After first play through recommendations.

[TyrathZC]

All of these are in the spirit of a realistic medieval war game. I love this game, this was just my first play through, I just thought a few changes could drastically change the entire games outcome. Yes, I realize its still in Alpha. )

- Fix mules. Make them take up party space. ( Or add new mechanics for them. etc.)
Seven minutes into the game I figured out that I could buy mules at low cost and then increase my weight limit drastically. I played caravan tycoon and had limitless currency at the start.

- I shouldn't start the battle with a fresh batch of arrows, and neither should my troops. ( Make me buy more.)
This literally breaks the game in terms of farming experience from enemy melee units, and no one receives money to buy more arrows despite looting them during warfare. Add a button to a city that I just click and slide, that allows me to spend money to buy more supplies. Arrows, shoe horses, a weapon and armor repair button. Etc Etc. Or - review and edit the daily cost of troops.

- If I marry a kings daughter, other bachelors should become jealous and the king is happy to see me. ( Ok please just add dialogue. I get it. The games in Alpha )
to note - when I married Nadea her relationship and age meter when back to zero. Though this didn't seem to effect game play.

- The Food and Prosperity problem.
If you don't know about this get the mod.

- To run a city, a castle, and its towns should feel like a combination of Civilization and RollerCoaster Tycoon.
The entire city building system is a joke. It was literally irrelevant while I played. Give food, and money, more weight to the game so that challenging situations can arise. Start with towns. Every town should have plots of land that I can customize so as to collect certain resources. The entire economy of the game should be resource based between trade. Each town should have buildings that I can build that create an immersive scenario where I'm there, raising the town from poverty. Looters and bandits should raid these towns which would require me to leave troops and nobles in towns to protect them. Create some sort of tax system that I can abuse so that I have more control over my own economy within my empire. Part of a cities prosperity needs to be directly related to how successful castles and towns grow.

- Looters and bandits can have any speed between 3 and 6 regardless of party size.
Not all 60 party size of bandits move slow. Maybe their running. I can envision a situation where sometimes I can catch slow moving bandits and sometimes I can't catch large party fast looters. Add text that says ( Large party of bandits with a leader bandit). Give it some realism.

- Hard Mode. Don't let me look in the browser to find out where another noble is in the world.
If this is a medieval game, create a challenging environment where I need to go talk to people to find out where a noble is or maybe, allow me to pay couriers that tell someone to stay where they are.

- Let me choose whom I take into a hideout. ( How is this not in the game?)

- Add a mechanic where roads can be developed if certain things are met.

- The next expansion should have boats.

- To many prisoners in a castle or a city could cause an escape/revolt scenario.
Also, allow me to spend vast quantities of money to recruit prisoners. When this occurs maybe they are simply demoted to their previous rank?

- Allow me to change the culture type of a city when conquered.

- The ability to charm and marry anyone.

 

[Maeleth]

- Fix mules. Make them take up party space. ( Or add new mechanics for them. etc.)
Seven minutes into the game I figured out that I could buy mules at low cost and then increase my weight limit drastically. I played caravan tycoon and had limitless currency at the start.

- I shouldn't start the battle with a fresh batch of arrows, and neither should my troops. ( Make me buy more.)
This literally breaks the game in terms of farming experience from enemy melee units, and no one receives money to buy more arrows despite looting them during warfare. Add a button to a city that I just click and slide, that allows me to spend money to buy more supplies. Arrows, shoe horses, a weapon and armor repair button. Etc Etc. Or - review and edit the daily cost of troops.

Trading is pointless past year 1 or so. Between caravans, workshops, fiefs, combat loot, crafting and ransoming prisoners your profits from actual trading are negligible. No need to fix something that is not broken.

Adding some type of general "supply" trade item would be nice tho. Or "ammo" type, like in Battle Brothers perhaps? Having an infinite amount of throwing weapons and arrows is kinda dumb IMO. There should be a limit on carried missiles, forcing player/AI to visit a settlement and resupply.

 

[Earth Dragon]

I don’t think we need to overly complicate ammunition. Having “supplies” like we have food would be a better angle. I feel Cav need to take twice the food, and archers need to take twice the supplies, meaning Cav archers have a larger impact on your logistics. The Golden Horde was noted to having 4 ponies per soldier for everything you would imagine: spare mounts, supply carriers, food when they died. This was in addition to the armies general food and supplies.

Spare mounts, pack animals, and other things in the game just need some minor tweeks

 

[Gambles]

I don’t think we need to overly complicate ammunition. Having “supplies” like we have food would be a better angle. I feel Cav need to take twice the food, and archers need to take twice the supplies, meaning Cav archers have a larger impact on your logistics. The Golden Horde was noted to having 4 ponies per soldier for everything you would imagine: spare mounts, supply carriers, food when they died. This was in addition to the armies general food and supplies.

Spare mounts, pack animals, and other things in the game just need some minor tweeks

The thing is all this stuff would throw faction balance even more completely out of wack, possibly even irreparably so without a complete faction unit rework. You have factions like Battannia that have a very mediocre roster that heavily relies on their archers, or khuzait asurai who heavily rely on horses and cav. People want all these realistic restrictions on ammo for archers and supplies for cav when in reality that would just make infantry dominant. What about replacing broken armor, weapons, and shields for infantry?

It's a slippery slope.

 

[Earth Dragon]

The thing is all this stuff would throw faction balance even more completely out of wack, possibly even irreparably so without a complete faction unit rework. You have factions like Battannia that have a very mediocre roster that heavily relies on their archers, or khuzait asurai who heavily rely on horses and cav. People want all these realistic restrictions on ammo for archers and supplies for cav when in reality that would just make infantry dominant. What about replacing broken armor, weapons, and shields for infantry?

It's a slippery slope.

Well.......

Battanians, Sturgians and Aserai all need to be re-tuned already. Those wolfskin wearing minor faction troops (can’t recall their name) are short bow, sword and board combo units......Battanians need that in their main line. Relying solely on the special line for a core function of your armies play style isn’t good design.
At this stage, all of their neighbors can out pace them in the range game due to better access to archer units, in particular Vlandia and the Empire.

Sturgia and Aserai firstly need they troops to have the proper stats. They are clear mistakes that need to be adjusted. Then Aserai need their special troop line to be Skirmish Cav with Javelins top to bottom. The first two tiers should be javelins plus a sword, not lance and shield Cav. They need the skirmisher move down to the split between footman and archery, and then have 3 tiers of archers, not two. The lightly armored factions should be the ones bringing the most range to bear, not some of the least!!

Sturgians could reasonably get access to their special Cav at Tier 4 versus 5. And if these “camps” ever become a thing, they’ll greatly benefit

 

[Earth Dragon]

And just to be clear:

This is why infantry WERE dominant through most of Antiquity. Logistics made it easier to field more of them. Ever notice how archery supremacy is almost always in defensive situations? It’s hard to get 100k arrows where you are going, and there is only going to be so much local fowl to make them from scratch.

The only things this really changes by adding these things to game is a more concerted effort of war supplies versus trade goods when going in the long march and makes it harder to pull off deep strikes with large armies.

Sturgia, the faction that gets the most complaints about being too week, really gets a bump since more armies have to face them at what they are good at when on the long march