How to play a town leader

Knowing your community

There are different kinds of towns. Some are based on individualism and everybody does what they want - this kind of towns don't care much for having a leader. The leader or leaders are most likely elder citizens that were never officially appointed, they just happened to rise to a respected position after living in town long enough. Their main purpose is to help the newspawns get adjusted, issue building permits or take care of selling abandoned houses, decide what to do with the items of the dead people and take care of things that affect the community as a whole.

Then there are close-knit communities that work like a single family or a company. The town leader may be responsible for starting projects, keeping a stock of resources and sending resource runners on their way.

When a new town leader rises into power, they might have some revolutionary ideas as to how things are to be run, but people are generally reluctant to accept changes so it's better to make them subtly so that people won't feel like their lives are turned upside down.

Human resources

A good town leader knows their subjects (or fellow townspeople if you prefer) and is aware of their personal goals and needs. Cantrians tend to prefer doing everything on their own, so you might have a hard time convincing people that they can earn things faster by doing something that seems completely irrelevant.

Material assets

Also you naturally need to be aware of the resources and machinery a town possesses, so that you know what you have and what needs to be built or imported. Towns that are based on individualism tend to have a lot of machinery scattered around in buidings with restricted access and people might continue building a spindle, an oven and a smelting furnace in every house without being aware of their neighbour having the same equipment gathering dust in their corners. Likewise people tend to gather resources and tools in private stashes and might be ready to hand or lend them out, if someone just asked.

Location

If your town borders a sea, it's likely to get a lot more visitors and will be more lively than inland communities. But this involves the risk of getting hit by pirates, and it's good to make some plans for handling crisis situations.

Non-coastal towns tend to be more peaceful, just with the occasional newspawn thief trying their luck. If the roads are long on the region, the town should aim to build some bikes or cars unless it already has them.

Keeping control

The amount of control that a leader exerts on his or her citizens depends entirely on their leadership philosophy, but it is impossible to govern a town with having some kind of power. The leader of a town will presumably have access to all the resources, tools and machinery owned by the town, and carry a powerful weapon and shield, and possibly a crowbar. This is what gives them the power to govern their town.

To leverage this power and use it to run your community effectively, you must be aware of the loyalties and ambitions of all members of the community. If it is likely that somebody has aspirations to usurp your leadership, kidnap people, or steal from the town, you must restrict their access to weaponry, healing food and lockpicking tools. Similarly, if any of your subjects have proven their loyalty to you and gained your trust, you should give them access to any tools and resources that they might need to assist you against any enemies, or help you with advanced projects.

Never trust anybody until they have proven to you that they can be trusted. It is a bad idea, for example, to give a newspawn a metal weapon or shield, or a key to a storage building or prison, as people are most likely to cause trouble when they have just spawned. The same applies to new arrivals to the town or those who have not spoken much.

Relations with neighboring towns

Resources and trade

A town may be self-sufficient when it comes to food, but they generally need to import at least something to be able to carry out various projects. If a town has coal, hematite or limestone, it shouldn't have much trouble in finding trade partners since everybody wants iron and steel. Wood is also handy since it's used for so many projects. Having hemp, cotton or silk cocoons might also bring some revenues although there are a lot of players who think clothing doesn't matter. The invention of sails has most likely increased the demand for cloth but it's still small scale compared to the demand for iron making ingredients and wood.

If a town has none of the resources listed above, they are pretty unlikely to become a major exporter of anything. Towns with a natural food source might be able to trade with a nearby forest or a mining community but food is too common to be a sales trump. Healing foods are welcomed by most people but they tend to be widely available on most regions.

You generally try to export things to towns that don't have the resource in question, or don't have the machinery to gather it as effectively as your town does, and you import from places that offer the best trade rates.

Reputation

If your town is known as a friendly place with fair trade rates, people are more likely to visit. Also if you maintain good relations with your neigbours, they're likely to assist you in stopping thieves or offer support if you get attacked by pirates.

Then there are communities that prefer to look tough and not have anyone dare to mess with them. Towns like this may be hated by their neighbours but if you let them know that you're fair with people who obey your laws, good people have no reason to feel threatened. Helping neighbouring towns to take down criminals will earn you more respect and people will turn to you in their hour of need.