I like this idea.

This idea is open to everyone to expand on    For the first point, I guess it would start wherever the quest hut was.  Or perhaps they'll even ask, "could you help us clear out *some forest square* of wolves and trolls and whatnot?" and show a new location somewhere else, preferably close by so you can ally or something.

Not sure about marrying, I guess you could, but first they'd have to have heroes first.  I guess one of the quests could be, "we need a strong leader, could you send someone over?"  And you pick a hero (goodbye Janusk) and off they go to head the new minor faction.

I don't quite understand what "annexed" means.  Does it mean they are surrounded by you, and just decide to hand the city over (so it's now totally yours)?  I was also wondering about adding something special about this minor faction, such as, I don't know, "we're originally miners, and lo and behold, there are quite a few undiscovered mines you didn't catch in your territory!"  Something where they actually benefit you by sending aid and doing things like sending out armies to defend your towns and guard your borders, that kind of thing.  Something unique.

Yes, their territory is completely surrounded by mine. They are my allies, but I don't grant them rite of passage, so they are stuck and can do nothing but sit there. Since you can't break an alliance in this game, they can't declare war on me. They have no chance of growth, generally their resorces are un-attached to a city and my growth drives their zones back to within a couple of tiles from their city walls (if not completely to them). Thus, I gain their resources as well. So an option like ...

... would really be sweet. (I think the protectore option is from Europa Universallis though.)

I like this thought, much like having vassels in EU.Yes, yes... Ilike the thought of having vassels more and more.

Exactly, if you retake an allies city, it sure would be nice to be able to let them have it back. Just think what Europe would look like now, if after WWII nobody gave back the cities that were liberated.  As it is now, I park an army outside a conqured town (large enough to take it in a single battle) , send in a hero ( an assassin is best), have her/him stand near a retreat zone, us a bow to kill one or two enemy soldiers at a time, and retreat just before he can be attacked (they never follow her/him out because of the army). Repeat the process until there is one enemy left and wait until my ally can get around to sending someone to kill the last one and reclaim their town. It is tedious waiting for that to occur.

I like this idea

Thanks for the replies, and great question, IronKaiser.  Hmmm.  Perhaps we could deal with the short term rewards for helping them by having each quest result in a small reward for each part, for example:

Initial quest: defeat some tile full of monsters / give materials for them to build their new city core.

Reward: a weak hero who you can control with a mining bonus (they're miners after all) of say, 15% bonus to metal production, but only for 99 turns (then they go back).  (They are, after all, poor, so they cannot pay you with anything, so they'll help you in return).

Potential scenarios:

• The miner gets killed under your care (whether accidentally or otherwise): they will be less willing to ask for help, but as you're the only one they can call on, the next quest will take longer before they ask you, because they're less trusting now.  Not wanting to make you into an enemy, they will put the matter aside, but will remember your ill treatment of one of their prized countrymen and once they are in a position for diplomacy (after several more quests) the diplomacy level will be lower than it would have been otherwise and slower to grow (it can say "-2 for the death of their most prized miner" or something).  However, the more friendly you are towards them, this -2 will disappear eventually.
• When the miner passes 99 turns, he will return to the city, now being the minor faction's first leader with a relationship bonus of, say, +1 with you for treating him well.
• If you refuse the quest, there is a % chance that they will never appear (because the poor miners were attacked by the monsters) or they will somehow scavenge enough materials themselves and start a minor faction that has a -1 diplomatic penalty for refusing them.

Second quest: need for gildar and (more) materials.

Reward: they are growing as a people and use the gildar and materials to build a fully fledged minor faction city hub.  They are now a (weak) minor faction and have diplomacy for you to interact with.  Since they have grown much, they are willing to send people to your nearest city, automatically invoking a (permanent) trade treaty (+ metal for you, they get nothing), increased prestige and +2 diplomatic relationship bonus.  You also get discounts from now on from their stores, which of course sell unique items (although currently the items are typical level 1 items).

Potential scenarios:

• You can lose everything you gained by attacking them and claiming their city (which now has a metal mine near them).  Of course, they can't do anything about that, since they're back to wandering around, but all minor factions (all those created like this from quests) will remember your actions (big penalty).

Third quest: need for metal to build an army

Reward: ok, I realize asking for metal when they are a mining town may not make much sense, but I don't have other ideas right now since you can't give tech.  This is when things get dicey.  Depending on your actions before (whether you have a diplomatic bonus or penalty) determines how they use their newly armed force (which should be formidable).  I suppose the reward for this is that they send people throughout your territory (supposedly) and unveil new mines for you to use (the number is proportional to the diplomatic bonus you have: < or = to 0, you get none.  +1, you get 1, +2 you get 2... etc).

They are now a minor faction in its own right, and depending on how you treat them, may either help you (with hopefully unique bonuses) or turn against you.

This is just a general idea of what could happen.  Anyone can contribute or change it to make it better   

Nice clarification, ArcElement 2002. Rewards like a permanent trade route and a new resource in my kingdom would definitely motivate me to help this minor faction grow, despite the risks. I can definitely see quests like this adding a lot of spice to minor factions and helping to improve the game. Keep up the great thoughts!

When I read your first post, I had an idea that I might as well throw out there. What if you had two different quest chains: Quest Chain A, that that basically goes as you've described it, and Quest Chain B, that works in exactly the opposite way. For example, let's pretend that you're playing as the Kingdom of Altar. Your sovereign is out questing when he discovers Quest Chain A: a band of people trying to found their own city. These people are sympathetic to the kingdom-aligned factions of the world. They recognize you as a member of Altar and beg you for your help in founding their city, Arc' Elemah. You could ignore them, and risk the city (which no longer likes you so much) developing anyway. You could try exterminating them, which would carry a huge diplomatic penalty if word got out to the other kingdoms. Or you could support them by supplying them with various materials. Each quest would demand more from your treasury and your reserves, but at the end of the expensive Quest Chain, you would receive gifts like a permanent trade route and an alliance with the new city of Arc' Elemah, a new resource within your kingdom, a potential path to Arc' Elemah's annexation, a hero who has pledged his loyalty to you in gratitude, and/or etc. Long story short, you have to pay in the short term for long-term benefits.

Or, imagine your sovereign discovering Quest Chain B. This time, he also finds a band of people trying to found a city. However, The Dominion of Yorx, as they call themselves, are thoroughly Empire aligned. Your sovereign catches these ruffians committing some heinous deed. The leader of the Yorx promises you a hefty sum of gildar if only you won't punish them and keep mum about their actions. Of course, you could put a stop to their actions, but in this case we decide that the allure of wealth is worth overlooking this indiscretion. But you haven't heard the last from the Yorx, though. Instead, the minor faction promises you some of their finest warriors in exchange for some menial task. Several quests go by, during which you get nice rewards for nothing and Korx grows stronger and stronger. At the end of the quest chain, though, your Korxian allies turn on you, and you discover that the Korx have been planning to betray you from the very beginning. Basically, in Quest Chain B, you get lots of short-term benefits in exchange for a long-term problem.

Haha, nice city name, IronKaiser, and that's a good point.  I didn't think about alignment, but that could very easily come into play.  There could be some people with a Kingdom ideology, and that is why they sought you for help (if you're kingdom), while if you're Empire, then those with Empire ideology would turn to you for help.  However, there could also be the ones who are neutral, who ask for help simply because they can't turn elsewhere, and depending on your actions, would turn Kingdom (if you help) or Empire (if you turn against them).

I think that depending on them being neutral, Kingdom, or Empire based, it would be interesting if they were unique, as in maybe, have a whole bunch of minor factions set up, and it's random which minor faction asks for help, for example:

Bandit town: these are bandits who are being beat up all over the place, and have nowhere else to go.  They have banded together for security but now need a place to grow.  The thought of a bandit town may be scary, but they assure you that if you help, they will not turn against you, baring, of course, you turn against them first.

Benefits: they periodically give you supplies and such, seeing as their bandits roam the worlds and steal caravans which end up leaving materials for you to take (double benefit, it seems).  They can give you any kind of supplies, from gildar to crystal, seeing as they don't have to mine any of it.  They just... get it from others.

Monster town: these monsters are feeling beat up and want a place to just live in peace.  You can provide a place for them, where they will field an army of monsters in your defense if need be (by sending allied monsters roaming around your territory like it normally is right now except they don't attack you and attack enemies instead).

Those are just a few ideas of unique minor factions which you'd want to keep on your side.  However, taking over the city loses those unique benefits, as the bandits would disperse again, leaving you with a normal city, and monsters would turn against you again if you crush their town.

Furthermore, perhaps a side benefit would be the more minor factions you help, the more minor factions will come to you for help, meaning that over a long enough period (thousands of turns maybe), you'll have a protective barrier of sorts from all the minor allied factions who spawned in and around your territory which also actively defend against enemies.

Of course, we probably need to think up some good advantages for taking those cities after they form, because there seems to be too many good benefits leaving them be, and it won't be much of a choice.  Minor faction cities should have some special property in the city you capture, such as monster town, if you enslave the populace, you can train spiders and other monsters for your service (perhaps at an increased cost), and etc for bandits and others.

Thanks for the reply, Grizzyloins, and those are good examples of minor factions that can provide unique benefits (elves, dwarves... etc).  Having them interact and grow like your ant hive example is a great idea!  I too would like to see things like minor factions helping another minor faction grow in return, or even expand themselves, to become a "major faction" by building more towns and influencing the land in many other ways.  So far, it seems that all the benefits are for letting a faction live, because you can get the benefits of diplomacy with them, or you can take their city with unique benefits.  So why not let them live?  However, let that ant hive grow too much, and you'll have 30 hive cities across the continent, taking all the resources, growing in power, and growing to conquer the major factions eventually.

Let the bandits grow, and you'll see bandits increase ten-fold, many of which don't care about you and attack you anyway, even if the city's diplomatic stance towards you is great (because the ruler of the city likes you, but his people steal from whoever).

Similar to monsters, let them grow, and they'll swamp the land, unleashing more super monsters than any party of adventurers, and unearthing titans and whatnot accidentally, causing a huge growth in high level monsters who will attack you because they're in a bad moon after being woken up by a large party of travelling trolls.

And watching all this happen would be cool, especially if your allies are the ones dominating the world.