I think a significant problem is the differences between how we interact with cRPG and Strat. Elindor referenced strat skills, and I think that could play a huge role so I will describe my thoughts in reference to this.
Right now in strategus battles, if you are level 30, you will be hired over a level 20 guy no matter what. In the application for a battle we can provide our cRPG stats, but they really are pretty insignificant in the decision making process for who is gonna get hired. Replacing these cRPG stats in the application with Strat stats, or just having them both available would be pretty simple.
The strat character is base-lined off of the cRPG character, so there are a few things that would need to be addressed if we wanted to actually customize our strategus characters. These include: Character level, and Generations.
One of the developers earlier in this thread mentioned something about returning to single player mindset. Well I agree with that. If we added skills from single player such as trainer, leadership, etc., (more detail on these later) they would need to be formatted and dispersed according to cRPG character level. There are 15 skills in single player that play no role at all in cRPG. So lets say a character gets a strat point for every level they gain in cRPG. So if you are lvl 34, then you could have invested 34 points into trade and nothing else. (I'll describe what each of these 15 diff skills could do in a spoiler here in a bit.). No caps on how high an individual can invest into skills, which would keep us from having to mess with intelligence/charisma (a mitigating factor will be described later).
Now of these 15 possible skills, a Gen One character should be limited to investing in only 3 skills at a time. A gen two being able to invest in up to four, gen three in 5, etc... This would be so that there would be an incentive to retire and would provide a further purpose to the generations mechanic.
These 15 skills would be divided according to the two arenas of strategus. Lets say six of the skills benefit an individual or clan during a strategus battle, and 9 of the skills benefit the individual/clan on the strategus map. If you just wanted to sit in a fief and farm troops, and play in strategus battles then you could focus on battle skills. If you wanted to be more proactive in strat and move around/trade then you could invest in map skills. With either arena, every single one of these skills would have to be applied to the game in a mathematical fashion so that each would have diminishing returns. Each skill would require an equation that will effect game balance and accordingly is very significant. For instance at level one trade skill I could get an extra 10% bonus for my goods. Level 30 trade skill would only get me an extra .2% percent (the numbers can be tweaked later, focus on the general idea.).
Now this setup could lead to some abuses pretty easily, most notably within the battle skill sets. These abuses are obvious and the fix simple, but the potential map skill set abuses would require some of the more innovative criminal minds out there to figure out. Now if there were no limitations then a clan could have all their members invest into a healing skill (first aid, surgery) and no one would die in a battle because they would be surrounded by medics (further described in spoiler below). I think the best fix for this would be as follows: Every battle already has a limit in the amount of mercenaries one can hire which is determined according to army sizes. Lets use this same number to set a limit on the amount of skill can be used in an individual battle. For example: If I could hire 35 mercs for my battle, and I want an engineer. I would have the option of hiring either one guy at lvl 20 engineer skill and an assistant at lvl 15 engi skill, I could hire 5 guys at level 7 skill, or I could find one guy completely invested in engi skill at 35. Point of the story being: of all my mercs, I could only hire a limited # whose engineering skill would actually apply. This would make the game a lot more engaging because the leaders before a battle would have to make hiring decisions according to the statistics they have available, not based strictly on the character's level. For instance, a level 20 guy with 20 points into first aid is probably going to be hired before someone invested solely in map skill sets even if he is level 30. It gives the newbs another method of greater involvement.
So you can hire 35 mercs. You've got one 20 skill engi hired and only one other guy with engi skill who applied for the battle. He also has 20 engi skill. One of these two mercs is going to have some of their skill reduced in order to participate. Not reduced in reality, just in that particular battle. In this situation, the leader(s) of the battle would have to decide who they thought would be a better engi and hire that guy at full skill, the other at reduced. Point being that the leader decides who to hire, which skills to emphasize, how to use those skills in battle, and how to distribute the available skill points within their mercs. IMO this makes the hiring process a lot more intricate and interesting. If a character wants to put everything they have into one skill, they can. They just gotta keep in mind, it may be better for a battle if there were several players with a small amount of that skill, rather than one player with a shit ton of it.
Ok, so here are the skills in detail which I would propose implementing.
Battle Skills: Looting, Trainer, Tactics, Surgery, First Aid, and Engineering
Map Skills: Tracking, Path-Finding, Spotting, Inventory Management, Wound Treatment, Persuasion, Prisoner Management, Leadership, and Trade
Looting: We have a system in place that gives all the unused gear an enemy uses and A certain percentage of the used gear which has been damaged. Those with this skill would contribute to their commander's collection of the used gear. You could have certain landmarks that if they are reached in the battle, there would be greater rewards. Say you can bring in 30 looting skill among all your mercs, then the damaged items will only be -1 rather than -2. If you can bring in 60 looting skill (large armies) then the items wouldn't be damaged at all. Now if we ever implement gold as being fully lootable then this skill could apply much more directly.
Trainer: Increases the amount of experience you receive from strategus battles. Potential landmarks could include a x2 multi at 30 skill and a x3 multi at level 60 skill
Tactics: Increases the amount of mercenaries you can hire for a battle. This one would be important seeing as the # of mercs determines the amount of skills you could utilize. Landmarks could include at 30 skill, an extra 5 mercenaries. At level 60 skill, an extra 5.
Surgery: I may be limiting my vision here, but I can only really see this applying if injuries are implemented into strategus. Then it would be just like single player. Each additional skill-point would increase the likelihood that a ticket is injured rather than killed. Landmarks could include: At 30 skill, there is a % chance that a ticket is neither killed nor injured (obviously the person would respawn). At 60 skill, the chance would increase.
First Aid: This is the one that would be most significant. In rageball your health goes up constantly. I think we could do this in strategus battles as well. Yeah yeah yeah, there are already healing tents that do this. However, if a medic could have an area around him say 10 M, where all players present receive a small recovery per minute (less than the rate of rageball) lets say at skill level 1 a medic could recover 5 hp per minute for the players around him. That's 1 hp every 12 seconds. Now the absolute key to this would be that medics could not heal (other than a tent). This would prevent a clan from stacking its players with 1 healing skill apiece so everyone gets like 30 hp every 12 seconds. Potential landmarks could include 30 skill giving an extra 2 meters proximity for each medic, 60 skill giving an extra 5 meters proximity.
Engineering: The health of every item (ladders, c-sites) thrown by an individual with engi skill would have increased health. Landmarks being: 30 skill health benefits apply to ALL ladders, no matter who throws 60 skill: small proximity repair feature
Map Skill Benefits:
Tracking: You can't really implement this as is from single player to strategus. I do like the idea though of making this into a hiding/reducing nme sight of u type of skill. Any good tracker is gonna know how to cover their own tracks, so it makes sense. Landmarks for the map skill benefits are gonna be a bit trickier, but I'll give it a go: At 15 skill, enemy tracker's skill would be nullified, at 30 skill trackers can also cover the tracks of accompanied (if implemented) parties.
Path Finding: Increases the speed for which one moves. At 15 skill, accompanied parties also enjoy the benefit. At 30 skill, rough terrain would have no effect on the path finder's party (doesn't apply to accompanied parties)
Spotting: Increases range in which you can see enemy parties. At 15 skill, nullifies negative sight effects of forests, at 30 skill either have it nullify the effect of trackers, or have it so one could see how many players are inside a fief.
Inventory Management: Increases the amount of items which can fit into a crate. At 15 skill gives you 200 free crates (you could carry 200 crates worth of items, but on map your character would still say 0 crates). At 30 skill, your first 500 listed (not the free 200 above) crates do not effect your army's speed.
Wound Treatment: I could only see this implemented if injuries were also implemented. It would increase the rate at which injured tickets heal. At 15 skill, 1/4 of injured tickets are healed at the end of the battle they were injured in. at 30 skill, 1/2 of tickets injured during a battle are healed after that battle.
Persuasion: Reduces the amount paid for all items. at level 15, cuts taxes by 1/3. At level 30 eliminates taxes.
Prisoner Management: Ehhh I don't really know how I feel about this one. Might be more work to implement than it is worth. Anyone that wants to propose an appropriate benefit for this skill is more than welcome to.
Leadership: This would have to be something that would benefit fief owners. Having never owned a fief in strat 4, I don't really know what it could benefit, so please if you got an idea, post it.
Trade: increases the rate at which a distance bonus grows. At level 15, adds 10% (minimum of -40% and max of 360%) at level 30, adds 20 % (minimum of -20% and max of 380%)
Well there is my essay, I hope you found it interesting and read the thing. chadz if you actually read the whole thing and found it to be engaging, or even happened to like some of the ideas, please inflate my ego and make it publicly known!
