Wonderful @james… do we know when that component will be finished in development and released to the live servers?
I assume this also included an option where people “could” join that main settlement to merge prestige, etc.
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I do not. Hopefully we’ll get it into the next development release before we migrate Testing to Live. But it will not be a hotfix as it’s a change of function rather than a fix of the current function.
I’m not sure about adding an option - it adds complexity to an already complex system.
Fundamentally the purpose of Settlements wasn’t to hoover up disparate collections of beacons, but rather to logically group beacons that had already opted to build near each other. Roads have created an unexpected glitch.
In the past we tried to find a beaconing solution that would allow roads to work without them connecting settlements. Maybe they didn’t need beacons and footfall would keep them from regenerating? But this is open to griefing and regen. Maybe some sort of non-merging beacon. But this adds complexity and is open to misuse. Maybe the game could attempt to ignore roads, which could be detected as 1 plot high and wide beacons, but this then doesn’t stop someone building a 2 plot high beacon to force merge settlements.
Currently my best solution is to adapt the current Settlement merging algorithm to consider past temporal state. If a Beacon is in Settlement A and the Settlement is already big enough then the beacon can’t be considered for adding to Settlement B. Additionally, if a new beacon isn’t in any Settlement but touching 2 Settlements, then it should be merged into the nearest.
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I like the whole idea where this thread is going and agree that reasonably large settlements should not be absorbed by other settlements by default.
Just one additional thought / input:
What if a settlement breaks apart into to equally large pieces by accident.
Maybe because a connected beacon expired or because someone removed a plot by accident while building?
Both already happend to me ingame and i was happy they merged again easily.
So … what would happen in the new system, when both resulting pieces would be big enough to not be considered for merge?
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Good question. See how we need to iterate solutions!!
Really, roads are the problem? Well, roads that span distances and create a web anyways.
Is there any way to differentiate beacons for roads?
Or maybe a new plot tool that makes road plots instead of normal plots! They could be a different colour when viewed with a ‘plot viewing’ item (like plotters or beacons)
They could act differently and maybe they’d be auto-linked to the first settlement plots they touch, so even if they ran alongside new settlements they wouldn’t attach.
(typing whilst thinking, this is what I do :p)
This gets into a couple of different areas regarding plots. Do we need/want different plots for roads or preserving a natural setting around a build? Both as a way to not use up our plots on items that are not part of our home/build and maybe to have a plot type that cannot be used to merge two communities.
I did a quick search and had not seen your prior comments on merging. I appreciate the fact you are implementing a solution.
The thing is with this additional “road plot”, no one is stopping them for using the normal plots when building roads so that they can still absorb settlements it passes through.
Definitely the safest option for merging is via manual interaction/query between two mayors but that’s a little boring for my taste and a little tedious. hehe
To make things more exciting, I kinda like the idea of “if you’re at least 50% of this settlement’s prestige, then you can’t be absorbed by them”. Spices things up so that settlements will have incentives to flourish up their area. But that though brings up more balancing and issues. 
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Well I enjoy to be competitive in games as for me, it’s what makes the game fun and interesting (makes you think harder to be one step ahead the others).
I do agree though that competition is not what this game is aiming for and I’m fine with that. Boundless is my go to game when I just want to relax. One thing I would like to tweak a little to James’ solution is to also allow merging of settlements.
I will agree that there are games where being competitive is a key component to the game. Especially games with an end game goal or PVP as a key feature. They can be fun and I do enjoy those games also. I also agree that that does not seem to be what they are aiming for in Boundless.
I would like the option to merge settlements also, but not sure it is worth a lot of development time if I have to pick and choose functions.
We shall see what the developers come up with.
I believe that this TimFrog character, part of the Critonia city, intentionally ran their road by my place to absorb my town. its a big ugly eye sore by my place and I had to undeed some plots to pull away from them. Is there anything I can do to prevent this person from deeding plots towards my place to prevent them from absorbing my town?
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If they do it again, let me know. I’ll annex Critonia into Greater Berlyn City, and see how they like being annexed without consent.
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Oh yes please! Give them a taste of their own medicine. * grabs popcorn * 
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Can we use pitchforks and torches???
Or just gleam?
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imagine this as a real life street epic fail
Tillweed market was taken before the agreement was made. You are currently safe.
Here is a really elegant way of solving this!
Add an option to beacons (like set master beacon, set home, allow warping into beacon)
to opt in or out of being part of a settlement.
With this simple to use and simple to understand option you can do at least 2 things that solve a lot of settlement merging related problems:
- Exclude single beacons from a settlement
- Place "separator beacons* between settlements that you don’t want to merge. (With this trick you can still have roads that connect the world, without merging everything into one single city)
Reference:
@Stormsoul https://trello.com/c/ZqPZDxy3/60-option-to-opt-out-of-being-consumed-by-a-larger-nearby-settlement
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Just a quick question out of curiosity. How would the opt out of being a part of a settlement effect themed cities? Like the medieval project for chisel knights. If someone got plots in the middle and opted out of being part of the settlement would the city ‘mayor’ have any options in the event the player built outside of the theme?
Granted this may be a dumb question because I have not built anything of interest in a settlement and know next to nothing of the governing policies afforded to the mayor.
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yes the mayor has no control over that if he dont own the plot
i hope making cities guilds can give mayors more control later on
maybe a contract when they hand over plots could fix this
in witch they allow the mayor control to kick them out if needed
under voting off more then 50procent off the city
@Karokendo this is maybe something to begin discussing about .
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Are other people able to plot right next to your plot? Because if they can, this could lead to some big issues. For example, I want to build a little town by myself, or a big build. Someone sees me and goes, “I like what I see. The building looks cool, and I looklike the environment so I’m going to invade and build right where this guys castle wall could be”. You see how this child be a problem? Even if there isn’t a plot, we should get a limit to how close we can plot near another’s base without consent.