Uses of renown (suggestion)

[Arathian]

Since this is a strategus suggestion, I thought it would fit here more. If this is the wrong place, feel free to move it.

Right, as of now, we have renown that does...well, nothing. chadz has some basic, good, ideas of what it should do, however alone these ideas could create an imbalance.

The original suggestion was for renown to increase troop recruitment. That is a very good idea, and I would like to start with that. It should certainly do that. For example, it could increase recruitment by 10% per 20k renown or so (rough numbers). However, this leads us to a problem: old players simply get a big advantage over new ones.

There is a way to solve this. Make renown also a resource. This means that give players a way to "spend" renown for big short-term benefits. That way players will (usually) not just accumulate huge amounts of renown but instead spend it thus keeping it down to reasonable levels.

A few ways renown could be spend (again, rough ideas)

-forced march: removes exhaustion, replaces it with a full time quick march again but doubles the exhaustion twice afterwards (can't be used twice in a row).
-surprise attack: give defenders less time to prepare for the attack.
-recruitment drive: increases troop recruitment by a huge % for a day (make it worth it)

I am sure you gentlemen can think of more. Ideally, most players will want to at spend a big part of their renown gains but not spend it all as soon as they get it.


The second part of this suggestion is about trading. chadz said he wanted to give renown for trading. That is, in my opinion, a mistake under my current suggestion. Instead, renown should be for millitary combat only. Traders should have a different resource, let's call it "fame".

Fame could be gained by...well...trading. Unlike renown, its benefits should be to trading itself. So, fame passively will decrease weapon and good prices but then can also be spend on various things.

-bargain: reduce prices for weapons and armors by X big amount for a small period.
-logistics: weight from goods will temporarily slow you down much less
-hide cargo: will stop the enemy from taking a percentage of your cargo in case he beats you.
edit: -kind of silly to forget this. <insert appropriate name for selling stuff more expensively> : you sell stuff more expensively for a small period of time  (surprising effect, init?  )

something cool I also came up with (but very unlikely to be implemented) is "caravan defence" where, when you defend, you start in a mini-fort made of carts.


This would not only help make the game more deep and interesting (at least until the gr...certain clans decide to abuse it :3) but also help strategus specialization. While everyone can technically still do everything, clans will want to have dedicated traders and warriors in their ranks which would make for an interesting dynamic.



edit: to be clear, you spent your renown. Once you do one of those special decisions, you lose said corrensponding amount of renown.

[Bjord]

I dig it. +1

[Tennenoth]

Well thought out and constructed, some nice ideas.

I'm with you.

[Arathian]

I dig it. +1

Well thought out and constructed, some nice ideas.

I'm with you.

Thanks guys. Hopefully at least part of this will be implemented. At the very least, the ability to spend renown is needed as to avoid the imbalance of new players vs old ones.

[Andswaru]

Well thought out and constructed, some nice ideas.

I'm with you.

Definatly the most constructive use of renown ive seen suggested so far.

[Gnjus]

Your post is too long and i couldn't be bothered with reading it thoroughly but judging from the positive feedback I'd say: not bad for a Greek.

[Arathian]

Definatly the most constructive use of renown ive seen suggested so far.

Honestly, I have gotten tips from many other suggestions, so giving this entirely to me is not 100% accurate 

Your post is too long and i couldn't be bothered with reading it thoroughly but judging from the positive feedback I'd say: not bad for a Greek.

Says the Catholic Turk! 

[Trillian]

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[Arathian]

Good ideas.  What about allowing traders to carry more without adding more weight or being able to select certain classes of weapons you can buy at an additional 5-10% discount or be able to repair equipment 1 level over a certain amount of time or improve the quality of existing weapons in general as long as in a village or be able to buy and sell goods at a premium price.

Selling should be there, probably.

I was thinking of the passive bonus either being a passive reduction in price or a passive weight reduction. The reason I leaned on the passive price reduction is because, otherwise, warriors will want to also get a lot of fame in order to be able to move around quicklier which would kind of defeat the purpose.

[Tomas]

Nice suggestions.  I've been thinking of something similar although I have yet to work out the kinks.

What i'd like to see is the following

1) Goods are bought with cRPG gold and generate cRPG gold when sold (possibly divided by 10 for both for balance)

2) Tax on goods is received by fiefs as Strat gold

3) Strat gold can still be generated by Strat ticks

4) Strat gold is only used for paying upkeep on troops

5) Renown is earned by fighting strat battles, both as the battle leader and as a player

6) Renown determines troop cap

7) Players start with the free equip you currently get when defending without gear, however this will now be for attackers as well.

8) This gear can be upgraded in Fiefs by spending renown.  So initially i get 33% Shirts and i can upgrade them by going to a Fief that sells Byrnies and buying that item with my renown.  The % can be changed whenever you want

9) Each upgrade has 1000 uses before it degrades by 1 loom level.

10) Troop upkeep depends on the average cost of your gear.  Expensive gear means more upkeep

11) Renown can also be spent on other things like quick marching or new weapon slots.  To start you only get to pick 1 2H weapon and to get another you must unlock another slot.

12) Reinforcing is done by "joining" battles and you gain a share of the roster/spoils

13) No more transfers between players, except of Strat gold.  Equip and troops are specific to players. 

14) Fief owners can store troops in their fiefs but their combined fief and personal armies must not exceed their troop cap.

The ideas above essentially split Strat into a 2 tiered game. 

Trading and Raiding is done for cRPG gain and is required to generate Strat Gold for Fief owners.  However it doesn't matter who buys/sells the goods so long as all the S&D gets used up.  This add a nice dynamic to the game with factions and individual players being able to set themselves up as traders or raiders without ever needing to think about owning fiefs or playing the larger game of politics.

Real wars are then fought based on diplomacy using Strat Gold and Renown which are much more controlled commodities.  The fact that you need both Strat Gold AND Renown to equip a good army adds a nice balance to the game.  Players are also forced to pick between larger armies or better equipped armies.

Finally, multi accounting would only really be useful for cRPG gain and even then it will be difficult.  1 person controlling 3 accounts would find it very difficult to gain renown as they can only fight in battles with 1 char at a time.  This means they only ever get small armies with low end gear.  If they want to improve 1 army they have to sacrifice the other 2 accounts and improving all 3 means spreading renown over all 3 which is equally ineffective compared to 1 person dedicating all their renown to 1 char.  You also don't need to multi account to generate strat gold through tax as random people will move and sell goods for you for the same financial gain.  Account sharing would still be an issue but there are other ways around that.

[Andswaru]

8) This gear can be upgraded in Fiefs by spending renown.  So initially i get 33% Shirts and i can upgrade them by going to a Fief that sells Byrnies and buying that item with my renown.  The % can be changed whenever you want

Okay just read through this real quick but this point caught my eye, how would i give my different army types different gear to match the number of archers/shielders/2handed heros/polespammers the army requires depending upon its mission?

[Tomas]

Okay just read through this real quick but this point caught my eye, how would i give my different army types different gear to match the number of archers/shielders/2handed heros/polespammers the army requires depending upon its mission?

Percentages

Currently the free gear you get is awarded when defending based on percentages.  So you get 10% Short Bows for you troops, 30% arrows, 20% scythes, etc

In my system you can change these percentages as you wish (so long as you are in a fief) but changing the equipment or adding new slots will cost renown

Increasing the percentages so that you have more than you need isn't an issue either as it will increase the average cost of your gear and force you to pay more upkeep

[Andswaru]

Okay sounds reasonable, how would siege gear fit in? Would it be an extra renown expense? Were you have to spend Renown in order to aquire siege gear? Or would it have to purchased with tax gold? (if thats the case id advise a new pricing stucture for construction materials)

[Tomas]

Okay sounds reasonable, how would siege gear fit in? Would it be an extra renown expense? Were you have to spend Renown in order to aquire siege gear? Or would it have to purchased with tax gold? (if thats the case id advise a new pricing stucture for construction materials)

i think siege gear can be renown based to acquire.  Remember it will increase your average army equip cost and therefore increase upkeep.  A new pricing structure on material would def be needed though so you are right there

[Butan]

I dont think battles advantages (movement speed, hiding, preparation time) based on renown would be fair, or it would need to be easily spottable on the map; otherwise you will never be able to "predict" how many hours you can reinforce, if the army has a normal speed or got a big bonus, etc..

Half of strategus strategy is using what you can see of every dot on the map, players or fiefs (number of troops, gear, crates, terrain, population) to predict where people may be going, at what speed, with what power (hence spotting is uber important and seeing fief info from far away permit to plan invasion with more success). If you could have huge bonus without anyong being able to see that you have, it would be super hazardous to wander on the field without extreme prejudice.

If the devs were able to implement new infos to interpret new bonus I wouldnt mind, all your propositions are solid anyway.