Yo, gentlemen. I spent the few hours I had to spare today working out how some of the new weapons will affect different types of mounts. Not something we discussed here, but I wanted to get it underway, seeing as this will be fundamental in future consideration of this mod.
Here's what I have planned:
Explosions/fire (i.e. proximity to the discharge of a large calibre firearm or incendiary device) will cause some mounts to rear and stall, particularly lower breeds of horses. This has been tested and works perfectly.
There will be new types of mounts that will be less affected by these conditions (though Chargers, Warhorses and Hunters should remain largely immune due to their breeding/training). Unfortunately it looks like any new mounts will still sound identical to the old horses. But I'm sure that won't get too much in the way of your enjoyment.
Regular NPC heroes will certainly still be upgraded/equipped as normal. Main reason I wouldn't want the player to be able to adjust equipment of a high-level merc is that it would be just too easy to hire someone, steal his expensive gear, then send him packing. Besides, any self-respecting freelancer would have nothing to do with some pathetic player telling him how to fight. There should probably be at least a dozen of these bastards running around so that they will play a significant part in the game. Relations with them will affect how likely they are to join you. But I should have things set so you can't go around hiring all of them at once.
I do plan to have some unique items available only through looting, but I'm going to make sure they'll show up enough for you to actually loot. This is because there are certain things that just wouldn't get sold in any shop on the corner. Not that these are going to be the game's best items that you'll spend years trying to snag; they're just unique. If you get them, cool. If not, no big loss.
I've been thinking of a few things that have been mentioned here before, along with DrDoom151's suggestion about recruiting from towns (which, incidentally, the original game claims to let you do at one point). A lot of these things can be readily implemented with fief improvements.
One good one for a town would be some sort of recruitment center. I'll think more about the details of this as things progress.
A couple improvements I had in mind for castles include a forge and a tournament square.
The tournament square would allow you to duel lords under certain conditions, and also allow you to set up mini-tournaments every so often, from which you would reap some of the profits on betting/attendance. This would depend on who you can convince to show up for the tournament.
I'm hoping to be able to turn this into a sort of training/testing ground, as well, so you can experiment with different types of troops in your castle/party.
The forge is simple. If you need a weapon upgraded, you supply some raw materials and some cash, give your blacksmith some time to work, and you can turn the chipped great morningstar you looted off some Swadians into a balanced one. Higher upgrades will, of course, cost more in cash and materials.
None of these should be particularly difficult to code. The forge should remove a lot of the item hunting, the tournament square will let you duel with lords, and the recruitment center will make your towns a little more useful as well.
Thoughts?
Oh, and DrDoom151, there is an alternative upgrade path for farmers in the release of the mod you're playing now. I intentionally made it difficult to do, but you can turn farmers into fairly interesting infantry/cavalry more suited to what you'd expect from a farmer. I plan on expanding this further in the next update.
Poll
