Poll: How many new companions would you like?

How many companions do you want to be added to the pack?

  • None (0): the current amount is more than enough.

    Votes: 15 11.2%
  • A few (1-5): just a few more to spice things up.

    Votes: 42 31.3%
  • A couple (5-10): add a whole new branch of people liking and disliking each other.

    Votes: 16 11.9%
  • Double the amount (10-20)

    Votes: 15 11.2%
  • Triple the amount (20-40)

    Votes: 5 3.7%
  • As many as the mod 'Lots of New Companions' (40-70)

    Votes: 41 30.6%

  • Total voters
    134

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monnikje

Master Knight
I've been getting quite some requests to add Lots of New Companions, a mod that adds - just like the name suggests - a lot of new companions to the game. There are more than 60 new companions in there.

When I had a look at them myself, I wasn't that impressed by their dialogue, so when I add new companions, I'll write that myself. But that takes time. This also raises the question this topic is all about: is it desirable to have that many new companions? If not, how many do you prefer? Or do you think the current amount is more than enough?

In the poll I've set some broad ranges you can vote for. You can always specify your choice in the topic, or say what kind of companions you'd like to see added.

[edit]
In the week before Christmas there are two favorite choices: adding just a few (1-5), and adding quite a lot (40-70). That's a huge difference. Let me try to sum up some arguments I've seen and that I can think off:
  • Crowded taverns: some taverns might be as crowded as the starting one when you select 'let all npc's start in the first tavern'. This could of course enhance the feeling of a busy place, but it could also hinder with other npc's like book merchants, drunken people, bards and of course hirelings.
  • Uniqueness: With less npc's than taverns, discovering one is a privelege and gives those companions you did find a special place among your ranks. With many companions available, the uniqueness of them wares off. On the other hand, it can be very frustrating to look all over the country for a few more npc's.
  • Relations: Currently, the companions like one person and dislike two. When I add just a few more, the circles of who (dis)likes who can be adjusted with some minor effort, preserving basically the relations as they are in native, with some minor adjustments. When I add 60 new companions, these relations will be drastically changed to suit the new situation. If I discover a way to add more likings/dislikings to a companion, I surely will do that with such a large group (by the way, these relations can be disabled in the mod menu).
  • Vassals: Who needs to convince other lords to join your kingdom when you can just hire 70 companions, turn them all into vassals, letting them recruit armies and follow you to blitzkrieg all over Calradia? This can be a bit gamebreaking. On the other hand, it can definately help you in your early and struggling days of an independant kingdom.
  • Immortal army: Adding a lot of new companions will allow players to create an immortal army that can level as good as the player. The fact that this is possible can be gamebreaking, and can spoil the fun. On the other hand, you don't have to recruit them if you don't want to, and can still play with a few if you prefer.
Furthermore, the amount of work it takes to add a lot of companions is not an issue. If most people want a lot of them, then I'll get to work :wink:. But I can do only one or two companions a day (writing dialogue isn't done in a few minutes), so adding a lot will take some time. If you don't care about their dialogues and only want them to be immortal meat for your army - and you'd rather have them yesterday than tomorrow - you can always add them yourself: I prefer to have companions with some character in my mod pack instead of just some immortals that are just there to level and beat armies.

It's up to you, the voter, which arguments are more important. There's no good and wrong: only honest opinions.
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[edit2]
After letting this poll run for over a month, I finally made my decission:

I'll start with creating a few new companions - altough I don't know yet when I'll start doing this. Once this is done, I'll have a look if it's possible to create a choice at the start of the game, allowing you to choose between a few or many companions. If this is not possible, I'll stick with the few I'll have created by then. If it is possible, I'll start to slowly work on more companions, but won't implement them untill they're all (or at least most of them) are done: the results of this vote say that people are really not waiting for an amount in between the few and the lot.

I locked the voting now. I thank you all for your votes, ideas and opinions.
[/edit2]
 
A few shold do the trick if you ask me :smile:
But offcors 40-70 new companions wold be fun if your creating an army of companions :grin:
 
I voted, though to play devil's advocate, I hope this is something that gets worked on after most of the bugs are squashed.
 
Of course, this is something for the future. No new companions in the next update (2.2), that's for sure. That gives the poll a nice time to run, and people to think about it. By the time I'm ready to implement them, I'll know what people want by looking at the result.
 
erik_3e said:
A few shold do the trick if you ask me :smile:
But offcors 40-70 new companions wold be fun if your creating an army of companions :grin:

5 more would be enough. An army of companions will be undestructible and boring at least without any challenge. NPC's number must be between 20 and 25 if we want to preserve the "spirit of Warband". But that's only my own vision of the game.
 
I voted as many as ‘that mod’ (I assume you mean the Lots of New Companions minimod with that?).
I just started a game with the self-imposed restriction of making a female-only merc band. Having some more female companions available would help with that lofty goal, wouldn’t you argee? :wink:

That and when I’m not in my ‘hey, let’s try something silly and borderline impossible”-mood, having some more variety and choices would be nice.

Edit: typo.
 
The sword sisters have quite an extensive troop tree and in 2.2 you will actually be able to recruit them from taverns :grin:
 
Duh said:
<snip> in 2.2 you will actually be able to recruit them from taverns :grin:
Aww, but riding around being the hero and rescuing damsels in distress from raiders, looters and other nasties is so rewarding. :grin:
 
The more the merrier. However, can u set a limit of companion? Less than 10, for example. That means u have to choose ur companions carefully. That's fun!
 
For one the newbies should be set up just like the existing companions they should have one like and two dislikes (i think that's how it is if i remember correctly), the max you could have in your party of the original cast is 8 at any one time, if say three new get added then the new max (taking likes and dislikes onto account) should be say 9 at any one time. this way there are extra guys for flair but no so many as to overbalance things. Three is probably the magic number to add at a time, one skill guy (healer, tracker, trader, etc) one fighter (archer, soldier, etc.), one lord (impoverished, dishonoured, etc.)

additionally, if possible could their dialouge be Calariadia based, having them talk about flanders or france or other real world places kinda ruins the immersion for me, though is my own personal preference.
 
Why not add as many as the other mod?  Those who don't want them aren't forced to use them while those that do are accommodated... its a no brainer.

You're concerned it'll take too much effort to write that much dialogue?  I wouldn't bother doing... I mean, this might sound harsh but I did read your dialogue for Floris and felt slightly embarrassed for you!  Otherwise your work compiling these mods has been excellent sir and incorporating the "lots of new companions" mod into your own would probably enhance the experience for most players and wouldn't really interfere with the rest.
 
monnikje said:
That's a good idea. I have no idea yet how to implement it, but I'll have a look.
Right now if you get all of the companions and level them up a bunch they are pretty overkill, anymore and it would be unfair.

The idea of the number of companions you can have depending on your leadership is a great idea, maybe a base of 5 and then +2 for every point in leadership.
 
I made the leadership suggestion a while ago in suggestions thread
and i think 3 base +1 per point of leadership (or persuation maybe?) would be a good balance

too many companions in one army would be overkill and a exploit (immortal army that cost next to nothing)
 
You know, there is this magical thing called restraint which would allow you to simply not recruit more then X number of companions. X being whatever number you personally find enough. :wink:
 
It seems that the opinions are divided between two extremes. Let's see if that changes after this poll has run for a little while longer. These different opinions are exactly the reason why I hold this poll.

AlaricRoald: Of course: liking and disliking are part of the deal. Thanks for the idea on the three types of companions :smile:.
Floris is an extraordinary case. I'm not going to let all new companions come from far away lands with strange sounding names, don't worry about that.

Echoic: I'm not concerned about writing dialogue: in fact, I like it. But it takes time. And even if you don't read it, I still prefer to have written it anyway, for the people who do read it.

 
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