I looked a bit but wasn't able to find anything that brought this up, so I apologize if this was talked about before.
Forming Civilizations:
The idea I have is that you should be able to make a choice in the matter of when starting a fortress to be able to choose to form a random group of dwarfs from any available dwarf Civilizations or groups (maybe allowing any race to join). If that is to much, maybe at least being able to break off from a civilization and start your own by proclaiming a king from your own fortress when it grows large enough.
This would add difficulty possibly by making it so you shouldn't receive a constant flow of migrants all the time or even many caravans since why would they go to a place that has nothing really going for it while there are better places to live and trade at.
Migrants should only choose your new civilization if they believe that it would give them a great opportunity for wealth, they hate their own civilization enough that they choose to escape to a possibly better place, or maybe criminals that are trying to dodge their civilizations wrath and start a new life (you would get a choice if you want them to join or not as well). That could be the same for civilizations of other races as well, but it would have a lower chance to occur. For caravans, maybe make it so a few places know of you starting out on your own and being willing to trade, while making you reach out to other civilizations to form trade pacts if needed.
This should also add more conflict with other civilizations since they could see you as an easy target and make use of trying to get tributes from you (which is one of the ideas I remember seeing to be put in. I just thought it would work well here.) or possibly kill you off if you have something really valuable they would want.
The only real problem I see with this working would be the nobles of your civilization, which I am thinking it starts out without any until you reach some population cap, where the dwarfs would elect from the group of dwarfs that started it and possibly really popular dwarfs. Possibly you could just choose to keep your civilization without a ruling party, but it would be harder to maintain control and keep track of crime as you grew in size.
Being hired for Mercenary Work:
I know this was talked about a bit in other threads, but its an addition to starting your own civilization. When you are starting out small, you should be able to have your civilization get hired to join forces in a battle against another civilization that would build friendships and enemies between you and other groups. They could pay you in giving supplies, money, and/or other kinds of assistance you would need when discussing what you would get in return. You could also be hired for things like espionage and assassinations of important figures as well.
Maybe it could be made so once you reach the size where you elect nobles, you are able to still get hired by civilizations to do this type of work and possibly bigger jobs like annexing a town from someone for them by using only your forces. Of course, if you can be hired to do these things, you should be able to hire others to do this kind of work for you and have it even happen against you.
That is all I can think of for this, so what are your thoughts on it or what do you think would improve it? I know its pretty long, but I was sick and tired of just keeping the idea to myself.
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Topic: Forming your own Civilizations and Mercenary Work and Hiring (Read 1771 times)