SP - General [e1.1.0] Unit Recruitment

[iimstevo]

I really dislike the method of recruiting faceless agents that have set skills and upgrade paths.
Not only does it make for a boring method of training, it removes an aspect of the RPG side of the game where you're actually fighting alongside your troops. When you start off with your first 6 recruits or whatever, you have absolutely no affiliation with them, and they upgrade, one by one, after several battles. It's stale, and with the latest Beta branch patch, recruitment and upgrading troops is even worse.

Personally I'd prefer it if the companions were your basic soldiers:

• They have individual skill ratings which can get a player more invested in certain soldiers
• You can outfit them with personal gear
• From a player perspective, you can actually get invested in their wellbeing, and keeping them alive
• Your army becomes fluid, depending on what opposition you're facing, you can kit your soldiers out with spears to combat cavalry based armies, bows to combat infantry etc...

Being able to recruit "companions" for your army instead of the faceless agents, should allow you to manage them in the same manner as you would a current companion. As well as making sure your whole army is fully-healed before taking the next battle, you'd be reliant on keeping them well-fed, happy, and well-equipped. If they're captured, you could ransom them out, or get them to return to a city of your choice (which would take some time to travel) for re-recruitment. Last but not least, they could also die so that you're forced to be more tactical because they aren't easily replacable when you've spent countless in-game years working on their skills and developing them... far more so than just being forced to go to the nearest village and click "Recruit All".

As for the AI Lords, faceless agent them all you like as it makes no difference really to the player. I just hate the concept of; buy recruits, grind recruits with looters to level up, battle a lord, lose several units, buy recruits and repeat.

Maybe its just this latest beta patch that makes troop training really, really, REALLY boring but this is something I'd much prefer to utilise in-game. After all, Companions currently are no-use to the player whatsoever.

 

[Crossbow Pig]

That would add an insane amount of micromanagement, also soldier are meant to be expendable, that's why recruits refresh every few days in villages and towns.

 

[iimstevo]

That would add an insane amount of micromanagement, also soldier are meant to be expendable, that's why recruits refresh every few days in villages and towns.

But isn't the point of the game supposed to be immersive?
Even as a General, the decision to sacrifice your troops to ensure Victory should be a hard choice.

That aside, with the micro-management, it only adds to the gameplay and things to do. Pairing that with training camps and ways to sculpt your army to best suit your strategies, it is much more realistic to what the gameplay is supposed to represent. Your units don't just go from incapacitated one moment, to fully functioning and ready for battle in the next. They don't instantly improve in weapons handling from 30 to 60, or 60 to 120 just because you paid 200 gold for them to do so.

 

[CalenLoki]

I thought quite a lot about system where each individual soldier is unique and simulated. I like the idea, but I don't expect to see it until far far future.

It wouldn't be an easy task. Following the good rule of lords following the same rules as players, that's some ~30-50k agents in the world to keep track of skills, health, morale and inventory. With current technology it's not that much data, but certainly more than now. And each save game would be massive.

That most likely prevents them from using as complex leveling system as the one player and companions are using. I.e. make attributes and focus constant for each culture (separate for notable units), skip perks and simplify skill xp.

Of course UI would have to be designed to prevent unnecessary micromanaging.
I.e. you could auto-assign troops to a group by filtering them (i.e. those with polearms higher than archery and athletics higher than riding go to spearman group). You can move them manually to another group if you want.
Each group would have set what equipment type they should use, and soldiers would just take it from party inventory, replacing their weaker gear with better one. They'd pick their national gear over foreign equipment, unless it's much weaker. Higher level troops would be the first to pick, so they'd always have better equipment than rookies. In towns they could do the same, by selling current equipment and using own money.
Of course that would require a lot more gear to be looted from the battlefield, equipment deterioration and towns re-forging equipment into faction-specific equivalent.

TLR
Possible: yes
Tedious for the player: no
Viable any time soon: doubt

 

[iimstevo]

I thought quite a lot about system where each individual soldier is unique and simulated. I like the idea, but I don't expect to see it until far far future.

It wouldn't be an easy task. Following the good rule of lords following the same rules as players, that's some ~30-50k agents in the world to keep track of skills, health, morale and inventory. With current technology it's not that much data, but certainly more than now. And each save game would be massive.

That most likely prevents them from using as complex leveling system as the one player and companions are using. I.e. make attributes and focus constant for each culture (separate for notable units), skip perks and simplify skill xp.

Of course UI would have to be designed to prevent unnecessary micromanaging.
I.e. you could auto-assign troops to a group by filtering them (i.e. those with polearms higher than archery and athletics higher than riding go to spearman group). You can move them manually to another group if you want.
Each group would have set what equipment type they should use, and soldiers would just take it from party inventory, replacing their weaker gear with better one. They'd pick their national gear over foreign equipment, unless it's much weaker. Higher level troops would be the first to pick, so they'd always have better equipment than rookies. In towns they could do the same, by selling current equipment and using own money.
Of course that would require a lot more gear to be looted from the battlefield, equipment deterioration and towns re-forging equipment into faction-specific equivalent.

TLR
Possible: yes
Tedious for the player: no
Viable any time soon: doubt

Some of that I can agree with...
The AI Lords doing the same though - I wouldn't see a point in it. They don't need any personal connection with their armies - it's only a player thing.

But yeah, the original suggestion is probably a longshot, probably a requirement for a mod if anything, but its a shame because it would highlight the core principles of the game a lot more than the current system.