Hey guys, sorta new here but I figure this is where I should drop off some of my concepts!
Anarcho-[Ideology] Groups
At the current moment, the Red Wars has a very plain cut faction base... Communist, Fascist, Democracy, and the inbetween Monarchist/Looter factions. All though this is fine for the most part, I have been wondering why the mod team has been somewhat neglecting a huge segment of the Russian/German Revolution history which was when small villages, towns, and otherwise took up arms against all sides, and fought under the banner of ideologies such as Anarcho-Greenism, Anarco-Capitalism, Anarcho-Socialism, ect.
This was a huge part of the Russian Revolution as several of these groups tended to be a massive pain in the ass for the Russian Bolsheviks, which had to fight them in order to create a united front, and sometimes would have to deal with popular uprisings related to Greenism and Capitalism. All these factions could be added to Red Wars, and used as "popular uprising" factions inside of towns that have been ravaged by conflict and are in a poor and distraught state. These uprisings occur either on their own or with the meddling from other factions.
Wait, what? How do other factions get involved in popular uprisings? Easy. They go in and dead-drop weapon caches for "farmers" to pick up, and bring back into their village. After this, the farmers will begin to arm up the village with weapons that'll be used in a popular uprising. These uprisings take roughly two days to complete, and if they go undisturbed, the city will turn into a "Makeshift Capital" for a new faction based on the ideology that took over. They'll use the standard Anarcho-Capitalist, Anarcho-Green, Anarcho-Socialist flags.. For example...
These flags can be used.
These makeshift factions will be able to spawn their own trained mercenary units or other factions can give soldiers to them. Either way works, and overall it gets the job done. The faction they went arry from tends to come back around, and try to squash the revolutionaries before they go about taking over other villages, and forming an anarchist collective which can wage full-out war against the main empire in the hopes of winning in a coup de'at and putting their government in control of the new empire.
This system also brings up another interesting mechanism... Instead of the player going into the army, becoming a rogue lord, or becoming a lord for a certain faction, they can join up with the insurgency as the insurgent leader, and attempt to take over as many cities as they possibly can in order to succeed in a popular revolution! Such a system would provide a new avenue/way to go about playing the game, and it would also make for interesting gameplay as villages could defect and become their own communes against the oppressive rule of their lords.
Soldiers = Individual "Lords"
This is something which has bugged me with Mount and Blade since I played the first game... In my honest opinion, all soldiers/infantry should actually be individuals with their own names, stats, and otherwise. Such a system would mean that instead of having persay... 100 Nordic Snipers, you would have several soldiers with different names, feuds, and otherwise. This would allow for a far more interesting game, as you could have champions within your ranks, and several different soldiers would choose to fight in their own different ways. This also brings up a unique problem though...
If each soldier is their own unique character... How do you go about arming them? Well how it starts off is that you recruit some civilians from a village, and they are armed at first with old hunting rifles, and mismash of clothing. As you fight with them on the battlefield, they arm up with equipment that they pick up off the ground, and therefore become well built soldiers with the guns, armor, and otherwise useful stuff they grab. In order to make up for this, each battle with enemy units above 10 to or 15 people will provide more denars which can be used for the purchase of individual equipment.
This system does not mean that their isn't other system to equip your characters with a similar uniform. You can group certain groups of individuals under a "squad" and you can equip them with a pack of second hand equipment which can be purchased from a fort/city, and this pack of second hand equipment will arm your soldiers with the same weapons, and same uniforms... A bit older equipment though!
Another method to gathering equipment is via entering the variety of villages across the map, and bribing village officials to give you the equipment they are given to defend their cities with. This will cost you a pretty penny, but it'll give you at least some decent equipment.
The last method which exists for arming your troops is a bit... Dodgy. Sometimes, a faction must rearm their forts and villages, and do to this, you can actually see caravans carrying weapons, uniforms, and food to the cities. These can be attacked, and if you are successful in taking over the caravans, your soldiers will upgrade with all the equipment on the caravan.
These methods are few and inbetween, and several other methods exist including the raiding of bandit lairs, capturing revolutionary supply caches, and sometimes simply going into an area where a battle happened and picking up salvaged gear. Everything is possible to arm your soldiers, and get a move on!
Another thing to talk about regarding these guys is that each soldier has their own name, skills, and all that. Meaning that some characters should be armed individually with different weapons. For example if you have someone who is really good with two hands/rifles, you should give them a sniper rifle, and likewise if someone is good with swords, give em' a sword. This type of a system allows you to evoke a great deal of customization with your units, and losing certain troops in the battlefield could actually be damning.
Squads, Squad Leaders, and Morale
This is something which bugs me about Mount n' Blade, but moreso with mods that have guns. Where are the squads? Where are the squad leaders? Why are we all moving in one giant blob? If this mod adds/includes the system I mentioned above, I would love to see a system where I could appoint individuals as squad leaders, and put soldiers under their command. Well that sounds simple enough right? Well that's not the end of it!
Instead of these squads being under my direct command, I'd like to have them lead into battle by an AI which leads them to different areas which they predict as suitable for combat. These squads would have a separate morale system[akin to allies] and when most of their squad is wiped out, they fall back and retreat from the field. Such a system would make battles feel far more dynamic, and it would also allow for specialist groups like mounted cavalry squads to be made out of random individuals, and if these units are wiped out, you lose those specialist. Another thing to take into account is that currently, all battles are giant blob fights... Really boring if you ask me. With these squads, you could have multiple groups taking up different positions around the map, and commands/orders from you to the squads would be on a cooldown based on their range. Meaning that if a squad is going into certain death, and you are 100 meters from them, it'll take thirty seconds to reach you, and therefore they are most likely dead or most of them will be destroyed.
As I have said before, this type of system makes battles less blobish, and also adds an amount of error that can be had for not having proper connections with your other squads.
