cultural recruitment

[nox]

How many people miss the cultural recruitment from earlier titles?  I don't want to get heavily into the meta-discussions of supposed historical accuracy as much as I'm interested in how people choose to play the game.

Without tilting the argument one way or another, I don't really love running to the merc camp per se. 

If you remember, the way to really be able to raise a lot of troops in Warband was to get very high relations with a village and then recruit 20+ men at a time from several villages.  You ended up having to train them up, but that was part of the game.

I don't know if this title has improved that experience with the mercenary camps, and I need other opinions.

 

[AWdeV]

I gotta say I don't have the game (yet) but I imagine a combination of old style cultural recruiting and the newer mercenaries could be very nice.

 

[Catholic]

The new mercenary system is great, in my opinion, but I do miss the old style.
I would recommend having a mix of both, while keeping the mercenary camps, the villages being back in one way or another would be nice.

 

[nox]

Here's another point.

I never quite got why you would recruit some dirtbag peasant from a squalid hovel and then teach him the art of war and he'd end up being a swadian sharpshooter. 

Swadian or not, a swineherd is a swineherd.  If I take one Swadian and one Vaegir and teach them both to swing a sword, they should both become swordsmen...  or should they?

And which if any troops should have their morale affected by the player's reputation with their nation?  Obviously if I am recruiting prisoners from my captives it should benefit me if those prisoners are military and I have a very high relation to their nation, right?

I guess there should be a few classes of troops when considering this stuff  -  we have
1) Regular military
2) Landwehr (is that the right term?), irregulars, conscripts and volunteers. 
3) Mercenaries

I'm just thinking out loud here and brainstorming.  I'm looking for ideas and I don't really have anything cut in stone yet.

 

[Cerlin]

I like the mercenary system in With Fire and Sword, it adds the well trained, expensive, specialist to the mix much more so than just tavern mercenaries. 

I do think your three levels of Regular Army, irregulars, and mercenaries reflects the current system.  I would like to see more cultural recruitment however.  In the current state, there are many regular and mercenary options, and then 4 basically similar sets of cultural troops (aside from the Crimeans.)  If they could have perhaps one more level each, for example add the level experienced and then a veteran peasant would have armor and slightly better stats.  This would reflect the reality that you could give peasants weapons and armor but they would never be regular soldiers.  This could also fill roles where one was lacking and give the early game player an alternative to expensive mercenaries.  For example, if we could recruit peasants with a nation that we had positive standing with, say Sweden.  Then we could upgrade them to the third level, you would have very decent musket and pikemen that did not cost too much to make or replace but by no means would be super troops.  They would be great as city militia later in the game too.  No one can tell me that somewhat well to do city folk could not afford a basic breastplate at this time. 

I totally agree that the idea of having a farmer turn into a super warrior when nourished was somewhat silly.  While it did happen, it was the exception and not the rule. 

 

[lotsofpaper]

Vaegers... they make sense. If using a bow is a requirement to live a good life there, the best units you have will become amazing archers. same with horse riders for the kergits. Never quite understood creating "skilled" crossbowmen...


I like the merc camps for one thing: Hiring mass amounts of fodder before a huge battle. Hire enough low end troops and stache them in your city, and your tactics skill will ensure that the enemy must charge in with 5-10 men at a time... easy killing if you got marksmen troops and you have 100 at the top of a castle.

I think there is a severe lack of being able to hire troops that aren't mercs... At the very least, raise the number of troops trained by the officers, or give an option to draft peasants and upgrade them to basic troops. That sounds fair to me... very cheap, large quantities, but they will require some significant training before they're ok to use... we're talking lvl 1 troops that are barely on par with looters here.

The way it works right now.. I get 10% of my troops through the 3 day waiting period of training them at castles... and 10% through prisoner conversion... and 80% through rescuing prisoners from large armies of rebels.

 

[nox]

Honestly the tactics/numbers battle results is pretty askew.  That needs to be looked into.

I'm down with increasing the available units in your castle.  It's pretty much on the useless end right now.

I don't know what culture those units should be.  Need to give that some thought.

 

[Cerlin]

if we could recruit x2 or x3 more regular nation troops in cities I think that would help people use them more.  I try to use national troops, but sometimes I can spend a lot of in game time collecting armies while my enemies auto-spawn armies that take my cities. 

 

[wannyboy]

Could you maybe raise amount of militia that can be recruited at together? From 5 to 20 or something like that. Would make garrisonning a lot more easy. Or maybe being able to appoint someone who will recruit 5 melee and 5 ranged militia to your garrison each day, for a slightly higher price than. Normal

 

[Cerlin]

Could you maybe raise amount of militia that can be recruited at together? From 5 to 20 or something like that. Would make garrisonning a lot more easy. Or maybe being able to appoint someone who will recruit 5 melee and 5 ranged militia to your garrison each day, for a slightly higher price than. Normal

This sounds like a good idea! It would mean your cities had a somewhat scary garrison.  If it worked for PC lords too to a limit of like 100 extra troops with the same trainer that would be nice too. 

 

[Tahadar]

You take a shepped from his sheeps and give him a stick. You teach him how to parry and how to hit.(We all done that, we had that mission to train villagers in both MB and MB:WB).

Now he's a recruit. Give him a sword and a shield, will become swordman. Give him a bow - archer.
But you are training the guy. He is going to learn what you teach. If you teach him to dodge and move fast, he will need leather armor and light sword. If you teach him to block the blows, he will need plate armor, a heavy shield and a broadsword. Or an axe.

My point is... the trainer, not the origin should matter in a future soldier development. Of course, you can't make a 2h sword fighter from a weakling, but you are suppose to chose people when you recruit them in a village.

What I really miss is the development tree of the troops. Combine that with the option we have now to pick the equipment... and something really cool will happen.

 

[BigBiker05]

The other night when I was playing a Warband -> floris expanded marathon (and also tabbing out every now and then to read the forums) I got an idea of what I thought would be awesome. Combine both leveling systems.

For example using Swadians:

Spoiler

You go to a village and you recruit a Swadian Recruit. As this recruit gains levels he becomes Swadian Recruit (experienced/veteran/etc). This is for free when he levels. This will only increase his stats, this will not change his gear/weapons/etc.

Now you can go to towns or garrisons or something and pay to increase their gear. So for X denars that Swadian Recruit becomes  Swadian Militia. This Swadian Militia has better gear/weapons/etc.

It would probably need to do some testing to decide prices, balancing, leveling. Would a Swadian recruit (experienced) become a Swadian Militia (experienced)? Or maybe there could be some design factors here too. Like the stats carry over, so a Swadian Recruit (rookie) and a Swadian Recruit (veteran) will each become different stated Swadian Militia.

This will make godly armies for someone who takes the time to level each unit up before upgrading them into a stronger unit. Or if you pay money right away you can get that strong geared weak stated army quick. etc etc

 

[Wheem]

I think allowing some cultural recruitment for non-faction players could make sense. The various Scottish soldiers, for instance, are basically mercenaries anyway, are they not? So they might be willing to join the player's company if the pay was right, whereas Swedish Reiters may not.

Village recruitment is probably fine for non-faction players as well, since it seems reasonable that some peasants would be willing to trade a life of subsistence agriculture and grinding poverty for that of a mercenary. As you say, though, villagers probably shouldn't be training up to knights (or winged hussars, etc...) This isn't a problem in WFaS, but if there are going to be some changes made to Warband's system, I think it'd be quite nice to have village troops end in some sort of militia, with the men-at-arms and knights and such only being available from castles or towns.

Since other people have mentioned the numbers of soldiers you can recruit at a time, I'll add my opinion: I think it'd be good to have increased numbers of low/mid end troops available (militias especially), but I'm not sure if the elites should be increased much, if any. It would probably be bad for game balance if one could build a massive army of top end soldiers almost instantly (while one can do that with the mercenary camps now, I think economy balance will probably fix that "problem").

 

[lotsofpaper]

The "farmer" unit in warband upgraded to "town watch" unit... I thought that was pretty darn awesome.

 

[original]

Cultural recruitment
I like the idea of being able to hire troops from another faction, if you have their village or city. But I'm ok if this never gets implemented.

Regular military, Landwehr, and mercenaries
I like the current recruit system, where villagers can only train to militia level, and high level troops can only be trained from fortresses and towns. It makes perfect sense that a lowly villager cannot become a terror knight.

The regular military, Landwehr, and mercenaries system works fine.

Amount recruited
I think people have already echoed this problem. People deliberate pick mercenary camps over other sources because mercenary camps allow you to recruit a lot at a time.

As stated, the simple solution would be to increase the amount you can recruit from towns and fortresses.

In previous M&B games, the relation you have with the village will increase the number of recruits, and also the quality.
In F&S you can continue that, so the higher the relation with the village/fortress/town, the more you can recruit.

You can even further increase the amount you can recruit by using the Leadership skill (more people want to follow a leader), or faction relation (more people want to follow someone who helps their nation).

Ranks
I think all troops should go all the way to elite rank. I don't understand why only mercenaries from camps can reach elite.

Mercenaries from taverns cannot level at all. I think they should be able to go to veteran rank as well.

A crazy idea would be that the Trainer skill can only level troops to veteran rank.
Troops can only reach elite rank by getting experience from combat. That would make the elite rank more special.

That way even village militia should be able to reach elite rank, because if your villager army can beat a well trained army to level, that means they are skilled and they deserve the higher rank. At that point they are no longer just a bunch of villagers, they are well-trained assassins if they can beat a Lord's army.

Making elite rank only reachable through combat experience sounds like a good idea, that encourages the player to keep fighting.

Customizable gear
This sounds really hard to code, but I think there should be an option to customize the gear of all troops, instead of just mercenaries from camps.

Village militia should rightfully have low stats compared to better trained troops from the city. But if I want to give them really powerful gear (provided they have the stats to equip them), I should have the choice to.

The initial cost to replace equipment should be high, but the wages shouldn't increase, because I have already paid for the equipment. When I pay wages, I am paying for their skills, which is low.

Morale
I like the idea that mercenaries are cheap, but they have low morale compared to city officers and are more likely to rout.

The higher the rank, the less likely they will rout. But mercenaries should be relatively easier to rout compared to regular troops.

I liked that in Warband, if your army consists of units from a faction you are at war with, the morale would be lower.

Other
I have a crazy idea where a specific type of troop will cost little to no upkeep.

I think it was in Medieval 2: Total War. Town militia when put in towns, would cost no upkeep. They are not that skilled, but they help you save costs.

This will add new strategy to the game, where instead of everyone using Winged Huskars, people can opt for strength in numbers at little or no cost.

Problem
I encountered a slight problem at the start of the game. I could only recruit mercenaries from taverns and camps before I joined a faction. Mercenaries from taverns cannot level, and mercenaries from camps are very expensive. It gave me an uneasy feeling that I only have a mediocre army with high wages.
So there are limited choices for someone who doesn't want to join a faction yet.

I think you should be able to recruit villagers straight away. I don't think it will be a problem, because village militia are not that powerful anyway.

But there needs to be some option for a mercenary player to have a powerful army. Allowing the player to customize the equipment of village militia should be a reasonable option.

 

[wannyboy]

I would suggest remaking the troops, 1 villager line like in warband who overall lower equipment and 1 professional bunch who can be recruited from a town just it is in wfas. The town troops would be more expensive but come with good armor and start at a high level. The villagers are more easy to mass and they only become medium tier troops but you should be able to survive with a villager only army

 

[nox]

Maybe if the army-having entity owns a walled center they can do something to encourage recruitment, and bands of villagers will travel to the walled center to become recruits for the player to draw from.

That serves several obvious purposes -
1) Encourages the player to keep the local villages in good stead, protect their harvests and bring them food if they lack

2) sensible lateral migration from recruiting from individual villages to a centralized system, can use the same numbers

3) could work as the basis for NPC recruitment as well, which would normalize army growth and provide a further method for the player to commit economic warfare.  That means if you had 4 NPC lords in the same tower, they are going to split recruitment of whatever # of recruits are available.

4) these would be bandit / warfare targets and thus have to be somewhat cared for.

5) the amount of 'attractiveness' for recruitment rate would depend on several factors, such as how much the player invested in recruitment (?), and who the player had acting in that role (? assuming I allow the player to assign NPCs to things)

6) this could also orthogonally work for other factions as well.  it could be possible for the player to unlock attracting deserters and bandits through the same system.  (deserters only if the player was at war / had low faction with the deserters original faction? )

These are just ideas, again.  I'm looking for feedback, not approval =)

 

[lotsofpaper]

Instead of having to assign NPCs to recruitment, which would be terrible later on as there would be too many castles and not enough NPCs, how about having a generic for each castle?

For a set investment to begin with, like we do for the commanders, and a small periodical fee, like we pay for commanders, the recruitment would be slightly enhanced. You could have several tiers of commanders available to encourage recruitment, so if a player is financially secure they can invest more money in recruitment.

 

[original]

Maybe if the army-having entity owns a walled center they can do something to encourage recruitment, and bands of villagers will travel to the walled center to become recruits for the player to draw from.

That serves several obvious purposes -
1) Encourages the player to keep the local villages in good stead, protect their harvests and bring them food if they lack

2) sensible lateral migration from recruiting from individual villages to a centralized system, can use the same numbers

3) could work as the basis for NPC recruitment as well, which would normalize army growth and provide a further method for the player to commit economic warfare.  That means if you had 4 NPC lords in the same tower, they are going to split recruitment of whatever # of recruits are available.

4) these would be bandit / warfare targets and thus have to be somewhat cared for.

5) the amount of 'attractiveness' for recruitment rate would depend on several factors, such as how much the player invested in recruitment (?), and who the player had acting in that role (? assuming I allow the player to assign NPCs to things)

6) this could also orthogonally work for other factions as well.  it could be possible for the player to unlock attracting deserters and bandits through the same system.  (deserters only if the player was at war / had low faction with the deserters original faction? )

These are just ideas, again.  I'm looking for feedback, not approval =)

I think if you can do this, it would make it really realistic. Right now like the static economy, villages and fortresses/towns feel static.
Making villagers have some effect on a town or fortress, whether it be the economy of recruitment, would make the world more dynamic.
It'll also open up new strategies, if you raze villages, it'll hurt the recruitment of the enemy.

The only thing I'm worried is that for point 3, I remember nijis once saying that Lords cannot recruit like players do, because it is too hard to code, too much processing required or something. Maybe you want to talk to nijis to see what problems it may create.

 

[nox]

The only thing I'm worried is that for point 3, I remember nijis once saying that Lords cannot recruit like players do, because it is too hard to code, too much processing required or something. Maybe you want to talk to nijis to see what problems it may create.

I've already written this for M&B once.  Don't worry about how hard things are =)  Just concern yourself with what effect we want it to have on gameplay.

All I did that time was made npc lords have wealth based on their income, and force them to pay for their troops.  If they had money, they got to recruit and if not, they had attrition.

Even with that very basic and abstracted system, it made the game make sense.  Defeated kingdoms remained defeated and wealthy ones got stronger.  If you wanted to fight an enemy in the long term you had to destroy their villages to prevent their lords from recruiting men.