Why should it be easy for an independent player to recruit people to fight for him? A fief lord can use his levy because of the ideas that bind the village community to the kingdom, but an indipendent player is a nobody, basically. I don't think it was very common for farm hands to join some errant knight and fight for him. It takes a certain sort of man to fight for a living, and not fight for the things he loves only. Independent players could recruit mercenaries like I said in point 5. These mercenaries could be found in cities in greater numbers than currently in the taverns. Perhaps there couls be bands of mercenaries, like looters, which you could hire also. Maybe the current main unit tree could be made into the mercenary tree. I don't think you should be recruiting from villages unless that village has some feodal connection to you.
Some of your changes make a more authentic experience, but I do not think it does much to make what makes WB good. I am well aware of your historical arguments and I'm a sucker for a good feudal time but making the game more realistic might make it far too linear.
Let’s say we force every early player from day 1 to only be able to recruit a select group of looters to mercs. Unless you want to play a very solo early game every time, your only option for a start is a non-faction aligned first army. And surely the whole point of mercs is when you have money in surplus. Which you really should not in the early game. So instead I much prefer the implication in WB that the filthy peasants are so expendable that fief owners let anyone recruit them. Or at least let the player pay them to defect. Perhaps if they made it so the fief benefits from people recruiting from them.
Your new recruiting system may result in a more interesting mid game. But if we are going for realism then other factions shouldn't let you recruit foreign troops just because your a noble of another faction. Which means you should be stuck with single faction troop trees until you conquer foreign lands. Which might be interesting to some, but I’d rather they left in player choice for patriot runs.
What might be more interesting is turning authenticity into a game mode or a mod. A true realism feudal ultra-extreme mode would add replay ability imo.
Well, when 50% of my army starts becoming people from various defeated enemies, there should be some consequence. Currently having prisoners is an effective recruitment path in longer campaigns.
Never in all of WB or BL or mods have I ever had an army comp of 50% prisoners. 10-20% maybe. And I do a lot of prisoner recruiting. After some time, prisoner recruits should be treated as if they were recruits from foreign villages. Because that essentially what they are after enough time. What would be interesting is having prisoners defect based on some parameter that measure how successful you or your faction is doing in the war. As I imagine many defect to a winning side.
It takes a certain sort of man to fight for a living, and not fight for the things he loves only.
This could not be more incorrect. Men fight. They are designed too. They fight often for incentive and also because they are coerced by their environment by many sources. And ****in rarely for what they love lol, especially and I mean ****in especially in the 11th century lol, was it ever driven by ideology. Yes, they fight for lords due to feudalism but mostly because that is enforced. I don’t think duty was the main concern of peasants like you’d see from people in written sources who are on a whole other level to peasants. Their main concern is safety, living prospects, gold and potentially safety of their village or family.
Yes, there is a little bit of going to war, so you do not get the village burned and raped. But once I have already broken their army and am on the verge of winning. You do not often see especially in the 11th cen, complete unremitting resistance.
Party size limits are totally arbitrary. Units should be so expensive that their cost would be the limit of having them. This would force the player to raid villages, which is what warring armies did constantly in times of war.
Then all games will turn into the same strat, for me at least. Step 1 obtain big money. Step 2 obtain doomstack. Step 3 take fiefs quickly and peace and out. Step 4 repeat.
I think a far more interesting discussion is what can be added feasibly into the game rn. The recruitment changes requires a major revamp to the game mechanics, troops, balance and merc diversity to be realistic rn.
I'd rather they made the kingdom mechanics actually work than worry about recruitment realism for now and number 3, 7 and 9 would be nice and easy to add.
