Lair Combat and Henchmen

Avaloria is a world full of bonuses. Bonuses from armor, weapons, structures you build, your lair itself. They come from everywhere. Lately I have begun work on the lair level system and henchmen. These are the last two 'must have' systems before I let people play test. Just about everything else is up, running and working well. This mechanic is going to be one of the many game defining things for Avaloria. Instead of flat out pvp (which may or may not be added, still undecided if I want that or not), the goal of players will be to build up their lair to the point that they attract followers or as they are called in the code: henchmen. Henchmen come in all different shapes and sizes and live inside the lair. You, the player, will have the ability to direct them to do your bidding.

This becomes interesting when you allow said henchmen to go out and wreak havoc upon opposing deity-factions. This mostly goes hand in hand with the Lair leveling system, which in turn ties into the structure building system. Currently as it stands, when you dump gold into building a structure, that gold is also dumped into your lair as currency for leveling. When your lair levels it gains stats, just as the player does when they level which are used when henchmen from opposing lairs come to attack your lair. Depending on the structures you have built, the bonuses given to your lair, and you as a player will differ. Some buildings buff different stats, while others generate gold for you, or attract followers.

On the backend, henchmen are nothing more than a small dictionary with some stats used for battles and the amount currently stationed at your lair. This allows for a pretty flexible system that makes it rather trivial to add new types of henchmen. Eventually you will be able to raise resources (undetermined what that will be, but the mechanism will be used to limit the amount of times you may initiate combat with another lair) to then lead your army to an opposing deity-factions lair and begin a siege. Sieges can last minutes or hours depending on the parties involved. If you are the attacker and you manage to breach the Throne Room of the opposing player you will receive rewards (Experience, loot, some of their gold, and most likely a large amount of fame based on the level of the opposing player.).

Eventually henchmen will have their own sets of skills and uses for things other than just lair combat. Maybe you will set them loose on a opposing faction's zone/town. Perhaps you will use them to gather materials needed for your next siege? The choices will be close to endless once the system is in place. There is still however quite a bit of code that needs to be written before we get there.