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Post by Khalid ibn Walid on Apr 7, 2006 20:05:28 GMT -5
Because the party sizes seem to increase in this mod faster than they do in vanilla, I'd suggest adding charisma and leadership. I want to keep it challenging. By the time you get to the stage of waves of mass attacks, you're already pretty powerful as is. But let's see. I have to check how to make that possible (and relate that to a suggestion you made earlier about decreasing them also) But here's a general question: would you rather have higher charisma and carry them all around with you, or a way of acquiring/stockpiling better troops for later use at will? I am more inclined towards the latter. Once you get uber-powerful, you can pretty much handle anything that is thrown at you. You lose a lot of troops quickly, sure. But, generally speaking, I am more disposed towards making them easier to replace, rather than easier to carry around. The reason I am skeptical about adding skills to offices is that I suspect I won't be able to reduce them later if you lose office. It gives you the incentive to take up & lose offices quickly, just for the cumulative quality bumps. I can certainly increase the barracks army of better quality. And, on campaign, bump up their quantity too. The noble factions will be where the current barracks are at. Plus, I am trying to do it so you can hire entire companies (knights + faction leader) in one go. EDIT: Fixed the Tower (they weren't replenishing!) and upped the Barracks. Now, any consorta in a Ghibelline town produces Ghibelline troops; any consorta in a Guelf produces Guelf troops. Max troops you can acquire at Tower is 20. Ghibellines = footmen, veterans, skirmishers; Guelfs = militias, footmen, skirmishers. Barracks max bumped to 25 (should I increase that further?). Ghibellines = veterans, skirmishers, archers, infantry & horsemen; Guelfs = footmen, skirmishers, crossbowmen, infantry & man-at-arms.) Better? So no Borcha? I find it his speed kinda essential for the early stages. Why not the gonfalionera the weapons- and skill trainer, so you get those boys accelerating quickly, then add a chaplain (either earlier or later); he'd be personally rather hopeless, but good for the surgery/wound/first aid stuff? That makes four companions, which is all the slots you can probably afford to sacrifice. Also, since you will eventually be able to temporarily hire the noble faction leader (a fifth companion, but for limited time), he can be a super-trainer for that period. (I like getting Marnid & Borcha early. Knowing you'll be getting doctors/trainers eventually might allow you focus on moulding Marnid & Borcha into the real fighters you want. And they're happy to squire for you in the lists.  Perhaps. They'd have the same "losing office" problem, though. |
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Post by ingolifs on Apr 9, 2006 5:08:19 GMT -5
The main utility of said leadership bonus would come during the campaign. Any player with decent equipment, and 60 decent troops can take on a 90+ sized army with few losses. But during the campaign, the player won't destroy just one enemy count and stop, he'll end up taking on most of them, simply because he's the only one able to do so. (without player intervention, two opposing armies will take the duration of the seven days to destroy each other.)
In my experience, the player loses many of his soldiers pretty early on, and has to spend much of his time travelling between friendly towns (and even enemy towns if he's desperate enough) just to get some semblance of an army again. Personally, I don't find that particularly fun, nor particularly believable.
Now, if the extra leadership makes things imbalancing outside the campaign, perhaps it could be a campaign-only bonus that goes away after the campaign ends.
Personally, I don't find that increasing the party capacity affects that much. Once you're able to field an army greater than the battle troop maximum, then your party size no longer afects your ability to win battles, it only affects how many you can win before having to replace your troops. Which is why I think it would be just right for the campaign. Also, you have to consider that the player has worked very hard to get to this point (he has had to save up 45000 dollars to become freeman alone, which is an amount of money I have never (legitimately) even gotten close to in a game since version .700). Having a leadership bonus, along with the gonfalonier and the armour, I think would be a great reward for becoming a count.
I can see how taking leadership and charisma away might be problematic. I know Ancientwanker has had stat enhancing reward items in his game, and that he has had some wierd and interesting bugs associated with them (stats being increased, and then arbitrarily decreased later with the item still wielded), so I'd go ask him about it.
Also, it might be a problem when you have more troops than your current party max will allow. The logical thing to do would be to have them immediately desert once the leadership lowers, but I have a feeling that the rules that govern desertion are hardcoded. I'd suggest you try it out and see if you can get it to work.
About marnid and borcha: I'd quite like it if they had cameos in this mod. Something like Marnido and Borcharelli, with different stories to tell. Heck, even AW had marnid and Borcha cameos in his mod. But considering the amount of work gone into other parts of this mod, I think it would be a shame to leave the marnid and borcha parts completely untouched. They could be given different stories and all.
Also, instead of having both a chaplain and a gonfalonier (which encroaches on precious party space), healing skills and such could just be part of the gonfalonier's repetoire of abilities.
Oh, and I'm glad you did that change to the hireable troops from the tower and barracks. Now it feels like the official army of Cremona or whever is more than just the ragtag bunch of knights and mercenaries you had before you got into office.
(I suppose if you really want to make it hard during the Campaign, you could disable tavern hiring of all the faction towns during the period, citing the reason as because all the hireables have gone off with their counts.)
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Post by Khalid ibn Walid on Apr 9, 2006 5:50:49 GMT -5
Some quite thoughtful points which I will have to mull over & experiment with. I'm currently fixing up the remaining bugs in the mayfield & campaign, and I'd like to hear your thoughts. (1) Following your suggestion, I've decided to grant an extra source of troops who show up when the martinella is rung ("volunteers filled with civic patriotism"). They are not junk, but relatively high quality. You pick them up at the barracks. They are refreshed as long as the mayfield is active, but disappear when the campaign is over. (these "volunteer" mercs don't infringe on the regular barracks mercs; they are two different merc sources; both of them are offered to you separately by the barracks captain during campaign). (2) The mayfield had a cash-and-troops request attached. That was disabled, by I am going to re-enable it now. I know it can be painful given the troop constraint you already have, but giving cash gifts & lending troops to the commander was standard practice in Medieval mayfields, so I'd like to keep it. - I've toned down the number a bit so you don't lose 15 knights in one go. It will range between 5 and 10 troops of some sort. - You can decline to give the troops over, but then you have to pay a greater cash gift in compensation - campaign won't start until you fork troops and/or cash over. If you're short on funds or fail to get your act together on time, tough luck. - If the campaign doesn't get started before the mayfield due date is passed, you have to appear before Milan/Pavia for reprimand and a punitive fine (heribannum). The heribannum is thrice the amount of cash dues originally asked for. If you can't pay for it then and there, it will be recorded as a debt to the league and collected at the next mayfield (the chamberlain will add the past debt to the new set of league dues). - If you fail to repay at the next mayfield, the whole amount is once again tripled. So this heribannum debt has the prospect of accumulating rather quickly. (Should make for a rather painful money sink!  ) - failed campaigns will severely hurt your standing in the city. Dismissal likely if you continue dishonoring your city that way. (3) Have you tried taking one of the castles? Between campaigns, you can stock those up with reserve knights ahead of time and then go and produce some more. That's a bit of a task you can give yourself. |
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Post by ingolifs on Apr 9, 2006 6:03:47 GMT -5
I like what you've come up with for the mayfield and the troop issue.
I was originally against having to give your troops over to the commander, but seeing as you've given the choice between troops and extra money, i'm fine with it.
Oh, one other thing. How come I never see another Gonfalon in battle? I think it would be a nice extra to be able to capture the gonfalonier and bring disgrace to the enemy. (although it would involve making a gonfalonier for every town)
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Post by Khalid ibn Walid on Apr 9, 2006 6:21:18 GMT -5
I like what you've come up with for the mayfield and the troop issue. I was originally against having to give your troops over to the commander, but seeing as you've given the choice between troops and extra money, i'm fine with it. Cool. Glad you're happy with it. I'm going to do that. Yes, there will be a gonfalonier for every town (thank God the troop barrier is lifted!). They will be included into the special "capture-the-carroccio" quest junocommando suggested and maybe a couple of others. However, I am thinking about not adding them to the conventional armies of the campaign: -- (1) as a hero, the gonfalonier will always survive to be taken as prisoner. That will infringe on the few precious prisoner slots you already have. -- (2) It won't really add anything to the quest aspect of those battles, since taking the count is already a heck of a distinguished prize. But let me think about it. P.S. to the additional points you made earlier, I suppose you're right. OK. I will conflate the chaplain & gonfaloniera. After all, you will be able to get the noble faction captain for temporary hire. That additional boost should be enough. - As far as Marnid & Borcha, my heart is against it......it's...it's like you're asking me to put my old granny out to pasture  (on a practical note, I also wanna keep 'em around in case of any changes armagan might to do them. Makes it easier to keep up with new M&B versions. Currently, I barely touch the original dialogs file, but just paste my additional bits after the native code. Redoing Marnid & Borcha would require more work every time.) P.P.S. - Marnid is a Burgundian or Frenchman from Lyons, not an Italian.  |
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Post by ingolifs on Apr 9, 2006 6:49:34 GMT -5
Perhaps the gonfalonier could be not a hero, but just a regular troop? (meaning you'd have to knock him out if you wanted to capture him) By capturing the Gonfalonier, you can get a small bonus, but one that shouldn't interfere with the whole count thing. We don't want people going out their way with blunt weapons in the middle of a battle between two count armies.
Think of it as making your old granny more italian looking. At present she looks distinguisably calradian.
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phaedo
Cittadino 
Praetor Vicensae; Amicus Lombardiorum
Posts: 73
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Post by phaedo on Apr 9, 2006 14:13:14 GMT -5
One thing I'd just realized, and thought might bring a lot to the atmosphere of the mod - accurate period weapons, such as the ones in Raptor's weapon expansion. It pains me to see a clearly anachronistic mezzo-spada like the vanilla bastard sword being wielded in 13th century Italy. If anything, the predominant mounted weapons would be spears/lances, and one-handed swords. I know that Earldormann Hussey had Raptor create a huge number of one-handed swords for his Norman mod.
Granted, most of those are pretty clearly Norse; but a little research on my part could tell you the common Oakeshott types in Italy 1210-1230. From there we can simply import the types that Raptor has made. I could send him a PM, if you want.
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Post by ingolifs on Apr 9, 2006 17:30:41 GMT -5
It would be great if Khalid could replace the standard vanilla weapons, but don't forget that the raptor's ones are high poly, and will slow things down too much if given to every soldier.
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phaedo
Cittadino
Praetor Vicensae; Amicus Lombardiorum
Posts: 73
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Post by phaedo on Apr 9, 2006 18:36:05 GMT -5
True that, but there aren't all that many accurate period weapons in Raptor's pack (at least as long as we're still in the communes era). I doubt it'd slow things down too much if we only gave higher tier troops the swords from the pack.
And if worse comes to worse, I'll attempt to learn how to model and try to throw together a few cannon-fodder swords for the militia and footmen.
Edit - Really, the only problem I see is in the mezzo-spadas wielded by the knights and counts. If we do nothing else, we ought to extract the two-handers and mezzo-spadas and replace them with some more accurate period one-handed cavalry swords. The arming swords, falchions and the like carried by footmen and militia are quite reasonable; and though I like the picks and hammers, there ought to be more of them. One thing that I think would REALLY add to the mod is some convincing polearms for the communal armies.
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Post by Khalid ibn Walid on Apr 9, 2006 22:57:44 GMT -5
By my understanding, some sort of hand-and-a-half & two-handed swords were used in the 13th C. I am a fan of these great swords and would hate to see them go.
But I am willing to listen, so if you come up with a list of proposed changes -- reasonably contained & reasonably accurate -- you might persuade me.
(Personally, I think Ben Hussey has put far too many swords in his mod, but I think we have may have a tad too little. )
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Post by ingolifs on Apr 10, 2006 0:27:48 GMT -5
I'm generally in favour of changing around things such as the swords im mods, not necesarily so that it makes the game better, but just so that it makes the game different. Which is why i like what they've done with The Last Days. They've essentially changed around a large portion of the game, so little is recognisable.
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Post by Khalid ibn Walid on Apr 10, 2006 3:57:36 GMT -5
I'm generally in favour of changing around things such as the swords im mods, not necesarily so that it makes the game better, but just so that it makes the game different. Which is why i like what they've done with The Last Days. They've essentially changed around a large portion of the game, so little is recognisable. Hm. Understandable, but I am of a different philosophy there. Ideally, this mod should be easy to upgrade as the new versions of M & B come out. For that reason, I'm disinclined to mucking about with the original game codes, largely because it will take me forever to figure out what changed where. The way it is designed now, outside a very few things, adapting this mod to M & B upgrades is largely the simple task of pasting a huge chunk of stuff at the bottom of the native files. A few hours work, at most. |
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Post by ingolifs on Apr 10, 2006 16:14:29 GMT -5
One other little detail. When your chamberlain gives you the Mayfield quest, I think part of the dialogue should include: "You have five days. During which time I suggest you build up your forces and collect the money the town owes."
For some reason, I always feel compelled to go to the mayfield right away.
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Post by Khalid ibn Walid on Apr 10, 2006 18:04:09 GMT -5
For some reason, I always feel compelled to go to the mayfield right away. Getting carried away by the solemn command of His Eminence and the peal of the martinella, eh?  |
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Post by Questor on Apr 22, 2006 20:58:14 GMT -5
I started a rant over the other thread about conveing the right atmosphere, and I see you guys were on it already. ... About weapons, I'm all about historical accuracy. I'd hate to see two-handed swords being wielded by communal footmen. Or german halberds, for that matter. I'd vouch for bastard swords, though. I saw samples dating back to 1250, so they could stay in. Bascinets are much more out of place, in this regard. ... About landscape, we'd all love to see more historical models, but I have some reservations about it. Rationale? However gorgeously rendered, most cities tend to be pure murder on my 'puter. Even mundane tasks such as recruiting troops or disposing of loot, become rather tedious, since you can't bypass 3d, and jump straight to the shops. Wandering around is fun for the first time. The second time it's still quaint. The third time you give up on collecting loot altogether. Given that at the present stage, most cities tend to be quite similar, city-lugging can become needlessly time-consuming, especially if you dropped in just for an extra quiver of arrows. That said, I'd really like to see mediaeval cities come to life; I just think we don't really need the extra loading time, each and every time we hit town. While life was slower back then, we, as players, should be able to choose the pace, and not be slowed down by it. ... Speaking of pace, I found the mod a bit slow on the earlier levels. I could find no *enhanced* arena, nor easy early-on quests, to get my character on the right track. The mod was none too easy on me, especially compared to the vanilla game. .... Finally, since 0.751 is out, Charisma is much less of an issue, since troops and prisoners are no longer divided into different slots. Leadership simply covers the max troop number, making levelling up troops a bit easier, and incidentally making older levelling techniques useless. ... Bear with me guys, I was on a typing spree.  ... EDITED for clarity. |
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But anyway, a fairly low level guy. Once you become a citizen, you find a destitute squire at your tavern looking for a new master. This guy would be mainly weapon skill oriented. Finally, when you become podesta and get your gonfalonier, I think she should have high skills in surgery, wound treatment and first-aid. Also, with some decent points in tactics.
)
