The Hero's Perspective
In a game like Brunelleschi, it's easy to get lost in the complexity of building settlements. After all, there's only the wildnerness to play in until someone founds the first city and becomes a sovereign. However, this was never meant to create a sovereign-heavy population.
Brunelleschi was designed to focus on the Heroes: Player characters with a lot of action points, awesome abailities, and the power to affect major change without necessarily holding seats of office.
Settlements are big, cumbersome beasts that require capable ministers and a lot of Heroic support to build - much less run smoothly!
You Awake in the Wilderness
Heroes begin their journey in the wilderness. They can entertain themselves by collecting rocks, taming animals, and other such activities to level up before ever laying eyes on civilization. Heroes can go solo or become agents of societal change based on their chosen course.
Moving Into Town
Once a Hero has had their fun in the wildnerness, they can choose a settlement to move into. Settlements have all sorts of fun things to do like get jobs, sleep in beds, and discover new district-specific actions.
Smaller settlements provide more potential to become a mover & shaker, even for low-level Heroes, while larger settlements will have more to do and explore.
Not Being Homeless
Once you enter a town, Heroes can find a home by renting a room in one of the settlement's residential buildings. The Granary is the first residential building in any settlement, as the primary building for the Fields district.
Having a home provides certain bonuses, depending on which home you bunk down in. You also get a reward for visiting your home once a day.
Jobs, Jobs, and More Jobs
Jobs are one of the ways that Heroes can significantly contribute to the settlement. Any building that harvests, produces, or researches can offer job slots.
A Hero Researcher will drastically increase the number of Research Points a settlement generates each day, and therefore acellerate the unlocking of new technologies (if anyone up there is managing the research).
A Hero Laborer can drastically increase the output of a building, allowing them to harvest or produce more efficiently with each cycle.
Plus, you might (might!) get paid for the work you do.
A Hero can have up to 3 jobs, and you get a bonus for actively visiting your jobs. However, you will experience an Action Point regen penalty for taking more than one job. Because, y'know, you're tired from all that working.
Combat
There are tons of opportunities for Heroes to test their attributes, gear, and personal troops against one another. You can Fight in the Pit, make enemies with other players, or engage in warfare if your settlement is at war.
Plus, you can always get waylaid while trying to perform daily actions. At that point, you'll have the option to fight or try and talk your way out of it (parlay) to escape.
Adventures and Scenarios
You might come across unique adventures and scenarios that will give special rewards like wealth, gear, or secret skills. What are those skills? Obviously we can't tell you.
Choose your actions wisely. The way you respond to adventures and scenarios will determine if you find some great reward or wind up in combat.
Gear, Food, Troops and more Hero Stuff
Lastly, let's not forget the fun of collecting stuff. Each Hero Class can wear certain types of gear to enhance their attributes. You can recruit or hire troop units to fight for you in battle. You can also eat the food in your inventory to gain certain bonuses.
Leveling Up and Becoming All-Powerful
Heroes have the advantage of two (or double) class abilities and bonuses. They become powerful and can level up faster than Lords, and enjoy a lot of daily advantages in terms of gameplay and prowess. If your goal is to build an awesome character and have plenty of gameplay to explore every day with all that sweet, sweet AP, then the Hero's perspective is one you'll enjoy.
All this adds a richness to the Hero experience that makes them pretty darn rewarding.
And if you find yourself yearning for a life of politics and administration, you can always lead a coup. Or make a Lord character in the same account. You're more than welcome to do it all.
