Crazed Rabbit
Squire
I DL'ed this game about a week ago, and am amazed by the sheer fun of it. I've been playing for over 20 hours, and its still loads of fun.
I have a couple suggestions for this awesome game, which, in my humble opinion, would make it even better:
Setting spears: Giving the ability to spearmen to brace their spears against the ground in preparation for a cavalry charge. If the knight charged them, the horse would impale itself upon the spear, possibly knocking out the horse in one blow. The spearman would be able to turn, though slowly, but fast enough to hit a knight if they tried to swerve around the spear. This would give footsoldiers with spears a chance against cavalry, though it would require more coding and the like.
'Reactive' Parrying (for lack of a better name): This would be a parry that, instead of just holding your weapon and waiting for the enemy to hit it, you'd strike out for their weapon. This would be in addition to normal parrying. It could add a very short recovery time for the person who was trying to strike you, giving you more time to do your next move, but you'd also have to time it right and be close enough. I'm not certain about this, but thought I'd throw it out there.
Shield Bashing: To me, this is most important for fighting archers. Since they can just hold back the bow and then nail you the instant you let your shield down to attack, I'd love to see the ability to shove them with your shield. It wouldn't even have to do damage, just knock the bow so that their aim is horribly messed up or that they loose the arrow unintentionally.
Bulding Your Own Town:
I know this has been oft discussed. The basic premise of my idea would be basically the same: your character, for an exorbitant amount of money, would be able to select a point on the map where they could build a small fort.
Here's my take on it: It would probably start out as a small, palisaded area with a wooden keep. It would be interactive, and probably all fit on one battle map (though the terrain would be pretty flat inside the walls) and include a few basic buildings. To get it built, and get those first buildings in there, you might have to go around to groups of peasants offering to pay them to build it for you. It would also have a keep you could rest at and decorate. The walls and fortifications would be upgradeable. You could get stone walls, towers, balistas, pots of oil, etc.
Of course, all this would take a lot of upkeep to maintain. And you'd probably want to pay soldiers to guard it whlie your gone, along with an administrator to manage it. You'd be able to hire soldiers, but would have to buy their armor and arms.
But you would also gain income if you invited some farmers to start farming near your fort in exchange for protection (So you'd have to fight all the riff raff that goes through your territory attacking your peasants). And if a dynamic economy was included, you could tax that too.
And a new outpost would not go unnoticed by the major powers, either. Depending on where you built it, the vaegirs and swadians would send scouts to demand you swear allegiance to a certain king. Or, if your fort was deep in vaegir territtory, the swadians might try to persuade you with gifts to join (and probalby ignore you if you declined). But if you were in vaegir territory and turned down allegiance to the vaegirs, they'd send lots of war parties at you. And if you were in the middle of the countries, they'd both try to capture you if you didn't swear allegiance to one.
Or, a king could grant you the right to a plot of land. And although the vaegir king would allow an outpost deep in swadian territory, the swadians would attack you without hesitation.
And when the enemies attacked, you'd be fighting in the actual town. Think about it: a small palisaded camp with a large wooden keep, archers patrolling the walls and shooting as enemy soldiers approach and try to batter down the gate medieval style. You fight on the ground as they enter, slowly backing up to the wall. But you see that they are to many for you, and order your archers to retreat into your keep. From the windows, they pepper the enemy soldiers while you and a handful of swordsmen stay fighting on the walls. Finally, you are forced to retreat into the keep, where you lock the door. They keep on attacking, but are almost annihilated. Finally, you burst out, sword raised on high, and they turn and run in fear. You take out a javelin and throw it at them, hitting one in the head while your archers kill the rest.
I know this is a tall order, but I think some parts may fit in M&B 1.
MuiltiPlayer:
I know there's a very slim chance of this making it into M&B 1, so take these as suggestions for M&B 2. I think it'd be amazingly great to have mulitiplayer. The setup would work thusly: The host would decide what level he wanted the players to be, and the players would choose attribute and skill points. The host would also set what weapons and items would be allowed (incase he wanted just an archery war, for example) The host would then set a cash limit that players could use to buy any item they wanted. They could blow it all on armor (but be like a turtle, slow and relatively harmless) or weapons, etc.
And if the game supported user made maps, the host could choose to have a specific map (like a tournament) or just set some parameters for the map (like the flatness, amount of water, terrain type, weather, etc.)
And the host could also decide how and if players respawned. They could have instant respawning (or only a small, 1-5 second delay) or have the players come back in waves of reinforcements.
You could have multiple gameplay types, like plain old free for all, dueling, or a team tournament, or having one side be the attackers and have to capture a point, or day of defeat style multiple capture points which give points to the team that owns them. And one that would be exceptional would be cooperative, players joining together against hordes of AI controlled units.
Crazed Rabbit
I have a couple suggestions for this awesome game, which, in my humble opinion, would make it even better:
Setting spears: Giving the ability to spearmen to brace their spears against the ground in preparation for a cavalry charge. If the knight charged them, the horse would impale itself upon the spear, possibly knocking out the horse in one blow. The spearman would be able to turn, though slowly, but fast enough to hit a knight if they tried to swerve around the spear. This would give footsoldiers with spears a chance against cavalry, though it would require more coding and the like.
'Reactive' Parrying (for lack of a better name): This would be a parry that, instead of just holding your weapon and waiting for the enemy to hit it, you'd strike out for their weapon. This would be in addition to normal parrying. It could add a very short recovery time for the person who was trying to strike you, giving you more time to do your next move, but you'd also have to time it right and be close enough. I'm not certain about this, but thought I'd throw it out there.
Shield Bashing: To me, this is most important for fighting archers. Since they can just hold back the bow and then nail you the instant you let your shield down to attack, I'd love to see the ability to shove them with your shield. It wouldn't even have to do damage, just knock the bow so that their aim is horribly messed up or that they loose the arrow unintentionally.
Bulding Your Own Town:
I know this has been oft discussed. The basic premise of my idea would be basically the same: your character, for an exorbitant amount of money, would be able to select a point on the map where they could build a small fort.
Here's my take on it: It would probably start out as a small, palisaded area with a wooden keep. It would be interactive, and probably all fit on one battle map (though the terrain would be pretty flat inside the walls) and include a few basic buildings. To get it built, and get those first buildings in there, you might have to go around to groups of peasants offering to pay them to build it for you. It would also have a keep you could rest at and decorate. The walls and fortifications would be upgradeable. You could get stone walls, towers, balistas, pots of oil, etc.
Of course, all this would take a lot of upkeep to maintain. And you'd probably want to pay soldiers to guard it whlie your gone, along with an administrator to manage it. You'd be able to hire soldiers, but would have to buy their armor and arms.
But you would also gain income if you invited some farmers to start farming near your fort in exchange for protection (So you'd have to fight all the riff raff that goes through your territory attacking your peasants). And if a dynamic economy was included, you could tax that too.
And a new outpost would not go unnoticed by the major powers, either. Depending on where you built it, the vaegirs and swadians would send scouts to demand you swear allegiance to a certain king. Or, if your fort was deep in vaegir territtory, the swadians might try to persuade you with gifts to join (and probalby ignore you if you declined). But if you were in vaegir territory and turned down allegiance to the vaegirs, they'd send lots of war parties at you. And if you were in the middle of the countries, they'd both try to capture you if you didn't swear allegiance to one.
Or, a king could grant you the right to a plot of land. And although the vaegir king would allow an outpost deep in swadian territory, the swadians would attack you without hesitation.
And when the enemies attacked, you'd be fighting in the actual town. Think about it: a small palisaded camp with a large wooden keep, archers patrolling the walls and shooting as enemy soldiers approach and try to batter down the gate medieval style. You fight on the ground as they enter, slowly backing up to the wall. But you see that they are to many for you, and order your archers to retreat into your keep. From the windows, they pepper the enemy soldiers while you and a handful of swordsmen stay fighting on the walls. Finally, you are forced to retreat into the keep, where you lock the door. They keep on attacking, but are almost annihilated. Finally, you burst out, sword raised on high, and they turn and run in fear. You take out a javelin and throw it at them, hitting one in the head while your archers kill the rest.
I know this is a tall order, but I think some parts may fit in M&B 1.
MuiltiPlayer:
I know there's a very slim chance of this making it into M&B 1, so take these as suggestions for M&B 2. I think it'd be amazingly great to have mulitiplayer. The setup would work thusly: The host would decide what level he wanted the players to be, and the players would choose attribute and skill points. The host would also set what weapons and items would be allowed (incase he wanted just an archery war, for example) The host would then set a cash limit that players could use to buy any item they wanted. They could blow it all on armor (but be like a turtle, slow and relatively harmless) or weapons, etc.
And if the game supported user made maps, the host could choose to have a specific map (like a tournament) or just set some parameters for the map (like the flatness, amount of water, terrain type, weather, etc.)
And the host could also decide how and if players respawned. They could have instant respawning (or only a small, 1-5 second delay) or have the players come back in waves of reinforcements.
You could have multiple gameplay types, like plain old free for all, dueling, or a team tournament, or having one side be the attackers and have to capture a point, or day of defeat style multiple capture points which give points to the team that owns them. And one that would be exceptional would be cooperative, players joining together against hordes of AI controlled units.
Crazed Rabbit
I kid, I kid.
