Freebie reports: Villages should have an offici ... #2997
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What official status could villages have?
We can't have them have city services or other city benefits.
Do we need to consider Voice having interest in villages?
maybe, villages are just listed on maps and noted on road signs?
voice sends scouts to investigate individual player builds occasionally, no reason it wouldn't have an interest in them.
There is a requirement list as a book by the Republic for villages to be member of this alliances, mostly written by Sokomine, but inspired by a longer discussion. Could be some inspiration for the following discussion about the requirements of an more official status for the whole YourLand.
Villages could be named into the list_places, could have NPCs, could have a small number of shields and a map? Sounds a lot, but at the other hand, we have a lot of cities, because the founders want to have all the known benefits.
If they could have just some of them, just by being a village, they abstain from that first big step founding an own city. Or they try to go the long and organic way from a single house > a nice farm > a small village > a full village (like in Soko's book) > a growning village > a city.
Copied from the ingame book by Sokomine:
Requirements for a village/settlement
I like those, but none of those require any official status. The question is, what "official status" may mean, with "private area" as the lower mark and "city" as an upper mark.
That's ok. With "maps" I assume you're referring to Mielle's and no ingame item?
Private areas are intended to be excluded from heavy fighting
Those conditions look nice, but are more a RPG perspective and "preconditions". Most are up to debate and could be voted on, hardly detected technically like the crown can.
Should a village have a crown?
That's ok. It's not that we run out of space on that list.
City services? No.
Talking NPCs taht do not count against personal NPC maximum? Sounds better.
Currently only cities, alliances and organizations get shields. I'd rather keep them rare. Villages and private areas may display commoner coat of arms though. castle_shields:shield_1, castle_shields:shield_2, castle_shields:shield_3
Having a shield per village counts against maximum node definitions
Having a map per village counts against maximum node definitions
Building and keeping a city is a huge effort, with huge gains.
How can we make a village not devalue cities but still be somewhat useful?
if https://github.com/minetest/minetest/pull/12928 ever finalizes, we'll have 8 to 16 more bits worth of possible textures for basic nodes.
even with the current system, you're-land has over 10000 node IDs in reserve, and the work i've been doing will probably get us 5000 to 8000 more, when it gets accepted. adding things like new shields, which will at most result in some 100s of new nodes over the life of the server, should not give us pause.
I've given it much thought and I think we need this topic to be turned upside down: villages should exist for benefit of a city, not for it's own sake.
I propose:
Villages are smaller (approx. 128^2 to 256^2) inhabitated areas.
Villages are valid target for voice both alone and during attacking a city.
Villages will differentiate from private areas (hamlets) by following:
New city service to be added: Stagecoach line.
Requires: stables, stagecoach depo.
Allows: adding villages to per-city travel network, the stagecoach line.
New rule for minimal distance of travel network stations (regardless of type) should be established.
Villages benefit it's city's economy (discounts on NPCs, maybe? Increased city's NPC cap?) by delivering goods. Topic for the Cities milestone, maybe?
Defeated village burdens the city by not providing resources and bad morale.
Todo:
Find a block to be base of village flagpole.
Find ways in which a village can benefit city's economy.
How to deal with village and city being "divorced"?
Most controversial most likely is the travel option. As soon as we add teleport, noone will walk the distance to a city ever again. Voice could do next to everything in between, without the chance to be discovered.
if "fast travel" (teleport) along a path had some sort of penalty, like consumption of food/stamina and possibly a payment in gold, maybe it could be balanced. also, if players understand that voice's incursions don't only happen at endpoints, they'll be motivated to check out the entire route - and i think that's the current understanding. i often walk along a lot of the roads between the cities to the north of haven, because voice loves showing up at random locations along them. but other times, fast travel might be preferred. also, if you have to talk to an NPC every time to jump to the next stop, and there's a cost, players will likely not chose it. and a lot of people like exploring or wandering anyway.
edit: that got rambly, let me summarize
If I were to meet a player in GeG, I'd /spawn to Haven and take the zeppelin to GeG, even though it's just a minute or two away from Haven. I'm not principially against hunger cost, but I'm much more resistant to paying gold. Ships and zeppelins are both free and they cost way more to operate.
I'd like to keep some way of fast travel opened, since I think associating village with a given city should not depend on physical location in the world. Preexisting cities would be disadvantaged if villages could only be associated with the nearest city. There might simply not be enough space to fit a village in.
I think we wouldn't be breaking the lore in a new way, since all the ships aren't sailing on the same ocean.
By making the travel network local to a given city, the amount of places is in my eyes doubled compared to server-wide network (such as ships and zeppelins): I'd need to visit both master city and associated village on the way.
Sometimes people still walk the roads between towns, hoping to lure Voice out of hiding.
A stage coach line could use the same mechanism I already suggested for the ships: Most of the time things go smoothly and the player is just sent on to his destination.
Most of the time. But these are medieval times, and things can go wrong. Especially with a stage coach. Those wheels tend to break, the horses may shy, bandits/Voice troups may show up, or it might just turn night and the coach stays over night in one of the inns at the road.
If the events that happen when something goes wrong during the journey are intresting enough, players might even start to travel more, hoping that something happens regardless of where they go to.
Walking a long way to get to a place is tiresome. Especially if that same path has been walked by the player a lot of times already. Voice can't attack each time. So most of the time nothing happens. And even if Voice would care to show up - the player may just have run past. And (which worries me most) worthy places get visited less because it takes too much effort to get there.
We also have lots of cities. Anyone who wants to build with friends eventually needs a way to get them there. Thus, more and more cities are founded - but only few grow, and most have few or no active inhabitants. Having a stage coach as the first step of connection (with the option of becoming a real city when growing?) might decrease the number of new cities and give us more reasonably-sized settlements that are less empty.
Such a stage coach line would be between station in the city it belongs to and station (small inn, stable) in the settlement itself. But for intresting things to happen, we might need 1-3 further places (inns to stay over night? bridges that can break? stations for changing horses?) along a road. The road won't technicly have to go from settlement to city but just a bit out from the settlement to those places of...events/intrest.
What if villages could be a part of a city, so Let's,say Ravise's villages could be part of Sokomines City.
I have a list of places that should exist next to cities (villages and cities among others):
I'd be in favour of villages not be an "integral" part of the city like city's exclave would be, but rather have vassal-like relationship, with the option of village and city being able to "divorce", if needs be. But at this stage, it's really just implementation detail.
I wouldn't be in favour of overcomplicating stuff. Let's focus on
settlement.
Private player areas (anything "less" than a village) should not be interesting to voice and shouldn't need admin focus or new game mechanics.
Even a village will need some infrastructure. Just far less than a city. A church of some kind will very likely be available. But that doesn't mean that the NPC there needs to be as fully-trained as the ones in the big cities. He might just be there to talk to, to comfort the locals, to help travellers in need. Opening a death portal? The local priest never learned that. Similarily, a blacksmith will probably be needed. And the tavern/inn for the stage coach needs an NPC that...sells some local food. No guild interaction or the like. Just inhabitants with a job other than farmer.
The special points of intrest (bridge breaking, robbers attack, wheel breaking, ...) don't even have to be local to a line. All such locations might be randomly selected no matter where an actual coach would travel. And be in effect for a couple of minutes so that other players taking the same line end up there as well.
That again sounds like a "city which chose not to build certain city services.
Cities may decide for themselves not to build a church or an inn or something. Is a city without those services your definition of a village?
THAT's nice ideas :)
It seems to me that there are three different types of cities at the moment.
Cities that try to have inhabitants and therefore either include players completely in the city area or at least assign plots.
Cities that do not try to do this, but where the mayor remains the only resident, perhaps with one or two helpers.
Cities whose builders have long since abandoned or neglected their projects.
I would expect a real city in YourLand to belong to category 1. and a village / a settlement / a castle corresponds to category 2..
At the picture: Runy is placing the electrum in the silver village crown of Rubodyke
TLDR:
If something is a city or village for me depends on how it is built - if it could reasonably pass for a city or village in RL.
Suggestion:
New settlements (regardless what they want to be in the end) apply to an existing city and put up a vote for a stage coach line station/inn. Part of the route may happen via airship/sailship, but the stage coach line station/inn needs to be there and is what is beeing voted on.
If the vote is accepted, players can go to the stage coach line inn in the city and from there travel via NPC to those settlements that are connected to this city. From each settlement they can travel back to the city.
Once the stage coach line is there, other small services may be added and voted on. Those include typical village services (church, forge, ...?). The NPC added would be just for talking and decoration but offer no additional benefits. The requirements for such a vote (and for the structures) are lower than that for a city. They're mostly there so that players get first feedback on their structures.
Once the settlement wants to become a city, it needs to win a vote on apply for city rights. Players then travel there and judge if the settlement is ready to become a full city. If it is then it gets awarded a (non-craftable) city crown block.
Services that the settlement already had (i.e. a small church) may apply for upgrade via vote. If the build level was already equivalent to city-level, this does not require any actual upgrades to the build, and the NPC would just be replaced by one who supplies city services after the vote is won.
The voting system needs to be promoted massively so that more players come. A reward could help.
Voice is mostly intrested in cities but might pay a visit to villages now and then as well. Though not with really huge attacks.
Settlements and cities can change their partners.
In detail/thought process:
Depends on the service. In most cases I think "they didn't get around to build it yet".
A city without a church (or something comparable) and without a tavern/inn - is not a city. Not even a village. YL mostly plays in medieval times. Some basic services are needed. I'd say church, tavern (village)/inn (city), forge and perhaps some other things I forgot. If you havn't got those things your inhabitants will either wander off or build these things. Or it will be such a small settlement that nobody really cares.
Cities and villages also vary a lot in structure and in part in build style. Cities have city walls while villages may just have a hedge or pallisade (if anything). Cities are usually more densly packed. Cities have structures where village just have a small amount of infrastructure buildings.
The points I listed here are taken from RL medieval cities and villages. They had reasons why certain parts of the infrastructure were needed.
If people build cities and villages here, I prefer them to be realistic. But it's still a game, people don't have infinite time, and it's normal that some things will be built first and others not at all.
What counts as a city (or village) in the game and which city services are official is another matter. It doesn't take a crown to convince me that something is a city - it has to be built in a convincing way that I think "yes, this is a city". Likewise, real cities don't always have a harbour or airport. Yet this is the most essential city service in the game. Without either one you can't realisticly get visitors and builders to your place. It's cut off.
Villages connected via a stage coach line might be an easier entry for players. The NPCs for the services offered there ought to be basic - more of a decorative kind, yet with the option to put it to vote (but with way lower requirements - more like "look, village xyz has built a new church/tavern/forge/bakery/whatever!").
We already have a lot of more or less abandoned cities where nothing much has been built and the major is nowhere in sight. And we are getting more and more cities for a variety of reasons. In some cases the landscape is to be blamed. Many innocent wanderers found places that forced them to build a city. Many established players are building up their own cities which are not yet connected. New players see that cities are the thing here and want their own. And what shall they do? Existing cities don't really offer plots. Only those will-be-gone-in-a-month ones in Aveniture and Haven (for trading). Or if you're lucky and meet a major online.
The newest city put up for vote is a good example of the problem. I honestly have no idea how I shall vote. The airship is good - equal to most existing airships apart from those copied from the very good/Wow!-level one in Haven. But the city? It's located in terrain that is very difficult to build in, and the reason for choosing the location is given as "can be defended easily againt Voice". Ugh. Noooo! Not again. Not another ruin, with terrain horrible to fight in when Voice comes. But I may feel forced to vote "good" because all else would be unfair regarding airship quality.
It would be great if new settlements could start out as official "villages" with a stage coach line to a city that accepts the new settlement. Perhaps in some cases side-lines of the airship and sailship lines might also be acceptable/needed. People could then get to the place, build there, do sightseeing. That is something that we need - regardless of what Alias thinks about fast travel.
Instead of building a city crown and thus becomming a city in the eyes of Voice, the new city may start as a village/settlement. Once it's sufficiently built up, it might apply for city rights. The city crown block would then no longer be craftable but be placed and awarded if that vote is won.
Right now it usually starts with either a harbour or an airport. And then city services are added, with the church beeing relatively common, the town hall more rare and other services even rarer.
The new start would be a settlement/village applying for a connection to a city - usually via stage coach line, but side-lines of sailship and airship ought to be possible as well. Though those side-lines may be handled in a way that the passengers travel via coach line and then board a small sailship/airship for the last part and end up in an inn belonging to the stage coach line even if part of the journey would technicly take part over water/air.
The village might then ask for votes regarding services that can be found in villages and cities alike. Village-level services would just be decorative NPC (apart from the stage coach line inn), and the requirements would be lower. A city may wish for a cathedral; a village may be very happy with a small church. The requirements regarding the voting system ought to be much lower for village services.
Village-level services could be upgraded to city-level ones via another vote. If the building had been city-level from the very beginning, no changes would be required, just a "yes, this is good for a city" confirmation.
Such a system would require even more votes, and the voting system IMHO is already pretty broken. Rewards for players who go to these places and put up a vote might help a bit.
It seems to me this bug contains various interconnected discussions
I think by having a lower rank than "city" and "global travel network" the server would benefit from
If we'll require associating new settlement with existing city/mayor (senior player), we'll get pretty fine first filter for no big price. Mayors will have the chance to ask questions early.
I second Sokomine's comment on the state of the world. Frankly, I would support downgrading existing cities to lower tier if all they build/offer is a harbour/airship service.
Yes, that sounds reasonable. If there is no city to be found (or just not much in general), the village state may be much more appropriate. People might still be able to get there and continue their build (they wouldn't restart/recover anything if walking there takes too long). Any city services as such wouldn't be required, and it would seem odd for Voice to conquer an empty place. He doesn't know how to use sailship or airship lines...he just knows that we use them :-)
We need a lower level for people to start building their settlement. City is such a huge project...and a reasonably good harbour/airport can be built too fast by comparison. The really good ones still take time, but those good enough (equal to existing ones) don't.
I'm not that happy with the reqirement of a church.
We have many elements of fantasy (e.g. potions, wizards, monsters) and technology in a medieval background, so it seems to me there could be other instituitions fulfilling similar dutys, e.g. a local healer, witch, wizard or even a hospital.
Apart from a fast means of transport, which I consider essential for a settlement for gameplay reasons, I would prefer a solution where there is a list of services, a certain number of which must be fulfilled in order to give the place a certain status.
A certain kind of active inhabitants (not counting alts) or a least regular visitors might be a reasonable criteria for a settlement.
With 1.2 cities and invasions we'll have a kind of "activity indicator". People can gain a small amount of xp by visiting the heart of the city crystal. This will also earn the city a small amount of xp.
There will be other means of obtaining xp for a city, but the more xp a city earns per day via visitors to the Crown, the more active it is, right?
Good idea, but what if the visitors are more interested in visiting the citys (or settlements) shops, smithy, punlic farm, public mine or any other POI?
The xp should be an incentive to visit the crown, it's also a mechanic to make city builders put the crown in the most accessible place.
Not only because the issue should discuss the status of villages, I am in favor of villages being able to get this type of xp. Otherwise, the advantage of the already existing cities over later founded ones would be very high and the devil always sucks on the biggest pile.
I suspect that in this case the church only means that it should be such a representative building to adequately accommodate a priest who in turn can offer the service of the portal of death. It does not mean any particular religion, symbols or design. It is not yet clear to me how the previous npc-priests and the players will work as priests after the update. A look into the guild palace, however, could give stylistic suggestions.
But if you want to build something completely different instead, then that would have little to do with the City Service for the Death Portal. See also here: #3481
BTW, if villages can have a more official status in the future, then perhaps also in connection with the guilds. Perhaps they can each be bases for one or a few guilds, while at least large cities will try to house all four guilds within their walls.
This opens another avenue: We can let aspiring private areas build a crown, if the position satisfies the city conditions and enough people visit and a certain daily xp threshold is passed the area becomes a village and is extended to 128x128, if another higher xp threshold per day is passed it becomes a city?
Not really. That'd only work with many players. Way more than we can have. And even then not really.
The hopeful new settlement needs a way for people to get there in the beginning even more than later on. Imagine a newly founded place: There just isn't much there. The founder walked there and created the area, started some building. Now others should join. There isn't much to show yet - it just started. It's mostly work. So players need to get there (bad if it's a long walk), take a look around, see if what they can see of the style fits to what they can build, get materials to and fro (a serious problem with only one home). Once more has been built, the place becomes more intresting to a wider range of players. Those need to go there as well to take a look and tell others. Word of mouth spreads and more people want to take a look.
So far, YL doesn't work well regarding offering places to build to new players. There's the goblin catapult which leads to...not that great a place, with areas claimed through the easy /protect_this in a too large style. If new players are lucky, they might catch Alias and get a plot assigned in a twon where they'll loose it if they don't log in for more than a month.
Many of our cities are built in a certain style. Many are built in terrain where offering standard plots like in Aveniture just doesn't work.
There's currently not much between "build your own town" and "oh, go and get some irrelevant part somewhere out there where nobody's ever going to come by visiting except some mimes who wandered in". Yes, most majors welcome builders to their cities. But that usually requires both parties to be logged in and a lot of more complex social interaction.
This thread is really long, I'm not going to spend 45 minutes reading it.
I'm just going to pitch my idea how villages/towns should work, if you don't care, then whatever.
Villages must be a maximum of 1500m from an official city.
Villages will have a crown like cities, but it will be made of silver instead of gold.
Villages will also be able to get full-scale voice attacks and be able to be controlled by voice.
Travel
Villages will be "linked" to an official city no more than 1500m away. Villages may have an airship/sailship connection, but you can only travel to that village via the linked city's air/sailship.
Trouble isn't the distance as such or the crown (the silver version seems nice). Trouble is that Alias doesn't want easy travel. But travel is what places where more than one player wants to live and where sightseeing is worth it is needed. Sure, if you're bizon or Chache or likewise capable, you can build your city or village almost everywhere and the walk is worth it. But what about players who can just reach the level of good, or even slightly less?
If Alias were against easy travelling, it wouldn't be for the two existing grids. They make travelling child's play. I also don't think Alias is generally against a third or fourth grid.
But I believe that it should somehow be meaningfully integrated into the previous game logic and especially fit in with the upcoming updates. That is why I am not in favour of quick fixes.
Making it too easy for players reduces the fun of the game. And I don't think it's the easy travel that makes players mayors, but the privilege of having your "own" city.
Unfortunately, many projects and players fail at their claim. Building the big thing right away can succeed, but it doesn't have to and we know enough ghost towns and ruins on the server. Therefore, I find a small project, which can develop organically much better. Matter of opinion.
So far, by the way, all city rules of Alias have failed. Because I could name exceptions for everything (thanks to Alias of his generosity) and so the founding of a city is actually not tied to any obstacle, as long as Alias continues to grant late settlers the same rights as early settlers.
I just wanted to address this in general terms, so that this point is clearer before the city update if possible. Clear rules and a more long-term game use may not suit everyone, but I do.
One concept of Alias seems to be/have been: Walk there once (as players in general/voting), and then get a faster connection.
No. Many cities (at least Maravillosa) are to be blamed on the landscape. That lake didn't let me run past without founding a city...couldn't do anything :-)
Cities need materials and builders who need to get there. It's not excellent towards builders to force them to walk long ways to get to the place where they want to work. Long repetitive walks waste peoples' times in a way that isn't rewarding.
And once something nice has been built, people deserve the right to visit and enjoy it.
Yes. Starting as a settlement/village and then letting things develop would be much better IMHO. If it's a city or a village to me depends on what is beeing built. For the server, how much by how many people and in which quality is probably more intresting.
I wouldn't blame Alias for that. Many cities have been started before the rules were created and published. It's not the fault of the majors either to take their time and build rather well than fast.
I still like the stage coach idea very much:
New hopeful settlement builds something that can be seen as a way to get into contact with the rest of the world - either hotel and stables for stage coach, a small place for/with a ship, a small ballon...or even a complete harbour or airport if they want to.
That place gets voted on. Minimum of votes required: 10 instead of 20.
If accepted, settlement and a city can negotiate a connection (which both sides can terminate later). The receiving city needs a stage coach hub in some form (voted on as well).
We might also add a mechanism where players can complain about er...lack of service in one of the settlements so that failed settlements, settlements lacking in quality or beeing just a player's base can loose their status again.
Sadly the voting system doesn't work well. Even requiring 10 people to visit a new place may be too much. Some players are alts and thus excluded from the vote, and some don't care because they're more intrested in fighting than build quality. And in most cases a hopeful new settlement will be just that - not much to look at yet.
More time to take a look might probably help. Perhaps also something like a builders' union with people who're actually intrested. In a way buildings where it's uncertain if they're griefed, intended ruins or just very bad devastations of the landscape can already be reported, will be evaluated by staff and sometimes be removed.
I guess YL will really benefit from villages / smaller settlements. In rl there are only few citys, but much villages too. I really love these ideas metioned by Sokomine: #2997 (comment)
Boot wrote:
I can't agree: There are these players, but I guess the mayority uses other reasons:
That leads to the main problem: not the amount of citys, but more the amount of bad / abonned citys in the travel network:
Most players start from the wrong site:
Fist come huge walls to protect everything.
The village-attribute could help to focus on the more important buildings. No need to protect empty land with a wall since a village does not need such strong defenses.
Next comes a harbour to get new players and help (which often does not arrive)
A new travel network could really help: People can get there and take a look when the builder wants feedback (no need to go on a stupid long walk). But that network would take more time: You need to get to the connected city, find the hub there, talk to the NPC's. Until everything is loaded and the ways to the NPC's are taken, some time will pass. And there could even be a waiting time from the "please let me travel to village XY" and the moment when you arrive there.
I guess that a village mayor should also have the ability to open a cheap portal to his village. When they need a fast feedback, but the city is very far away, noone will come. We already see alts as portal service (abuse of the priest). I totally understand these people. We should not punish an WIP city for not having a harbour and getting no visitors/helpers due to that fact.
Last point: a village has a real advantage: You can call it finished after some time, 10 houses, that's all. In a city there is always something missing...
(actually not realy the topic, but connected to the problems with citys...)
Despite a long discussion, I unfortunately cannot see any result. And although Runy and I would rather live in a full medieval village, we are now forced to make a city out of it.
Yes. Sadly no result :-(
What if each city was required to have a village or a few that help supply the city’s needs and voie’s goal would be to destroy the villages so that he could seize the cities
after thinking a lot about #5009 I would like to share some suggestions for the village topic :-)
I still guess villages are really needed, especially since we will need some long roads for the caravans which imo should have some decorations along the route.
1) founding of a village
I really love the idea of a founding quest :-) There should definitely be some sort of core structure, a crown for villages. Levels would be cool too!
Villages can only be found when there exists some sort of connection to a city. But unlike citys, there will be no minimum distance to other cities, so villages can fill up the space between them.
The city mayor (or the mayors if there is more than one city connected to that road) needs to be present during the founding process.
Example: The road between Citadelle and Tenebris is nearly finished. Due to the distance rules, there can be no real city. But we can decide to team up and found a village along the road. Ofc such a new village can be handed over to a trustworthy player. It's just to prevent someone builds a road with huge effort and some other player ruins it by building something ugly there / earning profits from the road he did not build.
2) services
A village is not a city, so there are fewer services avaiable. Ideas which come to my mind:
3) invasions
villages are not of prior intrest of voice, but depending on the amount of defense structures there might be some scouting missions. (mainly to prevent villages beeing surrounded by large and ugly walls)
Some events (like a caravan visits the village) or buildings (fortress) might increase the chance of voice attacks. Maybe a village can even be taken over in the background threat calculationg the caravan attacks.
Once a village is captured, the inhabitants wander off, services are unavaiable etc (like in cities). Additionally, caravans can no longer pass. They will get plunderd once they reach the occupied village. So no village is be better than an inactive village which will be captured very soon.
4) Economy
A village might produce some goods in a economy building, like a city does. But the item can also be obtained in other ways (like a farming village which produces wheat, maybe there is even a bakery so the output is bread). These goods are mainly produced to support the next city, so the inhabitants don't need to bother how to get food/iron/... but can focus on their own economy instead.
Villages will profit from caravans, but they can not setup a caravan by themselfs. So they need to wait for a caravan to show up if they want to sell their goods to other citys.
Example: Tenebris decides to build a village which produces bread for the citizens. When Tenebris runs out of bread, we need to set up a caravan which travels to that city, trades goods for all the bread avaiable and returns afterwards.
5) Activity
Villages will get inactive quite faster than citys. In this case some services will be lost (first of all the fortress and the stagecoach). Villagers wander off, the city area will be more likely to be invaded and all the caravans will run into ruin...
6) update to city
on the other hand, some villages might grow. They have many levels, NPC's and a good economy. Such a huge village can apply for city rights. Maybe they need to complete some sort of "update quest". The new city can expand their size to city area (if there are no protection conflicts) and build city services.
(I know, there are distance rules for citys. Maybe the new city can not set up an harbour/airship for vote. Instead the stagecoach line could be updated so that it will be always available and can't break)
7) other stuff
as I state earlier, the main advantage is that a village can be finished. (eg. a village can consist of a port, a fortress and some fishing huts.) That will add great decoration to the road without counting against master areas. Additionally it will only need limited effort (just enough activity to keep the services running) to keep it working, while there is always more than enough to do in cities...
Anyways, these are my ideas, I hope some of these suggestions are somehow valuable for the discussion...
I'm a bit against villages becomming inactive. It's very much against the way things work in the game. If a nice village has been built once, it might be mostly finished and not really require maintenance (what would you do anyway to maintain it?). Villages that are lacking essential things and remain unfinished for a long time might of course still become inactive.