I figured this is a question worth asking because it seems to me that TaleWorlds insists on having some units be actually bad, possibly to convey the message that some factions have more soldiers in their army than they have the resources to adequately train and equip them. In the context of singleplayer, that's perfectly fine but we're talking about an environment where two opposing forces are expected to have even headcounts for game balance purposes.
Yeah, I'm pretty much calling out the Imperial Recruit at this point, but still. I wonder if being in command of a singular AI companion would be a good way to balance certain unit types where their inadequacy is an intentional design decision. Perhaps a non-captain version of Reinforcements could have the following:
-AI Companion will wear clothes that you actually can't wear yourself on the Armory screen. This will help differentiate the AI companion from their player-controlled leader
-AI Companion will unconditionally have items independent of the perk opposite from the Reinforcement perk (i.e: if Reinforcements is on Perk 2, it will be equipped with a weapon that won't be modified by Perk 1)
-Companion will have a passive -20% damage penalty with melee weapons/-30% with ranged until controlled by the player. Even if certain units are intended to be weak from the get go, it might still be important to rein in the damage output of AI-controlled units so as to keep the leader/companion duo on par with other units
-(TDM only) Killing a player with the Reinforcements perk will only net 10 points for your team. To get the full 20, you must kill both the leader and companion.
EDIT: I know this will probably end with some weird situations where some players will have decimal points in their kill/death count (i.e: having 1.5 deaths because you survived the previous skirmish round as a unit with Reinforcements)
Yeah, I'm pretty much calling out the Imperial Recruit at this point, but still. I wonder if being in command of a singular AI companion would be a good way to balance certain unit types where their inadequacy is an intentional design decision. Perhaps a non-captain version of Reinforcements could have the following:
-AI Companion will wear clothes that you actually can't wear yourself on the Armory screen. This will help differentiate the AI companion from their player-controlled leader
-AI Companion will unconditionally have items independent of the perk opposite from the Reinforcement perk (i.e: if Reinforcements is on Perk 2, it will be equipped with a weapon that won't be modified by Perk 1)
-Companion will have a passive -20% damage penalty with melee weapons/-30% with ranged until controlled by the player. Even if certain units are intended to be weak from the get go, it might still be important to rein in the damage output of AI-controlled units so as to keep the leader/companion duo on par with other units
-(TDM only) Killing a player with the Reinforcements perk will only net 10 points for your team. To get the full 20, you must kill both the leader and companion.
EDIT: I know this will probably end with some weird situations where some players will have decimal points in their kill/death count (i.e: having 1.5 deaths because you survived the previous skirmish round as a unit with Reinforcements)
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