Be a follower

[fak]

In the current version you can't really join a force (doesn't mean joining the factions while the lords don't assign you to a group.) but end up being the leader. I hope in further versions we can join forces ,e.g. being a member of a warparty, or join the manhunters to hunt slaves. In those situations computer takes the leading role. Slowly, with decent leading skills and high ranks (or big bucks), you will be assigned a group of soldiers under your command by the king (or start being a mercenary leader and build your force).
Of course you can be a leader at the very beginning of the game, if you already have leading skills and denars.

 

[Acanthoid]

Got to agree on this. Nothing bugs me more than when i meet a vaegir war party of 80 fighting a swadian war party of 100 and i join the fight as a swadian..

And suddenly the fight starts over (like, they were allready fighting there when i joined but now we charge all over again...) and because of my crappy tactics the first battle is like my party of 10 against 30 vaegirs... and im the one supposed to lead... I really think the war party of 100 would have a better leader..

So my suggestion is that war parties and other groups meant for battling (no farmers and such) should have a leader of their own. And if you join a fight with one of them at your side you will/can only command the troops you own. And the big war party would have it's own leader. (Though you would hear what the leader orders his troops to do so you dont get slaughtered charging alone )

I would give thousands of denars to be only a footman.

 

[McPa]

Great ideas, maybe tactics could be used for something else instead of the balance of numbers on a battle, like was suggested before, battlefield position and troops commanding, etc..

 

[Homie]

Did you mean join a force for one battle? Or join a force for many days. Because I doubt most of us want to join someone elses army for days and follow them around and fight who they chose to fight. But if you meant just for 1 battle, I agree.

 

[Kelpo]

For storytelling purposes it might be nice to be able to be assigned to a party and fight a battle or two with them. I suppose it couldn't be too hard to arrange either, but then again, what do I know about anything.

 

[fak]

Did you mean join a force for one battle? Or join a force for many days. Because I doubt most of us want to join someone elses army for days and follow them around and fight who they chose to fight. But if you meant just for 1 battle, I agree.

I mean being a member of parties, and follow orders instead of bossing around. In current versions we must leave a few skill points for leading and training skills, spend our hard-earned denars for hiring peasants, and wait for the remainers to be available for upgrades.
Being a follower allows you to focus solely on combat skills, and develop a "hired blade" path. Or you can use this feature as a shelter, so that you can gather denars and exprience in a safer way until you are good enough to start building your own army.

 

[svart]

Maybe it will be better handled once we got enemy's heroes (unique npc's) or captains (captains are just non-unique troop slightly better though).

Also i agree that when you join a fight it would be cool if the people would already be fighting (could be done by placing troops randomally in the middle of the map), and also no control what so ever on the troops which are already fighting.

 

[Sword sister]

Yeah, but as a footman, you have no say in where the party goes. . . And that's a fairly major part of the game, really.

What I thought you meant when I first read your post is that one ought to be able to join a faction and rise through the ranks. . . like, you know, becoming a duke of Swadia or whatever.

Ah, but lots of people have gone there, so I disgress.

 

[Vitas]

Well, perhaps it would be cool to enable something like a misson system where you would be assigned to a group which has some objective and will not be a leader... and perhaps after earning a couple of promotions and levels you could be assigned as a commander to some group...or command part of the group (like the commander of the cavalry)... or not, because it will get too complicated