Hey everyone!
First of all I would like to ask you to forgive me my pure language skills. I wish I could speak english fluently and write understandable grammatically correct sentences, I should've learned better at school %) I will try to do my best, please try not to be too grammarchocolate chip cookie.
Thank you in advance! ;)
This thread is all about my personal thoughts about strat development and expresses my personal opinion. I can be absolutely wrong, that's ok ;)
I think we are going in wrong direction since the end of first strat.
What made strat2,3,4 boring comparing to first strat?
They had the same scenario, same roles and same participants. UIF - antiUIF.
Small factions have no chances to settle down without "permission" or protection, no faction can survive alone, big factions (with adequate leaders) are overpowered etc.
What changed since Strat1?
Fixed numerous exploits, changed local fief micromanagement, added and then changed several times economy, battle management changes etc
Are these things really first to do?
IMO first thing that should be implemented in Strat is GLOBAL faction management.
Diplomacy should be in-game, not forum.
Factions should have bonuses/disadvantages according to their diplomacy (agreements, wars..), political system, size, number of fiefs, village-town-castle ratio, number of players.
Factions' fiefs should have global parameters like loyalty, rebellion chance, distance from capital.
1. In-game diplomacy
ATM we have no Diplomacy ingame interface, so we have to form alliance, declare wars and make agreements on forum. This should be done in game.
For example
forming alliances can be done only during war. Faction A declares war on FacB, FacB ask for assistance FacC, B and C form alliance, FacC automatically becomes "at war" with FacA.
Every faction management action should affect some aspects of faction management.
Forming war alliance allows you to transfer troops within your alliance, may have positive affect on troops' morale - bonuses, on the other hand it can slightly increase corruption or rebellion chance in your fiefs.
without declaration of war no faction member can attack member of another faction. if FacA declares war on FacD, FacD automatically at war with A. Being at war should increase troop recruiting speed and items production, but also increase rebellion chances, taxes, decrease loyalty etc. The longer you stay at war - the less positive affects, the worse negative.
With trade agreements you can change taxes in your fiefs for each faction separately.
Having defensive pact with FacB you automatically join them in case they are attacked by FacX. But you can garrison your troops in FacB fiefs, FacB pays wages, not you.
and so on
2. Faction size, number of fiefs and players. Random events.
The more players in faction, the more fiefs it can hold without significant flaws.
Like 5 players per fief for factions <20ppl, 10 players per fief for factions 20+ppl. If FacA (19players) conquers 4th fief they face some problems, like low loyalty in that fief, high corruption etc.
The bigger territory faction has the more it suffers from corruption and rebels in province. Rebels - AI light-medium equipped armies 300-500 tickets randomly spawning to attack province villages with low loyalty (prime-time only).
Village-town-castle ratio. Town without villages is useless. Factions holding towns without villages should suffer somehow. Low prosperity or production. Castle population growth should depend on number of faction's nearby villages. The more villages - the sooner castle has full garrison/population. Owning a castle should affect positively on surrounding villages, decreasing rebellion chance. The bigger castle garrison, the closer village - the less rebellion chance.
3. Fiefs global parameters.
smt like
-Capital: yes/no (towns only, affects loyalty, corruption, rebellion chance, prosperity)
-Distance from capital (affects corruption rate, loyalty, rebellion chance, prosperity growth)
-Loyalty (affects corruption, prosperity, random event: ppl leaving your village)
-Rebellion chance (causes random event: rebel army spawn)
-Corruption (decreases the amount of gold fief produces)
Please, don't pay attention to details, names, figures, numbers... I want you to understand the idea in general.
Global faction management should solve current problems like:
1. Forming enormous alliances. Should be useless.
2. Managing big faction should be difficult
3. Small factions should have a chance to play on par with bigger ones.
4. Faction should be encouraged to play actively, making more "concentrated" wars (short duration, large number of battles), more diplomacy
5. Make multiaccaunting almost useless
Example of how it should work:
Faction A has 80 players, 2 towns, 2 castles, several villages. Faction B has 10 players and 2 fiefs.
Faction A wants to wipe them and do it easily. One evening, two sieges, no Faction B.
But. Due to it's big size FacA suffers from at-war status greatly (losing loyalty and stability). The very far FacA's village attacked by fairly strong rebellion army (troops, equip, gold partly taken from nearby fief garrisons. figures depend on global parameters). Rebels take the village, it goes to FacB (as they are the one who are in war with FacA), 2-3 facB leaders are teleported to their new fief. Rebellion chance of surrounding villages grows.
fiefless FacD strike, attacking A's fief on the opposite to D side. due to high rebellion chance and low loyalty village garrison with equip and gold partly joins the attacker's side. A suffers even more. Sure, FacA can wipe B and D, but it isn't an easy task. Isn't just a matter of two sieges.
Attacking bigger factions should benefit attacker more then attacking smaller factions. The smaller faction you are at war with the less bonuses you have, the bigger losses u suffer.
Global faction management shouldn't be "realistic" or anything like that, it should balance the game, making it challenging for everyone.
In conclusion I would like to thank chadz and devs for their great work and with them patience and inspiration to overcome current mod's crisis.
Thank you for your time and attention.