Azek的最近内容

I know this post isn't a Q&A thread, but I want to ask about an issue I've had when M&B battles get too big. Specifically, the point where M&B goes from First-Person Action game to a Real Time Tactics game.

Vanilla M&B Warband battles limit battles to 150 participants, which I guess was a decision to make the battle and non-battle portions of the game tax systems consistently. However, this limitation is easily exploited by the player because no matter how large the enemy force, both armies can only deploy 75 troops at once. Therefore, if you created an elite force of 200 soldiers, it could take on an army of 2000 if they found an optimal battlefield and position.

Unofficial mods like the Battlesizer program, makes the above exploit less viable. However, the amount these battles already tax modern hardware makes me fear M&B II will force many players back to smaller battles.

When you boil down M&B Warband large scale battle gameplay, its essentially a Real Times Tactics game, where your 3d character is the cursor that moves troops. In my opinion it is this RTT aspect which continues to make M&B unique, in comparison to the growing number of melee focused action games. It should be embraced and refined by supporting it with UI and refined mechanics.

1. Build a system which allows 1000-3000 man battles to be split up into more manageable chunks. For example, a flank system where the army is divided into a left, center and right flank. The battles would be played out one front at a time, each flank under a different commander (player or companion.) Or a phase system that feels more natural, less exploitable than

2. A unit deployment system. Give larger battles (even in the 150 Warband limit) some kind of strategic depth.

I've been going through different playthroughs and I was thinking my low morale rates were due to 'Days on the Road'. Unfortunately 'Recent Events' is still having the most negative impact. I'm concerned there's no consistent, transparent way to keep this variable up. Having had to run a few times on one of my games, I'm stuck with -38 recent events morale and have little options to recover from that. Can't even give my crew alcohol like in Floris for an immediate, short-term boost.

This would be a perfect lord-merchant interaction. Lord turns to a merchant to do a certain job and said merchant gains influence in that lord's faction and loses respect with another. Perhaps Trade and Persuasion skillpoints could be leveraged here to make deals.

Alright, I think I have a better solution here. A 'forced march' ability which allows for a burst of speed on the map in exchange for a real-time morale cost. This would allow for a bandit or raiding character with an infantry army to have a level of mobility against horse heavy armies, yet is still balanced by morale and desertion. (e.g. force march too long/too many times and your morale is devastated) I remember sending you a message with a proposal for a better morale system and this ability would be a nice fit.

The 'recent events' system you have in place doesn't feel very interactive or seem to have much feedback from player actions, as it seems to start from a  ridiculously high value and slowly falls to near 0 no matter what you do. Having morale fall based on tangible actions (forced march, not resting at night) would probably have a more controllable, satisfying feel. It is better in terms of gameplay pacing as well, trading morale for survival makes those 'taken prisoner' scenarios less frequent but still saddles your adventure with low points.


As for the merchants, I don't think your 'trade rival' system really solves the problem here. The problem isn't gaining money, its what you do with the money once you get it. By default, you pool that money into getting horsemen and industries, but at the end of the day the only thing left to do is to be a vassal, a military leader. We need an alternative to vassals and kings, how about guilds? Instead of aspiring to be king, you look to be the head of a merchant empire that spans the kingdoms.

Just gave the new patch a go and I must say, I can't imagine playing M&B without the new recruitment system you have in place now. It solves the problem I've always had with needing cheap, mounted troops for the optimal mix of speed and strength on the map and battles respectively. The problem is that foot-soldiers are almost worthless for me. I just don't see myself hiring them until I gain lands and titles. There ought to be some incentive or reason to use these troops in the early game.

My solution would be to make night travel + forests slow infantry less. If we give infantry this sort of situational movement advantage over horsemen, there might even be incentive to only use them early game. You could be a bandit leading a motley crew of peasants turned soldiers, using the forests and the shroud of darkness to evade the horse-riding elites.

Now, this play through was also my first time being a fully fledged merchant so some of the complaints I have here might be old news. I feel like there isn't much gameplay or substance to make the trading experience interesting after learning the tricks of the trade over the course of a few hours. It seems trading's just a means to start you off on your bloody military career. It might be interesting to see if Silverstag could offer a path for merchant oriented characters that revolves around building influence rather than conquest.

I've always been annoyed when you're a vassal with no castle to offload troops. Perhaps garrisoning villages could be considered? A town guard whose morale plummets and deserts after x soldiers are garrisoned.

In addition, the town guard might add some depth into adventuring and raiding. As a raider, you might appeal to the town guard with gold or diplomacy and take the village without a fight. (or even gain new comrades) As an adventurer, an exploitative town guard could replace the 'bandit infested village' event.

So overall, you've got another place for you diplomatic skills to be used and make things more interesting for players in the early stages of vassalage.

So the question is, how should we balance food vs beverage? 50/50? 40/60? Either way, I feel like meats ought to be at least 1/8 of foodstuffs, so for example:

Food/Beverage split 42/58. Meat 10% of Food.

GRAIN      : 37.8
MEAT        :4.2
BEVERAGE: 58

So I guess if you wanted me to condense this into numbers, I'd go with:

GRAINS - 45% [32 Grain 13 Baked Goods]
MEATS  - 5%
DRINKS - 50%

I did some cursory research which seems to show 14th century nobility still received 70% of their calorie intake from grains, so meats gets the short end of the stick. I would've liked to see seasonal variety in consumption, where I might divide consumption differently.

                WINTER        SPRING        SUMMER          AUTUMN
GRAINS -    45%            50%                49%                48%
MEATS  -    1%              10%                5%                  2%
DRINKS -    54%            40%                46%                50%

Here, production and consumption of foodstuffs peaks at spring and is lowest at winter. Drink numbers fluctuate but technically they are stable, but consumption/production fluctuates in comparison to food.