AI Armies/City-states for strategus?

[Christo]

Reminds me of Europa Barbarorum's way of boosting the rebels/free peoples; The Eleutheroi.

Good idea.

[Rhekimos]

The size of these armies could perhaps be scaled to fit the expansion of the clans, early phase of Strat = smaller bands, later stage when everyone has big armies & lots of resources = 1k+ armies (you want them to be challenging but not to ruin the game for someone  ). Oh and the frequency of such "events" should be set to a perfect medium so they occur sometimes but not too often.

That makes sense.

[Everkistus]

Good idea from Gnjus as well.

I'd like to see a part of the challenge in conquering the fiefs from the nations/states at first. When you have established yourself, you can start competing with the other human players.

[Gnjus]

I'd like to see a part of the challenge in conquering the fiefs from the nations/states at first.

This reminds me of my old idea about how AI Villages/Towns/Castles should look like in terms of equipment. What I had in mid was a realistic setting for them, for example: a Castle in the Desert should be buying only Sarranid equipment for its defenders instead of having ridiculous outfits when you fight for em, like: Strange Armor, Knightly Shield, 1h Axe & Nordic Helmet. Same for all other Nations, they should be equipped with their own armors/weapons to look more believable & realistic but unfortunately the Great Donkey said its too much coding for nothing as the aim of the game is to wipe the AI as soon as possible and have pure PvP battles so I wouldn't have high hopes If i were you. 

That said - I too believe that taking a Castle/Town should be a challenge and If i was proficient with these things I'd code it all myself. 

[Taser]

This reminds me of my old idea about how AI Villages/Towns/Castles should look like in terms of equipment. What I had in mid was a realistic setting for them, for example: a Castle in the Desert should be buying only Sarranid equipment for its defenders instead of having ridiculous outfits when you fight for em, like: Strange Armor, Knightly Shield, 1h Axe & Nordic Helmet. Same for all other Nations, they should be equipped with their own armors/weapons to look more believable & realistic but unfortunately the Great equus africanus asinus said its too much coding for nothing as the aim of the game is to wipe the AI as soon as possible and have pure PvP battles so I wouldn't have high hopes If i were you. 

That said - I too believe that taking a Castle/Town should be a challenge and If i was proficient with these things I'd code it all myself. 

That would be nice. Would be cool to see.

[Korgoth]

This reminds me of my old idea about how AI Villages/Towns/Castles should look like in terms of equipment. What I had in mid was a realistic setting for them, for example: a Castle in the Desert should be buying only Sarranid equipment for its defenders instead of having ridiculous outfits when you fight for em, like: Strange Armor, Knightly Shield, 1h Axe & Nordic Helmet. Same for all other Nations, they should be equipped with their own armors/weapons to look more believable & realistic but unfortunately the Great equus africanus asinus said its too much coding for nothing as the aim of the game is to wipe the AI as soon as possible and have pure PvP battles so I wouldn't have high hopes If i were you. 

That said - I too believe that taking a Castle/Town should be a challenge and If i was proficient with these things I'd code it all myself. 

That would be good but isn't Strat still split in half for NA and EU? That would mean that clans like The Nordmen wouldn't be able to take the Northlands to get the equipment they want.

[Taser]

That would be good but isn't Strat still split in half for NA and EU? That would mean that clans like The Nordmen wouldn't be able to take the Northlands to get the equipment they want.

Another reason to perhaps not split the map? Or make separate maps for EU/NA.

[Everkistus]

I agree with Taser on that, but it's not the main focus on this topic. Perhaps I'll create a new topic for that...

[Lech]

Initially I don't like it, too many variables and things that would needed to be done in order for it to work.

The timing of these attacks would be vital, which means that this feature would completely randomize a lot of factors. Given how hard it actually is to establish a proper army in Strategus now, having all that preparation ruined because of some random AI attacks would be dreadful, verging on massive clan rage quits, especially since the AI wouldn't have any sort of intelligent approach to their battles, meaning that it would end up in situations that are basically suicide/stupid.

However, if the armies would be more similar to raiding bands (bandits) in Single Player, sure it might work, but we're talking a few hundred troops maximum then, and even so the AI would most likely still act suicidal.

If anything though I would suggest adding a 'Free' city, a truly neutral town with 15k troops or even more, allowing people to go there and purchase/recruit various resources, based on c-rpg activity such as crafting at the moment, or perhaps you could perform tasks such as running a caravan for the city and then earning a cut of that. In fact, having at least 2-3 of such 'free cities' around the map would be good, and in all fairness there have been plenty of major neutral cities in history which held out against invading armies throughout their whole campaigns.

I would like to be lord of free city.

[Everkistus]

That kinda beats the purpose of a free city...

[Rextard]

I like it, I think it could give more viability for clans that just want to play mercenary armies/units.