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Strategus => Strategus General Discussion => Topic started by: BASNAK on March 08, 2013, 09:48:08 pm

Title: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: BASNAK on March 08, 2013, 09:48:08 pm

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chadzville.
chadzville is a compilation of ideas, which purpose is to try and inspire the developers to  give an overhaul and ground-breaking changes  to Strategus. I've spent many hours in the past days making this compilation with intention to help revive a mod and community I hold dear. The compilation is not free from errors nor finished.

I am aware that Developers are full of their own ideas and work already. So I worked really hard on this because I want to help out, either by giving ideas or atleast inspire to do some changes. This might be completely ignored, or be taken to consideration - But in the end,  Atleast I tried

So here we go:

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Why does Strategus need change? Here is why:

Some might claim Strategus is fine and just requires some polishing while others think it's a curse to the community that should be purged. Some of the reasons to why Strategus is disliked are:

• Before Strategus, large tournaments, Clan scrim-battles and other events were held and enjoyed by many. These event slowly died out and became less frequent due to release of Strategus which occupied most clans and left little time for other cRPG activities.

• Strategus only leads to hostility in the community, drama, rage and personal insults.

• Because of Hostility and there being no penalty for large factions, mega-alliances, blocks etc, And the fact that Defenders have a great advantage, and that there is no disadvantage for camping  -  Strategus became  a Mega-block Alliance war - Camping Simulator, where everyone would grind troops and camp their fiefs, and refuse to attack because great disadvantages for attackers. The only real progress in EU Strategus has been when people have went inactive, and being conquered afterwards.

• There is little fun to be gained compared to the amount effort required to be put in Strategus. Clans spend months grinding troops, gold, equipment just to have them wasted in a couple of one hour-long battles. Grunts from many clans are restricted and do nothing but grind troops and maybe run a caravan. The only ones who seem to enjoy Strategus are leaders and high ranked within the faction. Since they handle diplomacy, armies and have drama wars on the forums.

• Strategus battles are not fun. The only ones who care about the battles are those leading and being affected by them. The only reason most people attend Strategus battles is because of the huge experience gain. Whenever I attend a battle, I'm constantly looking at the clock wishing it would reach 0 faster, because the only thing on my mind is the experience and not the battle result it self. Remove the experience gain and the only ones whom would attend the battles would be those few who actually care.

• Small and new clans don't belong to Strategus. I speak from my own experience. My clan was not able to do anything without licking one block's or the others ass. Although we have fought both blocks, we always at one point  "belonged to someone". We don't have the memberbase of the larger factions capable of brainlessly grind us money and troops and it is not something I ever hoped on having.
The game should be able to be played by small groups of people, standing a chance and independently be able to enjoy Strategus, without being "roflstomped". There are also many other examples like single players trying to be traders, or trying to get a village. All to have their dreams crushed :(

Now there are many reasons to why Strategus sucks, and the community could probably list over a hundred reasons. But one thing is for sure, Strategus 4.0 needs to go.

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The following will be a bombardment of ideas of what Strategus could be instead. Reasons and summarizations will be given later on in the thread. Most images are manipulated and are only meant to clarify the ideas proposed.

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New World
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The new map will consist of one Capital City Praven, one Town Dhirim, three villages Saren, Ismirala, Amere and an abandoned ruins Curin. Each place will play its own important role [which will be explained in another section]. The map has been "minimized", and travelling across the map will take a day or two. Fiefs will no longer exist. Cities, towns and villages have instead become interactive and will feature enterable buildings instead, They have become a part of the map instead of being objects.

An Example of how Praven could look:
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Cities, Towns and villages are no longer controlled by players, but are instead a part of the map. As seen on the screenshot above. You would no longer have to press "enter" to enter a fief, but simply just move into it on the map through the gates, and later on move to your destination within the fief. Buildings will play different roles and will be enterable just like fiefs were in Strategus. Travelling through the streets would take little time.

The different buildings will be further explained in an upcoming section.

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World economy will now be affected by players, and fiefs will prosper depending on the actions of players. This is done through players being able to gather  resources and craft goods in one fief which the other fiefs cannot gather or craft. As an example, fruit can be gathered in one fief and sold in another fief which cannot collect its own fruit. The buying fief's stock in fruit will increase, and will consume the fruit by time. The higher stock of a certain item will lead to a lower buying price, and a low stock to a higher price buying price.

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Villages can be used to gather resources.
•Saren for Wine, Wood and Meat.
•Amere for Bread, Cloth and Fruit.
•Ismirala for Metals, Stone and Fish.

And the City and Town can be used to, craft equipment and goods with resources from the villages.
•Praven for crafting heavier equipment and weapons, and metalware.
•Dhirim for crafting lighter equipment and weapons, and furniture.
[Crafting and Curin will be explained in upcoming sections]

Fiefs will no longer craft goods or sell resources, They will only buy and consume. Gathering and Crafting will be done by players and will be one of many sources for income.

Here is an example of how selling/buying would work. [Has not been Balanced]
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In chadzville,  players will no longer buy their weapons and equipment from fiefs like in old Strategus, but be crafted by players. By using resources gathered from the crafters own faction or bought from other players, - equipment, weapons, goods and horses can be crafted and sold to players or AI to gain a profit.

This adds some depth to the Economy system, making players dependent on eachother to gain equipment and goods. It also allows those who specialise on blacksmithing as an example to create their own sets of armors, set which price would be set by the blacksmith him self when selling to other players - Which of course is directly affected by the amount of resources there is available on the market and at what price resources are sold by other players.

This gives some possibilities like:

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Blacksmiths can advertise their equipment and goods for sales on the forum if they choose to sell it themselves or have a merchant doing the job for them!

And now to the crafting it self. It would work like this:
You unlock and upgrade the items you would like to be able to craft with Crafting Points (Which are to be explained in the Character section), and loom items as you progress in level.
To craft an item you need to be in an appropiate location, like a blacksmith for forging weapons, or a Stable to breed horses.
Then you need to have the required resources to be able to craft the item.

Here is a graphic example:

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Gathering, will also require one to be in a suitable location to gather the wanted resource. To gather faster and more items at once, the player must specialize in Gathering skill.

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Just as in cRPG, players will be able to assign skill points to develop their character to fit their gamestyle which also gives characters a role in society and chosen faction, rather than being mere grinding slaves. Strategus experience will be gained from attending Strategus battles, tournaments, attacking/defending on the map, gathering/crafting, raiding caravans, attending church and hunting bandits with bounties on their heads! Inactive players will be useless!

A player can decide what kind of character he wants to play. A character can be everything from a bandit to a merchant to a crafter.
There are no "bound classes", only skillpoints. Some examples of professions:

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Gatherer (Farmer, Woodcutter, Miner, Hunter, Sheepherd etc.)
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Crafter (Blacksmith, Tailor, Carpenter, Horse Breeder etc.)
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Merchant Trader (Buy Resources/Good/Equipment cheap, sell expensive)
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Mercenary (Protect Merchants and Gatherers&Crafters/Bounty Hunter)
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Bandit (Raid anything you can lay your hands on and sell it)

Or just a Hybrid Merchant Crafter bandit. There are no limitations on what you can be!

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As seen in the screenshot above, the info tab includes more information such as Reliability, and performance, K/D and W/L all based on Strategus battles. Dueling is based on participated Tournaments [Will be further explained in an upcoming section]

As characters level up and gain more experience, they are able to have attribute points assigned. The different attributes are:

• Leadership: Allows player to control 10 more party members per attribute point.
• Movement: Increases the maximum movement speed per attribute point.
• Stealth: Increases the duration the stealth ability makes you hidden while enabled on the map.
• Strength: Decreases movement speed penalty from carrying alot of things per attribute point.
• Crafting: Increases the amount of goods and equipment that can be crafted simultaneously, also gives Crafting one point.
• Gathering: Increases amount of resources gathered simultaneously.
• First Aid: Increases chance of party members being revived after a battle.

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All fiefs' purposes were explained before, and Curin was left unexplained. The idea for bandits is that stolen or raided goods/resources/equipment can not be sold in markets in Cities/Towns/Villages. It can only be sold in the black market of Curin which could be called a bandit outpost. Dangerous Place - But a lot of money to be made from buying or selling stuff here.

Happy Robbing!
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Now to my favourite idea. The lack of tournaments and events has made the game boring. So to spice it all up here's the idea:

• Depending on the Mayor [Chosen Developer]. Different types of tournaments and events will be held every-now-and-then in different fiefs. To attend the tournament one travels to the chosen location for the tournament and signs up, and shows up for the tournament when the time comes. Strategus battles are also paused during tournaments to more people to attend.

• Some examples of events: 1v1 Melee, 3v3 Melee, 1v1 Ranged, 3v3 Ranged, Jousting tournament, 8v8 Faction tournament, Survive the longest against bots (DTV?) Etc.

• Winning a tournament would grant a place in the Hall of Fame as a champion duelist or clan, and grant rewards and titles in cRPG. Become a renowned warrior known to the community, making everyone want to hire you for their battles for money!


Example of how it could look!
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• Every month, an election will be held where each player will be able to vote for a Mayor, which would trusted faction-independent players [Like Developers]. Electing a Mayor will spring changes in the world, like Tax changes, frequency of tournaments, and what day to go to church!

• There is a lot of potentional in Politics, but is not the most important aspect that needs to be implemented.

Here is an example of changable things, and how voting would work!
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Now here comes one of the largest changes to Strategus:

• Factions are locked to 10-20 members max, forcing factions to recruit their active and best players, and making each victory, a victory based on skill and tactics rather than numbers and spam.

• Since characters have a  class-system, it also allows Factions to choose their way of trying to dominate in Strategus. Either by all sharing the same classes like merchants and outcompete all other merchants, or become the most sucessful and trusted band of mercenaries. Or simply just being a mix from all classes. The choice is yours.

• Factions will now be able to list a couple of allies, and endless enemies in their faction pages. Benefits from being listed as ally is being able to transfer goods and equipment for free, which is not possible to those non-allied or outside the faction. And to stop constant ally changing, Timers could be implemented to prevent ally-changes or faction changes.

• Faction pages also display collected K/D, W/L and amount of battles!

Here's an example of how it could look.
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Battles now get a huge overhaul. No more 70 minute long battles of constant spam and no fun involved.

• Battles will become more frequent and scaled down to a size where 100v100 would be considered a grand battle. Since battles have become scaled down, battles would be played by almost only the factions actually involved in the battle (There's still always the possibility of hiring randoms of course). Instead of 50 players per side in a battle, it would be more like 10-30 per side (depending on battle size).

• Factions are able to buy equipment fitting their gamestyle, and use tactics practiced in cRPG. Making battles more tactical and battles feel more like Clan Scrim battles. Attending Strategus battles would of course be buffed and be more beneficial for experience  compared to staying in normal cRPG servers. It would also make it useless being in large block alliances since there would not be room for everyone in the roster!

• Because of Map change, battles will be fought on streets, city markets, highways and smaller battlefields compared old Strategus' random plains! If a person is to be attacked in a city street, it would be a battle in a street, if attacked at the Tavern, a battle in the tavern! There are alot of good maps made for cRPG that cover these new battlegrounds.
Smaller battle sizes, smaller maps.

Do sadly not have screenshots of the awesome maps from cRPG, like Tavern, random city streets, highways, ruins, villages, hideouts These will have to do:

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• Since the economy system has been reworked making Higher end expensive and become rarer, and low-medium end armors have become more common. This makes battles no longer a battle of Tincans.

• No more boring sieges, with bugged equipment and OP castles.

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As explained before, fiefs have been divided into buildings, where each building serves its own purpose. Here's a list of some of the buildings:


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Market Place
A place to sell Resources, Goods and Equipment to AI which will become available to buy for all other players (Or consumed if it is goods). This is place is for those that do not want to sell their wares themselves, and want to make some quick money.

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Tavern
To stop players from becoming mindless grinding Zombies, players must send their characters to a nearby Tavern to rest every one or two days. If that is not done the character will no longer be able to do any more actions! Pro tip: Fighting around this area causes a battle in the tavern!

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Church
Religion played a very big role during the Medieval Ages and should also in Strategus. Every chosen Church Day by the Mayor, players have the ability to enter the Church and attend which will generate some Strategus experience for the character.
Praise thy lord!

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Tournament Area
The place where players have to send their characters to signup and attend different types of Tournaments or events.

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Blacksmith
A working place for crafters to craft items from resources, or repair equipment that they can also craft.

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Town Hall
Where players send their characters to cast their votes on what Mayor should be chosen, or view information such as Tax, Day of Church etc.

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Gathering Work Places
Lumber Jack's hut, Fisher's Hut, , Metal Mines, Farms, Hunter's nest, Bakery, Garden, Wineyard, Stone Quarry.
All working places for gathering resources. Existing in their respective fiefs.

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Crafting Work Places
Blacksmith Workshops, Weavers mill, Carpenter's workshop, Fletchers workshop.

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Curin Black Market
The only place that will buy looted or stolen resources, goods and equipment. A slightly dodgy place.

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So what would reworking Strategus to chadzville give us?

• A fast paced Strategus.
• Frequent battles, where factions can put tactics and skill to use.
• Friendlier towards Newbies and Smaller Clans.
• Many different ways to play Strategus, everyone being able to choose a gamestyle that fits them.
• No more camping and cold wars.
• No more oversized factions or block alliances. The most prominent and dominating clans are the most skillful and clever, not with those most in numbers.
• Brainless zombie grinders equal to useless
• Bringing back tournaments and events making both Strategus and cRPG a more interesting game to play.
• Larger variety of equipment. Bringing back Low-Mid tier equipment back to Strategus.
• World Economy based on true S&D, where players are forced to talk and work together.
• Professions lead to competition, creating a basis for conflict amongst workers too.
• Giving a larger say for Grunts in factions and getting them more involved in Strategus.

These are just some of the positive things I can come up with. There are probably some bad ones but not as bad as current Strategus.

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All my respect and thanks goes to the dev team for making Strategus and cRPG. I hope my ideas and suggestions will get some attention and hopefully lead changes similar to chadzville. Strategus is a great idea but I believe it is drifting towards the wrong direction.

Thanks for reading!

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Garlic - Idea and image manipulations

Source for all the artwork + Graphics:
Stronghold Kingdoms
Anno 1404
cRPG Dev team
Mount and Blade
http://levodoom.deviantart.com/art/High-Marches-Regional-321248696
http://luned.deviantart.com/art/Sorravas-338642763

And some others I might have forgot to mention :(

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Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Crob28 on March 08, 2013, 09:51:56 pm

looks.... sexy

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Matey on March 08, 2013, 10:06:06 pm

I was skeptical at first, but that actually sounds like a lot of fun. It might be interesting to allow anyone to run for mayor though as opposed to devs only, especially since we should have a NA map and a EU map and there arent exactly a lot of NA devs to run for mayor of NA towns!

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Torben on March 08, 2013, 10:09:46 pm

nice effort,  great ideas,  however quite a new game,  eh? : )

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Latvian on March 08, 2013, 10:10:10 pm

something that long can not be bad.

Signed i can only approved!

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Kitten_Mittonz on March 08, 2013, 10:11:06 pm

Sounds cool hope they take it on kudos to u sir  :o

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: agweber on March 08, 2013, 10:13:07 pm

Feels like such an entirely new game. Does look very interesting, but it also discourages players that don't have the time to play as fast-paced of a game. All in all, a very well put together post, and I wish you the best of luck!

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: donib on March 08, 2013, 10:13:46 pm

Some one played too much the guild 2...

Quote from: Latvian_Knight on March 08, 2013, 10:10:10 pm

something that long can not be bad.

Signed i can only approved!

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: SirCymro_Crusader on March 08, 2013, 10:20:10 pm

.

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: XyNox on March 08, 2013, 10:36:12 pm

One of THE most deserved +1's I ever gave.

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Haboe on March 08, 2013, 10:46:37 pm

You use pretty pictures in your suggestion, it must be balanced and cool, +1

Ah, thats what i recognized them from, pictures from other games :P

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Sultan Eren on March 08, 2013, 10:52:49 pm

nice artwork

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Wolfsblood on March 08, 2013, 10:58:09 pm

this sounds more like a guild game than an army vs army game, which is what people mostly play this for. I love the idea of strat being scaled down a bit like this, but maybe it was a bit much? I just feel that this game world should have a grander scale than what you are providing atm. however i doing feel like this is a vast improvement compared to what e have now

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Casimir on March 08, 2013, 11:02:46 pm

Interesting ideas, seems more in line with what they're going for with epic.

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: chadz on March 08, 2013, 11:09:55 pm

Very nice - we obviously won't do it, as it's an entirely separate game :), but the thought behind it is very good - I'd like to see it realised eventually.

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: JackieChan on March 08, 2013, 11:11:23 pm

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Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: donib on March 08, 2013, 11:12:40 pm

Quote from: chadz on March 08, 2013, 11:09:55 pm

we obviously won't do it,  - I'd like to see it realised eventually.

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Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Son Of Odin on March 08, 2013, 11:15:28 pm

Quote from: chadz on March 08, 2013, 11:09:55 pm

Very nice - we obviously won't do it, as it's an entirely separate game :), but the thought behind it is very good - I'd like to see it realised eventually.

Maybe it's time for a mod inside a mod action? :mrgreen:

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c-RPG community made mod... That could be something interesting.

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: SirCymro_Crusader on March 08, 2013, 11:18:47 pm

Quote from: Son Of Odin on March 08, 2013, 11:15:28 pm

Maybe it's time for a mod inside a mod action? :mrgreen:

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c-RPG community made mod... That could be something interesting.

Start coding

Quote from: JackieChan on March 08, 2013, 11:11:23 pm

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How many tabs do you want open at one time  :shock:

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Algarn on March 08, 2013, 11:24:03 pm

Good idea  :)

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Son Of Odin on March 08, 2013, 11:25:33 pm

Quote from: SirCymro_Crusader on March 08, 2013, 11:18:47 pm

Start coding

Obviously I don't know jacks squat about game modding. I'm just throwing ideas :D.

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: BASNAK on March 09, 2013, 12:04:12 am

Quote from: chadz on March 08, 2013, 11:09:55 pm

Very nice - we obviously won't do it, as it's an entirely separate game :), but the thought behind it is very good - I'd like to see it realised eventually.

chadz has spoken. Half Life 3 confirmed!
-

Now on a serious note. I was pretty much expecting this as an answer. Giving ideas is a simple thing to do but putting it to practice is not. Although it would be nice like Son of Odin suggested to perhaps allow community to start developing and handling Strat (If there are capable people willing to do it, of course)

Quote from: Wolfsblood on March 08, 2013, 10:58:09 pm

this sounds more like a guild game than an army vs army game, which is what people mostly play this for. I love the idea of strat being scaled down a bit like this, but maybe it was a bit much? I just feel that this game world should have a grander scale than what you are providing atm. however i doing feel like this is a vast improvement compared to what e have now

That is partially true. Some might like the grand scale battles and the ideas of everyone controling Empires. Although I believe cRPG to be a mod based on developing your character, and Strategus lacks this. But I personally prefer a small tight band of people playing together, all being involved planning instead of a game with huge factions just outspamming eachother, leaving no involvement for lower ranked members.

Quote from: Casimir on March 08, 2013, 11:02:46 pm

Interesting ideas, seems more in line with what they're going for with epic.

Couldn't donate in time for MB:G, No idea whats going on with development :(. Although I would love to see this happen!

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Son Of Odin on March 09, 2013, 12:09:54 am

I didn't mean that strat should be developed by community. Strat is what it is.

This is totally different game as chadz said. Should be a totally separate part of crpg and see where it goes and if people get into it.

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Spartacus on March 09, 2013, 12:15:24 am

I am sorry but I do not understand why you should be less worth as a player if you are in a big clan or coalition?

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: BASNAK on March 09, 2013, 12:16:08 am

Quote from: Son Of Odin on March 09, 2013, 12:09:54 am

I didn't mean that strat should be developed by community. Strat is what it is.

This is totally different game as chadz said. Should be a totally separate part of crpg and see where it goes and if people get into it.

Ah I misunderstood sorry. Although it would be fun to watch Strat 5 be handled by the community and watch Chaos commence.

Quote from: Spartacus on March 09, 2013, 12:15:24 am

I am sorry but I do not understand why you should be less worth as a player if you are in a big clan or coalition?

If there are too many people in a group it becomes harder for the leadership to take everyone in the faction to account and involve them equally much. Atleast that is how I imagine it to be, and have seen it myself happen.

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Zox_Fury on March 09, 2013, 12:23:25 am

Quote from: JackieChan on March 08, 2013, 11:11:23 pm

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Jackie has always a sell/trade tab open on his computer!!! He s aware of every trade of Crpg .. He s like the Godfather of Crpg business.

By the way your project is awesome Garlic and i hope a dev team motivated could do somethin about it ;-)

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Algarn on March 09, 2013, 12:35:28 am

This gamemod should be played as PW : in real time ... I hope that will be it  :D cRPG is good , but Mount and Blade game mods are sometimes boring . If the team makes this ... that will crushes Chivalry and all bullshit/commercial craps  :twisted:

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Kafein on March 09, 2013, 12:59:21 am

Well, if the hardest part of making a videogame was formulating ideas and concepts, we would already have the best videogame ever available for free by now :?

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Algarn on March 09, 2013, 01:04:50 am

Yeah, I know that's a dream  :cry: so much bad things in this cruel world !!! I'm not stupid , I know that would take 3 years  :?

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: buba on March 09, 2013, 01:09:16 am

You can take idea's from this and put them in strat.
I really like the crafting and "class"system.

As I understand chadz always wanted to keep Strat close to what native is, so in that it makes sence that he does not want to chance the whole game.
But he could take a few ideas from this can he not?

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Algarn on March 09, 2013, 01:12:50 am

I like gathering/crafting system too , but that should be in the MBG "I think"

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: the real god emperor on March 09, 2013, 01:40:00 am

if something like this happens, id play it :D

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Smoothrich on March 09, 2013, 05:33:50 am

Basically summed up the game in the title, want to go all out on the Farmville aspect of it.  Personally I think by far the strongest element of Strategus is the battles, and the rest of the interface should be as simple and streamlined as possible for enabling clans to wage big battles and wars.  This accomplishes the exact opposite effect.  I do not want to spend time in a Warband mod that isn't big battles on open fields or castles clashing.  That's what the game is, and what Strategus tries to achieve (and did best in Strat 2)

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Joker86 on March 09, 2013, 06:40:41 am

I never played Strategus, so the whole matter is difficult for me to judge. I don't even now how the current strategus works, to be honest.

I'd like to ask why and how players engage in battle against each other. I mean: there is nothing to conquer. No fiefs or the like. Or did I misread/overread something?

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: bagge on March 09, 2013, 10:02:08 am

Very nice Garlic!

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Arathian on March 09, 2013, 10:41:34 am

I.....don't like it.  At least parts of it. Queue the -1's, but I won't lie :/ Please read my objections.

I mean, it looks good on papper, but it has way too many "best case scenario" mechanics. Maximum guild size is a prime example. What stops the same faction making 10 allied factions to fit all their members in? Also "neutral mayor"? Really? :P If I have ever seen a thing that will devolve into a numbers game, it is this. It isn't even a question of skill, as pressing a button requires none.

Also, "frequent and small battles" is seemingly nice, but what if your rich merchant was attacked by XxXassassinXxX at 4 in the morning? I presume there will be a smaller wait seeing that huge, concetrated, battles will be removed. Having to wait 24 hours for a 3 minute battle seems kind of silly, there is a reason nobody signs up for 100 vs 100 battles. And let's say that the timer is put way down, to 6 hours, what stops me from abusing the night time system to get the battle 12 hours latter so my buddies can come after whomever attacked me?

Also, I don't see how this will be effectively done. If there is no ownership any more then people won't have objectives. You might think "become rich/powerful/prestigious/whatever" but that is not a realistic goal. Out of how many thousands who play c-rpg, maybe 10 will be the top. Right now we have 100's of fiefs, so at least every 20 or so players are able to reach some sort of recognition, through being a good trader or simple owning a fief.

However, I kind of like the economic and strategus leveling up aspect, HOWEVER

That is against the newbies. Let's say that somebody is level 1551515125something. He can make the best weapons and craft the best armors and his goods are worth 1515151252155 gold. With the same effort he would be able to get many times over the gold a newbie can have.

I DID make a suggestion for a semi-leveling up system a while pact using the prestige. Please give it a read.

http://forum.meleegaming.com/strategus-general-discussion/uses-of-renown-(suggestion)/msg647303/#msg647303

The essense of it is that valor becomes a resource that can either be accumulated giving you passive benefits or it can be spend giving you more drastic, but temporary, benefits. That way there will a check that keeps old players from just skyrocketing in power over new ones. Maybe something like that can be given to this system too.

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: BASNAK on March 09, 2013, 12:12:13 pm

Quote from: Arathian on March 09, 2013, 10:41:34 am

I.....don't like it.  At least parts of it. Queue the -1's, but I won't lie :/ Please read my objections.

I mean, it looks good on papper, but it has way too many "best case scenario" mechanics. Maximum guild size is a prime example. What stops the same faction making 10 allied factions to fit all their members in? Also "neutral mayor"? Really? :P If I have ever seen a thing that will devolve into a numbers game, it is this. It isn't even a question of skill, as pressing a button requires none.

Also, "frequent and small battles" is seemingly nice, but what if your rich merchant was attacked by XxXassassinXxX at 4 in the morning? I presume there will be a smaller wait seeing that huge, concetrated, battles will be removed. Having to wait 24 hours for a 3 minute battle seems kind of silly, there is a reason nobody signs up for 100 vs 100 battles. And let's say that the timer is put way down, to 6 hours, what stops me from abusing the night time system to get the battle 12 hours latter so my buddies can come after whomever attacked me?

Also, I don't see how this will be effectively done. If there is no ownership any more then people won't have objectives. You might think "become rich/powerful/prestigious/whatever" but that is not a realistic goal. Out of how many thousands who play c-rpg, maybe 10 will be the top. Right now we have 100's of fiefs, so at least every 20 or so players are able to reach some sort of recognition, through being a good trader or simple owning a fief.

However, I kind of like the economic and strategus leveling up aspect, HOWEVER

That is against the newbies. Let's say that somebody is level 1551515125something. He can make the best weapons and craft the best armors and his goods are worth 1515151252155 gold. With the same effort he would be able to get many times over the gold a newbie can have.

I DID make a suggestion for a semi-leveling up system a while pact using the prestige. Please give it a read.

http://forum.meleegaming.com/strategus-general-discussion/uses-of-renown-(suggestion)/msg647303/#msg647303

The essense of it is that valor becomes a resource that can either be accumulated giving you passive benefits or it can be spend giving you more drastic, but temporary, benefits. That way there will a check that keeps old players from just skyrocketing in power over new ones. Maybe something like that can be given to this system too.

The problems you mention are not that hard to counter, I didn't go and design a completely new game I basicly just tried expanding Strategus, and adding some new features. There was no point in going All-In on solving problems. Hence why I said "it is not Finished"
Let me go through some examples of some solutions to problems you listed:

• Just because a faction consist of 50-80 members in Strategus does not mean all of them are active. But the thing with Strategus is everyone can grind troops and do caravan runs. The Tavern system which would require players to go to one Each day/or two, would make inactive players useless. And as also mentioned, transfering between non-faction members and non-allies is no longer possible (Only selling with tax of course, and minimum price for an item could be 50% of base price).

And if people are still just that horny on ruining the game for others by making 10-faction sized clans, extreme measures like, signing up the faction before strat round starts, and be assigned to a random "Strategus World" (Which could be possible considering the smaller size of the world compared to current Strategus map). This would split up factions into different random worlds. There will also not be place for everyone in rosters, which I believe would demotivate people from these sort of things.

• Neutral Mayor? It doesn't actually mean it's going to be a Mayor deciding something, and playing. Politicis is just rather a representation of World changes that will happen if people choose a mayor. Like tax increase, and day of church.

• To not make my compilation larger than it actually is. I left out many ideas like enabling a combined Night time for all players. Which only would allow battles, as an example: 12:00 to 01:00. People will disagree with this saying theyre not able to attend and whatnot, and need night time set to what fits them. I believe that night time should be set to what fits most players in the community, allowing battles to happen during daytime, and not having to set alarm clocks to 04:00 in the morning because someone set a random night time. If you cannot attend you can always hire a friend to lead, and random people to fight for you.

• The point with battles is not to just downsize them. It's to transform them to Clan-Scrim battles which is about a million times more enjoyable, where you can put your own tactics and skill to use. And I'm not sure you read everything I wrote or might have misunderstood. But a 100v100 battle in chadzville would not equal a current 100v100 battle. It would still be more beneficial to join a strat battle even if it lasts 3 minutes than staying in normal cRPG servers.

• There is no point in Strategus and never was. From what I've seen (EU Strat). It's all about holding a fief, grinding so much Troops, Gold and equipment that you would cause an omaha beach to whomever would attack you. And when you have any spare troops go out and have a battle or two. And if you have more brainless zombie grinders than your enemy, You can attack more!

And by the looks of it, people have become so afraid of getting wiped, or loosing things, that people will only attack when they are 100% sure they can hold out for weeks-months in a counter attack. No one takes any risks anymore. And as a small faction leader, I have to stick around to larger factions, which always stick around to Block alliances. If I would attack a larger faction, It does not matter how many Battles I would win, they would still generate far more troops than me and compensate for all their losses quickly. I don't know about NA Strategus. But EU has become a unenjoyable disaster.

Having no fiefs makes battles encouraged as you do not have to worry about indestructible walls and oversized garrisons. You can just attack to ruin your enemies economy or what ever your enemy is doing. It is also easier to attack since you can do it anywhere. Observe your enemies routines, find a good timing and location to attack and Voila there you go. No more fear.

• What makes you think there would be no soft cap/hard cap level-wise, like there is in cRPG? I thought the representation of the compilation would be complained about making high end gear too expensive and hard to get. Maybe I didn't represent that well enough.

• And what I mean by involving skill more to Strategus is: You now face similar numbers to your enemies, you need to protect your members carefully, plan your attacks, contain a stable economy, use the best tactics in battles etc.

--

That would be my counter-argument. Although I thank you for taking your time reading and posting your thoughts about the compilation. I didn't expect everyone to agree with it or like it :P

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Algarn on March 09, 2013, 12:21:28 pm

99% will love it  :)

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Knute on March 09, 2013, 05:21:09 pm

Nice presentation and I like a lot of the ideas in the OP like strategus specific skills and town maps within the larger one. 

Strategus has come a long way from v1 but I don't think it's 100% the multiplayer campaign game the developers hoped to make but they were probably limited by Warband itself.  Warband might be like an old house with old wiring/plumbing which limits how it can be remodeled, and that could be part of the reason why the developers are focusing on building their own house from the ground up so they won't be limited in what they can do.

I had to do some serious necromancy to find these posts but:

Quote from: chadz on April 05, 2011, 01:37:26 pm

I tried to lobby to TW to add a module system function that would allow me to send a player to another server. I begged em over and over again, actually. It was always declined, for whatever reason. (I guess they didn't like the idea of a fan-made mmorpg, which could indicate that they are working on a MMO game themselves)

Also an april fools joke or maybe experimenting to have a strat campaign interface like this:

(click to show/hide)

visitors can't see pics , please register or login

------

With current strategus, if there was one last major improvement to make the game more playable I'd wish it would be an option where players could move battles to a mutually agree on time.  Here was my suggestion:

http://forum.meleegaming.com/strategus-general-discussion/strat-suggestion-attackers-defenders-pick-new-battle-time-within-24-hours/msg669608/#msg669608 (http://forum.meleegaming.com/strategus-general-discussion/strat-suggestion-attackers-defenders-pick-new-battle-time-within-24-hours/msg669608/#msg669608)

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Joseph Porta on March 09, 2013, 06:09:23 pm

(click to show/hide)

• Factions are locked to 10-20 members max, forcing factions to recruit their active and best players, and making each victory, a victory based on skill and tactics rather than numbers and spam.

dude, yes!

it seems to me like this would be a far better and more enjoyable game!

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Casimir on March 10, 2013, 02:32:22 am

Kalam, this topic was moved to general discussion, by chadz i believe. :)

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Bombi93 on March 10, 2013, 11:19:21 am

Startegus battles should be 50v50 and even bigger, thats the point of big wars and large alliances, epic largescaled battles that cant be made/done by few unorganized players or small organized clans...
+1 for everything else.


Sorry for unconvencional english XD

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Zaharist on March 10, 2013, 11:55:33 am

+1 for explanation, pics and effort

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Joker86 on March 11, 2013, 12:57:48 pm

The biggest reason for me why I never played strategus is that it seemes to be some kind of organized farming/grinding browsergame where the biggest clans wins automatically due to sheer economic and quantitative advantages. And it's a source of endless faggotry, e.g. 4 a.m. attacks, battle applications where people don't show up on purpose, multiaccounts, etc.

Another thing is that it never feeled like the medieval war cRPG should always have been.

I hope it's okay if I hijack this thread to post a few things which would have actually made me try strategus. It's not a complete suggestion like the OP, as I am neither experienced nor interested enough in strategus, but perhaps there is one or another idea which might inspire someone. Who knows?

So here are a few things I would like to see:


- Time limitation: depending on a few time zones (NA, EU) strategus is only playable during a few hours in the evening. Outside that time window the game "freezes": no movement, no economy, no orders, nothing. This is to prevent people of having to look into strat 24/7.

- Economis limitations on faction: economy is faction based, not player based. This means that a FACTION is always generating ressources, not particular players. This means that clans with more players don't necessarily have an advantage over faction of small clans or even single players. Economy is mainly generated by owning fiefs. Still having more players is benefitial, on one hand because of better micromanagment, on the other hand because certain players can have secondary skills which help improving the economy or winning battles.

- Bots. I know a lot of people hate bots, but I would implement them as a replacement for players if you can't come up with enough of them. Due to the fact that a player is always to be preferred over a bot, I think they would be used only in certain "emergency cases". My idea for bots is basically to be enother ressource next to the well known "troops" (= tickets). Before a battle start the commander can assign a certain amount of bots to a player. In the battle the player can then command those bots like in single player. The amount of the bots on the battlefield is calculated easily: amount of slots on the server minus amount of players connected. The rest if being filled up with bots, proportionally to the participating factions and their party setup. Which can indeed mean that a team of 800 men fighting against 1600 men would only be allowed to have 34 players on the server, while the other party would have 66. (Rounding always in favour of the underdog). This is to prevent factions of only few player screwing up large factions with a lot of players. It's like single player: if your party is too small, you will have a hard time against the enemy. Players can decide when their dead bots are going to respawn by calling in reinforcements. If the players die the bots follow his last order until he respawns again. The bots are different troop types, like in single player. It's up to the developers how they want to design them. If bots participate a battle, but no free slots are left, they start spawning then the player spawns are depleted. If their commander can't spawn any more, another player on the field receives the command, until all player spawns are depleted and the bots keep on spawning with the "charge" order until they are depleted as well.

- players should be able to create bandit or mercenary factions as well. Those factions follow certain rules which allow those factions to reenact real bandits or mercenaries and fill the strat world with life and variety. It's also a nice way to play as a single player rather randomly and without big time investment. Especially if you allow bandits to place a hideout somewhere on the map, which would logically be somehwere in the woods or mountains, where you are unlikely to be encountered by enemy scouts.

- Secondary skills. For example tactics, which can influence the player slot relation mentioned above. All tactics skills for each party get added, and the procentual amount of skill one party has more than the other gets added to their slots. So if the smaller party has an overall tactics level of 24 and the bigger party a level of 20, the small party won by 20% and gets this value added to their slots. 20% of 34 is about 7%, so the new relation would be 41 vs. 59, and not 34 vs. 67. Already better.

Another idea are medical skills. I don't know which one of them it is, but the more and better medics you have in your party, the more lost tickets and bots are regained after a battle. Not that the additional effects for more and better medics decrease exponentially, until they reach a certain value, about 10-20% recovery at the max, I would say.

Then we need path finding, spotting and tracking. This is to encourage players of sneaking through enemy territory and creating the need of setting up patrols and scouts.

A leadership skill could be used to determine whether troops start fleeing or not. Once a certain amount of casualties is reached, the game starts comparing the percentual casualties of both teams. Once a team has considerably more (percentual) losses than the other one, morale starts dropping and eventually troops start rooting, reducing the tickets slowly (or fast, depending on the morale level). Rooted troops return to the faction's fiefs or parties on the field after some time, but are lost for that battle. A high leadership value can reduce that effect or completely stop it.

Of course other skills like trading, crafting and so on could be needed.

- NPC leaders can be hired. Depending on the money you want to spend, those NPCs have certain secondary skills which help your faction. For example I'd say you have three quality levels, where the skill is either 3, 5 or 7. While it is easier to have an NPCs with a secondary skill of five, it would still be preferable to have a player to the job, although his skill might be lower, because after some time the player might even reach skill level 8, 9 or 10, which no NPC can. But it's again a good option for factions with only few players.

- The map having influence on the war. I don't know how far this is already implemented, but there should be good and bad terrain, improving your movement speed or reducing it. Same goes with visibility. Perhaps you want to move your army through a forest towards the enemy castle? It will move way slower, but the enemy scouts won't see you either, and the enemy won't be able to send reinforcements.

- Sieges should need time to be set up (don't know how far this is already implemented), and you should also have the option to siege someone until they starve to death. You should also be allowed to sally out and make surprise attacks. On the other hand players whould be allowed to try surprise attacks on castles, either surprisingly rushing through the still opened gate with cavalry, entering in disguise or some of those mission impossible actions where fighters climb up some ropes or the abort during night. I don't know how to implement this, though.

- You should also have to set up a camp before being able to fight a field battle properly. The game tracks who clicked first on attacking the enemy/following the enemy party, and depending on this flags one party as attacker and the other one as defender. The defender needs to set up a camp so that the fight will be an open field battle. If the defender fails to do so in time (e.g. because the enemy light cavalry and the player with high path finding and spotting skill attack surprisingly from the near forest), a "defend the treck"-map is being loeaded, where the defender spawns in the middle of the map and the attacker at the corners. There are several destructible waggons in the middle of the map, and every destroyed waggon reduces the tickets/bots/goods that party is having by a considerable amount. So better don't let the enemy surprise you while marching.

- complete rework of the fief system. I think when strategus starts there should only be some villages scattered around the map. These villages can be claimed by factions randomly spawning on that map. Once a village is owned it can be improved and fortified by the factions, depending on whether they want it to be a city (better for economy) or a castle (better for defense and recruiting troops). Like in Medieval II, I think that seperation is quite reasonable. All fortifications can be improved further. It works like this: an amount of siege maps is being created, for several cultures. For the western culturea castle could start with a wooden castle, the next map would be a stone house, then a small stone castle, a stone castle with moat, a stone castle with moat and inner defense ring and finally a stone castle with moat, inner defense ring and keep in the center. The better the fortification is, the more difficult it is to conquer. I wouldn't make them necessarily "bigger", because this means it's more difficult to protect. Just give them more loop holes, bottle necks, etc.

- Of course some economic improvements can be made on fiefs as well. I don't know how this is implemented already, but I can think of basically everything: mines, wells, merchant/craft guild houses, toll posts, churches, schools, theater hosues, grain elevators (increases time before starvation kicks in in sieges), apothecaries, etc., the amount of possibilites is almost unlimited. Castles can also have different training grounds, tournament places and other stuff which allows you to recruit the different bot types and increase the generating of the common player ticket troops. And all fiefs can have garrison quarters, which can basically be extended unlimitedly, but for exponentially increasing costs.

- If a lot of money is spent, a faction can found a new village on the map (name must follow certain rules and has to be approved by the devs). This is a huge hit to the treasury of a faction, but will definitely pay out on long term.

- Assassination feature: factionless players or players of a bandit/mercenary faction can be hired as assassins. They receive a certain amount of gold upon murdering a certain player. Once the victim is reached by the assassin, a battle is sceduled. This battle doesn't have tickets, it's more something like a duel between those two players. Still I think that there could be the option to have both players being supported by other players or bots. For example the more fiefs a victim owns, the higher the rank in his faction and so on, the more and better bodyguards he will have. And the more money the customer pays, the more helpers the assassin will have. If the victim or the assassin (or both!) die in that battle, their characters get reset and lose all money, items and troops. They are dead.


That's basically it. Sorry for that wall of text, but somehow I felt the urge to tell my ideas. Interestingly enough, a lot of those ideas are actually combinable with the OP, or at least try to achieve the same (e.g. reducing the - sometimes enormous - size and power differences between factions)


Edit: TL;DR version


- Strategus only playable at the evening during a few hours. Rest of the time the game pauses.
- economy is faction based, not player based. This means no matter how many players are in a faction, 1 or 50, all factions generate the same ressources (under same circumstances).
- bandit faction and mercenary faction features.
- implementation of AI driven bots, commandable on the map as NPCs or in battle as soldiers. Don't hate on this, this is to help factions with few players.
- secondary skills: pathfinding, spotting, surgery, trading, weapon smithing, leadership
- no more even teams when the armies are not even. Instead proportional teams, which means 2400 tickets vs. 1600 tickets => 60 players vs. 40 on the server. the secondary tactics skill can change that (in both directions)
- routing: if the proportional losses of one team are much bigger than those of the other team, the losing team suffers ticket depletion to represent fleeing troops. Those tickets are added later on again, but are lost for the battle. Leadership secondary skill can prevent this.
- surgery secondary skill allowing "regeneration" of lost tickets after a battle.
- map terrain having influence on economy, movement speed and sight distance. E.g. sneaking up to a castle through a forest. Makes scouting and secondary skills like path finding, spotting and tracking important.
- improved siege system with surprise attacks on castles, undercover actions, and simply siegeing until the defenders are starved to death.
- improved battle system: your party must prepare for open battles or will be caught marching by the enemy, who can attack your supplies. You don't want that. Good way to make fast vanguards or professional rearguards important.
- all fiefs start as villages, and players can advance them to castles or cities. All fiefs highly customizable. The amount of money spent on the defenses determines the map which is loaded in case of a siege.
- possibility to place new villages on the map by spending a shitload of money.
- assassination feature: players can get hired to kill another player. Initiated battle is without respawns and only with those two fighters, but with the possibility of bodyguards and helping hitmen participating as well. Dying in this battle means losing all money, troops, items, etc.

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Molly on March 11, 2013, 01:20:29 pm

Quote from: Joker86 on March 11, 2013, 12:57:48 pm

(click to show/hide)

The biggest reason for me why I never played strategus is that it seemes to be some kind of organized farming/grinding browsergame where the biggest clans wins automatically due to sheer economic and quantitative advantages. And it's a source of endless faggotry, e.g. 4 a.m. attacks, battle applications where people don't show up on purpose, multiaccounts, etc.

Another thing is that it never feeled like the medieval war cRPG should always have been.

I hope it's okay if I hijack this thread to post a few things which would have actually made me try strategus. It's not a complete suggestion like the OP, as I am neither experienced nor interested enough in strategus, but perhaps there is one or another idea which might inspire someone. Who knows?

So here are a few things I would like to see:


- Time limitation: depending on a few time zones (NA, EU) strategus is only playable during a few hours in the evening. Outside that time window the game "freezes": no movement, no economy, no orders, nothing. This is to prevent people of having to look into strat 24/7.

- Economis limitations on faction: economy is faction based, not player based. This means that a FACTION is always generating ressources, not particular players. This means that clans with more players don't necessarily have an advantage over faction of small clans or even single players. Economy is mainly generated by owning fiefs. Still having more players is benefitial, on one hand because of better micromanagment, on the other hand because certain players can have secondary skills which help improving the economy or winning battles.

- Bots. I know a lot of people hate bots, but I would implement them as a replacement for players if you can't come up with enough of them. Due to the fact that a player is always to be preferred over a bot, I think they would be used only in certain "emergency cases". My idea for bots is basically to be enother ressource next to the well known "troops" (= tickets). Before a battle start the commander can assign a certain amount of bots to a player. In the battle the player can then command those bots like in single player. The amount of the bots on the battlefield is calculated easily: amount of slots on the server minus amount of players connected. The rest if being filled up with bots, proportionally to the participating factions and their party setup. Which can indeed mean that a team of 800 men fighting against 1600 men would only be allowed to have 34 players on the server, while the other party would have 66. (Rounding always in favour of the underdog). This is to prevent factions of only few player screwing up large factions with a lot of players. It's like single player: if your party is too small, you will have a hard time against the enemy. Players can decide when their dead bots are going to respawn by calling in reinforcements. If the players die the bots follow his last order until he respawns again. The bots are different troop types, like in single player. It's up to the developers how they want to design them. If bots participate a battle, but no free slots are left, they start spawning then the player spawns are depleted. If their commander can't spawn any more, another player on the field receives the command, until all player spawns are depleted and the bots keep on spawning with the "charge" order until they are depleted as well.

- players should be able to create bandit or mercenary factions as well. Those factions follow certain rules which allow those factions to reenact real bandits or mercenaries and fill the strat world with life and variety. It's also a nice way to play as a single player rather randomly and without big time investment. Especially if you allow bandits to place a hideout somewhere on the map, which would logically be somehwere in the woods or mountains, where you are unlikely to be encountered by enemy scouts.

- Secondary skills. For example tactics, which can influence the player slot relation mentioned above. All tactics skills for each party get added, and the procentual amount of skill one party has more than the other gets added to their slots. So if the smaller party has an overall tactics level of 24 and the bigger party a level of 20, the small party won by 20% and gets this value added to their slots. 20% of 34 is about 7%, so the new relation would be 41 vs. 59, and not 34 vs. 67. Already better.

Another idea are medical skills. I don't know which one of them it is, but the more and better medics you have in your party, the more lost tickets and bots are regained after a battle. Not that the additional effects for more and better medics decrease exponentially, until they reach a certain value, about 10-20% recovery at the max, I would say.

Then we need path finding, spotting and tracking. This is to encourage players of sneaking through enemy territory and creating the need of setting up patrols and scouts.

A leadership skill could be used to determine whether troops start fleeing or not. Once a certain amount of casualties is reached, the game starts comparing the percentual casualties of both teams. Once a team has considerably more (percentual) losses than the other one, morale starts dropping and eventually troops start rooting, reducing the tickets slowly (or fast, depending on the morale level). Rooted troops return to the faction's fiefs or parties on the field after some time, but are lost for that battle. A high leadership value can reduce that effect or completely stop it.

Of course other skills like trading, crafting and so on could be needed.

- NPC leaders can be hired. Depending on the money you want to spend, those NPCs have certain secondary skills which help your faction. For example I'd say you have three quality levels, where the skill is either 3, 5 or 7. While it is easier to have an NPCs with a secondary skill of five, it would still be preferable to have a player to the job, although his skill might be lower, because after some time the player might even reach skill level 8, 9 or 10, which no NPC can. But it's again a good option for factions with only few players.

- The map having influence on the war. I don't know how far this is already implemented, but there should be good and bad terrain, improving your movement speed or reducing it. Same goes with visibility. Perhaps you want to move your army through a forest towards the enemy castle? It will move way slower, but the enemy scouts won't see you either, and the enemy won't be able to send reinforcements.

- Sieges should need time to be set up (don't know how far this is already implemented), and you should also have the option to siege someone until they starve to death. You should also be allowed to sally out and make surprise attacks. On the other hand players whould be allowed to try surprise attacks on castles, either surprisingly rushing through the still opened gate with cavalry, entering in disguise or some of those mission impossible actions where fighters climb up some ropes or the abort during night. I don't know how to implement this, though.

- You should also have to set up a camp before being able to fight a field battle properly. The game tracks who clicked first on attacking the enemy/following the enemy party, and depending on this flags one party as attacker and the other one as defender. The defender needs to set up a camp so that the fight will be an open field battle. If the defender fails to do so in time (e.g. because the enemy light cavalry and the player with high path finding and spotting skill attack surprisingly from the near forest), a "defend the treck"-map is being loeaded, where the defender spawns in the middle of the map and the attacker at the corners. There are several destructible waggons in the middle of the map, and every destroyed waggon reduces the tickets/bots/goods that party is having by a considerable amount. So better don't let the enemy surprise you while marching.

- complete rework of the fief system. I think when strategus starts there should only be some villages scattered around the map. These villages can be claimed by factions randomly spawning on that map. Once a village is owned it can be improved and fortified by the factions, depending on whether they want it to be a city (better for economy) or a castle (better for defense and recruiting troops). Like in Medieval II, I think that seperation is quite reasonable. All fortifications can be improved further. It works like this: an amount of siege maps is being created, for several cultures. For the western culturea castle could start with a wooden castle, the next map would be a stone house, then a small stone castle, a stone castle with moat, a stone castle with moat and inner defense ring and finally a stone castle with moat, inner defense ring and keep in the center. The better the fortification is, the more difficult it is to conquer. I wouldn't make them necessarily "bigger", because this means it's more difficult to protect. Just give them more loop holes, bottle necks, etc.

- Of course some economic improvements can be made on fiefs as well. I don't know how this is implemented already, but I can think of basically everything: mines, wells, merchant/craft guild houses, toll posts, churches, schools, theater hosues, grain elevators (increases time before starvation kicks in in sieges), apothecaries, etc., the amount of possibilites is almost unlimited. Castles can also have different training grounds, tournament places and other stuff which allows you to recruit the different bot types and increase the generating of the common player ticket troops. And all fiefs can have garrison quarters, which can basically be extended unlimitedly, but for exponentially increasing costs.

- If a lot of money is spent, a faction can found a new village on the map (name must follow certain rules and has to be approved by the devs). This is a huge hit to the treasury of a faction, but will definitely pay out on long term.

- Assassination feature: factionless players or players of a bandit/mercenary faction can be hired as assassins. They receive a certain amount of gold upon murdering a certain player. Once the victim is reached by the assassin, a battle is sceduled. This battle doesn't have tickets, it's more something like a duel between those two players. Still I think that there could be the option to have both players being supported by other players or bots. For example the more fiefs a victim owns, the higher the rank in his faction and so on, the more and better bodyguards he will have. And the more money the customer pays, the more helpers the assassin will have. If the victim or the assassin (or both!) die in that battle, their characters get reset and lose all money, items and troops. They are dead.


That's basically it. Sorry for that wall of text, but somehow I felt the urge to tell my ideas. Interestingly enough, a lot of those ideas are actually combinable with the OP, or at least try to achieve the same (e.g. reducing the - sometimes enormous - size and power differences between factions)

You should know by now that nobody is going to read all this w/o a TL;DR-version... I certainly didn't...  8-)

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: [ptx] on March 11, 2013, 01:34:19 pm

The tl;dr is strong within this thread...

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: chadz on March 11, 2013, 04:53:01 pm

I read the first one. I didn't read the Joker one. Can you tell why?

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Joker86 on March 11, 2013, 04:53:25 pm

TL;DR version added.

Please don't beat me on this one  :(

Quote from: chadz on March 11, 2013, 04:53:01 pm

I read the first one. I didn't read the Joker one. Can you tell why?

Yeah because when I bothered making pictures and explaining everything on my other suggestions you didn't read it either.

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: chadz on March 11, 2013, 04:54:50 pm

Indeed, so that can't be the reason :)

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Joker86 on March 11, 2013, 04:56:25 pm

Quote from: chadz on March 11, 2013, 04:54:50 pm

Indeed, so that can't be the reason :)

So it must be you are thinking I'm a retard.

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: chadz on March 11, 2013, 05:17:09 pm

Again, no, that's not the reason.

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Casimir on March 11, 2013, 05:22:30 pm

chadz is actually Joker and thus he has no need to read his walls of text.

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Joker86 on March 11, 2013, 05:28:11 pm

If this was the case cRPG would be alive and kicking now, and we would have reached a balanced and fun version long time ago.  :P

(I guess THIS is the reason  :lol: )

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Knute on March 11, 2013, 05:28:45 pm

Quote from: Joker86 on March 11, 2013, 12:57:48 pm

- Economis limitations on faction: economy is faction based, not player based. This means that a FACTION is always generating ressources, not particular players. This means that clans with more players don't necessarily have an advantage over faction of small clans or even single players. Economy is mainly generated by owning fiefs. Still having more players is benefitial, on one hand because of better micromanagment, on the other hand because certain players can have secondary skills which help improving the economy or winning battles.

This is already basically how it works because fiefs generate a certain amount of "S&D" per day which is the number of goods you can buy or sell in the fief with no influence from players other than how they choose to upgrade the fief. 

- players should be able to create bandit or mercenary factions as well.

They already exist.

- The map having influence on the war. I don't know how far this is already implemented, but there should be good and bad terrain, improving your movement speed or reducing it. Same goes with visibility.

Terrain already influences movement speed and how far you can see.

- Of course some economic improvements can be made on fiefs as well. I don't know how this is implemented already, but I can think of basically everything: mines, wells, merchant/craft guild houses, toll posts, churches, schools, theater hosues, grain elevators (increases time before starvation kicks in in sieges), apothecaries, etc., the amount of possibilites is almost unlimited. Castles can also have different training grounds, tournament places and other stuff which allows you to recruit the different bot types and increase the generating of the common player ticket troops. And all fiefs can have garrison quarters, which can basically be extended unlimitedly, but for exponentially increasing costs.

Fiefs have improvement points you can spend on increasing economics or discounting and upgrading all types of gear, castles and towns get more points per day so tend to have armor/weapons discounted and villages started with a lot of points but only earn 1 per day so tend to be economically focused.

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Joker86 on March 11, 2013, 06:06:37 pm

Quote from: Knute on March 11, 2013, 05:28:45 pm

Thanks for your answer. That's actually some good news, but still I guess there is no "random playing" in strat for single players who are not willing to organize with as many other players as possible?

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: Knute on March 11, 2013, 07:07:47 pm

Quote from: Joker86 on March 11, 2013, 06:06:37 pm

Thanks for your answer. That's actually some good news, but still I guess there is no "random playing" in strat for single players who are not willing to organize with as many other players as possible?

You can run around the map solo but it's a lot more fun and easier to accomplish things when you're working with a group, even a small one.  I think it was BASNAK and his small clan that somehow captured a Grey Order castle (one of the biggest clans) by themselves for a minute early in this version of strat, so there's all kind of hijinks you can get up to.  It's a sandbox though so people play strategus pretty much the same way they play cRPG.  Some min-max, grind and want to rule the world and others have themed builds/clans, roleplay and don't care about who controls what territory.

----

Here's just a couple examples of things you can do as a solo player:

Trader: use open fiefs to make gold or else ask factions permission to use their other ones .  Then you could donate profits to factions you like or sell it for cRPG gold.

Troop farmer: sell your troops you get from playing cRPG for cRPG gold.  I did this with a japanese clan early in strat v.3 and we made a ton of gold.

Mercenary: There's a couple small clans that do this, building up armies to sell or leading attacks themselves.

Bandit: harder than it used to be without AI fiefs but still possible.

Title: Re: chadzville - A Strategus Idea Compilation
Post by: chadz on March 11, 2013, 08:29:15 pm

Quote from: Joker86 on March 11, 2013, 05:28:11 pm

If this was the case cRPG would be alive and kicking now, and we would have reached a balanced and fun version long time ago.  :P

If this was the case cRPG would be a MUD (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MUD) now.