Aerational
Regular
When you form an army it asks for an objective, you can say "Siege fief" or "defend fief". Or maybe "engage (enemy noble's) army". Then you pick your nobles and pay a one time influence cost. You can't add cohesion or more nobles after that. It will form at a friendly city, not just out on the fly like everyone has GPS. Once all the parties meet, everyone stocks up and the army then automatically sets out to the destination that was locked in earlier. Whether it's player or AI, it automatically moves to the pre-planned target.
Having a specific plan before forming could introduce a new aspect to relations as the goal of your army will factor into how much other lords will want to participate. Currently that would just mean more or less influence to recruit them, but it would a nice touch if nobles could outright refuse to join an army if say they they are friends with the owner of the fief you intend to siege.
Once you set the objective and call the army, as I said, everything is locked in. It will form, march to its destination, and attempt to complete it's intended mission. Even if the fief it planned to siege suddenly has some extra troops, it will still attempt to siege it. These are supposed to be warriors who care about things like honor and legacy... they should be willing to take on riskier odds than 3 to 1. If a sieging army is taking heavy losses, perhaps they can retreat their remaining forces so they don't necessarily have to commit to a full loss of troops, but can at least make an attempt and do some damage.
It just feels off to have armies bouncing around and basically only getting into fights they have overwhelming odds to win. It should be more like a noble from one kingdom has a mortal enemy from another kingdom, and he's going to take his most prosperous fief come hell or high water. So every campaign season he summons an army and sieges that fief regardless of how many of his men have to die to do it. I would like more personal types of conflict like that rather than just randomly bopping around looking for unguarded castles in Timbuktu.
Having a specific plan before forming could introduce a new aspect to relations as the goal of your army will factor into how much other lords will want to participate. Currently that would just mean more or less influence to recruit them, but it would a nice touch if nobles could outright refuse to join an army if say they they are friends with the owner of the fief you intend to siege.
Once you set the objective and call the army, as I said, everything is locked in. It will form, march to its destination, and attempt to complete it's intended mission. Even if the fief it planned to siege suddenly has some extra troops, it will still attempt to siege it. These are supposed to be warriors who care about things like honor and legacy... they should be willing to take on riskier odds than 3 to 1. If a sieging army is taking heavy losses, perhaps they can retreat their remaining forces so they don't necessarily have to commit to a full loss of troops, but can at least make an attempt and do some damage.
It just feels off to have armies bouncing around and basically only getting into fights they have overwhelming odds to win. It should be more like a noble from one kingdom has a mortal enemy from another kingdom, and he's going to take his most prosperous fief come hell or high water. So every campaign season he summons an army and sieges that fief regardless of how many of his men have to die to do it. I would like more personal types of conflict like that rather than just randomly bopping around looking for unguarded castles in Timbuktu.
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