Minor Cities and Territories.

[Xoel]

In Reign of Olympia, much of the focus of the game will be on the struggle between Athenai and her Delian League, against Lakidaemon and the Pelepponesian League. However, Greece at the time was packed with many smaller poleis that weren't noteworthy, and some of these occupied fairly strategic positions, such as Megara, across the Isthmus from Korinthos. Many of these smaller poleis suffered tremendously because of the war, as each side wanted to pull these minor cities under their banner. Usually, the polis in question would refuse (as there was no benefit to joining the Leagues, and both Leagues taxed / forced tribute from their minor members to keep their empires running). The offerer would then besiege the city, which would ask the other side for assistance, and either way, faced imposed taxes and the like.

Basically, in Reign of Olympia, I want to include several small towns and their surrounding territories as game zones. Through events, players will be mustered into armies and a territory will be contested over the course of the event, culminating in a battle to decide who takes the polis as their own. I'll make some "banner" and "flag" items for each major polis, and these will be planted around the city to show it's new allegiance. Some NPCs will also change as necessary (Athenai would often wipe a city clean after capture and then place Athenian settlers there).

[Xoel]

The game design theory I've begun applying to reign of Olympia will have a massive effect on this portion of the game. I intend to make these areas as places that players will want to 'control', not only for their respective poleis, but also for their own player-factions. To do this, the following is proposed:

Each of these areas will have a resource. The zone for the resource will be PvP, encouraging players to work together to ensure they are protected whilst mining/hunting/farming.

I am also looking at ways within the PlaneShift engine that player factions could "take control" of a smaller city or village, and how this could be contested. Some of this may fall to community-driven standards and etiquitte as I am unsure if the PlaneShift engine will even do polis-on-polis (race on race) combat.

I may even work the minor poleis that have walls as "guildhouse" like maps with resources within, and then instigate a "challenge" system where player factions can challenge each other, declining the challenge leads to a siege where the guild has X amount of time (differs from polis to polis) to declare a counter-attack (something like 24 hours notice must be given OOCly so that both sides can prepare and gather members as they would in a real situation).

The two groups commence battle and the winning guild takes control. Getting out of Hades will take much longer in Reign of Olympia than in PlaneShift, so both player factions will be severely weakened and the foothold is not secure for a few days. The RMs or GMs will facilitate handing over the keys to the gate and palace.

Just a thought dump.