Historic Thread for Floris Workshop Development.

[winrehs007]

Companion Role...

WSE needs to be updated soon, that's the only reason I'm not using this great sub-mod.

[Windyplains]

Companion Role...

WSE needs to be updated soon, that's the only reason I'm not using this great sub-mod.

It isn't likely to get an update very soon by the looks of it.  Cmp's got his own mod to tend in addition to whatever else he has going on.  It still is worth running a 1.143 version to try out the new stuff.

I just wanted to get v0.2 out to get past the save game break I had to cause.  That and Bankoleva said I had to get back to work when I returned from vacation.

[Lycanus Darkbinder]

One question. Do you think Floris 2.6 (or this for that matter) will be compatible with my saves from 2.53? I feel bad working so hard to for my kingdom only to have to start a new game to get all these features working.

Afraid not.  2.6 will definitely be save game breaking due to the number of changes being made.

Well it's a good thing that Floris adds so much replayability. I guess when 2.6 comes out I can try my hand at being a villian instead of a law-abiding peon

[Bankoleva]

i tried that for 2.53 lyc.... really not alot of avenues that way. Far more restrictive. My first 100 days i was an independant bandit wanted by 4 kingdoms.... made less money, and was severly limited on the quests i could do. I kept pushing thinking something gotta be possible differnt as a bad guy but in the end ambushing and ransoming lords take forever if they don't escape, raiding vilages and caravans don't pay out well once the global prosperity drops (which is rather quick), you limited in the troops you recruit because nations hate you and for some reason manhunters still love you. Basically there isn't scripted value as a bad guy. Maybe in the future there will some morality/honor challenging quests.

[deftech]

Long time lurker, first time poster.  Let me first say thanks for all the amazing work that's gone into these mods. 

I've been playing around with the latest alpha and it's awesome.  The new auto-loot system is, for a lack of a better word, perfect.  The customization all clicks and the confirmation screens are definitely not obtrusive, but very helpful.

I love the new party roles but I have to agree with what Bankoleva already pointed out about the overall usefulness of creating support companions.  The biggest reason it's so hard to justify is the player bonus on party skills.  Perhaps if the bonus was removed, more options would open up (not sure if this is even possible).  Or maybe if the companion assigned to a certain role would gain that bonus at different increments.  Jacking up charisma on the player for leadership seems a little like a waste if you're planning on assigning someone else to take over trade and prisoner duties.

All in all very impressive.  I'll keep messing around with this to see if I can offer any more feedback.

Oh one quick question.  Is there any way to incorporate the 2.53 sounds into this?  I forgot how unbelievably terrible the native sounds were.

[Windyplains]

I've been playing around with the latest alpha and it's awesome.  The new auto-loot system is, for a lack of a better word, perfect.  The customization all clicks and the confirmation screens are definitely not obtrusive, but very helpful.

Thanks and I am glad to hear that.  During development there had been some discussion on how intrusive this change might seem.

I love the new party roles but I have to agree with what Bankoleva already pointed out about the overall usefulness of creating support companions.  The biggest reason it's so hard to justify is the player bonus on party skills.  Perhaps if the bonus was removed, more options would open up (not sure if this is even possible).  Or maybe if the companion assigned to a certain role would gain that bonus at different increments.  Jacking up charisma on the player for leadership seems a little like a waste if you're planning on assigning someone else to take over trade and prisoner duties.

This is true.  Though it is possible to achieve a 6 in leadership at character creation + 1 from reading a book + 1 from carrying another book (8 leadership without any Charisma improvement).  While you may not get to 14 with a party bonus in any of the Charisma skills, you've effectively managed to get leadership to 13 and trade + prisoner management to 10 without having to invest in Charisma.  I can't let it get much better than that without removing any benefit for a player running a high charisma build.

All in all very impressive.  I'll keep messing around with this to see if I can offer any more feedback.

I'm also open to suggestions of other sorts for this little sub-mod.  Since it is effectively my playground for testing I make whatever tweaks in it I feel are interesting and see how they go.

Oh one quick question.  Is there any way to incorporate the 2.53 sounds into this?  I forgot how unbelievably terrible the native sounds were.

Hahaha....I assume you're referring to the very campy sounds troops make?  That isn't native...that's Brognar's Voice Pack which was added for my own amusement and never fails to make me chuckle.  You can delete them from your sounds folder if you've grown tired of hearing it and the native sounds will take over.  You can take sounds from Floris and copy them into the sound folder as well.  That works for replacing any native sounds.

[Bankoleva]

mmmm...

I'd rather you add the player advantage to companion roles than take it away completely.....

On a more serious,.... and possibly crazy thought process though what if you add player bonus to lords in general. In thinking more on why companion lords and AI lords seem so useless in the long game , I realized its because compared to the player and the player party every non combat skill is garbage for AI lords. The player has companions, whose skills add and compound on each other making the player party more dangerous than any AI lord party could ever be. Additionally by level 20 your companions can be elite troops in their own right and by 30 the most powerful units in the game all in 1 party and under player control. Add in the player bonus on non combat skills and the player effectively has a triple advantage compared to any AI party. The game designs balance for this is numbers but lets be honest... that doesn't balance anything. By late game player party is in god mode and financially you can afford everything.... AI lords just can't compete.

Since lords don't have companions to bolster and share their party skills, i say why not give them the player bonus to atleast help make those non combat skills they have more effective in game? Since their non combat skills it would probably add some challenge and balance in without affect actual combat.


P.S.... Please pardon any belated or laxed interaction on my part for the next week or so. I ahve my own vacation with the girl friend starting tomorrow and MB is not on her fun activities list. It's on mines but not hers. And we all know that my list will probably never get filled so i'm not even gonna bother to show her . Anyway I might be able to james bond for a few minutes and share my thoughts but no testing, playing or serious involvement from me.... bye MB i'll miss you

[Windyplains]

I'd rather you add the player advantage to companion roles than take it away completely.....

Please elaborate.

Since lords don't have companions to bolster and share their party skills, i say why not give them the player bonus to atleast help make those non combat skills they have more effective in game? Since their non combat skills it would probably add some challenge and balance in without affect actual combat.

I am going to up the party sizes due to leadership & charisma contributions with the next version.  That should directly help lords quite a bit actually.  I can also look into improving the basic skill set lords have.  They really do get the same benefit as us from skills like path-finding, but they don't have much skill in it.  I think what you're suggesting is "companions" for lords.  I think that's an interesting idea, but would need some more digging into to see the scope of how large a project that would be.

P.S.... Please pardon any belated or laxed interaction on my part for the next week or so.

Real life commitments > gaming commitments.  Always.  Enjoy your vacation as well.  Hopefully you'll find v0.3 done or near ready when you return. 

As for everyone else...get to playtesting!  I am going to try to keep the updates to around a 1-2 week period (and keep save compatibility after v0.2) as my own time permits, but don't expect each update to be large in scope.  The idea is to keep the bugs fixed quickly and get the new stuff ready for testing out to folks as soon as they're ready.

[Bankoleva]

player advantage to companion roles was more of a response to deftech thought about removing it from game in general. Though i notice that each companion before you get them has a title to identify prefered skill sets...??? (not sure if i'm explaining that right)... Maybe if that preference had the bonus.

I was not advocating lords getting companions. I was pointing out and more thinking about nerfing  the benefits player starts out with or preferably enhancing lords to help balance against those benefits. Although historically every knight did have a squire or page to assist him with war preparations (puting on armor, reading horse those kinds of things.), every commander a leftenant or seargent to train and keep the troops in line. And body guards weren't just for kings but highly influential or important nobles would have personal guards. In reality all the companion roles your giving us probably existed in every formal army. Perhaps an uncapturable unit, high on non combat skills but average in combat skills that always spawn into AI lord armies but never the players and limited to only 1 or 2 units. Entire purpose is to stregthen the non combat skills of the AI party.

[Hanakoganei]

Well it's a good thing that Floris adds so much replayability. I guess when 2.6 comes out I can try my hand at being a villian instead of a law-abiding peon

Haha yeah. And it's a good thing we can cheat too. I don't really feel like going through the harrowing experience of running around as a weak and poor civilian trying to earn money by trade routes just to keep a small inexperienced army fed.


I wonder if it's possible to make companions follow you around as captains of their own army even without turning them into vassals. You know how like those bandit leaders have smaller bandit groups following them too? You can manage their armies, even tell them to recruit more guys of a certain culture like the recruiter from Diplomacy, tell them to patrol a certain point, etc., like they're your vassal. But this way, you can split them from your group any time.

I also wonder if it's possible to have them re-absorb into your army if you want to, and take all of their soldiers into your army again. If your party is full, you get to that screen where you can choose which soldiers you want to add to your party and let the others go.

I think it can be a useful feature for those who aren't in a hurry to be king (actually even if you were, it still takes a long time to get a kingdom going without cheating anyway). Like if you're still trying to earn money by doing trade routes or as a mercenary captain for some faction, which could take months. This whole army/vassal management stuff is what excites me about being king actually. Not so much the domination of other factions or gaining territory or whatnot. I just like having a bunch of NPCs doing stuff I tell them to do (hence the PBOD thing).

[eastpaw]

Windy, really like your implementation of companion roles. Auto-sell will be nice, and having the companions gain XP from doing their jobs is simply inspired.

[Windyplains]

I wonder if it's possible to make companions follow you around as captains of their own army even without turning them into vassals. You know how like those bandit leaders have smaller bandit groups following them too? You can manage their armies, even tell them to recruit more guys of a certain culture like the recruiter from Diplomacy, tell them to patrol a certain point, etc., like they're your vassal. But this way, you can split them from your group any time.

Possible, yes.  Sounds game balance breaking though.  I could see giving a companion control of a patrolling force around your keep, but not letting them turn into a private army that tags along with you (thereby vastly extending your own).

I also wonder if it's possible to have them re-absorb into your army if you want to, and take all of their soldiers into your army again. If your party is full, you get to that screen where you can choose which soldiers you want to add to your party and let the others go.

Yes, this is possible if the above were implemented.

[Duh]

I wonder if it's possible to make companions follow you around as captains of their own army even without turning them into vassals. You know how like those bandit leaders have smaller bandit groups following them too? You can manage their armies, even tell them to recruit more guys of a certain culture like the recruiter from Diplomacy, tell them to patrol a certain point, etc., like they're your vassal. But this way, you can split them from your group any time.

Possible, yes.  Sounds game balance breaking though.  I could see giving a companion control of a patrolling force around your keep, but not letting them turn into a private army that tags along with you (thereby vastly extending your own).

I feel that its fairly balanceable. 6 Leadership -> 1 Companion can follow, 8(9/10?) Leadership -> 2 can follow. 150% Wages for all troops in companion parties. Party size capped at 50.

[Windyplains]

I can see that, but would you handle these troops leveling up or how they recruit new ones?  Or would you simply have them gain no troops and only gain what you specifically give them via troop exchange? 

Most of the code to handle such a party already exists with the mercenary contract parties already in the Workshop.  Those parties simply gain tier 1 recruits to top off their party to its ideal size weekly and monthly upgrade a % of each tier to the next.  I would think with such a companion controlled army it'd probably just be via troop exchange though.

[Duh]

Troop gain only via player input. As for upgrades - i would think that quite a few players would want to make the call here, so that might need sth. nifty... maybe a presentation that allows direct control, instead of having to exchange troops ready to upgrade.