SP - General Camp Followers

[Ackdam]

Camp followers would act similar to a garrison. They would increase as the party/army travels, but only to the constraints that the commander allows.

They could be made up of:

• Sweethearts/families of the soldiers.
• Skilled craftsmen.
• Entertainers.
• Prisoners turned slaves.
• General laborers.
• Injured units who can no longer reliably fight but are unwilling to, or cannot, return home.

Their purpose would be:

• Maintaining equipment after a battle.
• Setting up/tearing down camps.
• Managing supplies.
• Cooking
• Entertainment.
• Burying the dead.
• Watching over prisoners during battles.

### In-game effects ###

Detrimental:

• Slower party/army movement speed.
• Higher resource usage (food, bulk supplies).
• Higher visibility to enemies/settlements based upon size.
• Possible new events:
  • Stolen supplies: Some of your camp followers have absconded with some of your supplies/gains:
    • Spawns x small groups of peasants/defector parties (ie: The old serf wrangling quest).
  • Sickness: Some of your troops got sick. They've been put on wagons, but you will need to move slower for them to recover.
    • Party/army movement speed decreased.
  • Drunk and disorderly (if you have wine or beer in your supplies): Some of your men got drunk and became rowdy. Your group moves slower to allow those injured to keep up.
    • Party/army movement speed decreased.
  • Starving: There are not enough food options for the troops and what is there is not enough.
    • Send small parties out to nearby villages/friendly towns for supplies while the main party/army waits.
    • Chance to force disband army if stocks are too low.
  • Animals escape (If you have cows, sheep, or hogs): Some of your livestock got away during the night. Trackers have been sent out to find them, but it may take time.
    • Dispurses a number of 'herds' each containing some of the escaped animals.
    • Look for the animals yourself (time to recapture once engaged depends on the type of animal involved, the size of your party, and your tactics skill).
    • Send out parties to reclaim the animals (sends out companion led parties with pre-determined numbers, matching the number of animal 'herds' dispursed).
      • We don't need them (ignore the loss and move on. Could cause morale/desertion/relationship issues if the starvation issue pops up soon after).

Beneficial:

• Faster post-battle recovery.
• Faster siege camp deployment.
• Faster siege engine build time.
• A morale boost from entertainment.
• Healing and strength buffs from prepared meals.
• Faster healing due to having assistants.

### Customization ###
Player has the option of choosing who/what to include:

Families:

• Pro: Boosts morale to soldiers who are able to spend time with their families on the road.
• Con: Decrease morale for soldiers who have no family with them.
• Event ideas:
  • New birth:
    • Pro: Boosts morale.
    • Con: Possibly have veteran soldiers attempt to 'retire' to care for their growing family.
    • Option to 'gift' money to the new parent which may cause them to retire early or solidify their loyalty.
  • Sick member:
    • Pro: Option to infiltrate sick person into enemy camp/town/castle to spread the disease.
    • Con: Decrease morale for soldier.
    • Con: May make soldier unavailable until resolved.
    • Con: May spread sickness.
    • Con: Decrease morale if family member is sent away to heal.
  • Death:
    • Pro: Less mouths to feed?
    • Con: Morale loss if noncombatant.
    • Con: Greater chance to desert.
    • Con: Mourning period – unavailable for combat.
    • Con: Decreased combat ability due to emotions.

Aides – Assist in healing the injured/sick:
Pros: Faster healing due to having assistants.
Cons: Cost of expertise (less than medically inclined companions).

Hunters – Slows food consumption while traveling:
Pro: Food lasts longer.
Con: Greater chance of being 'spotted' from a distance.
Con: Possible fines if found hunting on 'royal hunting grounds' of neutral faction.

Cooks – Fresh meals:
Pro: Morale boost from freshly cooked meals.
Pro: Soldiers get more time to recover from fighting/travel.
Pro: Boosts to strength healing.
Con: Possible food poisoning.
Con: Increased food consumption.
Con: Greater morale loss from low food variety.

Craftsmen – Maintains equipment:
Note: Possible buffs depending on skill level and type to items in their area of expertise.

• Blacksmith - maintains:
  • melee weapons (bonus to melee weapons).
  • metal throwing weapons (bonus to throwing weapons)
  • horseshoeing (reduced chances of horses going lame, bonus to travel speed).
• Armorer - maintains metal armor (bonus to armor rating).
• Leatherworker - maintains leather armor (bonus to maneuvering)
• Tailor - maintains cloth armor (bonus to morale for all troops)
• Fletcher - maintains arrows (bonus arrow count at the start of a battle, possible bonus to accuracy)
• Bowyer - maintains bows/crossbows
• Herbalist - gathers healing herbs (bonus healing rate)

Entertainers:
Anything to get the soldier's minds off of the battles and long marches.

• Jesters
• Fortune tellers
• Minstrels
• Bedwarmers

General Laborers:

• Skilled - Increases construction speed of siege engines.
• Unskilled - Increases construction speed of camps and siege camps.

Slaves:
Note: This could develop into its own subcategory for management, or even an entirely new trade commodity if one were so inclined.

• Require an overseer.
• Unreliable/prone to escape attempts.
• Slower work speed.
• Low cost/maintenance requirements.
• Shackles are optional, but more overseers are required without them.
• Shackles limit speed/task options.

Disabled veterans:

• Increase the experience gain of new recruits.
• Limited knowledge of equipment care, for the commander who doesn't want craftsmen around.
• Can act as overseers for prisoners.
• Can help in construction/setup for sieges, albeit slower than more able-bodied options.
• Can do most other specialized tasks to a limited degree and are more prone to mishaps.

 

[TheWitchIzalith]

Neat concept. Don't know how it would be implement in game, to differentiate Followers from Army but I like the idea of more customization and RP elements.

 

[Ackdam]

It would be handled as a sperate entity, like a caravan that joins the party/army but does not fight. They would exist as numbers only, and maybe a pack mule or two added to the world map graphics which follows your party/army. The management could either be through an NPC trade-like system or managed under the party section of the clan interface. Basically you would be adding additional cost/hindrance to your travels while gaining some useful benefits.

 

[SmokeJam]

Sounds like a good concept, but adding them as another party seems to be a little bit unreasonable, as your voyage through the map already takes quite some time even with a bazillion horses in your inventory. I would prefer to see them in the normal troop section, maybe with a seperated list. So you would have Combat troops, Prisoners, Assistants.
In your Clan menue you could assign Family/Companions with the right stats to the different assistant troops as Generals/Seargants. Like having a good steward stat --> better cooks/faster experience gain for cooks, Scout/Bow: boosts hunters.
The rougery skill seems to be kinda useless till now and rather difficult to aquire, so you could give that a better spot in the game if a spy/sabotage option would be implemented.
That could lead to new events like the possibility to assassinate Generals of enemy army (not nobles, but lowers their morale/discipline greatly) or gates being already weakened when sabotaged or the inner gates already being opened, destruction of food supplies of besieged fiefs etc. That would play into changing the static course of sieges you encounter at the moment as the besieged troops are always forming a shieldwall at the inner gate and not really moving around with some intelligence (like going in one by one, still mounting catapults when the castle already got breached and so on). If they got sabotaged the garrison could be more dispersed throughout the castle, making it on the one hand easier to get into it, but making the fighting experience a lot fiercer, maybe kinda like the fights on the walls when you climb with ladders.
Of course you would need to assign a clan member to the infiltrator troops and they could get captured if the task fails while their troops just get executed or you are forced to buy them back from the noble who captured them, or the morale of the besieged garrison is way higher or they have more troops, something like that^^
But yeah before anything like that gets implemented they have a LOT to fix so one can even finish the campaign at some point and not just meet a dead end and a still ongoing campaign even when you conquered the whole map.

 

[Ackdam]

Sorry. I believe you misunderstood. I didn't mean that they would be an actual party following you around, just a visual graphic added to your party on the map, sort of like an army would have noble parties added to them but any interaction is based upon the head of the graphic. The followers would logically be part of the party/army, but only displayed like a militia in that you can't actually interact with them as there would be no real point. You would simply manage what you will allow it to contain and let it sort itself out. The speed decrease would come with the bonuses the followers would give to ensure balance, which would need adjustments regardless. There is a lot of balance regarding map speed when compared to party/army makeup that needs adjusting.

You are correct that there is a lot to fix, that is why these are suggestions and not in the Technical Support forum. It is merely giving the devs ideas to consider and/or implement at their leisure. I wouldn't expect the majority of my suggestions to be implemented anytime soon if they get implemented at all. It's fun to consider them though, and list out all of the pros/cons I can think of while trying to maintain a balance.

 

[SavatageRoyo]

Neat concept. Don't know how it would be implement in game, to differentiate Followers from Army but I like the idea of more customization and RP elements.

I am all for more depth and complexity for managing your party. It is a bit one-dimensional at the moment. There is a somewhat older tv series called "Sharpe - The Sharpshooters" it had a very believable depiction of camp-life for an "army!" Women, children, guests, day to day work etc.

 

[SmokeJam]

@Ackdam I followed your posts around this forum the last few days as I got here by looking up any information about nobles being stuck in Lords Halls as prisoners, because it bugged my "Weaken the Empire" quest and I can't finish the main story apparently.
Your ideas are awesome, I loved reading most of them and I really hope the devs look into them and find a way to implement some in one way or another. Regardless, thank you for your efforts and the vast time you must've already spent on typing all those thoughts

 

[Ackdam]

Regardless, thank you for your efforts and the vast time you must've already spent on typing all those thoughts

Thank you. Probably literally days at this point. I have moments where I get an idea in my head and can't let it go until I've gotten it down to a point I'm satisfied with. I've brainstormed, researched, and written more than I've played the game this past week, and have had multiple days where I've been up until past four in the morning because I wasn't quite satisfied. Which is always fun since I still have to get up for work (from home) four hours later. It's nice to know that people appreciate one's work.