One thing I'm very interested in now is seeing evidence of people signing up against their friends or clanmates on these buggy attacks and either not showing up or just screwing around in order to help the chances of a fluke capture attempt. I'd be glad to hand out some bans for that.
Two things come to mind after all this that i'd like to see implemented
1) First of all i'd like to see a simple but proper in-game diplomatic system. Each clan leader sets their relationship with every other clan on a scale of 0 to 4
1 = Ally: Any number of clan members may sign up to fight for your ally and nobody is allowed to fight against them. Alliances must be confirmed by both parties and will be public knowledge for all factions. You may not start a battle against an Ally
2 = Friends/NAP: Clan member are allowed to fight for your friends, however they may not make up more than 10% of your friends battle roster. No clan members may fight against a friend. This relationship level will not be made public and only the factions involved will be able to see it. This makes it useable for NAPs. You may not start a battle against a friend
3 = Neutral: The default setting. You can fight for or against clans that you are neutral towards so long as your clan members don't make up more than 10% of either sides battle roster. This relationship status is also private with only the parties involved being able to see it. You may not start a battle against a neutral faction
4 = Enemies: Your clans members may sign up to any battle against an enemy so long as they don't exceed more than 10% of the battle roster (unless it is your own or an allies battle of course). You may not fight for an enemy. even against another enemy. This relationship status will be made public and must be declared prior to attacking. If 2 of your allies become enemies you will not be able to fight for either until you cancel one of the alliances. Declaring someone an enemy automatically changes their relationship state with you to "enemy" as well so that they can immediately fight back. It does not change your allies relationship states.
EDIT: 0 = Vassal. Same as Ally, but a Vassal will automatically match the relationship states of their master. This will need to have a 1 way mechanism to determine the master and the vassal.
These states should be editable by rank 10 people as well so that faction leaders can delegate. This should help control who everybody is able to sign up for and against and also puts more importance on factionless people as they will be eligible for more battles than people in factions. This system also hides all but the 2 extreme states from public view which still keeps some mystery in Strategus.
2) The 2nd thing that sprang to mind after reading this is that there should be a way of making sure people are present for battles.
To do this I propose the following;
- First of all, 15 mins before each battle a "Confirm" button should appear at the bottom of the roster for all those who have been accepted. These people then have 5 minutes to click the button. Anybody who hasn't confirmed their place at the end of the 5 mins will be automatically removed from neutral rosters, and will be flagged for faction rosters.
- At the same time (15 mins before each Battle) all those who were pending will have their applications terminated. However, a "re-apply" button will appear on the roster.
- For neutral rosters, replacements for people removed after the 5 minute confirmation window, will be automatically selcted from those that have re-applied.
- For faction rosters, commanders will be able to see those that have re-applied and pick who they want.
- Anybody missing the confirmation window will miss out on neutral rosters, however faction commanders will still be able to hire them if they haven't removed them when flagged, or if they re-apply.
That should help ensure that people turn up for Battles. Of course it does nothing about people who are there for the start of the battle but then go afk or quit, but I can't really think of much to do about them at the moment.
