclusive to the nobility...
I would assume that a butcher as its own shop was something only found in larger settlements, and not an essential component of a medieval village

Kinda like how the communal ovens serve our village well while it's small but if you're producing a lot of bread you'll want the bakery.

Well yeah, my point is more that butchers wouldn't necessarily have been as common as most medieval/medieval-style city builders make people think, and its understandable for a game that strives to be more realistic that - for the dev - their implementation doesn't have the high priority some people might expect...