In my post just prior to this one I discussed the possibility of adding special volunteer troops to the capitol towns of each faction in addition to the professional soldiers that can already be recruited in towns. My thinking on this has evolved a bit more.
One of the points of the version 2 (work in progress) recruit system is that commoner troops recruited from villages can upgrade but cannot upgrade into the professional troop line. These professional troops are recruited from towns and castles, so long as the player has a renown of 200 and is either a faction lord or a current mercenary serving the faction. I think this approach makes sense in limiting the numbers of top tier troops the player can have in their party, since AI lords have such limitations placed on them (albeit somewhat randomly) by the party templates.
As I have played about 500 game-days in this work in progress version, I have recognized a little issue with this approach. If the faction you are a member of loses a lot of castles and towns, you will have fewer places to recruit professional troops, putting you at a serious disadvantage that only gets worse as your faction loses more towns and castles. Likewise, if you are not a member of a faction, but have chosen to work as a trader and not a mercenary, you wouldn't have access to these professional troops.
I thought that one way to mitigate this would be to have an additional good quality troop that could be available in towns and whose recruitment would not be based on faction membership and renown but instead on the player's honor. These special troops would only serve players with honor above a pre-determined level. If for some reason your honor went below that level, there would be a certain probability that these troops would leave your employ. There would obviously need to be a trigger to check your honor level from time to time to make this happen. This way honor would have a bit more meaning in the game and would also provide another avenue for players to recruit good quality troops, even when their own faction is losing towns and castles or when the player doesn't belong to a faction.
I am aware that some mods like P.O.P. have "honor troops" but don't know how their mechanism works, as I have only played the game for a very short amount of time and don't have access to their source. I think I should be able, with my modest coding skill, to write the necessary code for this. Does this seem like a good idea? Let me know.
One of the points of the version 2 (work in progress) recruit system is that commoner troops recruited from villages can upgrade but cannot upgrade into the professional troop line. These professional troops are recruited from towns and castles, so long as the player has a renown of 200 and is either a faction lord or a current mercenary serving the faction. I think this approach makes sense in limiting the numbers of top tier troops the player can have in their party, since AI lords have such limitations placed on them (albeit somewhat randomly) by the party templates.
As I have played about 500 game-days in this work in progress version, I have recognized a little issue with this approach. If the faction you are a member of loses a lot of castles and towns, you will have fewer places to recruit professional troops, putting you at a serious disadvantage that only gets worse as your faction loses more towns and castles. Likewise, if you are not a member of a faction, but have chosen to work as a trader and not a mercenary, you wouldn't have access to these professional troops.
I thought that one way to mitigate this would be to have an additional good quality troop that could be available in towns and whose recruitment would not be based on faction membership and renown but instead on the player's honor. These special troops would only serve players with honor above a pre-determined level. If for some reason your honor went below that level, there would be a certain probability that these troops would leave your employ. There would obviously need to be a trigger to check your honor level from time to time to make this happen. This way honor would have a bit more meaning in the game and would also provide another avenue for players to recruit good quality troops, even when their own faction is losing towns and castles or when the player doesn't belong to a faction.
I am aware that some mods like P.O.P. have "honor troops" but don't know how their mechanism works, as I have only played the game for a very short amount of time and don't have access to their source. I think I should be able, with my modest coding skill, to write the necessary code for this. Does this seem like a good idea? Let me know.
So glad to see you still working on this your fantastic mod. Thanks!
