Companion revision 3 - retinue system.

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alekskoles said:
DrTomas said:
There was some complications, so I reverted back to the original plan.
5 cultures. 6 companions per each. In the future I might change a few things in all this and expand the companion more.
What will be if I collect companions from one culture, then leave the king and join to another culture? Will the companions desert? Will I be able to get another?

Mechanism works like this:
1. First time you invite companions into your fief/for a hunt of any of the cultures they will get there equipment assigned(via scripts. Tier1 noble unit equipment).
2. If you recruit them and later disband them or loose them after a battle - they will go back to there culture fiefs, which you can invite and recruit them again(As long as there are not on a mission, is a prisioner, ect).
3. Now if you recruit companions of one culture, then loose that cultures fief - companions will not leave your party. However they will be recruited again only from that culture fief, if you ever loose them.
4. There are no restricions to companions, other that they are regional. Have a fief in all the diffrent cultures and you will be able to recruit all of them.

Also I'll add later there introduction text with explanation of there proffesion. So you know which type of character you are recruiting. :smile:

sifis172 - Companions will never appear in taverns. Never. So the messenger thing is now a scamp to get your money from you :razz: I'll disable it.
 
DrTomas said:
Have a fief in all the diffrent cultures and you will be able to recruit all of them.
In this case is there any conflicts between different culture, daily reducing morale of my group, same like cristians and muslims?
 
DrTomas said:
Have a fief in all the diffrent cultures and you will be able to recruit all of them.
It looks like that new companions system has a minor deficiency, that seriously will affect the gameplay.
Here is a simple way to collect all 30 companions in the begin of the game - just migrate from king to king in all 5 cultures. Off course gamers will use this way afirst.
Then everybody will avoid to be prisoned - save/load will help, to save the companions in the group. Also feature with the castle building will be lost (as I understand it can be build only in the first village given by first king) And You promised to add more companions... If You again allow to collect them all in one group - the players will not need to recruit any additional lances.
And one more thing. It is unpossible now to import my companions from previous versions. Some players remain in v85 from this reason.
 
You see, in one of my earlier games I tweaked the mod to put all companions into the tavern of Krakow, I tweaked them with Morgh's Editor to be lvl. 50, increased ps and pd to go up to 15, gave them ps of 15 and pd of 15 and 450 proficiency in every weapon category, tweaked some unused weapons to deal supernatural damage and the {!}heraldic mail to give 50/150/50 protection, the custom barded horse got 100 armour and 200 hitpoints and a speed/maneuver of 50, then handed all the stuff to the companions via the editor and then started the game. Was a fun game for around 2 ingame weeks then it got boring - with me and 29 companions I could defend cities against a couple of thousand enemies or destroy armies on the field that had around 300 men or even more, they slaughtered knights & lords like they were unarmed and unarmored peasants. And that's the case why I don't go around and cheat myself to temporary happiness, which never will last long. And I think most of the players won't cheat because of the before mentioned reason - it get's boring pretty fast. Key message is - if you want to cheat, you'll find a way to do so, no matter what.

Concerning your import/export thing:
just export your current companions, then ALT+Tab out of the game and edit them with any txt-editor (they can be found under C: documents->mount and blade warband-> characters), give them the same values as your companions used to have in rev85 (you can even cut an paste the skills from the old ones to the new ones), save, go back to your game, import them - et voilà here are your old companions again, just with new faces and names. Takes about 5-10 minutes time for 6 companions.
 
oroboros said:
And that's the case why I don't go around and cheat myself to temporary happiness, which never will last long. And I think most of the players won't cheat because of the before mentioned reason - it get's boring pretty fast.
You right 100%. But if the game gives the legal way to collect all 30 companions in one group, suppose a many,many players will do it. Even more they will think that it is the one of the main purpose of game.
The idea of my post was to make this way impossible. For example the companions will leave the group if you change the culture. And if you get the fief in another culture you can employ the new companions, but in this case previous peoples will say goodbye to you. This cases only one culture companions will be in your group.

Regarding importing and manual updating txt file. This will be cheating and I don't like it at all, from the same reason that you wrote.
 
alekskoles said:
You right 100%. But if the game gives the legal way to collect all 30 companions in one group, suppose a many,many players will do it. Even more they will think that it is the one of the main purpose of game.
The idea of my post was to make this way impossible. For example the companions will leave the group if you change the culture. And if you get the fief in another culture you can employ the new companions, but in this case previous peoples will say goodbye to you. This cases only one culture companions will be in your group.

Ok, now I get your point and I have to agree. But on the other side you have to take into consideration that in all other mods where there are a lot less than ~30 factions, and you'll never see an army of 5,000 men besieging your fiefs in later games like in 1257ad, you are still able to have 10-11 companions along your side, even with complaints on. I will only use the appropriate 6 of them, as I only need them for their skills but I can understand people who would like to have all of them assembled. Maybe that's the reason why DrTomas let this possibility open to decide for the player himself.


[quote author=alekskoles]
Regarding importing and manual updating txt file. This will be cheating and I don't like it at all, from the same reason that you wrote.
[/quote]

You don't cheat more than you did in earlier versions, with exporting/importing your existing chars. Your former companions are just re-incarnating with their skills into new bodies and names. But I don't do it either, the import/export thing, as they level up fast enough in this mod.
 
oroboros said:
but I can understand people who would like to have all of them assembled.
I can offer the way:
Usually You can have only 6 companions of your faction culture. But if You recognized as a king by the other culture faction you will be able to recruit their companions too. Recognized by all 5 culture and you can collect all 30. How is this idea?
 
alekskoles said:
I can offer the way:
Usually You can have only 6 companions of your faction culture. But if You recognized as a king by the other culture faction you will be able to recruit their companions too. Recognized by all 5 culture and you can collect all 30. How is this idea?

Hm, this sounds not bad on the first look but you have to think about that 1 culture doesn't mean 1 king, it's more like 5 kings equals 1 culture, you would then have to pick a random king as a kind of representative for 1 particular culture, that might work. But there's always a but :smile: - even with a renown of more than 5,000, an honour of ~350 and right to rule of 99, 25 lords, owning ~ 1/3 of the whole map, no controvery - not even 1 other monarch did recognize me as a rightful king. Don't know what Taleworlds thought about when they implemented this system. Concerning my example above, it's almost like for instance if the president of France would have repeatedly refused, over a period of several years, to recognize Leonid Breshnew as the rightful ruler of the Soviet Union during the times of the cold war - it's simply ridiculous.

I think the system is good as it is, because in order to gather all companions from all cultures you have to pee onto the boots of several monarchs, at least 4, which gives you quite a negative relation with them and your ability to build your own castle/fortified manor will be at least postponed or you'll optically loose it to another culture. I think this is enough difficulties for gathering all the companions as they are not really that good from the start, something like 110 and ps of 2 was the best I saw, every tier II soldier is a bane for them. Just 1 regular mercenary with 270 proficiency in his main weapon and a ps of 6 will slaughter ~5-6 of them all on his own before going down, 1 knight probably would take on all 30 of them all alone. Of course they have the potential of becoming beasts, but if you think at some time that they are really, really good, go to Rome and let them fight a tournament against the Pope, he'll show you how good your companions are  :grin:
 
oroboros said:
not even 1 other monarch did recognize me as a rightful king.
You have to do what they request from you, start the war against their enemy and soon some of the kings will recognize you.
oroboros said:
I think this is enough difficulties for gathering all the companions
It is very easy. On the russian forum one man already reported 25 companions collection.
Just earn 200 of renown, say hello to any king, employ the companions, then say goodbye and go to other culture x 5 times.
oroboros said:
Of course they have the potential of becoming beasts
It is the reason of above
 
alekskoles said:
You have to do what they request from you, start the war against their enemy and soon some of the kings will recognize you.

I tried over a period of several ingame years, while being at war with their enemies, their friends, their neutrals - nothing! I had other games where several monarchs would recognized me where I was at peace with everyone and didn't have the values posted above by far.


[quote author=alekskoles]
It is very easy. On the russian forum one man already reported 25 companions collection.
Just earn 200 of renown, say hello to any king, employ the companions, then say goodbye and go to other culture x 5 times.
[/quote]

Sorry, I meant to say penalties, would have been better fitting. Still it is much harder to gather them all then it used to be in the earlier versions where you could gather all of them withouth the slightest penalty/difficulty. And if you have them all, you still have to save/reload every time you loose a battle which means that you are quite invincible, you never have the risk of loosing anything because you'll reload after loosing a battle anyway. This would take quite some competition and fun out of the game in my opinion. I remember one game, where I lost my first battle after 2 ingame years, man was I upset and man was I angry, all the high tier units gone including my companions. But what a fun to try to work along without the companions, gathering a whole new army and train them over a long and weary period of time, getting renown in order to find the rest of the companions again, etc.

I think something like a locking mechanism would be good, preventing to reload after loosing a battle and only allowing to load from the first save onwards after the lost battle :grin:

Finally, I think we both disagree on the new system which I like very much whereas you find it still too easy to get all companions. In fact I don't know of any other mod where the companion system/gathering has been substantially restricted like in this one. Some other mods have a certain player lvl/renown/honour restriction in them with certain companions which still is far easier to overcome than this one. For me it's cheating to reload after a lost battle, to be honest a far worse cheat than importing/exporting chars or editing them to lvl 50 because you can even loose a battle with 30 lvl 50 companions. And it takes the fun out of the game because if I've done it once, the reload thing, what should prevent me to reload again and again and if I would use the method you mentioned I would have to reload again and again, there's simply no fun and satisfaction in it, at least for me.

Let's agree to disagree but maybe you can convince DrT. Good luck on this one  :wink:
 
I just had an idea :!: which is something quite rare.

For me playing as a merc is quite fun, for 2 reasons.
The first one is because i like to travel a lot and see the world.
The second one and the most basic, is because i can't pick a culture
faction because of my low IQ( too much possibilities to calculate) and
indessisiveness.
So i find myself as a merc for a couple of years.

But with the new system it's quitte difficult to be a merc because of the
lack of companions.So i'd say that you could hire only three chars
of relatively high level, the first could be a tracker.The second a looter,
and trader.And the third a medic-doctor.
To counter-act the later stages of the gameplay where you become a lord,
these companions would have to say goodbye to you because they were not meant
for a life of royalty.
Please don't be too harsh on the idea as i have ideas only ones or twice per year.
 
sifis172 said:
But with the new system it's quitte difficult to be a merc because of the
lack of companions.
A many people from russian forum said almost the same idea. Should be some common companions available for peoples who love the freedom and fight as merc against different cultures.
Many players likes to participate in war against mobile mongoles, then against heavy european knights, after play with arabic troops and then survive under shower from javelins wich equipped bultic troops. Only free stile gives such pleasure. Now we have to do it alone or ruine our gamepley with oath break.
Think both systems to be mixed.
In tavernes common 6 companions, low level, but with good stats to grow with:
1. Tracker, Path finder
2. Spotter
3. First aid
4. Surgeon
5. Wound Treater
6. Looter, Trader
Then when you will get the village:
7. Engineer
When you get a castle:
8. Trainer, tactics
And if you get the city:
9. Inventory Manager (better to make it party skill)
10. Prisoners manager (better to make it party skill)
When you will grow to king:
11 and 12 Heavy knight with skills like a lords have.
And if you recognized as a king by any faction from another culture you can get same like 11 and 12 from their culture.
So totally will be 6 companions in free style, then 10 untill you create your own kingdom, then 12 and if you get luck with your crown recognizing from other 4 cultures - finally 20.
DrTomas we pray to you, take it to your kind consideration
 
Now this sounds very good, having a couple of 'independent companions' just for the skills, so that life as a mercenary doesn't get a pain in the ass would be a very nice addition and if you later pledge asylum or membership to some faction then you would get the culture specific 6 companions appropriate for the particular culture. Nice idea, haven't even thought about the whole merc thing now being a little bit underpowered in terms of companions and party skills.
 
i was going to do some changes when(if) we implant WSE into the mod. But ok, I can do some changes: Current companions will then become ass liking commoners +~4 noble like companions. Or... someting along those lines, I'll think about how exactly to approach this.

Oh and I'll make it impossible to collect diffrent culture companions. First nobles you invite - you stick with them.
 
This new companion system don't have option to send a companion into right to rule boost mission.  :cry: The main source of right to rule is off, so there is no efficient way to gather higher amount of rtr. Is it possible to bring that option back? And, if I may suggest, is it possible to, somehow, raise amount of rtr per companion? 6 companions I recruited so far could bring (theoretically) only 18 rtr points, which is next to nothing.  :???:

Some more observations:

Although companions have a new names, in battle reports (during the battle, kills and losses summary after the battle and tournament participants list) they have old names like Imek, Martio...

In taverns, in dialogs with tavern keeper, the "Is there someone who would join my party?" option is still present. So, I tried to recruit some companions using this option. Tavern keeper took my money, sent a messenger, messenger delivered my invitation, but no one came. I WANT MY MONEY BACK!!!  :evil:
 
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