Pentagathoos
Squire
If you're looking for something useful then feel free to ignore this post, it's pretty much all just rambling on stuff I'll probably never get around to implementing in any way.
I've been trying to find ways to make certain troop types more viable in a realistic and immersive way, and I was wondering what approaches other people have taken to this in various mods - or just to introduce immersive campaign features in general.
In particular I was thinking of a late medieval/renaissance setting, where high end armour would be incredibly protective with relatively few drawbacks in normal combat, which you can model in normal warband terms but this then leads to lightly armoured troops being pretty pointless and makes the player very OP once they're able to afford high tier gear and troops. Obviously that still applies to other settings, but it's usually not such a big balancing issue.
I know there's the light, medium and heavy tier armour set OSP which modifies combat skills and can balance this stuff but to me it feels very much a game balance thing and not very immersive. Iirc VC has a stamina system but IDK whether that's affected by encumbrance or whether it's used by non player troops at all - I imagine it would have a considerable performance impact in large battles if it is used by all agents.
One idea I had was to use a weather and terrain system which would modify movement speed and weapon proficiencies based on an agent's total item weight (or maybe custom troop slot) and the battlefield conditions. For example, let's say that I decided that in normal conditions an agent's WP would be reduced by their encumbrance divided by 3, a heavily armoured troop would have some debuff but would still be vastly superior to a comparably skilled lightly armoured troop, which makes sense. But in say heavy rain/muddy conditions you could introduce a further movement speed penalty and increase the WP debuff. Probably wouldn't be a huge factor in overall balancing but I think it would be a cool way to build on weather systems like the one Tocan and Antonis developed, and it'd just be fun to have certain troops be more useful in certain environments.
Ideally I'd like to introduce new campaign map features, such as devising a new calculation of party speed (for the player, probably wouldn't bother with anything extensive for AI parties) with heavier troops slowing down party speed much more than regular or light troops - probably would use troop slots for this, and also have it so that depending on your party size there would be an ideal number of scout type troops to grant you bonuses to pathfinding, spotting and tracking (in fact I was thinking about effectively replacing these skills completely since iirc they're all hardcoded).
I was even thinking that certain troops might even require a number of support troops to accompany them, for example a knight might need a page or valet, a gallowglass an armed retainer etc. I'm not too sure how how to implement that though, perhaps have a trigger and script that checks if you have enough support staff in your party for each of those troop types every few hours or so and then applies whatever penalties it would apply - probably just morale loss for that troop. Might just be more of a nuisance than anything enjoyable though.
Some form of ambush mechanic and even night raids would be a great way to spice it up, as in reality a lot of troops aren't going to be constantly marching around in their full armour. Functionally I was thinking that for heavier troops I would either create an unarmed/lightly armed version of that troop, or just replace their equipment with way lighter versions in ambush situations (when they're the victims I mean) - for example a swadian knight might just have an arming doublet and sword if caught out in an ambush rather than a suit of full plate. Not entirely sure how I'd implement an ambush mechanic, but I'd definitely like to tie it in to a new scouting system. I suppose the simplest way would be to have a randomish check when you meet an enemy party like VC uses, but I'd rather use a radius check on the world map and have some parties attempt to ambush the player. I'd love to use the game_check_party_sees_party script to decrease the radius that smaller parties are spotted by on the world map, but apparently using that script has a big performance impact so maybe not - limiting it to the player party being seen or doing the spotting might be feasible though and that's all that really matters tbh.
Hopefully this rambling makes some sense, my brains a little friend rn
luv u guys
xoxoxo
I've been trying to find ways to make certain troop types more viable in a realistic and immersive way, and I was wondering what approaches other people have taken to this in various mods - or just to introduce immersive campaign features in general.
In particular I was thinking of a late medieval/renaissance setting, where high end armour would be incredibly protective with relatively few drawbacks in normal combat, which you can model in normal warband terms but this then leads to lightly armoured troops being pretty pointless and makes the player very OP once they're able to afford high tier gear and troops. Obviously that still applies to other settings, but it's usually not such a big balancing issue.
I know there's the light, medium and heavy tier armour set OSP which modifies combat skills and can balance this stuff but to me it feels very much a game balance thing and not very immersive. Iirc VC has a stamina system but IDK whether that's affected by encumbrance or whether it's used by non player troops at all - I imagine it would have a considerable performance impact in large battles if it is used by all agents.
One idea I had was to use a weather and terrain system which would modify movement speed and weapon proficiencies based on an agent's total item weight (or maybe custom troop slot) and the battlefield conditions. For example, let's say that I decided that in normal conditions an agent's WP would be reduced by their encumbrance divided by 3, a heavily armoured troop would have some debuff but would still be vastly superior to a comparably skilled lightly armoured troop, which makes sense. But in say heavy rain/muddy conditions you could introduce a further movement speed penalty and increase the WP debuff. Probably wouldn't be a huge factor in overall balancing but I think it would be a cool way to build on weather systems like the one Tocan and Antonis developed, and it'd just be fun to have certain troops be more useful in certain environments.
Ideally I'd like to introduce new campaign map features, such as devising a new calculation of party speed (for the player, probably wouldn't bother with anything extensive for AI parties) with heavier troops slowing down party speed much more than regular or light troops - probably would use troop slots for this, and also have it so that depending on your party size there would be an ideal number of scout type troops to grant you bonuses to pathfinding, spotting and tracking (in fact I was thinking about effectively replacing these skills completely since iirc they're all hardcoded).
I was even thinking that certain troops might even require a number of support troops to accompany them, for example a knight might need a page or valet, a gallowglass an armed retainer etc. I'm not too sure how how to implement that though, perhaps have a trigger and script that checks if you have enough support staff in your party for each of those troop types every few hours or so and then applies whatever penalties it would apply - probably just morale loss for that troop. Might just be more of a nuisance than anything enjoyable though.
Some form of ambush mechanic and even night raids would be a great way to spice it up, as in reality a lot of troops aren't going to be constantly marching around in their full armour. Functionally I was thinking that for heavier troops I would either create an unarmed/lightly armed version of that troop, or just replace their equipment with way lighter versions in ambush situations (when they're the victims I mean) - for example a swadian knight might just have an arming doublet and sword if caught out in an ambush rather than a suit of full plate. Not entirely sure how I'd implement an ambush mechanic, but I'd definitely like to tie it in to a new scouting system. I suppose the simplest way would be to have a randomish check when you meet an enemy party like VC uses, but I'd rather use a radius check on the world map and have some parties attempt to ambush the player. I'd love to use the game_check_party_sees_party script to decrease the radius that smaller parties are spotted by on the world map, but apparently using that script has a big performance impact so maybe not - limiting it to the player party being seen or doing the spotting might be feasible though and that's all that really matters tbh.
Hopefully this rambling makes some sense, my brains a little friend rn
luv u guys
xoxoxo
