I had an idea based on something chadz said a while back for a new way to gain troop tickets. Currently, any player on strat can generate one troop every hour no matter where they are at a constant pace with the only controlling factor being upkeep cost. This leads balance between factions to revolve almost entirely around two things: Trade capability and playerbase size (with added benefits for
not fighting). So! Here's an idea to limit the amount of raw troops generated into the game and to keep army sizes from being extremely large without first having to do something to earn that capacity.
Two systems, both based on the idea of renown. Renown is currently given to a player for completing a battle, with a trickle-down of points awarded to everyone in his faction. For this to work, the amount of raw renown given to a player would have to be balanced differently, with none or very little gained from faction association.
Renown points - gained like renown is now, but probably at a slower rate. Finish a battle, get renown. The amount would vary depending on the scale of the enemy army's defeated tickets' gear level. This would be a
non-transferable currency used to purchase troop tickets. As such, only players who have fought battles could generate troop tickets, but they could still be transferred freely. The amount of renown a troop ticket costs would go up based on how many tickets you currently possess (or maybe how many tickets your
entire faction has). Buying them could be limited to fiefs, or done in the open at a penalty. It could be limited by some factor like fief population. Fief owners could maybe have control over whether troops are recruitable in their fief, limited with a delay on toggling it on or off by a day or so.
Renown level - this would be increased by *being the attacking and defending party in battles on the map but in a much smaller amount than renown points. It would be a
direct limitation on the total army size a player controls. Renown level could be transferable or not, depending on how strict of a system is wanted. The possibility for tweaking how this works are numerous: say each level gives a further allotment of 10 additional troop tickets beyond the base 100. It could be rewarded for achievements in battles instead of only for straight killing of geared tickets. Here are some example rewards:
Each that apply are added up and and awarded at the end of every battle. They would only apply if an enemy shows up to fight, say 10 or more mercs on the other team; it would also not apply for the bigger side if the ticket disparity is too vast (say, 3:1?). A major potential downside here is that extremely low gear and ticket battles would likely inspire people not to sign anyone up for defense in order to preclude the enemy from gaining further renown level.
+1 for every battle
+1 for winning
+1 for winning against greater numbers
+3 for winning against double numbers
+1 for attacking a village
+1 for defending a village
+3 for attacking a castle
+5 for attacking a town (obviously town and castle balance is assumed here)
+1 for every 10 minutes left on the clock after a win
+3 to defenders if defenders capture the attacker's flags
+3 to attackers if attackers capture the defender's flags
+1 for fighting a field battle with no horses in the army's inventory
+1 for every 100~ tickets killed during the battle
+2 for every gear level below your opponent (heavily armed, etc)
+1 for every 25 renown level below your opponent
+1 for every 5 mercs that show up less than your opponent (have to gain a kill or a death to count as shown up)
The possibilities are vast.
Army A has 1000 shiny tickets and a renown level of 100, Army B has 2000 lightly armed and a renown level of 200. Army A attacks Army B and they fight in the field.
Army A kills 1200~ of army B's tickets. +12
Army B kills 500~ of army A's tickets. +5
Army A captures army B's flags. +3
Army A won against greater numbers. +1
Army A won against double numbers. +3
Army A won with 20 minutes on the clock. +2
Army B is 3 gear levels below army A. +6
Army A has 100 less renown level. +4
Both receive an additional +1 for fighting.
Army A's player (the one who initiated the attack) gains 26 renown level. Army B's player (the one who defended) gains 12 renown level. This would add an additional 260 troops to Army A's player's potential maximum, while army B's player's would go up by 120. They'd also gain renown points in some more intricate amounts (possibly with Army B gaining more despite killing less troops, because of the superior gear level of Army A).
These numbers are all for an example and could obviously be changed.
The benefit of this would be to limit the amount of tickets coming into the map and prohibit inactive players from being able to effortlessly increase a faction's potential recruiting power (or there could be a new system developed for them to recruit at a slow pace, assuming someone throws renown level on them if it's made transferable). It would also lower the general army size during much of the game, and could make players with larger, better equipped armies (or merely larger
potential armies) bigger targets - when they fight their enemy, they're giving them a benefit and even if they defeat them they aren't only destroying all their tickets and gear.
edit:
Section for possible downsides:New players coming in mid-game would have no viable targets to attack to increase their renown levels. (if it were transferable, they could trade for it, however)
Players not interested in moving around the map, but who are still relatively active, would have less to do.
Battles would be smaller on average. Not necessarily a downside, but large battles are one of the hallmarks of Strategus past.
More micromanagement would be necessary, particularly on the fly when quick transfers of armies have to take place. Keeping track of renown levels would become critical.
