Fix average players uninvolved state - Strategus

[22nd_King_Plazek]

I posted this in the thread "Strategus - The poll" http://forum.c-rpg.net/index.php/topic,21140.0.html

Ignoring all the crying about archers and general balance that appears to be quite irrelevant to the topic of this thread, Zapper does, IMO have the basis of a good idea in one of his earlier posts.

If the amount of troops was highly limited per person, and there was some means by which people could "join battle" like in SP M&B whilst retaining control of the remaining forces after the battle there would be a lot more for your average strategus player to do.

Say for example a basic player could carry Y men, you could then level up some "strategus skills", crafting, leadership, first aid blahblah whatever that could potentially increase this limit. Maybe there could also be an increase in the amount of troops you can carry at level 5 and level 10 within a faction (this risk vs benefit is obvious). Further increases could be permitted with the ownership of fiefs.

---

If each person had to then be present on the map in the correct location and move onto the initiator of the battle and enter it much like entering a village or attacking someone, within a specific amount of time, things could get interesting. Factions would require their players to actually be active and involved, it would not just be about mass production and there would be a very important space for independant armies and mercenary armies to support the larger factions as every active player would be a great asset.

---

It would be even better if the roster for a battle could be split in ratio to the number of contributed troops so each warlord managed his own roster and brought his own equipment for his own troops. Of course if this is next to impossible to code then putting all tickets and equipment into a shared pool could do the job.

[Peasant_Woman]

This is a good idea, but it would be nice if players could join with another player while marching somewhere, combining their troops numbers and equipment until either the commander changes destination or they arrive. Otherwise each of these size X armies marching somewhere alongside each other could be tied up and fought individually without the whole army coming to bear on a single battle, which would be boring.

[Gheritarish le Loki]

If i remember there were a thread about this system in the old talesworld forum, but all the good idea that were in that forum (when strat pop up) are now on the trash, so devs don't have any idea anymore.

Good idea Plazzek!
this system give more depth to the game, also it involves clanless ppl even more as they can really be hired as mercs.

[22nd_King_Plazek]

This is a good idea, but it would be nice if players could join with another player while marching somewhere, combining their troops numbers and equipment until either the commander changes destination or they arrive. Otherwise each of these size X armies marching somewhere alongside each other could be tied up and fought individually without the whole army coming to bear on a single battle, which would be boring.

Great additional suggestion.

[Patricia]

So mercenaries would actually have to show up to the battle's location on the strategus map to participate instead of just magically appearing everywhere?

That'd be fun, unless I'm reading this suggestion wrong.

[22nd_King_Plazek]

No, you would just have to group strategus players to one point on the map to have large amount of troops. Not have one person able to carry thousands.

Just like single player M&B where the amount of troops you can carry is limited, but like when the factions the go war and all the lords combine their troops for large battles.

[Vibe]

Wouldn't the smaller factions suffer from this?

[Gheritarish le Loki]

Wouldn't the smaller factions suffer from this?

They would have to hire clan less ppl.

[22nd_King_Plazek]

Wouldn't the smaller factions suffer from this?

Don't they already have disadvantages?

Aren't people already bitching on the forums every day about how there is no room for small clans in Strat. At least a system like this would reward active clans more than those clans that have hordes of afk grinders in fiefs that essentially do nothing.

[Elmokki]

YES! This is also in the end rather historical.

Current strategus: One guy marches with a huge army and every other player (could be considered a lord or at least some sort of a captain in general) is left behind to craft and whatever.
Proposal: One guy leads a bunch of people with smaller regiments with possibly even slightly varying equipments if you want to roleplay (ie, here are Velucan archers and here are Ryibeletian cavalry). Regimental commanders command their share of the army and if they are unloyal mercenaries the opposing team might get them to defect etc before the battle.

It's so much better than mindless trading and participating in battles half a world away

EDIT: About smaller factions suffering. Well, yes, they can't field as big army as a big faction in theory, but in practice even right now a big faction has higher recruitment speed and more income to support troops anyway so it lessens the impact of this somewhat.

Also mercenary corps - in more historical way than what currently are called mercs - would become expotentially more sought for. Getting 100 more troops for a battle would be more than 100 man hours spent on recruiting - it'd require hiring someone to command them (in practice probably that someone would bring the soldiers and equipment for just money though)  Then mercenary companies who don't want to build their reputation on thrustworthiness can take better offers mid-campaign ;)

You may want to add some feature to tie in different players to one army that disallows attacking those players separately but forces them to move at the speed of the slowest army in the group and stay on top of each other on the map if you implement this though.

[Peasant_Woman]

Just another random thought, but maybe if the maximum number of troops a player could have directly under them was inversely proportional to the number of members in their clan, smaller clans wouldn't be at such a large disadvantage?

Not sure how to best deal with the obvious problem of large clans dividing into smaller sub clans to take advantage of the troops per member limit though...

[Ylca]

There are tons of different suggestions to fix strat and i'm not sure why the easiest isn't being addressed.

Make it so that players can afford equipment and people will enjoy strat more. You don't even have to code anything other than changing prices in the database.

How many cav have you seen recently? Not even rouncies are at all common rendering an entire class almost useless. Armor is expensive so we get an effect where we think archery in strat is overpowered when in actuality the inability to field armor makes armies underpowered.

All simple issues that have not been addressed for one reason or another.

[B3RS3RK]

In addition to the Posted, Each Village could raise the number of maximum leaded men by some, castles by more and towns by even more(For the individual owner).So if the Starting maximum of troops is 100 olr 200, for each village +50, each castle 100 and each town 200.A bit like in MnB sp.

[22nd_King_Plazek]

Just another random thought, but maybe if the maximum number of troops a player could have directly under them was inversely proportional to the number of members in their clan, smaller clans wouldn't be at such a large disadvantage?

Not sure how to best deal

Ahh yes, maybe that is not a good thing to have troops number affected by faction position. Maybe just drop that and have troop amount increases with leadership skill/fief ownership only.

[Jarlek]

-snip-
Good idea Plazzek!
-snip-

WOWwowwowwo WOW! Back the FUCK up there! This was my idea! Plazek! Gimmeh mah credz, ok? Good. Now that we got that out of the way....

+1

Oh, also:

In addition to the Posted, Each Village could raise the number of maximum leaded men by some, castles by more and towns by even more(For the individual owner).So if the Starting maximum of troops is 100 olr 200, for each village +50, each castle 100 and each town 200.A bit like in MnB sp.

Yeah. Owning a village, castle or town should also increase your maximum troop ammount. (or lower your troops upkeep. My original idea was making EVERYTHING non-transferrable apart from gold. You can't share troops, equipment or Trade Goods, so then there would be no limit on how many troops you could have and... of fuck I'm still in the brackets!)

Something like, +65% max troops if you own a village, +110% for a castle and +170% if you own a town.