Taking over a town through economic control:

[Hasabushi]

First off: I absolutely believe this game could be a community changing game as it's already starting to shape up to be something totally different than what is out there. The potential for this game is huge and the modding community is already starting to sprout, with the game having being designed from the ground up for modding.

I've been playing for over a week now, and am more than addicted to the whole squad based approach.

One feature I would really like to see is the ability to take over a town gradually by buying up the buildings essentially becoming the landowner of the estate, town, city or empire. One way this could be done is by becoming a partner of sorts with a store you wish to trade with, gradually taking more and more stock in the store until you are able to buy them out, you could either keep the former owner or hire in a different NPC to run the store, of course you can micromanage the prices or leave the running of the store totally up to your selected owner. A way to balance this is that your income would go towards having to pay the employees and their salaries, plus building maintenance, defense budget [paying the city soldiers or soldiers to protect your interests], caravan protection for trading your goods, etc.

Also as a possible start the character you first begin with could be given an option of getting a job with a store, it should pay "peanuts" but should be a decent alternative to going out and fighting. You could start out with crafting/cooking/mining/harvesting/caravan protection [these would pay a set amount but as a plus would build up skills slightly faster for the first few levels] or having to trade with other distant towns and get paid based on the time it takes you to get there, plus goods sold.

Anyways these are just my ideas, would love to hear comments on this idea.