I can see the possibilities there. But some problems:
- Recruiting soldiers to deny Lords their troops would require ENORMOUS AMOUNTS of space to hold those soldiers, and multiple times that in resources.
--It would also require Recruiters to have a pretty long cooldown on recruitable troops.
--And it would definitely require a mechanic in which "disbanded troops" return as
population to fiefs (maybe spread to random fiefs, instead of keeping track of where each soldier is from. It would be better, not everyone is keen on coming back home, especially when 'home' was raided 50 times since they left).
--Another thing that could help with that, but could also be problematic, would be to add a sort of
roof of population: a maximum possible supported population cap for the world, because resources are finite that way. Remember all the chaos we got when we first reached 1 billion pop in 1700?
Code:
[s]Oh right, you guys are not immortal, yeah, but I do remember[/s]
. Maybe a dynamic value according to maximum average prosperity, or a real maximum possible prosperity for all fiefs and towns that would cap the population...
Well, we could exploit that by recruiting troops and waiting for maximum pop cap again, so we could eventually multiply the maximum amount of troops, but that's where the resource economy gets in: there is a finite number of food available in the world, so troops would disband if not enough food.
Would they go back as
population to fiefs, or as
raiders/bandits on the map? Interesting to think about. (You may notice I'm processing this idea while I write)
Well, if there is a maximum population for each holding, maybe make something that "kills off" the extra population in that fief if there is more people than the prosperity value can support...
Really love the idea behind social/functional groups being used to supply troops: every levy takes 5 horse breeders, 10 wheat churners, 3 butter grinders... And the economy is afflicted by that. Definitely like this,
just not for release, because it sure would add another year and a half for release. But as a possible expansion pack?
YES.
Mount & Blade: Butter Lords - Economic Simulacrons, only $19,99!
And, well, those guilds becoming so powerful they became landowners? Maybe the coding wouldnt quite allow that, as it would defeat the purpose of a guild - a conglomerate of people and interests, instead of being a faction, a conglomerate of landowners.
But maybe the ability to hold all the income from fiefs, instead of controlling the fief, only getting its money? That could be possible for an Iron Bank-esque guild/minor faction or whatever.
Gotta always be mindful of too much daydreaming and
hope