搜索结果: *

Even if they put the extra effort into a multiplayer campaign (which would delay release substantially), many systems involving time stops would need to be completely redone for it. The result would be a game which plays completely differently.

Though I still dream of a post release patch allowing drop in control of non pc lords during battles. Like how total war let you open your game to drop in and random players could connect and control the opposing force.

Be cool to get even something small. An update on what they were so proud of before with hair, a lineup of character models by race, even just theory craft like a weapon types comparison.

I get that information comes as it comes, but with the president they set when they started blogging of one every two months or so it's kind of irrespossible if they do mean to just stop outright without notifying their fans of the decision.

There are a lot of very insignificant things (compared to story or actual game mechanics) that they could write about, building hype for their game and pleasing longtime fans. Even rewriting about things that they have already talked about, to follow up with updates.

Undermining would be a very interesting and appreciated feature. It'd have to be something that took days and weeks to complete during the siege rather than an alternate option during battle though. It's not exactly a quick procedure. Perhaps an option on the defensive as well, if you detect that the other guy is digging counter digging isn't always out of the question. If the defender detects and locates offensive tunnels they could hit the attacker pretty hard with only a few men some night, potentially crippling the siege.

This means there would have to be a few predetermined tunnel routes at each keep, rather than allowing a player to choose exactly where to tunnel, but that's fine as long as there are enough choices.

Related Wikipedia demonstrating that several cultures have used these methods since ancient times. In both guerrilla rebellion type warfare and proper warfare.

Catering to a ten year old computer would be the rough equivalent of designing a new game to run on ps2, ps3 AND ps4. Doable? Probably. Worth doing? Not a chance.

Just for comparison >.>

It's time to upgrade, just like the rest of gamers, everywhere.

Would actually be cool to have an option to duel the commander, or a chosen champion, to decide a battle, or possibly even war. Whether or not a lord or nation actually does what they promise if they loose might depend on honor?

I have some vaigue recollection of some ancient armies occasionally doing something like this to settle disputes and save lives. Even if the looser breaks their promise you're still gonna get a morale boost for watching your guy cut down theirs.

Oh, and capturing a king should allow you to force peace, as should capturing a sufficient number of lords. Not a particularly long lasting peace. But as long as you've got hostages (lords shouldn't be released during peace time in this case, hostages should be included in negociations along with bribes for peace) they're less likely to break the peace if they don't think they can rescue them fairly quickly.

Sirili09 说:

grom64 说:

Larmantine 说:

Would you follow someone that is weaker than you?

点击展开...

As usual the answer is ... Money.
It pays for your bed/food/wine and whores. 

点击展开...

well, a weak general would most likely fail to win battles and as a result you most likely dies when you can follow a great general that you have better chances to survive and have the money for the stuff you want to do.

the best troops would want to follow a strong general that they can win many battles with and earn lots of gold and honor, while going with a weak general would be money but only taking out bandits or smaller battles that you dont rly get that much honor out of (compared with huge battles that takes place).

点击展开...

But then, a sickly old man can still be a master tactician and strategist. I'd follow him a lot quicker than the most recent tournament champion who's never led five guys, let alone five hundred or thousand. A great strong man is not necessarily a great leader of men. Renown is a better value for this, if such a change were to be made. But, as posters have said, money rules all. Peasants were dumber than sacks of potatoes (and superstitious to boot), and generally half starved (with families to feed to boot).

All actions would reduce said stamina system, btw. Drawing a bow is hard work. Drawing a longbow is something... Most posters here actually might not be able to do. Marching is basically the only thing that wouldn't cost fatigue, but the low limit on its impact on fighting efficiency keeps it from being too obnoxious. Scale this with difficulty, so hardcore players get a greater effect for themselves, but also enemies.

Combined with only recovering said stat while off the field it would give attackers an interesting advantage over defenders in a long siege, being better able to cycle units. Perhaps you could even boost overland speed temporarily at the cost of your infantry entering battle fatigued?

Imo stamina should be used. Sort of. Not in an "oh, I attacked five times, now I can't attack again" kind of way though.

Each character and NPC starts a battle fresh. They have a fairly decently-sized stamina bar which does not recover during a battle while they are active. Units who retreat do slowly recover, and may return as reinforcements later (for sieges and the like). As the bar depletes all of your actions become very marginally slower, but not a great deal. When the bar empties you suffer maybe a 20% reduction in all speeds, and are winded. Recover NPCs as above, by retreating them. Possibly make it so that they player can retreat and just watch the battle, then elect to return when theyve gained some stamina. Perhaps while they are not on the field they get a more detailed command screen?

Also, possibly road building as a village improvement option. More prosperous villages provide better roads to their castle or town. Could even be an automatic improvement. Then same for towns, but providing roads to other towns. It'd give a good reason to help keep villages prosperous, even to an infactioned player, in the area that they keep their base.

Siege equipment shouldn't be manable by the player. It should aim and fire on command, but not be possible to man. And, for balance, should likely be one shot. You get to punch a hole in a wall roughly of your choosing, and kill a lot of guys, but not use them to win without firing an arrow. Same ti the defender, build them as castle improvements to deal one mass casualty at the start of each fight. It'd prevent players from ever being able to take a castle with a minamilist, elite, force. They'd need, at least, some meat shields. I mean, give me fifty top-tier vaegyr archers and some patience and I can conquer all of Nordland without loosing a man (floris-expanded troops example, possibly native too).

And sieges. Seriously. Movable ladders can't be too much more difficult to implement than siege towers, with their own animation set. Putting ladder bearers into a custom division with custom orders can't be much harder, an invisible line that triggers the put up ladder animation is minutes of work per castle. This feature not existing on release will fill me with sadness. Even if they move via the force. Though forcing a few men to actually carry them would be nice. My assumption when we see characters actually climbing them means that they are no longer terrain, but are now an interactable object.

Horses could do to have a turbo bar for charging. Err... Stamina. Was thinking about racing games.

Be cool if we had volley commands added to our commands list. Just a couple, like:

1. Fire at 45' (max range)
2. Fire at 30'
3. Fire at 15'

To allow you to deal casualties at a better range even with lower quality archers (they'd fire +/- a few degrees based on their skill) based on your own skill. Possibly the ability to assign volley fire command to a specific npc? Officer npcs with leadership stats that made decisions for you and controlled a division would be really awesome. Especially if you could give them more advanced orders (before combat). Those would be things like 'defend division A', or 'attack enemy archers'. You'd still be able to take direct control of them, and give it back to the officer at any time through your F-# commands menu. Neither of these would be too terribly hard to implement. Enemy/ally lords already have AI to draw upon, just weight it based on their leadership skill and your specific order, and volley firing is just fire at your current facing at specific angle.

Also, they've got a special animation for climbing soldiers. Not sure how difficult it would be to add some 'handles' to the sides of siege towers and just give soldiers a special animation for grabbing them when they get close. Pretty minor change, but apparently a pretty major immersion change. The siege towers don't even really need special landing pads, those wooden decks aren't really going to do that much damage to stone anyways, just make it so that the soldiers enter a special division and can be commanded, then just when they take the tower close enough to the wall it drops wherever it happens to end up. That'd be a lot more complex, because they'd have to take the siege towers off of tracks, but should still be doable. Putting up ladders after that would be fairly easy. Make them like siege towers, requiring soldiers to push them and getting set up on the wall, just with different animations. It'd basically be the same code, with different animations attached.

Iono. None of this is probably as simple as I think, I've only ever done low level development. But it's not necessarily as hard as a lot of people think it could be either. Just some thoughts on additions that would add immersion, and how seems logical yet simple to implement them.

Game NEEDS more advanced pre-battle screen. Yes, screens with buttons are irritating and immersion breaking. But they can also be necessary. Unless the F-# command gets waaay more advanced, you need the ability to set up advanced formations before battle. You need the ability to split your divisions into smaller formations (and a functionality to keep them split, during the battle) based on your current needs. "Oh, they have lots of cavalry, I'm going to need pikes everywhere" versus "Oh, they don't have any cavalry, I'm going to put my pikes behind two ranks of regular melee troops, so they hit on the charge but don't all end up dead in the battle". The soldiers wouldn't even spawn there. They'd spawn and then run to where you told them to go. They'd spawn more intelligently, with all the troops in the same formation spawning in the same files and adjacent ranks. That way a player using very advanced orders isn't going to finish them all before the cavalry of a players simple charge order hit. You'd actually gain strategy, order cavalry to charge, fight for a small amount of time, then retreat. Disrupting enemy preparations and allowing you to gain ground on them.

Again, just thoughts. But I'd find such a game to be very appealing. Also, IMO, villages shouldn't be factional based on who owns the associated castle. I'm sure that if a lord rolled in, offered them protection and reduced taxes, and they hated their lord enough, they'd be completely on board. Granted, the previous lord isn't going to be happy with the new one about this. Feifless lords would get something to do, and perhaps if killing bandits near a village gave them reputation with it, they'd get useful too.

Also, if ambushes are truly being added, you need to have marching orders for your army. A simple screen that you basically just specify what divisions or types of troops march where. So when you get ambushed you get no pre-battle plan. Simply where your troops were when you got there. These marching orders would also possibly be used to determine where your troops spawn at the start of a battle? Be a heck of a lot better than a huge square of dudes.

Also, for the people saying that single player doesn't matter. I'd bet that a good two thirds of their buyers will not touch multiplayer for more than an hour. It's not always that appealing. Some times actual content and complex, long-term, objectives can be funner. Quality of your game shouldn't be based on the quality of your matchmaking system, IMO games like that often have the worst quality communities on the internet. That's worded poorly, but should get the point across.

Also, with the argument about modding. There are some mods which basically every player agrees are necessary. Said mods will be implemented as the new vanilla at least, if not improved upon. Or taleworlds will have failed terribly. They shouldn't need listing.

Sneaking. Clearly required on the campaign map, it should also be somehow made possible on the combat map. Even just the addition of small bushes and vision obstructions with crouching soldiers so as to prevent players from sighting soldiers in specific areas, to allow traps and the like to be used. Similarly, soldiers and formations should not turn automatically to face the enemy. Orders should be added to force the player to control this. How do my men know where the soldiers on the other side of that hill are moving? As long as even a single man has a direct line of sight a command to face the enemy formation should be available, and they should announce it somehow. Need a separate command to rotation your entire army with respect to their current orientation to each other, multiple divisions the same, and single divisions on their center axis.

Need player defined formations. Simply a menu that lets you draw up where ranks and files go (and in what order, if enough troops are not present) so that players can create custom formations. Allow specific unit types to be associated with specific positions. Like putting archer-skirmishers in front of straight archers, or pikes in every second or third rank behind melee troops.

The ability to lay traps, creating a largish region (based on a skill use and time taken) in which every lord other than the layer (and possibly lords he has somehow warned of the danger) have a small chance every small amount of time to have a soldier hit a trap and become wounded (or, depending on the nature of the trap, loose his horse). The traps would deteriorate after time (wildlife), and there would be chances for lords to spot the traps based on their own skill and receive a warning. Not know the actual boundaries, just know that they're in a trapped area. Come on subterfuge and sabotage!

Also, ladders and towers in the same siege are not a new thing. I have no idea where, but I have at least one distinct memory of a siege in warband where a very narrow ladder spawned next to where the tower landed. Also, not sure if this was floris mod, but I've seen destructible gates that you could cut down. So clearly battering rams are a thing which could be implemented. Heck, even without one some wooden doors might be possible to take down with axes and blunt weapons.

On another thing, if adding occupiable positions to the siege towers became a thing, perhaps they could be added to the walls? Giving each arrow slit a number of archers (probably two) that can 'attach' to it, and use it more intelligently. It isn't a smarter AI, but it'd be an improvement. If you use restricted positions like that then the new animations are easier to create and implement. Also, one shot siege equipment should be possible. Boiling oil over the gate to deal serious damage to units attempting to ram the gate, for example. These would need to be constructed in advance of the battle (though possibly could be made during the siege, if you happen to have the time before they decide to attack). Similarly, the attacker would get options to prepare such things. If siege equipment is added it needs to have a very long re-attack time though, or it's going to be game breaking. Guaranteed. Don't care how realistic it may be, the ability to kill a score of enemy troops from beyond arrow range will be game breaking. Heck, having archers is already game breaking in a siege =D.

Lot of words, I'm very tired and slightly medicated. Sorry. TLDR: List of ideas.

Or streamline it further. Perhaps a portion of the defending players units are blocked within certain areas? With certain requirements to trigger their spawns. Say, if the defenders have more than a certain number then some spawn in the courtyard to sally out and meet the attackers. Similarly, once you capture the walls the inner gate opens up and they have another 10% of their troops spawning in the streets? Then again another 5% holed up in the keep. All loaded on one map, no screens in between, and you get all of your survivors to lead into the next battle. It'd make a siege a lot more real feeling.

Perhaps even give the defender the ability to choose what potion of their troops spawn in which of the four zones. Some more cowardly lords might hide out in their keep with half their force, while their braver counterparts others might meet you in the field with everything. It'd make choosing what lords you ask for reinforcement before a siege more of an involved decision too, since they'd all be putting their troops different places based on their preferences. You'd want a lord or two to make up a vanguard and give you time to position the rest of your defenders, some on the walls, some in the city, and one or two to hold the keep.

Unless the AI leanrs how to target enemies wielding weapons that cannot block before those that chamber block before shields. If it figures that out then GG dual weilders in anything but small encounters and duels.

Agreeing with some previous comments you should have some kind of commanders table that you start battles at, give initial troop placements and division breakdowns and possibly simple orders from, and then that you can continue to sit at and trumpet orders out to your divisions mid battle. Would totally add to the immersion, and create the ability to roleplay the brilliant strategist, instead of just the fearless commander. Possibly the ability to give divisions to companions, and give them general orders. Things like, hold point A or defend division B. They'd follow more precisely and make better choices based on tactics skill. It'd make huge battles properly epic. One further advancement would be to be able to decide what divisions come as reinforcements in what order.

Exactly. Nothing wrong with dual wielding, but that ranged units are going to ruin your day. And if the ai improves any, they'll stop emptying their quivers into shields and start shooting for two handers and berserkers. History has demonstrated that dual weilding is effective if used skillfully, same as any other martial form. Even in sport fencing today it is an option.

If you have the skill two weapons beat one weapon and empty hand. Shields have no actual part in the discussion other than the fact that you can block or deflect q blow much more easily (not necessarily effectively) with one. In both cases a sufficiently powerful strike will either break your arm through your shield, or knock your weapon out of its way. A shield requires a more powerful strike to do, but is also heavier to move into a position to block a quick strike with. Each has an advantage and a disadvantage, and historically both have been viable.

Also, a hard limit for maximum party size seems... Weak. I think army size should be uncapped, however heavily effected by morale. First, new units worn even join if morale is bad. Second, units defect at low morale, travel slower, and are weaker in combat.

On the alternate side, you get compounding morale penalties for army size. To provide a maximum army size that fluctuates more, and has 'tiers' (max size before defection, max size at 100% combat strength, max size at 100% movement speed, etc). You win a lot of battles, you can recruit a bunch of guys, but if you stop winning or start loosing they become disillusioned and leave, as an example. You'd get morale bonuses for things like being a lord, owning feifs and other things that currently provide a hard increase to troop quantity.

If you used renown as a modifier to morale benefits and disadvantages it could be even better, with hihly renowned players getting more out of high morale (even more soldiers), but getting hit harder by bad morale (more desertions).

I don't know how well I've explained myself here,  but hopefully to par.

The Bowman 说:

Meevar the Mighty 说:

The Bowman 说:

Not long ago I have learned that all the sound files are pre-loaded into the game, so they fill your memory even if not needed. I would like you to invest more time in optimizing the game. Let us have more load screens, and get a smoother gameplay in exchange.

点击展开...

Seems like a horrible idea. Memory is cheap and loading screens are infuriating.

点击展开...

It's about a game where you'd want more than 200 people on the same ground, each performing an animation. The smart way is to do like I said.

点击展开...

If you're saying that you'd want players to have to sit through loading screens while playing multiplayer, I have to go with Meevar, pre-loading less is a terrible idea. It would only serve to slow down the pace of the game. In some situations active loading (resoures load during gameplay as you need them, such as when traveling long distances and needing completely different cultural sounds) becomes viable to save on resources, but in your immediate area NOTHING should stop the flow of the game and force loading. Especially, as you say, when 200 or more players are on the same ground, performing actions.

Quickly guys! If the pattern holds, only three more pages of posts until they release a new blog post!

Oh, and supply caravans. During a siege you should be able to send a group of men to buy (or otherwise obtain) food. Because I don't think my inventory can even hold 30 days of food to outlast a city during a siege when I have 200+ men. There are lots of things like this players should be able to use their soldiers for, by sending a few at a time away.

Query: What does the green exclamation point and watched above me mean?

Another thought, since we're going for realism. Abolish levels. Entirely. Not skill levels, mind, character levels.

RPG elements are cool, but can be out of place. I gained a level by clubbing peasants to death with a quarterstaff. How did I get better at trading during this experience? Most every skill should be trained by simple use, rather than leveling. Even skills like tactics can be done this way (award experience after battle based on initial disadvantage, casualties, kills, and prisoners). It would make the player character more... Legitimate. If you're worried about a PC becoming too powerful when they've maxed every skill implement a system like the developers of Cataclysm DDA have, Focus. The better your morale the more focus you gain over time, low morale looses focus over time. Every time a skill should level up check focus, if you have less focus than the new skill level the upgrade does not happen until focus improves. When a skill levels up you loose focus equal to the new skill level. That would slow down character progression towards the higher levels, and if you made the focus stat more difficult to obtain than simply 'be happy for x number of days' then only a sufficiently old character could max every skill.

Perhaps base it on renown?

And on the subject of renown. Renowned slavers existed. Renowned merchants existed. Many people were well known back in the day for things other than leadership. The game should track what you bought an individual trade good for, how long you've had it, and what you sell it for (as secret variables), and award some form of merchant renown. The same for slaving, the higher tier a unit you sell should get you some form of slaving renown. Perhaps slaving renown would come into effect when parties like patrols and villagers see you, to determine whether or not they run even if you are not at war with their faction, from simple fear. Similarly, if you have a lot of renown as a trader, perhaps caravans that spot you signal you or even spend an hour moving towards you in an attempt to trade? There are other things as well that one might become known for, but off the top of my head and fitting the setting, the main ones I come up with are Trade, Battle, and Slaving.

And on the subject of slaving. Prisoners in a garrison should be usable to speed construction in your feifs. Send them out with soldiers (as escorts, say one soldier can handle 5 slaves?), if they make it to the destination they speed construction, if they make it home they go back to jail. Or perhaps doing this frees the prisoner, calling it their sentence completed. It goes without saying you could attack prisoner convoys and recruit them to your cause should you spot an enemy attempting to send one somewhere. This might reduce your honor if you choose to not release them after, and improve it if you elect to free them for their labor?

And on the subject of honor. Two dimensions to a scale are limiting. Possibly consider adding a second dimension. Think like dungeons and dragons. I can be lawful evil, creating order and rules which allow me to treat people horribly (think like Hitler). I could also be Chaotic good, disobeying the law but doing acts of kindness wherever I can (Robin Hood). Essentially, honor might be your good/evil scale, and perhaps obedience would be your lawful/chaotic? A player known to not follow the rules might find it harder to become a sworn man, and would hardly ever be awarded a high value fief. But he might also find some benefits. Perhaps bandits are easier to recruit, or deal with? And enemy lords are more likely to go off into the corner to plot with such a person? I dunno. Not a very useful stat for the type of game, but it would help to represent more archetypes of characters. I mean, both the examples above would have neutral honor, because they do something to balance out their evil and their good, but clearly one should have a high negative and the other a very high positive number there.

Just more thoughts. Sorry about the length. Again.

Is there a proper thread for suggestions? I didn't find one. That said, I'm lazy and didn't look too hard.

Edit: And with the whole argument about where various groups originated. It's fair to say that two cultures with a shared origin are related, however not necessarily culturally similar. As an example, Darwin's finches. They all originated from the same species, however are all very different, having evolved based on differing needs. An easy example, the Japanese. Perhaps in ways culturally similar to the Vietnamese, and of similar origin. One developed in a jungle, facing it's unique challenges, the other on an island and dealing with those associated challenges. Having different available resources, needs, dangers has made them distinct and unique. This does not mean that they are not similar, but they are different. Same goes for Nordic/Scandinavian roots. Similar, but different. Basing the similar origin comment on someone else saying that they are. The point stands even if they are not of similar origin, just change it to use any two cultures with a similar root.

Just a list of the skills from Warband, and how I might implement them to avoid a character level system (retain skill levels, but gain them in a different way). Spoilered for length.

Raidable iron mines to severely hamper a city's troop production would be a cool (and fairly game changing, if you made it so promotions could only happen in towns with a quantity of supplies) addition to the game, and something new to burn down without loosing honor like you do for villages.
And a mercenary faction, which could be hired to do just about anything (for enough gold), to give the player pause every single time he sees their banner on the map. Possibly joinable? Similar to signing on with a faction as a mercenary, except you get entirely random targets (paid by various lords, instead of working for a single faction). Possibly the ability to approach a battle in progress and accept bids from the two fighting lords for your assistance? Lords who would be able to beat you and the other army together (or feel that they could) would be smart enough to not pay.

And to throw a wrench in EVERYONES plans, foreign armies, showing up and just raiding a pillaging until they take enough casualty to need to leave. It'd give a player who owns everything a significant end game threat to deal with. Make them massive, but spread out a little so they can be dealt with in parts. Have them move in, take a town, raid around until they need to leave (time passage, or troop depletion, or driven out of the town), and leave their base for the bandits (unfactioned). It'd definitely keep the map more dynamic.

Yay for rapid fire ideas. Because the more people share, the more likely the devs are going to see something they like, or a suggested solution to a problem they didn't know they had or were having trouble dealing with.

Random change of course, sea battles? Ocean trade, convoys, blockades, and the like? Fjording rivers with risk of casualty? Rainstorms which reduce archer accuracy to nill? Mud after rain to reduce unit movement and basically nullify cavalry? Mist to massively hamper visibility, assist ambushes, and render siege engines useless? Waterskins/wineskins to complement needing to feed your army and add another attrition resource? Floods to temporarily block portions of the map or wreck village productivity? Other natural disasters? Running water in combat maps potentially sweeping unmounted soldiers away? Desert cities reliant on rivers that can be dammed if certain castles are captured, massively dumping their wealth? Tides near the ocean, potentially making some coastal paths impassable at certain times of day? Islands with towns on them?

Oh, cool thing about Rome, it's collusseium could be flooded to have little sea battles for people to watch, maybe an arena or two in game has this functionally? It'd make for a fun mini game.

Random water themed post. Please excuse the laziness of the formatting, phone typing sucks.

Edit: And a response to a previous comment, lord death. It'd be an interesting concept in the game, however difficult to balance. An errant arrow could end your campaign. That said, almost a guarantee that the PC should be immune to death, or you're just encouraging save-scumming. Regarding other lords, perhaps they only capture each other, but if officers were used (units promoted from soldiers), it would be more than reasonable to have them dieing. Expanding on that, if most of the armies roaming the map were lead by officers rather than lords (who spent more time patrolling their home, feasting, and visiting their friends) then death would be viable. And, if officers were a significant enough investment to create and train, death could actually be a fairly important part of the game. Kill villagers to reduce a village/towns prosperity, kill officers to reduce a lords. This would need an optional aspect though. Perhaps after the battle your soldiers drag the enemy officer before you in chains, allowing you to release (gain favor with enemy lord), capture for ransom (you gain money, loose favor, other lord looses some money), or behead them (loose more favor, gain nothing but other lord looses more money).

And a thought, in warband I always hated using patrols. They cost so much and you didn't really get anything for it. Perhaps patrols and armies led by officers raid small bandit groups, enemy villagers and caravans, and bring the money they raise to their base town? It would really help you to offset their wages.

Joining the dual wield flame war!

Any fool can hold a weapon in his other hand. Several factors are going to screw him over.

1. Most people aren't ambidextrous. They can't just pick up a tool in their other hand and use it as well as their main hand. Pick up a hammer in your off hand and try to strike a nail into a board and this becomes very clear.
2. Many people's main arm is stronger than their alternate, blows with the alternate would be softer, coupled with the above they'd hit lighter and less accurately.
3. Recovering from a blow with anything heavier than a short sword takes time, and essentially makes the second weapon useless, as your momentum has already thrown your body too far to make a reliable second hit.

With practice this can all be overcome. Weight remains something of an issue, but history has demonstrated that it is a learn able skill.

Most the people against dual wielding seem to be afraid that there won't be a skill progression. Horse archery had one, you had to learn how to ride, you had to learn how to shoot, and you had to learn how to ride and shoot. Same principle applies here, You learn how to fight with a single weapon, you learn how to use your other hand, and you learn how to fight with your other hand. As with horse archery, big investment with big payout. Unlike horse archery, leaves you incredibly vulnerable and most likely dismounted in the middle of the field. I don't see how it would be any stronger. Give a decent player a horse, bow, and three large bags of arrows and they can easily win a battle 1 v 70 or more. Dual wielding can't possibly be that game breaking.

A final comment about dual wielding. In battlefield situations was the second weapon not used for throwing more often than not? It would be an interesting addition to the shield slot to allow players to put throwing weapons in it at a fair penalty to accuracy and range until they get the skill high enough. The throwing weapons are also mostly light enough to use at close range effectively. The javelins aren't, but then, neither are regular polearms.

Not particularly for it, I do enjoy having a shield to march on archers with. But I can see it being a valid and viable skill. Soldiers with it would have their place too, stick 'em on a siege tower to slaughter archers soon as it lands or in other similar CQC situations. I'd imagine them to be incredibly difficult to keep around for long though, and to train. No shield, light armor, poor weapon skills for the majority of their development >.>

Regarding fluid movement. It's needed in all situations. Chaining attacks, deflecting and countering, stuff like that is useful everywhere. Just applies more to dual wielding, as it's users MUST rely on a constant flurry of well chained attacks to prevent counter attack and death.

Also, IMO, blocking should always deal a small amount of damage to the blocking unit. Blunt damage, of course, because some force will always be transferred. Based on the weapons weight if it's cutting or piercing. In the case of blunt weapons almost all of the damage should pass the shield. I mean, that's a fifty pound ball of metal that just (essentially) hit your arm (through a fairly thin piece of wood). You're going to feel it. Makes deflecting far more valuable, as heavier weapons would also take longer to recover after being deflected away. That said, if you rely on it too much and screw up deflecting a great sword, you're taking a lot of damage.

Regarding Meevar's post: I like all of what you said =D. To explain my comment about one leader unit per garrison, I agree that limiting it to one per garrison would be fairly restrictive, but too many stacked abilities would become ridiculous. Perhaps one active officer per garrison? And yeah, also agree that you should be allowed to promote any tier of unit rather than just capped units, for the early game and quick replacements, but their abilities should be much weaker to compensate. To put it mathematically, square the power of the ability for each increase in unit tier.

I wonder though... Should walls have a 'facing' or be considered to be defensible on both sides? What I mean is that should they only really provide a huge defensive bonus against attacks from their front side, allowing players to sneak around and capture them more easily? More simply, should the back side have staircases for access, or be only accessible through a gatehouse with a gate on each side? I feel like the guy building the wall would design it such that if the other guy captured it he doesn't get nearly the defensive bonus the original owner did against a counter attack.

EDIT: Sorry about the rambling nature of my posts. Seems like I only find my way to this forum past two AM and am too tired to censor myself.

Second Edit: Lords who like you should send you messages. Reports and stuff. More frequently. Almost like a delayed form of expanded vision, they see a troop, send you a message about where and when and what it was doing, and you get it some hours or days later based on where you are. It'd help you keep track of things during bigger wars, especially if factions are going to have multiple war parties. Also, the map should start much more sparse of fortifications, and allow them to be built by lords and players over the course of the months. As well, the exact position of some villages and smaller forts should be slightly randomized at the start of the game. Just for a bit of a change of flavor from one game to the next. It would make every game highly unique, with differing travel times and spot locations for the different castles. And, if many castles weren't built at the start of the game, but instead built by lords based on need later on, it would also mean the map is very different on each game. A king might think, I've had three wars with the nation to the east of me in the last four months. I'm going to put a couple castles between us and lords to man them to give us an extra line of defense. Alternately, many groups from different factions use a pass I control. I'll build a gate and wall there so I can charge a toll.

Third Edit: Game needs disarming weapons. Jitte as an example. More useful in duels than battles, but some factions town guards might also carry them. Possibly man-hunters as well, should they choose to disarm the foe before they bludgeon them unconscious. Some ruffians might also opt to use a Cestus rather than club or staff. Like brass knuckles today, but way more awesome. Got boxing banned in rome, they did.

Fourth Edit: Can we have large rivers with dams and floodgates in them? Attach them to castles, and give the owner of the castle the option to either block passage upstream by creating a large lake, or opening it and widening the river downstream. It'd be cool to send a river crashing down a dry riverbed on an approaching army and decimate them. Small bridges might become submerged, and the lake created when it's closed could possibly flood villages if it's allowed to grow too large.

Just another list of thoughts, because I got tired of typing in a previous post.

Faction-less Lords
Faction-less Villages

Parrying/Deflecting rather than straight up blocking
Walls and Gates on the Map

Automatic Promotion Management for Garrisons

Captains/Officers

Map Constructions

Scouting

Pre-Battle Planning

Dual Wielding

Side note, do the devs give much weight to comments and suggestions given here, or is development already far along enough that only mind blowingly great suggestions are going to be taken? Because I just kind of say whatever comes to mind, no matter how good or bad it is.

Siege Equipment

Just some words from arctan.

EDIT: Sorry about the length, spoilered out the sections to make it shorter. Still visually long, but shorter and cleaner. How'd a page long argument about where Nords came from happen? I love this place =D.

Oh, and functionality for a multi-player campaign. A host player, who is the only required player to run the game, but allow other players to join in. Don't know what you'd do about battles and pausing everyone else, but it would be interesting to have other players ruining your plans. The only required player for the game to run would be the host, but other players could come and go, retaining what they had when they left (excluding feifs, which would return to their faction after a game week or so, to prevent players quitting from ending the game). I'm sure at least a few people might schedule a game over ventrilo or teamspeak once a week or every few days and just see where it goes. Allowing open join games would add to the fun, as you'd have no idea who was going to show up or how they might play. Battles would need to be resolved faster, and everyone's map speed would need to be slowed, so that battles could happen the same as AI battles do while players still run around and potentially join them as unexpected reinforcements.

It would be really cool if there was some functionality to construct smaller forts and other improvements directly on the map. Some kind of system to allow the player to either use his party to construct them or order a nearby village or town they control to do it. If said forts and improvements could be destroyed but provided fairly large bonuses (like zones of control which made passage by enemy lords more difficult for one reason or another [barrages from the archers on the ramparts or siege engines in the fort?]). Similarly to construct caves or other hide outs based on the terrain type so as to be able to store loot at while unfactioned in the case you get captured. Give them a chance to be looted same as how you could wreck bandit ones in Warband.

It'd be an interesting way to start a faction. Start with a hideout essentially as a bandit, build some renown and troops. Once you've got a reasonable military order the garrison in the hideout to prepare a proper fort nearby, and go from there until you can capture a village or castle or something in order to obtain civilians. Construction and destruction of villages would be cool, but I imagine unless it was very well implemented and regulated would be incredibly game-breaking.

Also, barrages outside of combat. A castle under siege isn't just going to sit there and wait for the defenders to come. Especially if they have siege weapons. Sure, if they are massively outnumbered there isn't much they can do, but both sides should suffer some attrition casualties (the larger side suffering more, as requiring more supplies and being more likely to suffer arbitrary deaths from illness and whatnot). And on that, it would be cool if the Warband function to leave some soldiers behind was expanded that you could leave soldiers from your army in ambush or to be picked up later. Say you meant to surrender because you knew you couldn't win, getting your army to hide out in a nearby forest until you could come command them again wouldn't be too illogical. It would hurt morale, sure, but a lot less than all ending up dead.

The ability to send one of your soldiers as a messenger while traveling would be enjoyed, rather than having to return to your castle.

Iono. Been lurking for a long time, figured I'd contribute a couple thoughts. Probably all been thought before, but figured they were worth voicing.