Random crazy idea #47 : troops for S&D

[Butan]

This strat round has been around for enough time that market growth in every fiefs has reached a point where :


- S&D is piling up everywhere
- everyone has (or can have) millions of gold
- everyone is (or could be) on "cheat mode" and can have top gear for every battles (minus logistic problems)



But troops is still only player-based, so you can have billions upon billions of silver and gear, you need to have players behind you to field a reasonable force.
The alternative to that is the troops market : buying directly to players. At the moment the market is pretty frozen for multiple reasons so it is hard for small factions to have some fun.
Not saying it is bad, thats just the reality, and it prepares for my next argument.

I am in the "billion of gold/gear, no troops" category which is why I though of a way (if not balanced, at least innovative) to result in more possibilities for me, then everyone else too.



What if you could buy mercenary troops in fiefs, using S&D ?



Let's set a random crazy price of 1 mercenary troop = 50 silver
Final price will be 50 x fief S&D price + taxes (minimum of 5 = 250 silver per troop (which is average troop market price), maximum of 25 = 1250 silver per troop, with taxes multiplying from 1 to 2)

Everyone with enough silver in their pocket could go into a fief, and buy mercenaries. Dont expect to get away with a big 10 000 troops unarmed dot on the map though.




Good/Bad effects :


- More available manpower = more stacking (modify the 1/3 rule, remove the old recruitment system completely)

- Controlling fiefs would mean controlling a source of troops = more incentive to conquer and hold territories (over-extension and S&D management will become critical again)

- Economical power would boost Military power = more incentive to have active multi-purpose caravans players (and more power to solo players and opportunities to rebel!)

- Mercenary market and goods market using same ressource = choose between troops and gear (more troops for less gear, or more gear for less troops)

= less silver for faction that would use the mercenary market (indirectly solve the overwhelming silver/gear situation that creates shiny armies for everyone)

- Creates a new way to have troops mid-game = completely changes the manpower generation and geopolitical strenght of factions (Good/Bad depending on viewpoints)

- Easy to steal S&D for mercenaries = armies could be raised anywhere in an instant and would be able to cripple an empire that is not micro-managed a lot (add silver view on dots, add silver stealing on kills, add ways to manage your S&D easily)

- Easy to exploit = go into a fief with lots of weapon crates and silver and 100 men, buy for 5000 mercenary troops and instantly attack the fief you bough it from, and other crazy situations (would be somewhat cool actually...)

- .....

- Other things I could have typed in red or green but did not think of 




Random crazy idea #47, over!

(click to show/hide)

Give troops, I buy very much very costy!

[Strudog]

Sounds like a good idea, but i like the idea of Having a specific Manpower, which can be increased by S&D, so 1 S&D = 5 man power (dont really know the numbers)

But if anyone of you had played EU4 its a very significant matter in when going to war, if you have no man power, you cannot raise the support you need if you lose your main armies. IT also stop people from creating an infinite amount of troops

[Lt_Anders]

I like.

But:
Mercs need to cost more army upkeep(to balance out their use), otherwise people would just spam Prosperity and stack tons of troops
Mercs should not benefit from garrison upkeep(IE it's same whether on a person or not)
Needs to be balanced around Prosperity levels of 800-1000. IE 1000 prosperity(=1000 S&D a day) should give 1/4 of that in troops. So as to not be to Prosperity stacked.
Would need to be properly balanced compared to normal troop gain(like what I posted above)

Unless you remove CRPG from the equation, but then that removes the REASON why it's there. Playing crpg is what gives you troops, and that shouldn't change, to to much.

[CrazyCracka420]

How about no?

It's actually a really bad idea IMO (to be able to buy troops, when troops are already more plentiful than the money out there to equip them). 

If anything is going to be done with troops, it should be this:

it takes "x" amount of production points to buy "y" food, which can support up to "z" # of troops.  You should also be able to transfer the "food" value from one fief to another (so from a village to one of your castles).  This would limit the amount of troops that a fief can have garrisoned at any given time. 

Yes people will just store more troops on themselves, but that will help lower the amount of troops stacked in fiefs (making them more realistic troop numbers to be able to attack with), and it will cost people more money to have garrisons of troops on players rather than in fiefs.

Hell I'm going to post my own suggestion thread:  http://forum.melee.org/strategus-general-discussion/suggestion-create-%27food-stores%27-that-control-how-large-a-garrison-can-be/new/#new

[Lt_Anders]

It's actually a really bad idea IMO (to be able to buy troops, when troops are already more plentiful than the money out there to equip them). 

Actually, no. GOLD is more plentiful than troops. Just troops accumulate when not actively fighting.

[CrazyCracka420]

Sure if there's 1 troop for 1 gold.  But I'm talking shiny armies, I think there's more troops out there than gold to equip each troop with shiny gear.

[Lt_Anders]

Sure if there's 1 troop for 1 gold.  But I'm talking shiny armies, I think there's more troops out there than gold to equip each troop with shiny gear.

Cause we stockpile troops. If they were ALWAYS used, then no. Gold is infinite, troops finite. Always been that way. Gold is easier than troops to amass.

[Aderyn]

sorry to burst your bubble huseby but it's true. Troops are more abundant overall than gold.

[CrazyCracka420]

So most factions have more gold available than to equip every troop with shiny gear?  Maybe EU, but not in NA.  And I still think it's skeptical on the EU side (I've seen coalition gold and it's amazing, but I still don't think they'd have enough to make every troop "shiny")

[RamsesXXIIX]

So most factions have more gold available than to equip every troop with shiny gear?  Maybe EU, but not in NA.  And I still think it's skeptical on the EU side (I've seen coalition gold and it's amazing, but I still don't think they'd have enough to make every troop "shiny")

Oh we have

[CrazyCracka420]

Oh we have

Well if that's the case, than this version of strategus is even more pathetic than I previously thought.  So people have 100,000+ troops and they can equip them with shiny gear, but they aren't using those troops for anything other than stacking fiefs?

You guys make me sick.  Strategus is dead.

[Butan]

Maybe NA isnt like that for now, but you will undoubtedly catch up. Like troop stacking, silver stacking is an issue that appears some time after the round begins with the current game rules.

We sure need ways to balance everything out and this is not the only idea that can go toward this. I think food stores (plateau for troops) are good, and mercenary troops (troops<->S&D) are good. We could also talk about having increased PP cost for prosperity (plateau for S&D). It would have a good synergy if done well.

[CrazyCracka420]

Yeah I can get on board with S&D spending to buy troops, but I think it's skirting the issue.

The issue being that there is no incentive or reason for people to attack anyone else on the map.  So people are cold-war strategy playing of stocking as many troops into castles as possible.

[Butan]

I think if the 1/3 rule allowed siege of any fiefs with a good army

+

food stores/ prosperity caps/ modified recruitment system

=

you would have every reason to try taking as many fiefs as you can, since they would both be needed to stack troops/silver and S&D.



Today, even if you have only 1 fief, you have as much power as a faction which has 100, if you have the same number of players farming troops, caravaning a bit and increased your prosperity/taxes a lot. So why expanding ? Even though just the though of expansion/battles (and subsequent drama and hatred) is enough to motive most to raise armies, the 1/3 rule fucks everything up anyway.

[Tomas]

Narra has over 11m silver in it alone.  Do you really want us to be able to buy another 15k troops to stack in there with the 22k we already have?

Idea has merit though and there might be a way to make it work, just can't think of one now.