Introduction:
As we all know minecraft has a village mechanic in which you have villagers, they breed, the village grows and iron golems spawn and you make the houses and all that jazz. I suggest something similar to this for the mod itself.
As a player who generally aligns with "Dunedain of the north" who also lives in Minhiriath I've had problems with trading and whatnot because the only trading you get here is through merchants or having to fast travel and sit through a 30 minute cooldown. And I believe a village system would fix this problem while also adding more depth to the mod.
Obtaining/founding
To Start a village you should have pledged to the given faction and have a certain amount of to said faction aswell as a few hired units . A village should also only be possible in a geographically logical location under said factions banner claimed land. As a Village of the Dunedain of the north in Mordor wouldn't really make sense.
Having things such as houses and farms and farmhands should also be a must in a village as the inhabitants need places to sleep and food to eat.
Usage:
As of right now I have come up with possible 3 different uses.
One would be to get traders to your base. As a person who as before stated lives in minhiriath i cant get any permanent traders so being able to get a settled trader would be great. I also believe more merchant arrivals near you village would make sense.
A different use of having a village would be a source of income as your "villagers" pay taxes
Gaining alignment as more NPCs move in would also be a good feature
The way NPCs move in should be similar to how traders arrive. They should have a message like "A settler has arrived nearby" and you assign them a house
Combat/Risks
This is where we come in to the more wacky territory
As your village grows it should be susceptible to sieges or attacks in which the assailants goal is kill the inhabitants and pillage. This should be an actual threat to your village unlike invasions where there is no destruction at all to bannered the attacks should have orc bombarders who can blow through walls as well as builder who can build bridges over moats and ladders over walls
Your village so be at an actual risk of being destroyed
If sieges are implemented, it should most definitely be optional in the mod config
Deaths/Casualties and reputation
If someone dies in your village it should lose reputation. This leads to less settlers arriving, you get less income through tax and traders prices should go up.
Ways to gain reputation should be to win sieges or have a surplus of food better housing
Final thoughts:
This would be a huge feature which would really give the mod a new layer of depth. But all of this is a really tall order, so if even half of what I've written is implemented, I believe it would be a great addition to the mod which would make it feel so much more alive. As someone who has been playing the mod for 7 years, ever since biomes were randomly generated I have always wanted to have my own town/village and now that renewed is eventually coming out there isn't a better time to implement it.
Take what you want from this and leave thoughts or critiques. Id be happy to see what everyone thinks of this idea!
Thanks - T_Series