After reading through your post and the myriad of emotions on the “Ridiculous Roads” thread, I started thinking about how real world communities and settlements grow … They grow organically, from the center outwards … most definitely not by an excessively long road connecting faraway places so they can be part of the same group of buildings.
So, here’s my take on an idea…
- A player builds their home and finally hit the base prestige requirement to become a “settlement”.
- They now need to craft a settlement charter, marking themselves as the future settlement Mayor.
- This charter needs to be co-signed by 4 (more?) other players, making them co-founders of the new settlement.
- The new Mayor then places their freshly signed charter inside their primary beacon control marking their beacon as a fully-fledged settlement.
- The main focal point for the new settlement is now on the plot which that primary beacon control resides in. This plot now has an “area of influence” (or AOI for short
) associated with it. - As prestige increases, so does the size of the AOI. Every whole plot within the AOI is considered part of the settlement. Any plot partially or wholly outside of the AOI is not considered as part of the settlement. (I would expect the AOI to grow block-by-block and not plot-by-plot).
- Any plots considered wholly within the AOI (not just the Mayor’s build) will be added to the settlement prestige, further adding to and increasing the AOI.
- Plots can still be added outside of the AOI, facilitating roads and outlying buildings etc. but they are not considered part of the settlement until they fall within the AOI. This allows roads to still link places together, but not be part of a settlement (thus negating some players just building roads to absorb other players builds for prestige).
- Other players builds, however, can still be absorbed into a settlement if they fall under the AOI (sorry but at least it would be due to organic growth and not to some excessively long ugly road).
- If the AOI reaches another settlements borders, well, this is where it can get a bit sticky…
- I would say that higher prestige settlements would absorb part of the the smaller settlements border by a percentage of the difference between the two.
- Example: The settlements both share a 10 block overlap on their border. If both settlements had the same prestige, they would each only have 5 blocks (not the full 10).
- If, however, one settlement had 20% more prestige that the other, it would mean they would gain an extra block from the smaller settlement.
- For a settlement that has 100% or more prestige than the first, well that’s a power house settlement growing right there, and you either built too close to one another to start with, or it’s a pretty large city developing!
- This scenario would still allow smaller settlements to try and push back the encroachment of a larger settlement (depending on their size), should they garner enough support from other players to join them.
- If a settlements primary beacon (containing the charter) is absorbed by a larger settlement, then it’s charter is removed and it’s settlement classification is revoked.
- I would say that higher prestige settlements would absorb part of the the smaller settlements border by a percentage of the difference between the two.
If you wanted to take it further, you could also use the “area of influence” as a reservation buffer for the settlement too, so no player could beacon a plot that is wholly within the AOI without them first being added to the settlement citizens list (with organically absorbed players being added to that list automatically).
This for me, solves quite a few of the issues I’ve seen crop up over time - such as…
- Mayors and founders of a settlement being ousted by another player that has racked up more prestige than them.
- It prevents excessively long windy roads being built with the sole purpose of absorbing other players builds.
- It would prevent large settlements on opposites sides of a planet being able to join up with a simple road - making them the same place (i.e. Florida is now also London 'cos I built a road to it).
- Organic growth - settlements would actually have an epicenter.
- Settlements can still be joined together with roads!
Edit: Now that I’ve spurted that out of my brain, I can see a few issues - such as being able to move the charter (or removing it and adding another at a different beacon location, thus allowing your settlement to absorb another more easily).
There’s probably quite a few other cases I’ve not thought about as well, but the idea is there to expand upon or shoot down