The Iron Oath - Overworld Simulation

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A new update about The Iron Oath explains how the overworld simulation affects houses, events, encounters and missions.

Overworld Simulation: Houses, Events, Encounters and Missions

Hey folks! Today we're going to dig into the overworld simulation aspect, touching on how ruling houses operate, events, encounters, and missions.

Each region within the game's world is comprised of a Royal House and a few Major Houses. Royal Houses rule over the entire region in which they are situated. They hold ownership of the region's capital city and sometimes other cities as well. The Major Houses are Vassals of the Royal House. If the Royal House ever gets involved in a war or other situation where assistance is required, the vassals are obliged to answer their King or Queen's call. Major Houses can also rule and own multiple cities, and it's even possible for them to have a greater wealth and military strength than that of their liege.

Each ruling House has their own set of goals and principles(or ethos). Their ethos can differ slightly from generation to generation, but extreme changes in a short time period are unlikely(like going from peaceful to warmongering over a span of a few years). Each city also its own ethos, which at the beginning will be quite similar to that of others within the region(since they generally are the same race, have the same practices etc). A city's ethos is less subject to change over time, but it will slowly be influenced by the ethos of its ruler. Each city has some stats that are tracked that help drive the logic of its ruling House:

Wealth: Used to buy resources, hire mercenaries and fund their army Military Strength: Having a strong military means they are less likely to shy away from conflict Resources: Are they able to feed citizens? Do they need to trade for wood or stone? Each region has some predetermined resource nodes, but new ones will also appear during the course of the game. Population Happiness: How happy are the citizens with their ruler

The other stat tracked would be each rulers standing with one another and other factions of the world. Those with a high standing would be allies, those with low would be enemies. Generally, a vassal will be in good standing with their Liege, but it's possible for it to drop low enough that they may choose to rebel against him or her.

The ethos and stats will all determine how a ruler reacts to different situations and world events that occur. Events occur all the time in the game and help make each playthrough unique. A single event can vary in complexity and impact on the world. They can be either triggered upon certain criteria being met, or completely random. Some examples of random events are:

• Plagues
• Droughts
• Floods
• New resource nodes
• Blighted attacks
• Void breaches(the release of spirits & demons into the world).

Some conditional events would be:

A bandit raid on a city, with the condition being that the city has a low military presence. A city's military numbers could be lowered for various reasons, such as conflict or simply a lack of funds.
Revolt of a city, if citizen happiness remains low for a long period of time, the citizens may trigger a revolt and regime change.
A vassal may rebel against his King or Queen if their ethos' greatly differ and their relationship weakens. Other factors that are taken into account would be the ruler's ambition and military strength that he or she commands.

Both types of events would have a type of mission or encounter generated alongside each, and you could come across them providing you're in the right region(for an encounter) or hub(for a mission). Depending on the mission or encounter, you'll have the chance to influence the world in varying degrees, either by completing it or by choosing not to.

Let's say come spring time in a region, there's an event that triggers, stating that the wolf population in the region is getting out of hand this year. This would generate a few missions and possible encounters specific to that event. While traveling in the region you may get an encounter that describes a group of travelers fending off a pack of wolves. You can choose to assist them or ignore their plight, either choice would affect your reputation and could have an impact on your game either immediately or down the line(especially if it is eventually revealed that the travelers were noteworthy citizens).

A variety of quests would be generated from this event as well. A city may issue a bounty on wolf heads, a hunter may have tried to tackle the problem himself and has gone missing, or you can undertake a mission to drive the wolves out of their nearby den. Without your assistance, the problem may escalate, and could even require a city to divert some of their military force to resolve the situation.

One of the biggest ways to influence the world would be to assassinate a ruler(these types of missions would obviously be incredibly difficult). An ally of yours may send you a letter, asking for your help in his plot to kill his liege who he has grown to dislike. A few choices present themselves to you right away:

• You can refuse his request and he may drop his plot, or attempt it anyway
• You can reveal his scheme. Likely earning yourself a reward from the liege, but also sentencing your ally to death and potentially having all of his House's holdings revoked.
• You can accept the mission and attempt to complete it.

If you accept and manage to complete the mission, the liege will be replaced by their heir. If they are without an heir, the most well-liked Major House of that region will ascend to the throne. However if there is any amount of dislike between the Houses, a war for the throne is likely to occur.

This type of outcome would also spawn some more missions for you, and you could choose a side and help them win the crown by completing various tasks: capturing a watchtower, disrupting enemy supply lines, or fending off some invaders from within a structure. As of now, you won't be able to fully partake in a large scale battle(though it's something we'd like to do eventually, but probably not until after release), your assistance would instead come through the completion of various small scale skirmishes that assist the war-effort of your ally.

That about covers each aspect, hopefully you like the direction and ideas we have for the game's world. Our next content update will talk a bit more about the world itself: some lore, regions, factions, and some information on the void and its inhabitants. As mentioned last time, we're planning to send out the surveys this Saturday, however we need the Kickstarter funds to come through first so we can make our payment to BackerKit. Hopefully it comes through today or tomorrow, if not the survey will likely be delayed until next week.​