Companion revision 3 - retinue system.

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General information on the idea - currently it's still somewhat of a brainstorming thread! So feedback and ideas is welcome!

The new companion system is aimed to introduce more historical recruitment for the companions. Instead of collecting local alchoholics from taverns, the player will call upon his retinue from his fief. This will be only available if the player have a fief of his own.

The companions will not grow discontent, will not complain nor will they run away from a party and hit the local taverns again. They will no longer have any background story(which we did not have in a first place for majority of the characters, becouse noone was able to write them in two years time).

The player will still be able to equip, level up, specialise, promote to lords and do all other things with there companions with the bodyguard system.

You can recruit the companions based on the region you recruit them(where your fief is located). Current plan is to have 5 groups of companions:
1. Catholic (West Europe, Iberians, Crusaders)
2. Othordox(Rus, Byzantium)
3. Muslim(North Africa and alike)
4. Mongolian
5. Balts

These groups should have somewhat generic names and looks that should fit for whole region. Each group should consist of 6-9(10) characters. 6 of them you can recruit as a lord(a noble). They are your both un-noble retinue - knechts, men-at-arms and alike and a few noble. They will have a predesign skill set(while still being somewhat low level to allow customization for the player):
1. Engineer
2. Medic/priest
3. Trader
4. Pathfinder
5. Seargent
6. Squire
The other 3 you will be able to recruit as a King(ruler of a country). All of them will be noble knight types.

I'm not sure if the noble/un-noble thing will mean something other then the initial equipment. I do vaguely remember that there were some discontent if an unnoble lord was assigned with a fief. But dunno about all this yet.

I would also like some help with the names. Generic type of names should be selected. For example Catholic type of names could be:
John, Peter and other generic-popular-multicultural names fit for both England, German, Poland or any other Catholic nation.

Thoughts?
 
The other 3 you will be able to recruit as a King(ruler of a country). All of them will be noble knight types.

I would oppose to this on the grounds of realism, which means it was impossible to form your own kingdom in 1257 and be recognized> So I always play as a vassal which is more challenging IMHO. So all companions should be available as long as you have a castle (not just a fief).

How do you increase companion's renown while they're still your retinue?
 
JuJu70 said:
The other 3 you will be able to recruit as a King(ruler of a country). All of them will be noble knight types.

I would oppose to this on the grounds of realism, which means it was impossible to form your own kingdom in 1257 and be recognized> So I always play as a vassal which is more challenging IMHO. So all companions should be available as long as you have a castle (not just a fief).

How do you increase companion's renown while they're still your retinue?


IIRC (haven't played warband in a long time) you can also usurp a kingdom via a rebellion. Which isn't very unrealistic if you give your charakter a fitting background story.
 
DrTomas said:
The new companion system is aimed to introduce more historical recruitment for the companions. Instead of collecting local alchoholics from taverns, the player will call upon his retinue from his fief. This will be only available if the player have a fief of his own.

Does this mean it will be impossible to get companions at all when you're a mercenary?
 
Earende said:
Does this mean it will be impossible to get companions at all when you're a mercenary?
Yes. Time to grow up and pledge your alligence. :eek:

JuJu70 said:
The other 3 you will be able to recruit as a King(ruler of a country). All of them will be noble knight types.

I would oppose to this on the grounds of realism, which means it was impossible to form your own kingdom in 1257 and be recognized> So I always play as a vassal which is more challenging IMHO. So all companions should be available as long as you have a castle (not just a fief).

How do you increase companion's renown while they're still your retinue?
The idea is that you could get a few lords of your own and without getting rid of your retinue(I like the name more, lets change the system from bodyguard to retinue :eek: ).

Having your own kingdom is one of the 'major' feature of warband. At-least when it was released. So this is really up for the player to roleplay this to his own perversion. Besides it's not totally unrealistic either. Become a ruler of one of the Baltic tribes, go all goody-goody with Teutonics and negotiate a crown for yourself. And bam - you have a kingdom. That's what Lithuanian King Mindaugas did a few years before 1257 anyway :razz:
 
You can recruit the companions based on the region you recruit them(where your fief is located). Current plan is to have 5 groups of companions:
1. Catholic (West Europe, Iberians, Crusaders)
2. Othordox(Rus, Byzantium)
3. Muslim(North Africa and alike)
4. Mongolian
5. Balts
And how about the Northern-Europeans (or are they a part of the Catholics)
 
Having your own kingdom is one of the 'major' feature of warband. At-least when it was released. So this is really up for the player to roleplay this to his own perversion. Besides it's not totally unrealistic either.

it was totally unrealistic in Christian Europe. So really you shouldn't reward player for making unrealistic choices, if anything you should punish him
 
DrTomas said:
Earende said:
Does this mean it will be impossible to get companions at all when you're a mercenary?
Yes. Time to grow up and pledge your alligence. :eek:

JuJu70 said:
The other 3 you will be able to recruit as a King(ruler of a country). All of them will be noble knight types.

I would oppose to this on the grounds of realism, which means it was impossible to form your own kingdom in 1257 and be recognized> So I always play as a vassal which is more challenging IMHO. So all companions should be available as long as you have a castle (not just a fief).

How do you increase companion's renown while they're still your retinue?
The idea is that you could get a few lords of your own and without getting rid of your retinue(I like the name more, lets change the system from bodyguard to retinue :eek: ).

Having your own kingdom is one of the 'major' feature of warband. At-least when it was released. So this is really up for the player to roleplay this to his own perversion. Besides it's not totally unrealistic either. Become a ruler of one of the Baltic tribes, go all goody-goody with Teutonics and negotiate a crown for yourself. And bam - you have a kingdom. That's what Lithuanian King Mindaugas did a few years before 1257 anyway :razz:

Indeed, here are some other medieval examples:

There were still petty-Kings in Norway 200 years prior to the game start

The Victual Brothers made a safe-haven of their own in the Baltic (perhaps not unlike the Jomsvikings) - independent, with military force - the next step would have been straightforward had they not been disrupting a mostly stable situation at the time with clear-cut powerblocks already in place (i.e. The Kalmar Union)

Iceland had their own commonwealth after Norwegian nobles sought refuge

There were plenty of pretender Princes and Dukes in both Sweden and Norway in the medieval period, and some gained the throne for themselves - there were similar situations in the Scottish isles

Sure, all of these require you to be noble, more or less - but with 1257 I never played with any other social strata anyway.
 
I think your examples are terrible. Iceland  :roll:

Please give me an example when noble X rebelled against king Y and founded a new kingdom Z
 
JuJu70 said:
I think your examples are terrible. Iceland  :roll:

Please give me an example when noble X rebelled against king Y and founded a new kingdom Z
Alexius I Comnenus rebelled against Emperor Isaac II Angelos and founded the Empire of Trebizond.

I found this after 2 minutes of thinking and googling, i am pretty sure there will be much more examples.
 
I love your idea of the revised companions.

What about getting different companions from different settlements.
Villages can give you only "basic"(weak) companions; Towns: more trade oriented; Castles: more millitary oriented.

Also, what about allowing to recruit specialized officers from the "fortified manor" if certain criteria are met? Medic - if monastery is build and so on. That could allow for getting crusader companions as well :lol:

Dont know how easy to code it would be. Just a proposal...

Cheers
 
I don't know, I would still leave a few compagnions in the taverns to allow players to assemble their own little "band of brothers"... you know, some adventurers, cutthroats and criminals, who start raiding villages and attacking caravans to get richer, and one day, with their army of mercenaries, manage to conquer a fief and call out their own kingdom.

I mean: just think about the kingdom of Sicily. It was founded by Norman mercenaries! First they had only a few, independant fiefs, but they united and grew stronger, and finally southern Italy belonged to them!

This is why I think compagnions in taverns are okay. Perhaps make them weaker than the retinue compagnions.



Another thing I would like to recall into your minds is the idea of compagnions representing your bodyguards. You need bodyguards if someone tries to kill you, and this usually happens in battle, but also on several other occasions.

That's why I would like to see your retinue spawn with you if you get attacked by bandits in a fief, or get caught while sneaking into an enemy city (in this case the compagnions spawn with a disguise, too).

But as we are already talking about bodyguards: please think about implementing assassinations! You can buy everything from a few drunken brawlers to specialized hitmen, depending on how much you want to pay and if you are lucky to meet the right "gloomy man" in a tavern. And in Damascus you can even hire Hashashins!

If you pay them to attack a lord some time will pass, and the chances of success will be calculated by the target's fighting skills, the size of his army, his amount of fiefs and his position within his faction (lord < marshal < king), compared to the amount and quality of your assassins.

If they succeed, the lord gets knocked out and loses his army like after a lost battle. If they fail, nothing happens because of the fail itself. But completely unrelated to success or fail, your assassins can always get killed, caught or can escape. Success or fail just shifts the chances for either result. Every killed assassin has a certain chance of blowing your cover, so that the lord knows it was you who paid the assassins. You take a high relationship hit, and the whole affair can even provoke war! The more professional your assassins are, the lower the chances are a killed one will carry some evidence leading to you. An assassin being caughed alive has basically the same mechanics, with the little difference that chances are incredibly high that he will tell your name, before he dies.

In any case, no matter how many assassins came back from their assignment, they will claim the second part of the payment. Only if all of them get killed or caught you don't have to pay the full price.

Perhaps you can even implement the options to refuse to pay (assassins will target you after some time) or to get them killed (triggers the fight immediately).

Lords can and will pay assassins, too, as soon as you hit a certain negative relationship, I think -10 or -15 is already anough. You can be encountered by them at any daytime, at any place, even while camping. Make them really good and deadly fighters with different weapons, so that there will be a real challenge.

This would make a good retinue of capable compagnions really important, to not get knocked out and lose equipment, money, the army and time.

Of course the assassin system can be deactivted when starting a new game, for players who don't like the idea of losing everything while visiting the weaponsmith during daytime  :wink:
 
The Unknown said:
JuJu70 said:
I think your examples are terrible. Iceland  :roll:

Please give me an example when noble X rebelled against king Y and founded a new kingdom Z
Alexius I Comnenus rebelled against Emperor Isaac II Angelos and founded the Empire of Trebizond.

I found this after 2 minutes of thinking and googling, i am pretty sure there will be much more examples.

And again not a very good example, as it was in 1204 when we know what was happening with the Byzantine empire and incidentally the emperor couldn't really do much about it. Also not Christian Europe. Plus he of course was not just a noble but a member of a ruling emperor family, removed from power so his claim to rule was justified.
 
I would also prefer to have a system to promote certain soldiers to companions
 
JuJu70 said:
The Unknown said:
JuJu70 said:
I think your examples are terrible. Iceland  :roll:

Please give me an example when noble X rebelled against king Y and founded a new kingdom Z
Alexius I Comnenus rebelled against Emperor Isaac II Angelos and founded the Empire of Trebizond.

I found this after 2 minutes of thinking and googling, i am pretty sure there will be much more examples.

And again not a very good example, as it was in 1204 when we know what was happening with the Byzantine empire and incidentally the emperor couldn't really do much about it. Also not Christian Europe. Plus he of course was not just a noble but a member of a ruling emperor family, removed from power so his claim to rule was justified.


Seemed to be normal for the byzzis to declare their own Empire^^. In ~1180 Isaak Komnenos crowned himself Emporer of Cypress.

If you are strong enough to pull off a succesfull revolution you sure wouldn't have problems to fabricate some more or less "rightful claims" on some titles. Besides: It is the only mechanic to become a king. You can't get crowned one like the Bohemian King or other examples (Poland, Sweden) or invade like the Normans.

But the game handles it pretty good. You have to gain "right to rule" or noone will take you seriously, what was pretty common for new King titles (like Sweden). And "right to rule" is nothing as fabricating claims.
 
@ realism of forming a new kingdom-debate, my 2 cents:

beating 5.000 enemies to reach lvl 30 is unrealistic too, but i still do it (and enjoy it!).

if i can beat 5.000 enemies, or conquer france in one summer, why should i decline the honors of kingship?

i'm pretty sure these accomplishments outshine those of all other (real and fictional) nobles...



@ new companion system

i have to admit, the idea of nerfing companions uneases me a little bit.

i've got used to have 29 companions at my side, and i like spending a lot of time to accuire final gear for all of them.
this endeavour is rewarded with unique immortal versatile super-powerful cheap stylish soldiers at my disposal.

more importantly, they reflect my achievement of power. campanions are the thermometer of game-progression.

so, i would miss every single one of them.


my idea is to retain the possibility to aquire every one of them, but spread of the availability of companions across the duration of gameplay,
and to reward them to the player as a kind of achievment, when he has reached a certain point of gameplay:



1st companion available at game-start - to be found in taverns - some kind of old highschool friend.

2nd companion when signing a mercenary contract - some kind of sergeant.

a trader-companion, after reaching 50-100 relationship-points with a city.

a first-aid-companion, after winning 1000 tournaments.

a heraldry-companion, for good relations with foreign nations [...]

more companions when joining a faction.

more when accumulating more fiefs.

final companions when getting crowned. At this point the player has about 6-9 companions - mostly of one nationality, as suggested.


Then the player could abandon his kingdom, keep his companions, and form a new one on new territory-soil, just to get the other companions, until he finally unites all of them under his banner in the end-endgame.
 
beating 5.000 enemies to reach lvl 30 is unrealistic too, but i still do it (and enjoy it!).

if i can beat 5.000 enemies, or conquer france in one summer, why should i decline the honors of kingship?

This is not about you, it's about being recognized. You can capture your little castle and proclaim yourself a king but the truth is the European nobility will never ever recognize you for one thing you captured someone else's estate. You're an usurper. See what happened after the French revolution?

To the guy who keeps bringing up Byzantium. It's not Europe and it was an old style empire which was crumbling slowly since ~1050 or so. You could not create a new kingdom out of thin air, you could only revive maybe the old defunct one and of course you ran a huge risk of running into problems with people who have more reason to be rulers than you.  However there should be a way to usurp a title if you're supported by the nobles.

Regarding the companion system, I think it should also be scrapped and just replaced with the ability to promote certain soldiers to companion status (limited number, maybe 15-20). The only ones I would leave are docs/tradesmen/engineer.

Very limited number (6) is bad, you might as well completely remove them then.
 
JuJu70 said:
I would also prefer to have a system to promote certain soldiers to companions
I like this idea too.
skullmasher said:
i have to admit, the idea of nerfing companions uneases me a little bit.
i've got used to have 29 companions at my side, and i like spending a lot of time to accuire final gear for all of them.
this endeavour is rewarded with unique immortal versatile super-powerful cheap stylish soldiers at my disposal.
Same here, usually, my first actions in a game is to gather all my companions, and then, after, I really begin the game.
During this time, I train my character, do some trades & tournaments, etc... but this gathering take some time before I accept my first contract.

I like the idea to develop each companion with his specialities, medic/tactician, ranger/engineer, trader, etc.

I also like the idea of skullmasher to get some companions according to particular triggers, so :
- in the beginning of the game : get some standard companions, like old friends, and gather a clan, maybe one companion could be generated according to the character background.
- in the mid-game : get some companions by quests / triggers.
- in the late-game : get some companions by harder quests / triggers, get some lords as companions, etc.

Btw, if you implement this system, will you let the possibility for the player to keep the standard WB system, like the lance recruit system at the beginning ?
 
The main current reason why the current companions are getting scraped is because no one was able to do dialogues for them. So leaving some of them in taverns is out of the question.

Kelem said:
Btw, if you implement this system, will you let the possibility for the player to keep the standard WB system, like the lance recruit system at the beginning ?
No. I already spend too much time supporting the old recruitment system, while I could be coding in new features. In the end I still had to make the ai use the new lance recruitment system, even if the player himself plays with the old one.

Companions obtained via a quest at this time is not going to happen.

Jokers suggestion of companions tagging along everywhere is also valid and I'd like to see it done. Tho I'm not so sure about assassins.

The idea of getting different companions at different stage of the game is also interesting. Getting a few companions at the start of the game based on your background is a good idea.

I also see a problem with ~30 companions. That's why the limited amount is suggested.

I see some technical problems with promoting random troop into a companion. At-least doing it in a satisfactory way, then just for the sake of doing it.
 
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