Yet another government mod idea.

[DavidTC]

So, I've seen some mod suggestions that are somewhat like this, but not exactly this. My idea was...a basic government, so I cam here to look for if anyone had that idea. The closest was a post called 'CWR - Commonwealth Republic (Project)', which comes close: https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/4708000-cwr-commonwealth-republic-project

But let me give my ideas, along with the ones I like from CWR:

Please note I have not actually played the BoS or Institute ending, and am not sure how well it will work for those two. This idea was originally just a Minuteman one, but I think it could work with all of the end factions *except* using Railroad. A *secret* organization can't really run a government....but anyone who played the Railroad probably has the Minutemen still there. (I think?)

So, my mod idea: After the endgame, there is a faction-neutral quest giver. They're a historian and they remember the Commonwealth Provisional Government. So they present a quest to place the Commonwealth under the rule of law. It's also here that, if you have multiple endgame factions, like both Minutemen and BoS, you pick one.

The first step is to clear out an HQ. I would suggest, as it already sorta looks right, Fort Hagen, although BADTFL could work. After that, the quest giver moves into the HQ, and, after a few days, the interior is spruced up. (I.e, replaced with a different one.) The interior should allow fast travel out. There are a few faction-approriate people milling around, using terminals, a map on the wall, whatever.

Now you've got a government. If you can pay for it. Yes, it's the most fun part of a government: Taxes.

You get to build tax collection thingies each settlement, a sort of anti-shop that removes money from their inventory (So you're going to want a few shops to support them.)...but here's the rub: The taxes make the settlers happy, but *only if* there are no bad guys around, otherwise the taxes make them really unhappy, and they won't pay them. I.e., don't even think about taxing The Slog or Finches Farm if the Forged are there, Oberland station wants those Super-Mutants across the river gone, and Vault 88 would like something done about those Raiders literally right outside. Additionally, to steal an idea from CWR, you have to make sure they have a certain level of defenses.

But, and here's the part that makes it a government instead of just you...with the taxes, you 'hire people', aka, you get an amount of people based off taxes, and then, after you clear an area out, you grab your radio (BTW, you got a radio earlier) and then have them keep watch on that building. After which, bad guys stop spawning there. Some places require one guard, some two, and a few three.

(I know hiring people doesn't quite make sense for the Institute taking control of an area, but I don't really see any other way to balance them. Perhaps the argument is that using synths would look too much like a hostile force. Same, to some extent, for the BoS.)

In addition to basically clearing out everywhere near settlements, there are couple of things you have to deal with. The big things are Diamond City, Goodneighbor, and the Gunners.

The Gunners should logically be bribable. Pay them to leave the Commonwealth, or even pay them to start working for the government. Or just threaten to kill them all if the don't basically disband. However, their hostility, and the fact the player could have killed all the named characters before the end game, makes that a hard thing to work out. Perhaps some messenger shows up to cut a deal. Or you can just kill them all, as in, get a quest to literally clear all Gunner sites.

Meanwhile, to get Goodneighbor or Diamond City to join you requires clearing and holding all areas near them. (When put together, basically everything north from the Mass Pike to water.) *And* maybe some additional quests if you're with the wrong faction...Goodneighbor is going to dislike the anti-ghoul BoS, and Diamond City is going to dislike the Institute. So, assuming you haven't already done it, you have to play nice, paint a wall or get Hancock to like you, whatever... (It would be nice to have a faction be resistent to the Minutemen, but I'm not seeing it...unless it's the Gunners? Or maybe Vault 81 for some reason?)

Additionally, tax collection from the traders should be possible, you just talk to them, but that should be a charisma check based on how pacified you've already made everything. I.e., if they are still getting shot at walking around, they will not like the idea, whereas if you've actually made the place safe, well, they can fire their bodguards and pay taxes instead. Or alternately, you can bribe them by just paying their taxes for them, but having them pretend to support the idea...or extort them into it if the Institute is gone, because people wouldn't be real happy to learn they were spies. (And, hey, it should be possible to extort a few secret synths, too.)

And, I'll happily get behind the idea of a 'Capital', like the CWR post suggested, although what *I* would suggest is maybe using the outside of the Fort Hagen area, which is already sorta a city. And maybe instead of making *it* a settlement, have the area directly around that building slowly change to reflect the state of the government, and have a settlement immediately next to it, like at Fiddler's Green or just to one side of it.

I also like the idea of Vertibird quests. You collect some parts, and get one, and then clear out a base of operations for it, and then you can keep three or four people there in reserve, and have a rapid response to attacks.

So, anyway, that's my mod idea. Anyone like it? Dislike it? Anyone want to do it? :wink:

 

[snapper69]

You had me, right up until you said "Taxes". I have always thought that after finishing the main quest, it would be good to restore some sort of order to the Commonwealth, possibly by having each settlement have a radius of control, being able to wipe out/make peace with the bad guys and gradually bring peace.

[Greenslade]

An expanding radius of influence doesn't even necessarily need to be "end game" stuff. It could use the existing settlement mechanic so, for example, a settlement with 20 population and 100 defense could have a wide area of influence and a new one with 2 people and 10 defense would have a small one.

 

No freakin' idea if that's even possible though! :D

[DavidTC]

I'm not married to the idea of taxes. I was just using them to a) balance the game a bit, because, let's face it, if we're running around in the endgame we've got tons of money just laying around, and b) provide some sort of representation of how *well* you're doing.

I mean, I see the 'radius of influence', and I sorta started with that idea...to some extent. It's very stupid that Super-Mutants are allowed to keep setting up at Breakheart Banks, for example. That was the entire concept behind this, I just said 'You know, people should just get to *keep* clearing and holding territory. Even if we're the super-skilled assault team, where's the somewhat-trained army behind us to *hold* those locations?'

But what I don't want is any sort of automatic thing...I think you should to go there, and clear enemies out, and do *something* to keep them out, and that thing, for balance reasons, shouldn't be free. It shouldn't be something that just automatically happens when you clear places.

Now, I sorta had an alternative besides taxes to set this up, but it seemed to complicated, and doesn't work well in some areas. Basically, the idea was that you'd set up patrol station at a settlement and assign a person to it then you'd clear out an area and signal the nearest one to start patrolling the area. (Actually not the 'nearest one'...there would need to be some fudging of borders so that some settlements didn't end up with too many areas. For example, Starlight would be busy handling Lexington, and thus everything north and west of Starlight would be handled by other settlements. If you see what I mean.)

The problem is...even with moving borders, that's pretty far for some areas. The actual center of the map, for example. But I guess *that's* a good reason to have to convince Diamond City and Goodneighbor to join in. (I guess, when they do, they just start sending out their people, no need to assign anyone.)

Still kinda need something between Greygarden and Bunker Hill, but maybe Hangman's Alley can help if it's not need for its side of the river. And using Fort Hagen as the capital lets us get patrols in that area. So that's basically everywhere except the Glowing Sea. (Which doesn't make any sense to try to patrol.)

And this still seems a little too cheap to me. Yes, it's an entire person dedicated to this at each settlement, so it's a bit costly, but no more costly than artillery. And, yes, there can be a one-time cost for the patrol station, but I still feel it should cost something to actually operate this thing. Maybe it should suck up some extra food and water, under the premise that supplying patrols requires more stuff than people sitting around at home all day. Maybe it could require two people...a radio operator, and a guy that actually goes on patrols.

As for when this happens in the story...if there's a government, in canon, the Institute is not particularly fond of this idea and blew up the last attempt of that. And I'm not sure the BoS would be on board either, because the BoS got driven out of California *exactly* that way. I'm not sure them letting someone (who isn't them) do that really makes sense.

Of course, in theory, all this could happen without a 'government', I guess. Just settlements expanding outward. The problem is that, without a government to call on, to provide backup, we're basically operating with the idea that one person can hold an building against an army of raiders. There is a difference between 'Do not attack, or I will try to kill you, and if you win, you get this building', and 'Do not attack, or I will try to kill you, and if you win, you will then get entire might of the Commonwealth Armed Force descending on this building to kill you.'

Edited August 22, 2016 by DavidTC

[Khensu]

1st, let me say Hi :)

 

Maybe we should think about merging our ideas and try to get a team behind it :D

 

 

2nd, if you just want taxes you can use http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/9710/?

It has a special Tax collector station, its great :)

[tartarsauce2]

nuka world might provide a framework for governing body structures, at least the takeover part

I made a sort of world-building conceptuation of the situation as well quite a while ago
https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/4110840-i-accidentally-a-whole-new-storyline-for-all-kinds-of-crazy-good/

TELL ME THAT NUKA WORLD RAIDERS COULDN'T FIT INTO THAT I DARE YOU
NEXT UP, TAXATION, YOU KNOW WHAT UNHAPPY SETTLEMENTS DO?
REBEL. YOU KNOW WHAT WARLORDS LOVE TO DO? CRUSH REBELLIONS!
TURN ENDGAME INTO A TYRANNY SIMULATOR! YOU THE PRESIDENT NOW!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ym0hZG-zNOk
AND WHEN YOU'VE ALIENATED EVERY FACTION, AND THEY'RE SURROUNDING YOU, YOU KNOW THAT YOU ARE JET LI.... AS THE ONE!

HJAHAHAHAHHAHAA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=726jtXMObB8

Edited August 30, 2016 by tartarsauce2

[tartarsauce2]

note: I do not agree with this video per se, haven't even watched it, but anyone who's seen the first fallout 1 intro... knows it'd be dumb to let this sort of inspiration just sit there unused!!!!

YEAHHHHHHHHHH

alternatively, you could have other powers that be constantly invading after the fact so that you're not *actually* the entirely evil warlord, which is the only way conflict and continued gameplay would *really really* work without the external powers
you could be fighting off the gunners, the rest of the BoS, some sorta enclave/institute rejoinder faction (they're both kinda about purity in their own way that's not so different at the core), caesar's legion, some sort of new plague involving super mutants working with ghouls (FEV is in both of them I believe? or at least it could be a new variant that does this)

there could be a raiders goonsquad that somehow amassed power and is actually functional, perhaps it was like a plague of locusts, a hivemind kind of situation, where you had junkyard robots, raiders in power armour, raiders of course, regular tribals and they are a scourge that only survives as long as they move around (they can't hold ground like caesar's legion can who are similar to mongols really they have to go like the huns did) - mongols and huns were similar in their warfare but different on the home front

this entire setup would give rise to all manner of possibilities for creation, and new mods revolving around an entirely new larger conflict, inter-acting with all the DLC's new regions and mod author new regions

and here you are, the strongest leader of your region but by no means the all powerful ruler, constantly trying to hold back the hordes from your forward bases of tactical importance and fortified regions, losing, regaining, fortifying, supplying your garrisons
--------------------------------------------------
gunners - well it's the gunners, they also use pre-war robots, why not include old world blues factions? put some triggermen in the ranks and you've got some high quality class that's still stuck in the past! but there, they like money yeah? these are the "friendliest" and understand the merc lifestyle

raiders - powdergangers, nuka worlders, tribals (basic raiders with lots of different melee weapons + maybe throwing items + atl atl's for a launcher so you can VATS thrown items), rust devils, whatever you name it! ((((raider overhaul))))

caesar's legion - kinda like the gunner + raider faction, but different... hard to explain, but whoever's played NV I think will get it, its own faction of loyalists, and maybe NCR rangers disgruntled at their treatment peace out (I dunno, maybe you retcon as non-canon lore that mister house won everything and the NCR got rebuffed and started not doing so well internally so they started merc'ing out but then identified with the worldview of the now despoiled caesar legion), they're going back east to deal with all the stuff after all it's not like they disappeared even if you did do the most anti-them ending - they reform with a council made up of both legion and NCR members

the greenies (the radiation brigade) - brotherhood of atom, supermutant and ghoul combo groups basically, FEV/nuclear solidarity! really easy way to buff up and flesh out both groups, not all ghouls are feral, why not make some of them a part of this too, with plasma and radiation weapons too of course, they've been gathering for a while now and they're beginning to notice targets in the eastern seaboard - the ghouls and BoA tend to use nuclear laden ammunition (LOADS of ammo) - supermutant overhaul

BoS western chapters - REVENGE, or noticing that every other faction is descending for a battle of five armies event - these guys are the least fleshed out in a sense, but they're pure power and practicality, probably should have more recruits outside of power armour but the guys in it should be some of, if not the toughest guys in the entire game
plus they have vertibirds (let them have the most) as a key point of order

institute + enclave - this one is a bit odd but basically, the enclave has scattered remnants and loyalists, neo-enclave'ists are now a part of it too (am thinking of that guy from megaton and his attitude), this one is actually inspired by the maker of ((((LZ-institute)))), which has synths using X-01 power armours, I figure if the institute got burned they went to the enclave supporters and made a deal, now they're using synths AND X-01's and X-02's AND IF THEY DIDN'T GET BURNED... then they're just ramping up capabilities for the coming massive war!
coursers' maybe allowed, but mostly with sniper rifles etc, and having almost as good a defense as the power armour users without being in power armour (more bang for your buck they're basically assassins anyways)
and maybe let them have *a few* vertibirds


your side on the other hand... has the minutemen, and diamond city guards, have it as a militia, have it so you have T-45's as well, artillery, basic synths and a relay just with them (synth relay grenades)
your faction is basically made up of a lot of lower tier stuff stolen from all the other groups, and settlers etc, you're needed if your homeland is gonna even make it out alive, at least you have mortars and can mass produce robots for defense
some vertibird stuff could be okay, but it's mainly for your own usage, really expensive to make them for your guys' everyone wants to kill you, but you've got the common...wealth dream on your side, you're the most rag-tag but you have the homefield advantage, you've got the peoples' trust more than the others, you're going to set up ambushes, lay out traps, outwit and outsmart the enemies - plus you can always hire the gunners/triggermen for some extra muscle diversity! but don't count on them forever!


and this setup, then allows new radiant quests, say, show up at a certain place, an attack will take place, and you've got a certain amount of time to lay traps and get in position to deal with it, it doesn't need to be at a settlement, and sometimes another attack could come from the other side without telling you, it's quite variable, sometimes it was a ruse to distract you while they (alas) destroyed one of your home bases in a 2 pronged attack
and, while it's not perfect, it could be setup so that things that seem like that, are actually them ambushing you, so once you get into the location, traps and enemies spawn almost as if out of nowhere and you get surrounded by booby traps (you always get lucky going in - IE: there's no traps, but never getting out)
or maybe there are a few traps if you're ambushing or they're ambushing, to further confuse the issue but offer increased immersion (warzones often have tons of dangerous traps or unspent ordnance around from before that's forgotten about)
the spawns would be tied to the quest status of course!

and then on top of that! sometimes you arrive AFTER your forward guard was ambushed, and it sends you to track the guys who did it, and this could be or not be part of that 2 pronged attack, such is the chaos of the battlefield and war!

one more thing is, someone needs to figure out a way to script vertibirds to drop troops off as part of the normal gameplay and then fly as cover support, or even peace out somehow
once this is done, you can get all sorts of crazy action from both the enclave and BoS that would be very... interesting Edited August 30, 2016 by tartarsauce2

[tartarsauce2]

okay so cross linking is probably frowned on, but a commonwealth government mod could probably take this into account too
https://forums.nexusmods.com/index.php?/topic/4780220-its-time-we-did-something-about-the-intro-and-maybe-get-a-bit-mad/

BUT I FEEL LIKE THIS IS GREAT, OH MY GOD, A MAD MAD WORLD WHERE EVERYTHING IS AWFWUL, AND YOU'RE ONE OF THE WORST TOO, IT WAS DESTINY

the ONE thing that went wrong is one "little" snag early on in the game, but you deserve it and you know why everyone's coming to take your government down?
CAUSE OF YOU. IT WAS ALWAYS YOU. and you just had some memory damage cause derp freeze
now not even the "villains" are as BAD as you are, YOU made them what they are all today, or are a part of the now-defunct group that did!
even the enclave is your fault! and the institute

PROTECTED YOUR SON THEY LITERALLY DIDN'T HOLD A GRUDGE, THEIR COLDNESS AND RATIONALITY GAVE YOU THE GIFT OF MERCY, THEY'RE PARTLY REDEEMED COMPARED TO WITHOUT THIS - THEY'RE JUST HOLDING BACK FROM THE WORLD OF HELL YOU CREATED, AVOIDING THE MISTAKES AS BEST AS THEY CAN OF THE BOS AND SUPERMUTANTS AND CAESAR, AND THE GUNNERS (VAULT TEC PUPPETS ALMOST) THE INSTITUTE USED YOUR SON FOR GENETIC PURITY YES, BUT THEY GAVE HIM A LIFE, PROTECTED HIM FROM THE WORLD YOU CREATED YOU MONSTER!

and as the only living member of the now defunct-group, you're suddenly the target of everyone's hatred, longing for an explanation, and an acceptable target for their anger
but before they found this out, you had been helping the locals, who've become to get to know you, and you've redeemed yourself in their eyes a bunch, so that when the knowledge gets out, they know you aren't who you used to be - which is why THEY'RE on your side when everyone else isn't

Edited August 30, 2016 by tartarsauce2

[DavidTC]

1st, let me say Hi :smile:

 

Maybe we should think about merging our ideas and try to get a team behind it :D

 

 

2nd, if you just want taxes you can use http://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/9710/?

It has a special Tax collector station, its great :smile:

 

I have no idea how to get a team to work on stuff, but sure, we can try.

 

I really like your focus on the more civilian aspects of it, whereas I was just frustrated with the 'Yeah, I know I'm the strike force that clears places out, but where the hell is the army behind me that I am supposed to be leading? Could they try getting off their asses and hold some territory for once? I already cleared this place twice.'

 

So my entire thing was figuring out a justification and way to have that happen, yet the game remain balanced because you have to pay for it. I.e., you have to clear enough places to make a nearby settlement happy enough to give you the money to *keep* those places clear.

 

But if you focus things back on civilian, maybe *that's* where the balance can be. I.e., you have some sort of 'total government' level, and each level allows you to support one additional cleared location....or something else, like Vertibird is ten, or whatever. You earn 'support', aka political capital, and this support allows you to do things.

 

And I like your idea of a factory, although what might be more useful is get one of the food packing plants working. Take over Longneck Lukowski's Cannery, or clear Mahkra Fishpacking, they're both within walking distances of settlements. Suddenly settlements all get a food bonus.

 

Likewise, all sorts of random quests. I was thinking of having to pay for things in resources, but it really should be *both*. You want to restore the water supply, you have to track down four items, and you have to get X steel and lead, and you have to either convince some expert to do it for free, or pay them a lot.

 

And, at this point, there's no sense in not adding settlements, and increasing the size of existing ones.

 

I also like your idea of adding enemies. Maybe the Gunners simply *can't* be negotiated with, and in fact really dislike the idea of a government, and you have to not only fend them off, but you have to track down all their sites and clear them and hold them to turn them back to a nuisance.

 

And another post here reminded me that Triggermen exist. (I remember thinking they were going to be some huge part of the game the first time I played through, and then hours later, suddenly thinking 'Wait, what happened to those Triggermen guys?') Those can be made into a bigger enemy, in fact, you want a quest to get Goodneighbor to join? How about getting rid of those guys.

 

And whatever faction you destroyed should regroup somewhere, and commence raiding. Like, more than they already do.

 

Things I don't like about your idea:

1) Faction specific HQ/capital, simply because that adds a three times as much work on it. (Assuming the Railroad can't be in charge) A currently-neutral building, just staffed with the correct faction, and a flag or two on the wall, works better, especially if you want it to grow and change. Like I said, I like Fort Hagen, because not only is it completely useless after the main quest goes there, but it has a nice surrounding town area that is also not important to anything. Hang some BoS/Minutemen/Institute flags from it, there you go. Leave the area directly around it to change by the mod as the government progresses, with more troops and artillery and a vertibird landing pad and stuff, and put a settlement at a slight distance. (Fiddler's Green might actually be too far, might just want to go with that big area between Hagen and the fence.)

 

2) Making Diamond Hill and Goodneighbor a settlement. Yeah, that sounds awesome, but I suspect in reality neither of those places are really that editable or well-suited for building. I'd rather just have them *join* the government and carry on as they are (With expanded patrol borders), if that makes sense.

 

###

 

As for the tax collection thing, that sorta works backwards than what I wanted. I was trying to figure out how to get cash from the settlements to the governments, not from the settlements to me.

 

###

 

And I suspect Nuka-World is going to have *some* of this in it, and that's downloading right now, so we can get back to this after I've explored how that works.

[tartarsauce2]

indoor "settlement" in goodneighbour with various things internal to the space itself, similar to that umm, thing, what's it called again, homeplate
like, a safehouse (and therefore low key and therefore not subject to having all the same things - maybe you could have a special chems stall or something that's available for that settlement)

dunno if it's possible but you could do hostile gang takeovers of your crime den as a replacement for typical raids (the place is taken over and your settlers are essentially captured/taken out of the game for a bit to represent capture or being driven out)
if they're captured, you then have to go to another place and stomp the guards there too after and your settlers are released and back at the place - not sure how to show the settlers etc might be a bit risky to lose a bunch when storming the captors, while if they were driven out they'll appear again on their own a bit after you clear the place out again
a temporary solution to this is that you just start ravaging them so hard they make a deal to release them back to the crime den to avoid further... attention from you (scare them into letting the prisoners go)

this might require some scripting though dunno
might also want to enlarge the areas, maybe make an underground vault network under one of the factories or something for this to all take place in

you could do a bit of a standard taxation system, alongside a syndicate mafia style "taxation" (aka protection rackets and getting a cut/extortion) system, to mix and match it up a bit, let players do what suits them more, technically the BoS has one variant of this with proctor teagan but it could be expanded
one of THE MOST IMPORTANT ASPECTS. of this however is completely missing, territory control, and factional areas, I actually brought this up in my crazy good commonwealth thing, it has to vary, but the framework first has to exist for this to be a possibility at all anyways

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndicate_(video_game)#Gameplay
"If a Nation is a Gang, a Gang should be able to become a Nation. I want to establish a Nation of a certain class. Hey, let's build a country of our own."

Edited August 30, 2016 by tartarsauce2