Another Strategus Suggestion: 6 factions only

[Knute]

I like Strategus v.3, especially the trading and bandits.  That said, the things I don't like are:

- most gear is too expensive
- cavalry gone
- nobody signs up for village defenses
- no castle/town sieges
- it's difficult for small clans to exist without joining an alliance
- once your clan loses all territory, it’s hard to get back into the game
- stalemate

I don't know if a bigger map alone will fix some of these problems.  Here's a suggestion though:

Instead of having an infinite number of factions, how about just 6 large factions that anyone can sign up for?  Here’s how it would work.

Factions:

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When the new round of Strategus begins, you’re given the option to join one of 6 factions or stay neutral.  The six factions would occupy the same areas as the Warband single player factions, see map and alt map:

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People who choose to go neutral at first could join a faction at any time by selecting someone in a faction and doing the apply thing, just like now.  You could quit a faction at any time but would have to wait a week before joining another. 

All the town/castles/villages already belong to factions, so there would be no more initial neutral village defenses.  People from other factions staying in your towns would have to pay a high visiting fee but your faction members would only pay the 1 gold fee.  These places in your starting territories would still be like neutral village/towns/castles though, so someone within your faction could take a town/castle/village to better control it's defense or raise taxes and visiting fees.  If another group within the faction doesn’t like this, they can attack their fellow faction member’s town.  So there would be the chance for fighting between groups within your faction.

Also, if someone did attacking one of the locations within your home territory, it would behave just like neutral villages now, letting anyone sign up.  So because there are 5 other factions spread around the map, there might be more people willing to sign up for the defense of a neutral town without fear of retaliation.

Your current faction:

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People could still be in their same old cRPG clans, they would just be a subgroup of a larger faction.  Sort of like a family, tribe, company of soldiers, whatever you see yourself as.  Identified by your clan tags. 

In the last few versions of Strategus, a small clan could save up for a couple weeks to take a village…..and then lose it because their defense is at 3pm and they’re all at work.  Because this small clan lost everything, they might lose interest in Strategus.  In the same scenario, with the small clan being a subgroup of a larger faction, they might be more likely to have a pool of people available at 3pm on a weekday to defend the village.  So this faction system would possibly allow small groups to have a better chance in Strategus.

Gear:

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If I recall correctly, the original intent of players earning skill points for crafting was to allow you to make the gear that you enjoyed using for less cost in Strategus, so clans could have their own distinct look.  How about this:

Each of the factions would be able to produce the gear that reflects their culture for a very low price.  You could still buy everything everywhere, but in the Rhodok lands they could buy crossbows, polearms and board shields for 75% less.  In the Nord lands they would have axes, huscarls and longbows.  Khergit area gets horse archer stuff and so on.

This might lead to weapon trading between friendly factions and weapon smuggling to others.  I think all gear should be cheaper in general too, so cavalry and sieges can return to Strategus.

Maybe this gear thing might make some people choose factions based on the equipment they'll get to use more often.  Former enemies might end up in the same faction because they like to use the same stuff.  EU players who like Rus armor might join the Vaegir area faction even though it’s in the NA zone, and then be useful for raiding into the EU zone.  Maybe mixed NA/EU factions would become more common. 

Benefits for new players:

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They could make a skip the fun character and join a faction in Strategus right away without having to apply for a clan or meet some kind of skill standard.  They would instantly be able to get involved in both cRPG and Strategus, maybe joining some clan later on.

What about “carebear” stuff?

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Let’s say all the players in the two largest factions currently in the game both joined the Swadian faction.  The crafting efficiency system would still be the same as now, so there would probably be a lot of people hanging around outside of villages/castles/towns with nothing to do. 

Also, it would be a lot harder for people to send caravans outside of their faction’s territory because while they might have some friends in a neighboring faction, they will also have enemies plus a ton of loose cannons who don't care about trade agreements or treaties.  Each version of Strategus people tend to group up into large coalitions anyway, so this 6 faction system would just be skipping right to that, and hopefully moving on to the next part where we get more wars.

So in summary:

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Everything is the same as it is now except:

6 different factions with starting territories.
Faction equipment based on your culture is very cheap plus everything cheaper in general.

Ok, I'm going to learn how to code this, brb in 10 yrs.

[Vibe]

So... what's the role of factions here anyway, if clans can fight for fiefs inside factions?

[Knute]

So... what's the role of factions here anyway, if clans can fight for fiefs inside factions?

All people in a faction would want to work together to take over other factions fiefs and expand outward until the entire map is their faction's color, just like in warband single player.   

Clans within the faction might want to take over a fief in their home territory so they can have more control over it and gain the extra income from taxes and fees.  The income would just go to the owner and he could share it with his clan, if he wanted to. 

[Vibe]

All people in a faction would want to work together to take over other factions fiefs and expand outward until the entire map is their faction's color, just like in warband single player.   

Clans within the faction might want to take over a fief in their home territory so they can have more control over it and gain the extra income from taxes and fees.  The income would just go to the owner and he could share it with his clan, if he wanted to.

So what's to stop all the carebears joining 2 or 3 different factions and just playing as one?

[Shadowren]

Your idea wouldn't work well with the current set up of strat.

But its not a bad idea.

[Knute]

So what's to stop all the carebears joining 2 or 3 different factions and just playing as one?

Nothing.  When they've destroyed the other 3 factions they would probably fight each other then.  Plus consider anyone could join a faction, so they wouldn't always be one united front.

What do you need to do to not be considered a carebear?  Fight everyone at once?  Everyone has allies. 

[Freland]

I really like the idea of having a predefined faction. But I think you should not be able to choose your faction but be assigned to a factio by some sort of autobalance (although this would be hard to code probably). Of course everyone from the same crpg clan should be in the same (of the 6) factions.

[Zaharist]

- most gear is too expensive
- cavalry gone

I totally disagree.

[dodnet]

I totally disagree.

Says the member of one of the biggest clans with a shitload of members, villages and money

[RandomDude]

Not saying I like or dislike the idea but it would be a great way to split up the current clan alliances (which seem to be very similar every round).

Now if you choose swadia and your old friends choose nords, you will fight each other but there wont be any bad blood as you havent "betrayed" each other, you're just fighting on different sides.

Bah no1 will go for this anyway.

[Zaharist]

Says the member of one of the biggest factions with (maybe) best faction leaders and (maybe) best faction strat-map teamwork

Fixed

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Sure, amount of players is vital, but faction management is the clue. Only good leader can manage such big faction and do it rationally so that everyone know what they should do, and they do it exactly how they are supposed to.

Everyone knows that at current strat small factions are hopeless, but still their leaders do not cooperate, do not team up. Most of them just whine about carebears. That shows their management abilities too.

Frankly speaking I don't like this idea at all.
Phyrex's suggestions (imo) are much better.

Also

- most gear is too expensive
- cavalry gone
- nobody signs up for village defenses
- no castle/town sieges

won't change with suggested faction system.
I don't like "cheaper gear" suggestions. Having well equiped, experienced and numerous army able to fight was never an easy task.
If you don't want to work hard to make "professional" army, then ercruit some peasants. Cheap gear.

[Tristan]

Your idea is not bad, yet not the best. Phyrex idea is better imo.

@Zaharist:
To a certain extent I agree with you. It is a quite impressive organization some of the larger clans have, and even more impressive their members follow orders to the letter. However, saying that smaller clans should just group up is naive. It's sorta like saying to EU, why don't you just become one country? Even though it is rational economically speaking, emotion and cultural divide causes that it is not as easy to do.

[Elmokki]

God no. Player defined alliances cause more drama and awesomeness.

[Knute]

Not saying I like or dislike the idea but it would be a great way to split up the current clan alliances (which seem to be very similar every round).

That's what I was aiming for, some way to create a little separation between the faction someone chooses to join in Strategus and their regular cRPG clan.  It would be like loading up a native multiplayer server and instead of choosing between 2 teams, getting to choose between 6 teams so all the people who like playing horse archers would be on one team, western knights the other and so on.  Cheaper gear giving everyone access to what they like right away. 

If this idea sucks, that's ok.  I've just recently noticed more casual players who were excited about this round of strat in the beginning losing interest as all the villages get locked down, so wanted to throw it out there.

[Dehitay]

Is Freland the only one to notice the obvious problem. All this means is defining alliances beforehand and not being able to change them afterwards unless you can switch factions. Basically, this limits it to 6 alliances, however, it will make it a hell of a lot more obvious who's in one alliance. So the whole carebear conspiracy could be proven true or false.