Suggestion: Debuffs for PvP

I don't know when pvp is going to turn up. I don't know how the devs are going to make it work either, but I thought of a few things and I felt like sharing. Because sharing is caring.

I was thinking in the same way we buff each other we could create debuffs at the provisions house (or a similar structure). You'd have to create the debilitating item and then an agent to dispense it. The agents would vary, like going from militia > recruit > to whatever comes after. The agent would have a certain success rate, likely capped at 20% even for the greatest of agents considering the nature and pace of this game.

How would you pick a target? To some degree, you wouldn't. There are classes of debuffs, each affecting a "class" of building. One debuff, for instance, would randomly target weaponsmiths, be they of iron or of steel. Another would damage trees of every variety. Not as much accuracy as people would like, but then without a view of the enemy's settlement, not much you can do about that. Duration is another iffy aspect. I'd like to say a day but I know people would gripe if their facilities clocked out for a whole day.


The agents could be countered with a police station or "sheriff", perhaps, that would passively try to foil an adversary's clandestine offensive. I was thinking, as a use for coins, that in order to function the police station would require funds to operate- some low amount of currency. Or, in the stead of coins, the police could be fed fancy food. Thinking on my feet here, you could assign idle settlers to work as police, each settler increasing the success rate against enemy plots by 1%-2%, starting from 0% (an inactive station).

As for the debuffs themselves, I've thought of a few.
!)Poisoned water supply - Take 200 (dead) fish and dump them into a well, canceling water production from specific well for a time.
2)Exotic Animals - Take 100 units of whatever animal the hunter produces (before it's killed haha), used to cancel fish,wheat,or meat production.
3) Cave in - Take 100 gunpowder to create an explosion that cancels mines and quarries
4)Forest fire - Take 100 gunpowder and 50 wood to cause a fire that cancels wood production in an entire sector.

I was thinking of another kind of agent entirely, in addition to the rascal described above. A disguise artist that would randomly take the place of an enemy settler and double the production time of the manufactory he finds himself in. Without police, you'd have to click on every building in your kingdom hoping to find him. Of course, you wouldn't even know he was there without police. With police in place and active, you would get mail notifying you that a criminal is in your township- should the artist succeed in installing himself, that is. The notification would specify the type of building but not the particular facility effected. You'd still have to click on, say, every farm looking for the specific farm attacked.


I just noticed the suggestion forum, or rather rediscovered it? I guess I'll leave this here, though, since the team usually responds on the forums and I'm interested in what the rest of you think.