Troop Classes

[Sir_Winston_Churchill]

I'm pretty sure I saw a post similar to this a while back, but I couldn't find it so:

The current system with troop "tickets" is good and all, but I've been playing quite a bit of Native campaign recently and I just can't get over how much more fun it is to have dedicated classes in your armies as opposed to having a certain amount of gear and then hoping that people who play the right classes show up. I think it would completely revitalize the game if troops were not just tickets, but were specific classes. Then in the battle, instead of just choosing gear, you would choose a troop class much like you do in Napoleonic Wars.

A sample idea for the system:
Instead of assigning a troop cap for general tickets, I assign a troop cap to each of 10 or 15 pre-determined classes (HA, Heavy Cav, Western Shield, Eastern shield, Longbowman (strength focused), composite bowman (agi focused), xbox, etc). Then as I use my tickets, each one of these classes is filled until it reaches its cap (perhaps with different regions having different bonuses to recruitment). Now that I have my freshly recruited army I attack an enemy and when the battle occurs, my mercs choose their classes and gear with their stats in battle being determined by the classes I have. However, since all of my troops are green, the stats are a little lower (perhaps lvl 24 or something). As I fight more battles, my men gain experience and are therefore higher level on the field. The easiest way to do this would be to have an army/class experience where each class has an experience based on how many veterans of that class there are from previous battles. A more complicated system would be like the one in native where each man has his own experience so you have a core of veterans and then new recruits slowly gaining xp.

Such a system would allow a themed faction like Norse Horde to employ nearly all shield users or for a HA clan to be able to actually fight strat battles with lots of horse archers. In addition it would be a lot more fun for the players as you wouldn't have to play the same class over and over again until you hit retirement. The strat battles could be the place where I go to be a knight in full plate when I'm normally a sword and board.

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, this would increase the reward for actually fighting as your troops would gain experience that is crucial for being effective. As it is now, attacking is a waste of time because it degrades a lot of your gear and you end up losing a lot of your heirloomed items. With a system like the one above, attacking would be necessary in order to build an experienced army that isn't full of militiamen.

I know this system or any system like it will probably never be made thanks to the "Epic" project, but I just want to see what ideas others have about it/other ways the current system could be improved.

[Butan]

Completely agree!

Then, for a very easy and fast way to do something akin to this, allow STF to play strategus battles.

[BaleOhay]

I made that post let me see if I can find it.

[Knute]

I like your idea, especially how it would make things more like native singleplayer.  Some people like micromanagement and others don't so if these troop classes had the option of being recruited completely armed for a strat tick and x amount of gold, that might help improve the game too.

Then, for a very easy and fast way to do something akin to this, allow STF to play strategus battles.

STF characters would also let people play battles anonymously, which is something else they were talking about doing at some point.

[Sir_Winston_Churchill]

I like your idea, especially how it would make things more like native singleplayer.  Some people like micromanagement and others don't so if these troop classes had the option of being recruited completely armed for a strat tick and x amount of gold, that might help improve the game too.

STF characters would also let people play battles anonymously, which is something else they were talking about doing at some point.

I just thought of this for people who don't like micro: allow people to hire "mercenary" ticks which cost extra gold upkeep or something, but which act exactly as tickets do now. So essentially allow people to use the current "easy" system (at a slight inc in cost for RP purposes) while others can get cheaper non-merc troops that don't use independent player stats.

STF characters would solve half the problem, but the fact remains that it is still dependent on who signs up for the battle and there's no experience system that gives an edge to those who have fought in a lot of battles and therefore have veteran soldiers (instead of just making them have crappy gear).

[Oberyn]

Kind of defeats the whole purpose of having a custom made crpg character. It could make Strategus battles more interesting I guess, but might as well completely separate it from crpg in that case. There'd be no reason to link the two as now.

[Rebelyell]

True but that wuld meake strat really funny
once you play archer once shielder, cav polearm and all of that depend on eq, strat wuld be soo much mor funny with that.
Exp should be conected with your main.

[Syls]

I would love that system considering how many time we've been screwed cause the enemy had a shit ton more archer/cavalry than us.

[MURDERTRON]

The allure of Strategus is that you get to play YOUR main character in battles.  Your main is the only one that gets to fight, and that's great, in my opinion.  You have to balance whether you want your main to get experience for leveling up and being able to contribute more in Strategus or just for making looms for personal gain, and its a tough decision.  If you're cav, you're probably less useful in castle sieges, but archers have it vice versa.

In response to Syls: I have lobbied to have players in clans who are fighting the same enemies as mine start converting to cavalry players.  A few did, but not nearly enough to make up the deficit we face in almost every field battle.  I guess everyone just wants to continue being two hand heroes, consequences be damned.  It stinks, but it also keeps it interesting and I can blame no one but my clan mates for playing the builds they want to play no matter their utility in Strategus.

If you want defined classes and defined gear, go play Native.  Strategus gives us a certain freedom to outfit the armies in a way that we think will lead us to victory.  Commanders who know their mercs best will see great successes in the field and those who don't will feel the pain of defeat.

[Butan]

The allure of Strategus is that you get to play YOUR main character in battles.  Your main is the only one that gets to fight, and that's great, in my opinion.  You have to balance whether you want your main to get experience for leveling up and being able to contribute more in Strategus or just for making looms for personal gain, and its a tough decision.  If you're cav, you're probably less useful in castle sieges, but archers have it vice versa.

In response to Syls: I have lobbied to have players in clans who are fighting the same enemies as mine start converting to cavalry players.  A few did, but not nearly enough to make up the deficit we face in almost every field battle.  I guess everyone just wants to continue being two hand heroes, consequences be damned.  It stinks, but it also keeps it interesting and I can blame no one but my clan mates for playing the builds they want to play no matter their utility in Strategus.

If you want defined classes and defined gear, go play Native.  Strategus gives us a certain freedom to outfit the armies in a way that we think will lead us to victory.  Commanders who know their mercs best will see great successes in the field and those who don't will feel the pain of defeat.

The only benefit I see with the "only main can strat" is the huge XP they can get and can use it to enhances their character or retire faster. ForcingConvincing people to change their build just to be useful in strat is a huge detriment to the "fun" part of the game : being useful or having fun (some found a balance but not everyone)... hard choice.

Why not having both ? You can use your main in strat when you want to, then if the situation decides you can use a STF that the situation commands more.
This, + having "show stats" automatically enabled when you apply with your char, would really push Strategus more to a SP level but with the multiplayer community: isnt it what everyone wanted when they first played strategus, the SP game but on an online map with online battles?

[MURDERTRON]

The only benefit I see with the "only main can strat" is the huge XP they can get and can use it to enhances their character or retire faster. ForcingConvincing people to change their build just to be useful in strat is a huge detriment to the "fun" part of the game : being useful or having fun (some found a balance but not everyone)... hard choice.

Why not having both ? You can use your main in strat when you want to, then if the situation decides you can use a STF that the situation commands more.
This, + having "show stats" automatically enabled when you apply with your char, would really push Strategus more to a SP level but with the multiplayer community: isnt it what everyone wanted when they first played strategus, the SP game but on an online map with online battles?

In SP you only get one character per campaign or save and you can't change him on the fly.

[Butan]

We are only role-playing fighters inside an army, noone incarnates the commander's role of the strategus battle, except if the man commanding the army is also the one leading on TS but thats not a rule.

Thats how I see it anyway, all tickets are soldiers, and we are incarnating soldiers, which (for some reasons) handpick items from the royal baggage and go to battle with them with no respect for army proportion 

[Sir_Winston_Churchill]

The allure of Strategus is that you get to play YOUR main character in battles.

This is not the allure whatsoever for me at least. I don't really give a damn about my main. The only reason I grind through the levels is because I want to get my character to a high enough level for strat battles. Then I get there and realize that I spent all that time playing and now I hate the class that I chose so I retire and go through the whole CRPG grind again. I find it a pretty big pain.