Economy Based Game Mode - Just Some Thoughts

[Lazydrones]

An idea for an economy based game mode for the game that involves all peaceful regions yet continues to utilize military units so as not to require too much overhaul and drastic changes or make military units completely pointless. However, would require a bit of development in creating production penalty cards or the like but they could act very similar to how said appropriate military units work currently (think similar to Thief's hideout where it removes ## units from player's pool while recruiting units or similar).

Either all regions are peaceful or continue with the mix of peaceful / hostile regions where the hostile regions provide the penalties stacked up for the stage's end boss while the peaceful regions provide bonuses that counteract the end boss. Or simply start making peaceful regions more appealing by changing up the only penalty affect being an increased health pool.

- Instead of "enemy" units there could be a pool of counter production cards or simply
counter production effects that hit the player / current tiles on the board with penalties.
(Think a technology (maybe call it a calamity card or some such) that is drawn that cannot be discarded but instead hits with an immediate or possibly lingering effect)
This might involve penalties to a specific resource tile(s) that is currently adjacent to or affect everything currently on the board - Some could have similar effects to enemy siege camps or wood cutter hut (for example) where they simply transform the tile and hit the associated / connected player's production building(s) with penalties while removing resources from the player's pool of resources. Or affect specific terrain tiles in range / connected to.

Some example counter production cards might be: (just throwing it out there as some random things I'm coming up with on the spot but something typical you'd expect to be a negative effect to an economy / ecosystem)
- Infestation (think rats) - connected fields / plains reduce player resources by ## connected tiles
- Drought - turn all adjacent plains / fields / forest tiles or tiles in range into wasteland tiles
- Insect swarm - turn all plains in range into wasteland
- Wildfire - turn all connected forest tiles into plains and plains to wasteland - for each tile changed this way remove the same ## of resources from player pool
- Flash flood - turn all adjacent tiles to the connected river into river tiles and remove ## from associated resources from player pool
- Mudslide - for each mountain connected to a river remove ## from stone production or gold production and transform to a mountain

Military cards and units continue to build into a pool very similar to the North's "Fury" or the Republic's Population (forget exactly what that one is called)
- For each negative penalty the player is hit with reduces military units or efficiency as a resource - EG: when a natural disaster hits there are generally people to assist with the affects or some such explanation to it
The player's military units may be pooled together to be used in conjunction with an event that occurs at the final stage of the board (maybe they are intended to gather troops for use against an "enemy boss" type of encounter).
Or the units are intended to be used against a fanatic's cult ... who knows

Peaceful regions could also be used in more interesting ways while keeping the player on their toes similar to how stage Final Bosses have very interesting mechanics where they build up to something that happens over a time period - similar to the Dungeon or Basilica - peaceful regions could build to some sort of random effect that may be beneficial for the player or not. Or there are points on the board similar to the Keep or the dungeon where if a building tile or terrain tile is placed on it a negative effect hits said tile(s) in range / connected.

Understanding the game was intended and built to be a mixed bag but there are many playthroughs where I only ever hit the very first "peaceful" region and rarely ever look back. I know this is my choice as a player, obviously I could take more time in peaceful regions if I'm strapped for resources. But I think some of these peaceful regions should and could be more appealing to certain factions like the Duchy or the Tribe.

All in all in my own thoughts:
A peaceful playthrough while providing the player with some varying challenges could be interesting but I understand it would be a wrench in the current design of the game. Or even if this is mixed into the standard game mode to make peaceful regions more meaningful or appealing to players where instead of the only penalty / challenge the player is hit with is an increased "boss" health pool could provide a good variety in playthroughs.
Perhaps even peaceful regions provide players with bonuses alongside the aforementioned boss health pool penalty. Granted there IS a bonus in not having to fight against enemy units ... so ... there is that.
I keep adding to this so I'll stop now otherwise I'll end up writing a 20 page thesis on it.

[Lord_Eol]

Not sure I like all your specific ideas but conceptually I agree in that "peaceful" areas need to be reworked as they simply aren't ever taken by anyone unless forced. The boss hit vs. reward just isn't worth it.

I 100% love your idea of negative terrain cards too as building for those regions.

[Sleepy Mill Studio]

That’s a really interesting idea but at this point, we may as well create a new game to implement this, I feel like bending the systems to fit an economy-based run would only partially fulfill its potential

[Slurp]

i'm also interested in reworked peaceful encounter.
I never go for them, to the point i only discovered today there was different musics depending on which act we play in.
The penalty of giving the final boss bonus troops maybe is too much ?
And having a couple new buildings added to the deck just to annoy us players when in peaceful regions seems fun
It would make them more attractive i feel like

[Lord_Eol]

Yeah even if it's not a full rework into a econ game, peaceful areas need to be reworked somehow to make them a viable option, even if saying something like "peaceful areas get a resource bonus of 3x the amount collected" or "You get a choice of TWO cards, not one, upon completion" ... IDK but something.

[Lazydrones]

I get it.. Likely would take a bit of a rework of how some things work now.
Just some thoughts for anything that "could" be used to make current peaceful regions more meaningful instead of just a penalty(then again, no combat so a plus)

A rework into a full economic run might be a bit of a stretch and i get that.
but if there are any tweaks that could be made to improve current peaceful regions wile making them more competitive (or appealing) for the player's attention - it could go a long way to make it that much better as far as run variety is concerned.

[benmiff]

Agreed that I never pick peaceful regions unless there's no choice.

Maybe peaceful regions should impose a resource tax instead to compensate for the higher resources that are theoretically earnable (similar to what a negative Faith modifier gives you - thematically this would be some kind of road toll?)