a small delay when hiring troops.

[slavetrader]

are the troops sitting in the backroom of the tavern, armed and ready to follow what ever chump or chumpette comes a knockin in. and why would the barkeep just give the troops to someone totally unknown just like that?

my suggestion: a couple of days of delay between the hiring of troops and actually having them in your party. i mean they have to be assamblet. armed, say goodbye to their wives and write their wills ('cos to be honest most peasants i hire are brutally sodomized or used as human shields. so they have very small life-expectancy ). and ofcourse the tavernkeeper would check your backround before letting his customers wander of with, god knows who, maybe a vaegir/swadian spy. this would make hiring from enemy towns much more harder and moneyconsuming.

 

[Manitas]

Yeah, I loved it about the x-com series, that you had to wait for your recruits and cargo to arrive, But unlike M&B the time was critical there (especially when one of your bases got raided).
It makes no sense with the current design of M&B cause you'd just have to hit pause and wait for them and the delay yield no consequences, but maybe if the game got more complex in the future...

 

[svart]

Yes i reckon they hang around the tavern looking for work, it's not like they got anything better to do in m&b's world

Yeah, I loved it about the x-com series, that you had to wait for your recruits and cargo to arrive, But unlike M&B the time was critical there (especially when one of your bases got raided).
It makes no sense with the current design of M&B cause you'd just have to hit pause and wait for them and the delay yield no consequences, but maybe if the game got more complex in the future...

Except for the time thing, the marines you got on X-Com were hard boiled mega ass kickers when you get down to it (more like npc heroes), and here they are just sidekicks that die after a week.
(i always pictured the arrival of an x-com marine like an arrival of a hero in a block buster movie)

I have to agree with the complexity thing, and i also have to admit i see quite a few posts that could be cool but make no much sense in current game mechanics and complexity.
For example a suggestion for a politics system, as well as it was presented and written, what good would inner politics will be when there is no outer politics (war, peace, sieges, etc) in this war game ?

Same thing for this post, it's more real that troops take time to get their bags sorted and ready to go, however :

• Why would troops take time to get ready to travel, when currently troops don't even have to sleep (force marche all the way)
• If they did take time, how would it effect the current gameplay ?? people would either press space outside town or go to sleep and waste money, wouldn't it add more annoyance than adding to the immersion ?
• Troops die in quite a fast rate, on my army the avarage lifespan is less than a week - why would anyone want to wait half a day for someone who dies so fast ?

I don't want to diss the ideas, this idea and most of the ideas on the forum are actually good, but i refer to how it works with the current game rather than the idea itself.

 

[DaLagga]

If they did take time, how would it effect the current gameplay ?? people would either press space outside town or go to sleep and waste money, wouldn't it add more annoyance than adding to the immersion ?

My thoughts exactly. This is another reason why suggestions made based on realism seldom add to gameplay, they just make the game more annoying, frustrating, or tedious. I've got an idea though. Fame has already been suggested, and i really like it. This "fame" rating could go to influence the hiring of troops as well. Here's my suggestion on how i think it should work. You go to a tavern to hire troops, but actual troop numbers should be hidden (it should not say "there are 23 peasants ready for hire"). What you would do is go to hire troops of a particular type, and the number of troops available for hire would depend on 3 things.
1. The population of the town you are hiring from (something to be added i hope).
2. Your fame level. The more famous you are the more troops that are going to be willing to risk their life for you.
3. The amount of gold you are willing to pay initially. I think that weekly wages should be set (or maybe even adjusted a bit which would influence morale...i'm getting a bit ahead of myself though), but you should be able to determine the amount you wish to pay for them to join initially. If a peasant is worth 18g upon hire, but i'm only willing to pay 10g, very few should actually want to join. Likewise, if i'm offering 100g initially, they should be flocking from the furthest corners of the city to join me.

So basically, rather than them costing more and taking time to "prepare for the journey", i think the amount which you can hire should be based on your fame, the cities population, and how much you are willing to pay initially. If you're a poor squire whom nobody has heard of, willing to pay the standard wage, very few people are probably going to be willing to risk their life for you. But, if you're a legendary knight hero, and you walk into a large city to recruit new soldiers, and offer to pay them 10 times what they're worth, you should probably have a couple hundred wanting to join your ranks. Thoughts?

 

[slavetrader]

nice idea, but how 'bout this. Add barracks to city, from there you could hire the troops you wan't, the tavern would basically just be for resting, stashing items, and maybe later for special characters to spend their time and livers (kinda like in Zendar now)

 

[Manitas]

This is another reason why suggestions made based on realism seldom add to gameplay, they just make the game more annoying, frustrating, or tedious.

As a true realism freak, I feel urged to defend it against such groundless accusations. (man, I hope this sentence is gramatically correct ) Realism vs gameplay - it's yet another 'thing that people say'.

First, the problem has nothing to do with realism, as both of the solutions being discussed are fairly realistic, The probability of an event that few men are waiting at a spot to hire them is non-zero, and also real life examples are known (well, loads of them).

The other solution (deay between the order and the shipment) that's filling you with disgust so much, has been implemented in x-com series mentioned before. Imagine it was released over ten years ago, but there are still many people playing it, remaking, modding, their forums are still populated.

You callin it unplayable? tedious? no way.

Where are the new eyecandy 'awesome spellcasting effects' blockbusters released like 6 months ago now? Most of them are already dead at arrival. They are as playable as a wooden plank - get it, play some, go get another.

 

[Jhaerik]

Well ya know, I think it would just a an unneeded waste of "space-bar" time. Honestly, if you want to wait for more guys, walk outside and hold space-bar. Guess what? More guys are ready to go with you. So actually a better version of what you are asking for is already in-game.

 

[svart]

nice idea, but how 'bout this. Add barracks to city, from there you could hire the troops you wan't, the tavern would basically just be for resting, stashing items, and maybe later for special characters to spend their time and livers (kinda like in Zendar now)

Ok i can't hold out anymore.
Great avatar.
Great sig.

Have you played uncharted waters 2 or port royale ?? i was thinking about recruiting people like it was there, that's why it makes sense to me.
It would make more sense to you if you would get into a tavern, hear music and see lotsa people sitting around the tables (unlike the my-beer-tastes-like-piss-so-nobody-comes-to-my-tavern ) drinking beer and sharpening their axes.
The funny part is in uncharted waters 2, you didn't really see the tavern, but there were pictures and sound effects that were blended so well, you thought you were actually there ...

I guess the suggestion is to "make troops recruitment more persuasive and less robotic", thow it will be done is up to the devs.

 

[Big J Money]

nice idea, but how 'bout this. Add barracks to city, from there you could hire the troops you wan't, the tavern would basically just be for resting, stashing items, and maybe later for special characters to spend their time and livers (kinda like in Zendar now)

Um...you really think it is realitic to hire peasants and farmers from a barracks? Heck, do you think it's realistic that the player can hire anyone from a barracks? We're talking about a military building. You don't hire soldiers away from their military barracks! To be honest, it makes perfect sense to me that "men-for-hire" would show up in a tavern. I see no reason to change that. As for requiring time to hire them...maybe I'm missing an important fact somehow. I thought they were already in the tavern hanging out. They just aren't graphically rendered in the scene.

=$= Big J Money =$=

 

[slavetrader]

hmm good point about the peasants Big J Money. so.. how about this then .
you could hire only peasants and townsmen etc. random non-faction units, from the tavern, but you couldn't get your hands on the barracks units untill you join the faction. this wouldn't have to mean that you can't get units from the other faction. Remember the DESERTERS, i think they left the army 'cos they were not interested for fighting the vaegir/swadian cause. so everytime you come across a deserterparty, you have a choice of fighting them OR making them an offer of joining your party. the deserters would have to have different kinds of units in them. lots of footmen etc. archers and few elite knights.

 

[svart]

But you already can't hire military men - when you go to a tavern you can only hire civilian units - peasants and militia. (vaegir footmen are militia imo).
Makes sense to me so far.

Now if you'll be able to hire higher level troops, i guess the tavern would be a bad place for them - a nice start for them would be on the counts castle, either by talking to the count (they have to follow the count's orders remember), or another NPC near him.

 

[Worbah]

IMO the type of troops you can hire should be based on your rank. You could only hire townsmen when you haven't joined a faction. This would mean that townsmen should be hireable anywhere.

 

[svart]

IMO the type of troops you can hire should be based on your rank. You could only hire townsmen when you haven't joined a faction. This would mean that townsmen should be hireable anywhere.

Naturally i thought that was taken for granted.
But you don't mean you couldn't hire swadians peasants/militia if you weren't swadian right ? afterall they are just civilians.