customized troop builds

[Taka]

I've used the search feature a few times and can't find anything on this, so here goes.

An ability in game to "build" your own troops by selecting weapon, armor, mount or lack thereof, and distribution of points, would be nice. I can't imagine it would be too much different than a paperdoll loadout and an inventory screen with weapons. The monitary cost could cover the weapon layout, and the level to get the points would cover when it could be upgraded and how hard it would be to get them to that point. I'm not sure, but I belive that cost is already dictated by these factors already, so it shouldn't be too dificult to throw in the right algorithms in order to dictate the nessisary costs.

Such presets could be saved to the account, and would allow players to create a custom made army. If the integrity of the feel of the Swadians and the Veagir needs to be preserved (entirly justifiable, as the Vaegir royal knights in the Mag 7 mod have always seemed out of place to me) then this could be something farmers can be upgraded into in place of turning to watchmen.

Not sure if such an idea is feasible, but I'd love for my merchant to be able to custom make his own paramilitary group rather than having to mix and match in a way that feels rather sacreligious (not to mention that I'm tired of Marinad and Borcha being my only other customizable soldiers).

 

[McPa]

I understand, but I think I would prefer the current anarchy in the main game unless we can get larger scale battles (larger maps, larger armies in a battle and a system to give orders to "formations")

What would be REALLY nice is if we had a Skirmish mode (or an Arena) where we could do that kind of thing, customize every single soldier, copy and paste them, and have fun playing an entirely custom battle with many interesting and funny combinations.

I think there is a thin line between fully uniformed men like in Rome: Total War where even in professional armies not even facial hair changes (at least we have that in M&B) and the inability to customize anything at all, in the small scale of M&B's battles I think it's best to avoid fully uniformed men, but if we are to give weapons to soldiers, we should buy them at the store or loot them instead of drag-and-dropping to a list.

One problem that arises is that if you give a two handed weapon to a one handed soldier, he will fight poorly with it, and then you're going to need to be able to manually spend his skill points when he levels up, and that defeats the purpose of recruiting random men, as you will have a Zerg army of Borgs.

Resistance is futile.

 

[Klokkwork]

Well on that note, I've got a few ideas that might make things interesting.

1) Stackable armor/weapons. I think weapons and armor of like type/quality should be capable of being stacked together.

2) A new inventory window, where stacked armor, weapons, ammo, horses (also stackable. Weee!!!) would be placed EXCLUSIVELY for use by a party slot.

3) One of thse inventories should be available for each party slot (except slots occupied by single NPC's, like Borcha or Marnid).

Using these ideas, one could access the inventories utilized by these parties. You can then add or remove armor, weapons, horses, etc.. from these inventory windows. How would it determine which soldiers get which pieces, you ask? One of two feasible ways.

a) The game engine will assign the strongest usable weapons (for that party slot's class), the toughest armor and any compatible ammo. Horses would need to be handled a little differently, as some are faster, some are tougher, some are... chargier... and some are just easier to maneuver.

b) This is actually my own preferred method.. a basic left-to-right approach. The armor listed to the left-most side, at the highest available slot, is the armor dealt to the first soldier "in line". Same goes with horses, weapons, and available compatible ammo. (Note, if there's no ammo for a certain weapon type, that weapon will not be distributed, and if no more weapons are available, that soldier will enter the fray unarmed.) Of course, one might also opt to allow unarmed soldiers to refrain from entering combat.

This system would allow for customizable armies. Now on the one hand, you might think that it'll cost you a pretty denar to outfit entire armies in this fashion. Keep in mind that soldiers come with their own armor and weapons, and you can sell those for a little profit. But yeah, upgrading an entire army is expensive. Welcome to the financial world of warcraft.. uhh.. I mean... battle...craft... *glances around for copywright police*.

Additionally, I would suggest the ability to rename a party class. If you completely change the look of some Swadian Knights, chances are you might prefer to call them Zaldurian Lancers, or something. Whatever. Besides, it's YOUR war party. You should be allowed to name your own troops, right?

So there you have it. A system supporting a customizable army, without the monotony.

Oh, another brilliant idea... a PARTY OPTION screen, so you can set tactic preferences for that particular party slot! Settings like a slider bar that determines at which level of health a soldier will turn tail and flee. Great for keeping farmers alive long enough to upgrade them! Drop-downs that select primary weapon choices, like ranged or melee. You get the idea.

Well, gotta run. Laters, people.

 

[Manitas]

An ability in game to "build" your own troops by selecting weapon, armor, mount or lack thereof, and distribution of points, would be nice.

Very agree, however customised troops is siamese twins with full loot - one got no sense without the other.

 

[Klokkwork]

What do you mean by full loot?

 

[DaLagga]

I posted something similar to this idea not to long ago. Here's the link. Good idea though, i like your version of it!

 

[Klokkwork]

Having read the posts in that forum, I've decided to ammend my own idea a little. Perhaps instead of having all unit classes be customizable, we simply focus on one unit class tree. A generic peasant class which has no tier structure of its own. No default weaponry. No class upgrades. Instead, the entire party slot, whether you have one peasant, or 50 of them, is treated like an NPC, with a character screen and the group inventory system from my original post. This way, we don't have to completely abandon the Swadian/Vaigir army units. The benefit of this ammendment would be that if you lose like, your entire army in a battle, you don't have to start from scratch with new peasants. You can hire a handful of peasants, and fill the rest of your party slots up with the standard Swadian/Vaigir/Whatever-Else units in the game. Think of them as template filler soldiers.

So we keep the ability to rename the custom group. And, as I'm coming up with this on the fly, we need the ability to branch our own custom group into specialized custom groups that we can focus on archery, calvary, infantry, etc.

Another idea I had was a Loot Distribution button. I figure, after battle, when you've looted everything you want for yourself, you can hit a Loot Distribution button to turn over the rest of your stuff to your scavenging Custom groups. Depending on the order of your groups in the Party slots, each group will get their turn at snagging any weaponry befitting their skills and weapon focuses. I consider it a bit of a ranking system with them. Your "knights" might need first dibs on any new armor that's better than what they've got. If they replace any equipment with looted items, their original equipment goes into the loot window, thus creating an efficient hand-me-down system. This also takes a little of the tedious work away from you, having to gear up your custom troops.

Naturally, if such an idea were implemented, we might need to increase the loot yield from battles.

And if the entire idea isn't used, PLEASE FOR THE LOVE OF INVENTORY, MAKE ITEMS STACKABLE!!! *ahem*.... Right.

 

[Klokkwork]

**bump?**

 

[Roach]

I dunno, I think I'm with McPa on this one. Anarchy is good.

After all, your men are mercenaries, fighting with you for money, nothing else. They have their own weapons and armour, may have been using them for years (if you rescue men-at-arms or knights) and their response to your asking for their stuff to sell would be short and unprintable. The higher-level troops probably wouldn't want to use whatever you gave them instead anyway: can you imagine the look on a Swadian knight's face if you asked him to start using a bow on horseback, or gave him a bardiche instead of his greatsword?

Maybe make peasants customisible as they rise in power, since they're essentially blank slates, but anyone else will be used to the equipment they have and won't want to change for 3 denars a week. Maybe a tree system like Klokkwork suggests: basically 4 of your peasants will use polearms, 3 throwing weapons etc.

Micromanagement games are evil, detract from any fun they might otherwise have, and are loved only by the anally retentive, people who want to collect every bit of loot they come across, name all their men and have everyone wear uniforms.

No wait, that's me..

 

[triato]

I think you should not be able to choose specifically the characteristics from your troops, I like that you say to them: be an archer, be a mercenary,etc. However I would like to equip them, and to be able to get more from the armies I defeat in order to equip my troops.

 

[maw]

why not randomize their stats and skill improvements, but create a slot for each individual troop to customize them as if they were all heros?

if you were a merc captain, you could direct each soldier what weapon to use for what mission or purpose... if you were a good captin, you'd take the time to learn what they'd be good at, and arm them accordingly.

instead of having ten or so slots holding whatever number of troops, each member of the company would have its own button and equipment page... maybe organize in 'squads' for command purposes.... squad of archers, squad of hv xbow/sword, squad of mounted lance.... an' you'd have to pay for all their stuff.

it'd definitely be a bit more micromanaging for some people, but once a guy was set up, you could choose to ignore him... they could be paid based on their experience and talent... just a thought. maw

 

[Klokkwork]

Keeping in mind the ammendment I posted about leaving the Swadians, Vaigir (Am I spelling that right?), Manhunters, etc... I say we go with a single class of customizable troops. Peasants. Branch them out, focusing on the skills of the different groups formed at your discretion. You might branch one group of peasants off into two groups, improving the archery skills of one group, and the horseback skills of the other. You select a basic military goal for that group.. i.e. "archer", "calvary", "infantry".

I think I need to stress, the reasoning behind my idea is to come to a halfway point between the people who want rediculous levels of micromanagement, and the people who want massive template armies. So no, we're not asking a Swadian Knight to wear Khergit armor, thus disgracing his family crest and royal oath (or whatnot). We're using peasants, who had no real preference going into your army. C'mon, they entered into your service with tattered rags and pitchforks. Now they might really like their pitchfork, but "Ol' Bertha" will need to take a back seat to the sword you're gonna give them, or the crossbow you're gonna order them to train up on. This is YOUR army. These are YOUR troops. You're the captain, and you make the rules. And if anybody has a problem with it, there's a sea raider ship in need of a new oarsman.

And something else I've been thinking about... Whenever we get armor that's fitted for the female form, and dresses that don't give men breasts (but why, anyways?), there should be one more thing.. female soldiers. I think when you hire people, there should be a mix of female and male versions of those troops. And, it would even be nice to put some kind of slider, in an options menu, or the party screen, that changes your preference on the male/female ratio of the troops you hire. Now I'm not suggesting we convert any troops' genders. But rather, if there's 9 peasants available for hire, that slider decides what gender they are before they join your army. It's either that or each gender version of each kind of troop gets its own slot, which would be really tedious.

This would also necessitate the option in the Face Edit screen, to give you the option of editing the male version of that troop, and the female version.

Why all that? Because some people want to have kick-ass Amazon armies. Namely... me. That would own. I would raise up a big army of battle-babes, and play Ride of the Valkyrie on my stereo. Sweeeeeet.... *ahem* Sssss'o-kay.. anyhoo.. What do you think? I love input, so keep the responses coming guys. I wanna know what you think, whether you says you likes it or not.

 

[Roach]

On reflection I'm definately with you on the peasants, these guys should be a lot more malleable, you're saving them from a life of penal servitude after all.

Since they spawn with random weapons (pitchforks, knives, erm, rocks..) I think (haven't checked properly yet) that they keep that style of weapon throughout: peasant A checks in his pitchfork for a spear when he becomes a watchman, peasant B moves from rusty knife to sword etc. This is pretty cool, shows them keeping to the weapons (implements) they've been using all their lives. Maybe when you rescue/recruit them you could choose whether you wanted to take the polearm guys or close combat guys, and they'd stick with that type throughout their career?

Another (small) point: it'd be really nice to have the 'capture' screen pop up when you talk to a roving band of rescued_prisoners, sometimes you want to go back and get those two Vaegir knights, but you have no slots for the 8 manhunters, 16 refugees, 32 peasants etc..

You can get chicks (offensive!) fighting for you if you rescue female peasants or refugees, level them up to Jeanne d'Arc stylee sword sisters. IMHO this is the best way to go about it, female warriors should be rare in a Medieval setting. It's possible to have an army of sword sisters (or Dark Knights or Sea Raiders or Mountain Bandits if you really want) but it takes a bit of work.

 

[JoshRose]

I just had one comment about this idea...

One of the things that attracted me to MNB as soon as I started playing it was that I did not have to manage too much. I have my character to equip, and I hire and lose men every day. WHat I liked was the fact that I could get down to business without looking through my entire army to see who needs a new sword, or who needs better armor.

I actually am a big fan of games like that, where you are managing a full troop, but in MNB, it just felt like a breath of fresh air that my troops have their own gear, and they know what to do. It feels more immersive, because rather than controlling a whole army, you essentially just control one man amidst all the carnage. That's one thing about MNB that really makes it stand out to me.

 

[Klokkwork]

I hear ya, Josh. That's actually a big factor in this idea. It gives you the OPTION to customize the peasants. You don't have to. You can let them upgrade along their default Peasant skill tree, or you can jump in and refocus their studies where you think they need to be.

As for equipping them, you might notice that part of my idea called for an automatic loot distribution button, which, I'd also like to add, should be in the shopping/inventory screen as well. This way, it sorts down through your ranks, exchanging the better loot, or gear from your pack, for the inferior gear of your custom troops. With all your troops fully geared up, you get whatever falloff equipment you end up with, which you can sell for a profit.

Additionally, I'd like to see a filter implemented that you can choose which armor types, specifically, you want considered eligible for that troop/group, or specify which ones you don't want them to have at all. For instance, maybe you want all your knight-oriented peasant troops to wear Khergit armor. Assuming you've brought them to the required stats when they were leveling up, you could have the Auto-Distribution tool only pass Khergit Armor (of varying qualities) to that specific group. Or prevent them from getting any kind of chain armor.

Oh, and Roach, yeah, I know about the female peasants and all, but the fact that a peasant and a female peasant take up two different slots is the point of why I was requesting what I did. I'd like for males and females to not necessarily need their own slots. Sort of a co-ed party slot thing. Can't tell you how many battles I've stood idly by, waiting for the mountain bandits to capture all the peasants, just so I could "capture" the females into my Amazon army. But I do get what you're saying about female warriors being rare in medieval times. Still, I'd like to see some more advancement options for the ladies, to at the very least, if they must have their own slots, give them an equivalent role as the men.