Challenge Rating for parties

[Maelstorm]

Searching didnt give me anything so here i go:

You know in the map screen every party shows up a number of its population, and guys with higher number (or higher courage) go for the lower numbers or run away from highers.

I think this is kind of crappy. Becouse, say, I command an army of 5 Swadian Knights and the enemy is 11 river pirates. They should think twice before attacking me. Well, yes, courage helps in this (i think).

I think, that each unit should have a multiplier. A peasant may have 0.5 while a knight may have 4. I just made the numbers up. So a group of 8 peasants would have the score of 4, same as a single knight. (Again, the numbers are made up) There may also be conditional modifiers, like every 4 units of same type adds... additional points to challenge rating (think of those 8 crappy peasants stun locking the knight). And your chara level maybe added to this sum with a certain multiplier as well (maybe it can be like between levels 1-5, 0 points, 6-10 1 points, 10-20 2 points etc... just made up.. again).

This would have these effects:

A group of 10 knights would show a higher challenge rating than a group of a few peasants, which would effect map-screen attacks/run aways.

In caravan escort missions, a group of 10 peasants would not be enough for a mission of 10 protection level while a group of less than 10 knights would be ok.

In map screen, currently we see "Swadian War Party (51) Swadian Crossbowman 14 Swadian Knight 10.. blabla". So you know exactly what you are against. Instead of this we could see "Swadian War Party (51)". Just this, so you dont exactly know who is there, which makes, imho, more sense. In addition, tracking would be more useful. It could show a percentage at higher levels (maybe it does now too, i never got it higher than 3 or 4) like "50-60 people. %40 cavalry %60 infantry" or even more details later like melee infantry or so.


Maybe there would be other consequences as well, but this is what i thought right now. So, what do you think?

 

[Ingolifs]

At first I thought this idea was crap, because you were assigning some numerical value on the toughness of enemies which may or may not be equivalent to how tough they are, but then i read through and it's actually a pretty good idea, because it's a different idea to the one i originally thought you posted.

Summing the above paragraph in 2 words: I agree.

AI need to have some some way of gauging when to fight and when to fly ,based not only on number of enemies, but also the quality of enemies.
The relationship factor should also play a part. A relationship of -100 with vaegirs might mean that caravans and prisoner trains, although much larger than your party, should run from you, whereas patrols and war parties will hunt you down with a vengeance.

 

[Destichado]

VERY good idea. Bene!

 

[allthesedamnnamesaretaken]

why not just use their combined player levels as the threat level of the party?

so, for example, 3 level 7 river priates (threat level 21) won't attack 1 level 22 swadian knight, but 4 river pirates (threat level 22) will attack the knight

but perhaps it doesn't need to be so rigid. you can make a party attack another party within say 15% of their own threat level

 

[Big J Money]

I'm sure armagan already to intended to add this at some point. It is only logical. NES titles were able to handle these kinds of things.

=$= Big J Money =$=

 

[Maelstorm]

Unless the NPC stats are reconsidered, levels may not be useful in this imho. A score depending on practical usefulness would be better. Both a second-upgrade melee infantry/melee mounted/ranged infantry may be same level but melee infantry would be rather less challenging, that is what i mean.