This one is a bit too big maybe. Still looking for ways to occupy high level players, let's imagine a settlers/caesar 3/simcity system where you could take care of and devellop your own little town.Although this should take only a little time every day to each player, it'll need many players to contribute to grow the village without working on it 24/7.
Anyway, let's dream about....
That would start by a random encouter, you meet a " distressed group of refugees ". Their village has been destroyed by raiders, they're just arriving from far away, they've been banned from their town....Whatever. You talk to heir leader and convince them that you'll take care of them (may take some charisma/speech). Cuz, yeah, you're gonna take care of them and become the leader of your very own village
1) finding a location
several possibilities here:
-buy one from a trader, like bases
-know one yourself cuz you're a good outdoorsman and you've been roaming this bloody wasteland for fucking ages
-refugees may have one in mind
anyhow, you got them a place. at first it's a few tents around a campfire, visible only by you or people you bring here(when your village reach a certain size, it will be seeable by other people and will then probably be quickly destroyed in a ciryllic sounding bloodbath)
2) your lvl1 village and its stats, basic need: food.
so at the moment it's a lvl 1 village. It got 6 inhabitants, so it consumes 12 units of food per real time day. A unit of food is anything you can eat: fruit, cheese puffs, meat jerky... and it produces, nothing.
you (or another player) must bring them 12 units of food a day so they survive. If everybody is fed properly and there's enough food for tomorow (egg, if all 6 inhabitants have eaten twice and there's 12 units of food left in the leader's inventory) you got one new inhabitant the next day.
3) the village leader
he's gonna be your main interface for managing your village. you'll have dialogues choices about - ressources (you can drop food,tools,weapons and other ressources through this guy) - needs (he'll tell you what the villages needs more right now) -stats (he'll tell you how many inhabitants there is, ressources, etc) - buildings
4) buildings ?!
yeah, you're gonna build stuff. talk to the leader and telll him, hey, i think you guys should build a brahmin pen. he'll say, hell yes, we need 500 woods pieces! so get your axe and go chop him the wood( ask friends for help! this is a community project). once the brahmin pen is build(it takes one full day: one inhabitant without tools provides 10 Building Power Point per day, the brahmin pen costs 60), go get some brahmin, bring them back to the camp, and they'll provide 4 units of food per day per brahmin(milk and cheese).
one day you'll be able to tell him, hey, you guys should build hydroponic farms, and he'll says, yeah sure, bring me 500 junk, 100 metal parts, 30 electronics parts, 30 brahmin dungs,....the list goes on. Or he may as well tell you, right, but we need a science and repair specialist!
5) specialist
your village is gonna need scientish, mechanics, doctors and stuff. you can hire them in cities or enslave them in random encouter or buy them from slavers.
you could also devellop homegrown specialist from books. lots of books.
6) your village growing up
when your village has a brahmin pen and 12 inhabitants, it becomes a lvl2 village! congratz! whats the use? you can build new stuff : guard tower to reduce chances that you lose inhabitants to raiders (random chance everyday), a fence to reduce chances that you lose villages to savage beasts, etc.... a clinic so that you reduce losing guys to diseases (but then you need to staff it with a doctor....). you got the idea.
and instead of tent they got junkmetal huts now! and mud and log houses at the next lvl! etc!
7)your village growing down
Your village may also regress or even disappear. Inhabitants can be lost to npcs hostile humans or animals(not actually happening, a random chance every day, reduced by defensive structure, the village weapons stockpiles, guards), diseases,hunger,internal crime,....a village reduced to 75% or less than its lvl population (e.g. 9 or less for a lvl 2 -12 pop- village) will lose one of its higher lvl building every day by neglect.
If your village is reduced to 3 or less inhabitants, they flee and the village disappear.
8)getting serious
as your village grow, they'll be new stuff: at lvl 3 they build you a little house, lvl 5 there's a low-end trader, etc....but the bigger the village is, the more exposed it is to random raiders and animals: so they'll need more weapons and supplies.
shit get serious at lvl 10, where any player crossing the village spot may now see it and go in. But by then it'll have guards, maybe plasma towers(1000 electronics parts anyone?) and you can also put there your own mercenaries.
Discuss
(edit: days here are real time days. numbers are to be discussed, e.g. the hydroponic farms ressources may be too low but i don't know much about crafting. credits for part of the inspiration to the game "La Horde" and to Izual's project showed on his youtube channel).
