Ok first off this is something I've been thinking about for only the last day or two so if it sounds like utter shite feel free to say say
as it stands atm, I think it is fair to say that strategus isn't that much fun for most of the playerbase, for a variety of reasons that are covered quite comprehensively in other topics so I won't go into that here. As such, I've been thining about a way to make the concept of strategus (which I think has awesome potential) into something we can all enjoy more.
As suggested by the title, I'm thinking big changes are in order, starting with the removal of crafting from the game (prob gonna attract some heat here but bear with me) and a total change to the way recruiting works. To best illustrate my ideas it's best to simply look at the way the single player campaign works in warband, the player recruits "classes" of troops who have their own unique gear pools and who can be upgraded to stronger types with better gear over time or through combat.
Transferring this concept over to strat, every player would be able to recruit a random number of a random type of troop once per day/week (the numbers etc would be for balance folks to decide) who would come equipped with their own gear (hence why crafting is gone, less crafting, more fighting
), the player may then select the option to train them for slow level ups, or go off and attack other players for faster upgrades. As this could lead to people farming inferior opponents some sort of system would have to be implemented to stop growth when the battle is very unbalanced (in terms of troop number/class, not player numbers, sort out your own rosters
).
In place of inventory managment before battles would simply come roster management instead, say for example the player has 30 infantry type troops, 30 ranged and 30 cav (random example) he would look at his roster of players, and assign them the classes they are able to spawn as (ideally just to ensure the best players of a certain class are guaranteed to get a spot as that class).
I believe that the above recruiting/upgrading process should be reasonably quick, to encourage more time on the battlefield, and make defeats less time consuming for individuals and clans alike.
Furthermore, I would impose a hard cap on the number of troops that any player is able to command, and this number would have to be fairly low (again would be for balance team, but lets for now say 200) this way when a clan wants to march to war they literally have to summon their members, gather their strength, and march as one towards their target on the strat map. This would add a layer of strategy to war in strat as a careful balance would be needed (imagine seeing a clan send all their members out to attack but then getting shafted from an attack to their exposed rear
) . For battles one member would simply initiate the attack and the others within range would select to join.
This would give increased value to individual players whilst also helping smaller clans have a chance against bigger opponents, consider this, a small clan wishes to go to war but they dont have the manpower so they post in merc recruitment (or contact known friends) asking for players to bring their individual warbands to join them for death and glory. Again this would add more immersion, individual players may become known for being reliable fighters with a powerful contingent of their own "oh shit X clan is coming and they have Y player with them". Futhermore, players would have to establish themselves as being trustworthy, can you imagine the rage if said individual (mercenary basically) player was to decide to turn against the clan who hired him because their enemies offered him more
I'm sure there was other stuff I wanted to say so I may edit this post, sorry for how long it is and thank you if you read it all lol.
TLDR : Make strat more like native singleplayer, but multiplayer
