Outlier Growth
Outliers begin their life at various stages, usually beginning as a Dirt Hovel, and grow at the same rate as you do. That is, They grow by one Outlier stage (see bottom-most section. Use the Table of Contents for easy navigation) per Stage that you progress. So if you start a Dirt Hovel Outlier in the Stone Hamlet Stage, when you progress to the Iron Village stage, the Outlier would become a Wooden Settlment Outlier, and then a Stone Hamlet Outlier when you progress to the Redstone Discovery stage. In most cases, when Outliers progress to a Village stage themselves, they are complete in Normal Difficulty, Hamlet stage for Fast-Track, and City Stage for Hardcore.
Outlier Tribute
At the end of every stage, every Outlier
under your control (see Outlier Rebellion section) must send Tribute to the Capital. Generally, it is 10-25% of whatever it is they produce for the Capital. This is easier for some Outliers than others. Tribute is always rounded up, and calculated just before the Stage rolls over to the next Stage. Put another way, you must calculate your Tribute for a Stage, and write it down somewhere. As soon as this is done, you advance to the next Stage. Before you complete THAT Stage, you must finish building/sending the Tribute that you just wrote down.
- Residential Outliers take 10% of Apartments/Slums in the Outlier, and export their Crime/Nobility to the Capital
- This Tribute is IN ADDITION TO the Crime/Nobility of the Slums/Apartments that affects that Outlier.
- Agricultural Outliers take 10% of their products and send it to the Capital
- Agricultural Outliers that breed living things for better things may either send products or specimens of their best breeds to the Capital
- Fortification Outliers send 10% of their soldiers (they just appear, okay? They don't necessarily need to physically move in-game) to the Capital or the primary Fortifications Outlier, if the Outlier decides to billet most of their soldiers out of the Capital to make room for building.
- In the case of the Primary Fortifications Outlier sending tribute to itself, just add 10% pre-Tribute soldiers to the Primary Fortifications Outlier.
- Etc, Etc, et al
Outlier Rebellion
Any Outlier that for whatever reason (RP or otherwise) you have decided is rebelling against you does NOT need to send tribute to the capital. Rebelling Outliers MUST be able to feed themselves, whether from within their own Outlier, or other Rebelling Outliers that are allied with them. Likewise, if an Outlier that is providing food for your Capital/Outlier goes into Rebellion, and there is no longer enough food to go around, the loyal Outliers and/or the Capital must take up the slack within a single stage.
If more than one Outlier rebels against the Capital, and they are allied together, one of the Outliers must be declared the Capital of the Rebellion, and from there progresses along the Stage structure as if it werer a player-controlled Capital, excepting that it skips Redstone Discovery/Glowstone Expansion. Rebel Capital's technology level, building materials, tool material level, magic ability, and/or Nether access is tied directly to the Player Capital. They may be either at the same technology level, lagging one stage behind, or even one stage ahead. Rebel Capitals/Kingdoms/Empires should never be more than one technology level above or below the Player(s) that they seceded from. That said, the technology level =/= their Stage levels.
- a Stone Hamlet Outlier that Rebels while the Capital is in the Glowstone Expansion Stage would progress to Iron Village when the Capital they seceded from progresses forward to the Lapis Lazuli Stronghold.
- a Stone Hamlet Outlier that Rebels while the Capital is in the Gold City Stage would not progress to the Iron Village when the Capital moves to the Glowstone Expansion (or Redstone Discovery, for that matter) Stage.
I would like to go more in-depth with this feature, but at present I feel that I should flesh out the rest of this challenge before going back to this (very interesting) bit of fluff.
Outlier Assimilation
If Outliers begin their life too close to your Capital, or even other Outliers, they may be assimilated into each other. At this point, you may either consider them two cities (see cities like Fargo/Moorhead on the North Dakota/Minnesota border, or Minneapolis/St. Paul, the capital of Minnesota) or consider the Outlier absorbed into the encroaching city. This is normal, and perhaps even natural. I would recommend you try to avoid this, but if it happens, then it happens. You don't NEED to build another Outlier to replace it if you don't want to. There are a few special rules for this happenstance:
- Buildings from the Outlier being assimilated into another Outlier or the Capital do NOT count towards new Building Requirements for that or any previous or future stage.
- Any food requirements from the Outlier being assimilated immediately become food requirements of the city assimilating them, or vice versa, whichever is more.
Criminal Outliers
Criminal Outliers are spawned when a certain Bandit, Pirate, or other Criminal group reaches critical mass, and their Stronghold needs more than just the pirates to support itself. The first Criminal Outlier for each Criminal group is considered, for all intents and purposes, a Capital, even if they do follow the Outlier rules for growing. Criminal Outliers do not pay tribute to anyone but themselves. Criminal Capitals spawn Criminal Camps that hold 12 Criminals when they grow to the next Stage.
This is a special case for Criminals, because the Criminals start spawning Camps when they reach their Stronghold Stage, and then every stage after.
Note that when Criminal Capitals/Outliers BECOME Outliers and not just a Criminal base, they progress through Outlier stages at the same rate you and every other Outlier does.
