Hi all,
This is a suggestion to enrich the game experience for strategus, which is currently only favoring factions with a great number of members. We know the plot of every strategus session and how it will end; some very big factions will grow over smaller ones, and one side of alliances will win the round as always. Although this might be satisfactory for these aforementioned big factions, smaller factions and individual players cannot get what they want from this great gaming idea. That is why, I am posting here a comprehensive suggestion to include more players and add more dynamics to the strategus game. Please note that it is still open for improvement and all sorts of contributions are welcome. Here it goes:
Summary: This is basically a "faction type" implementation which will be selected by every faction in strategus at the beginning of the round. Depending of the type, each faction will have advantages and disadvantages over each other. This selection will basically limit the growth of huge factions, make them dependent on or afraid of smaller factions. This will naturally encourage smaller size factions or even single heroes to be effective in strategus and provide different styles of relations with other factions like being a merchant, mercenary, vassal, bandit or infiltrator. Faction TypesCalradia world is big and full of opportunities, therefore people and factions might choose their own way on how to benefit from this world. This faction type is basically a decision that needs to be taken by the faction founders at the beginning of the round, just like server region. This decision will influence the properties of the faction, and all the members who join it through time. Here are the faction types and their features:
Kingdoms, Vassals, Bandits, Mercenaries, Merchants, InfiltratorsKINGDOMS:Description: This is for big factions who want to grow and rule Calradia. The mechanics are very similar to what we have right now. A kingdom can have several vassals. Additionally, a kingdom can make another kingdom its vassal by capturing most of its fiefs and making a ceasefire agreement by forcing them to change their faction type into "vassals".
Fiefs: They can capture villages, castles and cities. There is no limit to the number of fiefs this faction can have. However, size brings issues. The rate of crime in fiefs, and general upkeep for members gradually increase with the number of fiefs owned. Kingdoms are not allowed to raid fiefs. The fief count of a kingdom must be larger than the sum of fiefs of its vassals.
Production: Kingdoms can produce a good variety of goods. However only a very few number of items can be produced in highest quality. That is why kingdoms need vassals or merchants to grow stronger. The price of production and capacity is dependent on the size of the faction: the prices go down and capacity increases per unit as faction grows.
Trade: Kingdoms can trade with other kingdoms, their vassals and merchants. The capacity of the trade depends on the size of the faction and its partner. Trade margins and profits are negotiable within other kingdoms. Trade with vassals and merchants are explained in relevant faction types.
Armies: Kingdom armies can be vast and shiny. But they are slow and costly. Kingdoms can recruit their own armies, call their vassals to arms or make deals with mercenary factions. When a kingdom army attacks, the battle is scheduled one day after, as kingdom campaigns are big and take time
Map Options: Members of a kingdom faction have variable speed and visibility properties. The movement speed is calculated with respect to size and load of a member's hero. Range of sight depends on the size of hero's army: bigger the size, larger the range of sight. This is two-sided though: small armies have more chances to be unnoticed by others.
VASSALSDescription: This is for smaller factions who thrive to be bigger one day. A vassal can have 1 ruling kingdom, which can be chosen after a cooldown time in the beginning of the round. A vassal cannot have more fiefs than its kingdom. They have a mutual survival relationship with kingdoms. The vassal of one kingdom can be captured by another kingdom and forced to change its ruling kingdom.
Fiefs: They can capture a limited number of villages, and at most 1 castle but no cities. As the size of this faction is smaller, they have lower rate of crime in fiefs and lower general upkeep for members. Vassals cannot raid fiefs.
Production: Vassals can produce a small variety of goods. But they have some very high quality special products that can be sold to kingdoms. The price of production and capacity is still dependent on the size of the faction: the prices go down and capacity increases per unit as faction grows. But they have a bonus for their special products.
Trade: Vassals can trade with their kingdom, other vassals and merchants. The capacity of the trade depends on the size of the faction and its partner. Prices and margins for the trade of "special vassal products" can be defined by the producer vassal and receive bonus for this trade.
Armies: Vassal armies are smaller and weaker compared to kingdom armies. However, they are faster and cheaper to upkeep. Vassals can recruit their own armies or make deals with mercenaries. Vassals need to send armies to their kingdoms if they are asked, but they can ask for help from their kingdom if needed. Same with kingdoms, when a vassal army attacks, the battle is scheduled the next day.
Map Options: Members of a vassal faction have variable speed and visibility properties. The movement speed is calculated with respect to size and load of a member's hero. Range of sight depends on the size of hero's army: bigger the size, larger the range of sight. This is two-sided though: small armies have more chances to be unnoticed by others.
BANDITSDescription: This is for smaller factions who has chosen the dark side. They are one of the main balancing elements in the game to terrorize the map and present challenge for bigger factions. They are basically nomadic factions that need to relocate on the map in given periods.
Fiefs: They can capture a single village at the beginning of the round, to generate required items and army. After a cooldown time, they need to leave this village. After that, bandits are not allowed to capture any fief, they can only raid fiefs. However, bandits can find and settle in "invisible hideouts" in forests or mountain tops which can stand only for 1-2 months, and they will need to relocate. They can have at most 1 hideout at a time, found by any member.
Production: Bandits have high production capacities and but very small variety and quality. They can produce very low quality units without the necessity of being in a fief. Bandit hideouts can produce better quality units but never as good as any other faction type's production quality. Bandits can produce horses for cheaper.
Trade: Bandits cannot trade with any other faction, but they can buy/sell units in neutral fiefs like everyone else. Bandits loot the trade caravans instead.
Armies: Bandit armies can be medium sized but armed with lower quality weapons unless these weapons are provided from raiding. Bandit hideouts are good at generating recruits. When a bandit army attacks, the battle is scheduled much sooner than other factions, e.g. in the next 6 hours. This enables "hit and run" strategy making other factions' units more vulnerable to bandit attacks. On the other hand, bandit faction members need to organize better to find roster for their battles. People from other factions can help bandits for roster support by simply choosing "fight with masks" during application which hides their name in the battle. (This makes "Pseudonym" option in roster application more useful for Bandit battles.)
Map Options: Bandits have access to horses earlier than other factions, which will increase their movement speed. Range of sight of a bandit hero is larger by default than others, and sight increases with respect to size. Bandits also have the option to drop goods to increase their speed if they need to.
MERCENARIESDescription: This is for smaller factions who make money by fighting for others. Mercenaries have open ended contracts with all sorts of factions. Mercenaries can send armies for both sides in a war and they can roster for both sides without the need to hide their names.
Fiefs: They can raid neutral castles and towns but they can only have 1 castle and 1 village.
Production: They can produce a single complete set of high quality equipment which makes them famous for their elite soldiers; e.g. Swiss Halberdiers. This set can be chosen at the beginning of the round but can be changed within long periods. For this complete set, they have bonus for capacity and cost. But for other units, they have low variety and capacity.
Trade: They can trade with other factions but they actually make their biggest income from trading their armies.
Armies: They can have their own armies. But most importantly, their armies can be traded with other factions. Upon request, mercs can either sell or lend their armies. Mercenary faction can define the prices for both of these options. When the army is sold, there is a single money transaction. When the army is lent, mercenary faction receives the decided amount of money every hour/day. When mercenaries sell their armies, that army must be taken to customer's lands and transaction is completed there. A lent army joins customer's faction temporarily and makes money accordingly. A lent army joins back to its original mercenary faction if it survives the attack. When mercs attack, the battle is scheduled the same way with kingdoms and vassals.
Map Options: Mercenary heroes have same speed and range of sight properties with kingdoms and vassals.
MERCHANTSDescription: This is for smaller factions whose goal is to make money peacefully. They are not part of any kingdom or vassals, they are basically independent and free trade territories.
Fiefs: They can have 2-3 villages and 1 city at most. They cannot raid.
Production: They have a large variety of products with changing quality. They receive bonus for the items being sold to other factions over time.
Trade: Trade is the core of this faction. They can make trades with any type of faction, as they have a big variety of units, they can make a good amount of money from trading.
Armies: They can have their own armies to defend themselves. It is up to the faction to decide how to get this army; they can either make their own or ask for mercenaries to give them armies. As they do not belong to any kingdom, they cannot call for help. Merchant fiefs cannot be taken by any faction, they can only be attacked by bandits and get raided. Merchant armies are only needed to get the fiefs needed (until the limit) and defend the region against bandits. When a merchant army attacks, the battle is scheduled the next day.
Map Options: Merchants have large range of sight, their movement speed is the same with kingdoms, vassals and mercenaries. Merchant caravans can drop their goods to escape from attacking bandits.
INFILTRATORSDescription: This is mainly for neutral and individual players who would like to play a game of "cloak and dagger", playing their role in the outcome of wars of "big landlords" or merely making profit by offering their arts of discretion. The only thing they own is, contacts. With those contacts they can do certain things. This is explained more in detail.
Fiefs: Infiltrators can only enter a fief. Raiding and attacking settlements is not an option for them. They can't own them as well. In return, they are invisible to the fief owner once they have entered a fief; though they can be seen under certain circumstances. Explained later.
Production: As infiltrators can not own any fiefs, they can not produce anything since they have no settlements and they will not be able to carry any equipment in their inventories. Instead, they "establish" contacts with their strat tickets. Those contacts will cost upkeep, if not getting paid they will be disbanded. The amount of contacts will be displayed in the inventory and they will not slow the infiltrator on map. They are merely to show what the infiltrator has. Those contacts will make the difference in getting caught or being succesful in the actions.
Trade: To your great surprise, infiltrators also can't trade. However, they have certain weapons at their disposal to be involved with the trading business.
Armies: Infiltrators own no armies.
Map Options: Infiltrators are seen as 1 man armies on the map,
if one has the chance get that much close enough to see them on the map. Infiltrators move at great speed on the map, and an army needs to get very close to their party to spot them. That being said, they have the option to hide in friendly parties. Alternatively, infiltrators can try to sneak into a party with some risk involved. Again, this will be explained later in more detail.
The actions infiltrators can do are:
Get caught:
If the infiltrator gets caught, all of his contacts will go to waste and infiltrator will spawn on a random location of the map. It will be as if the infiltrator itself will be executed and the player will start playing with a new life. It also has a cooldown of 7 days, which means if an infeltrator gets caught 2 times in the same day they will have to wait for 7 days to spawn again.
Infiltrate armies: Risk of getting caught ranging from 80% to 0%
Only for parties
Infiltrators can try to sneak through an army. Basically, the more troops that party has and the more contacts the infiltrator has, there is less chance to get caught. If the infiltrator sucessfully sneaks in, then he will see the full inventory of the party. Some further options will be available.
Hide:
Only for parties, by given permissiom
Infiltrators can hide in armies, if they have the permission of the party of course. Maybe the parties might want some payment to hide an infiltrator in their party, as the party inventory will be fully revealed to the infiltrator by default with this option. A party can hide only 1 infiltrator at a time, so it's not possible to send a spy bomb party.
Note: When an infiltrator is travelling with a party, whether it is an enemy or friend; the infiltrator will act as a member of that party. It will not be seen on the map, will travel with that party, will increase the troop number of the party by 1 (temporarily) and if the party gets defeated in battle, the infiltrator will be slain as well.
Gather Information: Risk of getting caught ranging from 60% to 0%, costs an additional 1000 gold
Only for settlements
The inventory will be revealed to the infiltrator once the infiltrator sneaks into an army. This is not the case for settlements. Infiltrators will need to "infiltrate" to see the armory of the settlements. As expected, there is some risk involved as well as bribing a few of the guards. As a result, it reveals the fief inventory for a full day as well as the information of who is stationed within the settlement with how many troops.
Blend into the crowd
For settlements and infiltrated parties
Infiltrators are invisible once they sneaked up into a settlement or infiltrated an army. The fief owners won't be able to see them, and therefore kick them out of their fief. Same goes for the infiltrated armies. They won't even notice that an infiltrator is in the army at the first place. However, each action the infiltrator takes increases the awareness bar. After that bar reaches a certain point, the infiltrator will be spotted and executed automatically. Seperate infiltrators working on the same target does have less effect on causing each other to be spotted.
For example: Lets say if one infiltrator executes 4 actions on the same settlement, he will get caught. And lets say two infiltrators does 5 actions in total. They will attract less attention individually and will not get caught most likely. 6 actions in total however, will cause at one of them to get caught as there will be two infiltrators which executed 3 actions. Guards might will be more on the lookout to catch those pesky infiltrators. Please take note that this is very a rough explenation and that every action will increase the awareness bar by a different amount. This is just a rough idea to prevent certain possible abuses. The details about it should be decided later.
Note: The contacts of the infiltrator, causes the infiltrator to raise more awareness per the activity being made. Although this effect is minimal, the difference might be noticable in very large numbers of contacts. This is to prevent buying dozens of contacts to ensure doing literally everything. Besides, the more contacts you have the easier for your enemies to track you down.
Guard:
For settlements and parties
Infiltrators can also decide to work against other infiltrators, by trying to prohibit their actions on a certain target. It makes every action by other infiltrators to increase the awaraness bar even more (like, multiplies their effect by 1,2). Only 1 infiltrator can guard a settlement or an army.
For armies, this is like the upgraded version of hiding. They are two seperate actions, because guarding a party can be a reason for extra payment.
Bribe: costs 100 to 10 gold per contact bought, depending on the crime rate
Only for settlements
An infiltrator can buy contacts in cities with gold, contacts that will only work on that city. It will look in inventory like "Contacts from Reyvadin" for example. The price is determined by the crime rate. This action also increases the awareness bar, so it is wise to bribe early before you're planning for an action on that settlement. Also, it is a good idea to not bribe too many contacts in a settlement.
Spread Disease: Risk of getting caught ranging from 100% to 10%, costs an additional 10000 gold
For parties:
If the attempt is succesful, the army will begin losing armies until they station themselves in a settlement for 3 days. The army begins losing troops like this: 2% troops the first day, 4% troops the second day, 8% troops the third day, 16% troops the fourth day... This percentage is of the total amount of troops.
For settlements:
If the attempt is succesful, the same effect will be applied to the population only. And the casualty is half of the amount compared to armies (1%, 2%, 4%...) . It is not possible for the disease to be cured in 2 days. After 2 days has passed, there is a 25% cahnce of it to be cured every day.
Increase Crime Rate: Risk of getting caught ranging from 70% to 0%, costs an additional 1000 gold
Only for settlements
This will increase the crime rate by 20% within 3 days. This effect can be stacked as many times as desired, meaning the attempts can be repeated while the previous attempt still takes effect. For example: if it is repeated 3 times, the crime rate will raise by 60% within 3 days.
Note: Higher crime decreases the awareness bar a little bit.
Burn S&D: Risk of getting caught ranging from 80% to 0%, costs an additional 2+ golds per S&D burnt
Only for settlements
If the attempt is sucessful, the effect is instant. For burning 0-99 S&D, it costs 2 gold per S&D burnt; after that 100-199 S&D costs 3 gold per S&D burnt...
Sabotage: Risk of getting caught ranging from 70% to 5%, costs an additional 5000 gold
Sabotages a certain kind of weapon. The number of the weapons is irrelevant, only thing that matters is the type of the weapons. An army is carrying 900 pikes? Take the risk, spend 5k gold and sabotage all of them in a single attempt. It destroys all ranks of an item, broken and masterwork alike.
Note: Also includes goods!
Investigate: Risk of getting caught ranging from 20% to 0%, costs an additional 200 gold
For settlements and parties
Simply, when succesful, it will reveal the awareness bar of the settlement/party. It doesn't show exact numbers, but rather; it reveals a rough picture of the situation. Take note however, this only reveals the latest awareness bar you investigated. This action also increases the awareness bar a little bit, and this is not displayed in the last report you get.
Note1: The chances of success/failure depending on contacts are not linear. Having no contacts will make a great chance of getting caught. As the infiltrator establishes his contacts, it will offer great use at the beginning and after a certain number it will begin to offer diminishing returns.
Note2: Yes there are two seperate factors for getting caught. One is the awareness bar and the second is the risk of getting caught of that specific action. Maybe these two factors can be integrated into 1, but I am too sleepy at the moment.
Throughout the game, shifts from one type of faction to another might be possible, the details can be worked out. Every faction type should have an advantage over the other in some ways.
What do you think?
Cheers
Thanks to all who contributed for forming of this idea: BattalGazi, Darkoveride, Fru_Apskaft, Kingrimm, Casimir, Ronin
Hi all,
As a person who is bored of strat's well known finale in every session, I am suggesting something actually "new" in means of changing the game style. You know there are large factions pursuing to become huge and ruling and there are small factions who basically can't do anything fun except from watching big guys fight each other. So, in order to give those small guys a chance to have fun and be effective, I suggest the implementation of "Faction Type".
This faction type is basically a decision that needs to be taken at the beginning of the round, just like server region. For now I could only think of three of them: kingdoms, vassals and bandits. I didn't think too deep for each of them but, here is what I have in mind in general:
Kingdoms:
- They are basically what we have right now. Being able to capture villages, castles and cities. Benefits from the trade routes, a large variety of items to produce with high capacity but also suffers from this new concept of crime, upkeep etc. Their armies can be vast and shiny. No raiding option though. Visibility range for their members is small on the map, as their lands are huge.
Vassals:
- It's for smaller factions who choose to follow a good path along with a bigger faction. It can only capture villages and at most 1 castle, but no cities. They can contribute to production and trade, but maybe more limited compared to kingdoms, but on the other hand they are not effected that much by crime and upkeep. They might produce some very good quality items that cannot be produced by kingdoms. Their armies have a size and equipment limit, so that they can't be as strong as kingdoms. As a vassal, they can choose a kingdom faction and benefit from discounts on trade and production partnership with them. They can also do trade etc with others but with higher costs etc. Their members have normal visibility range on the map.
Bandits
- It's a dirty way for small factions. They can only capture villages, but they can raid castles and cities. They have limited types of products so they can't produce everything they want. But for what they can produce, they pay less and they can produce a great amount. Upkeep is a smaller or no problem for this guys but they have crime issues. They have limited trade options as their main income is caravan or fief raiding. They have limited armies and limited equipment (unless they loot it from someone else). Their members have bigger visibility range on the map.
Throughout the game, shifts from one type of faction to another might be possible, the details can be worked out. Every faction type should have an advantage over the other in some ways.
What do you think?
Cheers
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