I know there are ideas similar to this flying around but to my knowledge this hasn't been brought up before. (sorry if it has)
My suggestion would be to place SMALL AI bandit lairs and raiding bands all over the map. Not large enough to be a threat to most players but maybe raiding armies ranging anywhere from 10-50 units, and bandit lairs ranging from 50-100 units, both with light armor and weapons. The hope behind this would be to give players, especially new players, something to do other than camp in a town and grind out gear and gold for months without ever doing anything fun. Defeating these armies would get you their equipment/some gold. The payout should be a little more than what you could make trading in order to offset your losses in the battle and the risks of losing the battle or being attacked by other players when you leave your safe little town.
Basically I think this will help new players be interested when first starting the game. Currently, if you want to enjoy strat you have to first spend allot of time crafting and trading in order to make enough money to field an army capable of raiding other players. Either that or you join a clan who'll have you craft goods for them in a Sargothian sweat shop and never see the light of day.
As an added bonus, this would make for more 49v49 type strat battles for mercenaries to sign up for AND it would put more active, armed, players on the map who would otherwise be hiding in a town, making game play more exciting for everyone.
This really shouldn't be difficult to implement. As a first step, the immobile bandit lairs could be easily added to the map as the mechanics for this are already set in the AI controlled towns
Thoughts? Vote above
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