SP - General Game Concept or Mod Idea

[InsanoPotato]

I have a question: How can enemy and allied lords (Including the player vassal/king) keep recruiting from villages and towns without killing their economy? I think a good game mechanic would be economic attrition for recruiting soldiers and peasants from villages and towns too often.

I feel this could reduce the snowball effect by reducing the nation's global economy, as well as make deplomacy a worthwhile goal. Wars would be shorter perhaps, depending on their success to loss ratio

Another net positive for this mechanic would be that nations would have one or two armies (grouped armies) rather than 4 or more depending on their economic strength. This could also make a player kingdom easier at the beginning, depending on rival nation's economy.

In order for this to work, there would need to be a population system for every village and town which rises over time, but drops when a lord conscripts soldiers into their private army.

Conscription
This mechanic would better play into the feudal system that is prevelent in the time period of this game. Regular recruiting methods can still play a role but conscription would only be accessible to the lord of the feifs. This would prevent other lords from destroying each other's (and players) feif economy.

A release conscripts command, would allow the soldiers (# would depend on the commander's choice) to return home, which would help return some of the village or town prosperity back to normal.

In the end economic attrition (in my opinion) would provide a realistic balance to militaries, thereby bringing damnation to the nation who lost a massive war (many casualties), while still hurting the the other nation, if they lost a lot of soldiers and need to conscript more in order to counterattack.

Tell me what yal think. I'm not a modder, but maybe if a lot of people like the idea, someone can do something simular.

There is tons of room for improvement, which is so exciting.

 

[Ackdam]

Except for a couple of problems that I'll let you ponder out, as you've done pretty well thinking through this.

1. I haven't checked to verify this, but as I understand it AI nobles 'respawn' with a set number of troops from the go and just run around to villages to build up and/or max out their numbers. This was likely put in place to counter the growing bandit party sizes as the player levels. This also puts the player at a disadvantage, as we start without anything. How would you counter this?
2. What about hiring recruits from other (possibly hostile) factions? How could that play into this? As I assume you would still allow recruiting along with conscription. I could be reading that wrong though.
3. Would the released conscripts keep their tier ranks? Would they retire/die of old age after a time? How would they exist/be trained in the first place?

Also, a population system for villages/towns is already in place, check the hearths stat and taxes calculations, that could work into your population numbers ideas.

You have a decent idea here, but I would like to see what you come up with as answers to these issues while keeping the game balanced and not breaking other concepts/fixes. Good work.

 

[InsanoPotato]

Except for a couple of problems that I'll let you ponder out, as you've done pretty well thinking through this.

1. I haven't checked to verify this, but as I understand it AI nobles 'respawn' with a set number of troops from the go and just run around to villages to build up and/or max out their numbers. This was likely put in place to counter the growing bandit party sizes as the player levels. This also puts the player at a disadvantage, as we start without anything. How would you counter this?
2. What about hiring recruits from other (possibly hostile) factions? How could that play into this? As I assume you would still allow recruiting along with conscription. I could be reading that wrong though.
3. Would the released conscripts keep their tier ranks? Would they retire/die of old age after a time? How would they exist/be trained in the first place?

Also, a population system for villages/towns is already in place, check the hearths stat and taxes calculations, that could work into your population numbers ideas.

You have a decent idea here, but I would like to see what you come up with as answers to these issues while keeping the game balanced and not breaking other concepts/fixes. Good work.

Thank you for your compliment!

I really appreciate the questions you bring up. Honestly, for me, that is the point of this thread; build ideas, and hope someone with the know-how can craft a mod using them. Or maybe they can be added by the devs down the line. Before I received your message, I was still mulling over ideas that could balance and prevent player and NPC exploitation.

1. I'm essentially suggesting an overhaul to the recruitment system.
1a. In order to keep it fair for the player without a kingdom or vassalage, It would be necessary to keep the regular recruiting system so the player can get recruits (early game). NPC lords would not have access to the "regular recruitment system," in order to maintain proper control of the population globally.
1b. This overhaul would allow lords (who own fiefs) to conscript soldiers from their fiefs only. Obviously, the number of fiefs they own will increase the number of conscripts they can have.

2. Recruiting would only be an early game provision that only the player has access to (still thinking about this one).
2a. Nobles will not be able to conscript from other lord's lands even if they are in the same faction.
2b. Lords would only be able to conscript from their own fiefs.
2c. NPC nobles without fiefs would be able to conscript from the king's lands. This would need to be calculated so that the king can prioritize giving lands to lords without fiefs.
2d. The player would not be allowed to conscript from other lords fiefs.
2e. The player would not be allowed to use the "regular recruitment" from enemy nations (if at war)
2f. The player will not have access to conscription if playing as a mercenary. They will not be able to recruit from enemy nations.

3. Historically, conscripts were farmers, vagabonds, sailors, pretty much anyone who didn't hold title or occupy one of the jobs that were considered necessary to maintain.
3a. Conscripts would not keep their ranks, however, in order to prevent boring ragtag armies, conscription would provide a plethora of unit types including, archers, infantry, spearmen, and cavalry. In theory, cavalry and regular infantry would be sent from castles and towns where they are theoretically trained and sent to villages for conscription. Lower tier infantry (peasants) would come from villages where they are farmers and fishermen. Archers would come from barracks' in towns and castles where they are trained. Low tier archers would come from villages where they are hunters. The conscription system works on population mechanics and perhaps, prosperity.
3b. If a lord (NPC or player) loses soldiers too quickly and conscripts again too quickly (from fiefs they already conscripted), it will incur a heavy penalty to population and prosperity thus weakening their fief economy.
3c. Once the player or NPC releases their conscripts to return home, this will positively affect their fief economy (unless they conscripted too many times from the same fief).


With these types of systems in place, wars will be dangerous, expensive, and force the player (and NPCs) to choose if war is worth the risk. If you, as the player decide to attack a castle/town and lose too many men, it could be disastrous. If the NPC faction decides to attack you and loses too many men, it could allow you to counter-attack and not have to worry about 30 nobles you just defeated, spam an army, and trying again.

P.S.
I'm still thinking of ideas in regards to this. I have no idea if they are even feasible or programmable. I just like to deep dive into the realm of "what if."






,

 

[Ackdam]

P.S.
I'm still thinking of ideas in regards to this. I have no idea if they are even feasible or programmable. I just like to deep dive into the realm of "what if."

Which is kind of the fun of it for me, and is probably why I've spent more time thinking up ways to improve the game (in my opinion) than actually playing it this week.

 

[InsanoPotato]

I understand. I haven't been thinking quite that much lol, but I did spend a few hours today, just pondering a different system. I've posted it to reddit (bannerlord and mb2bamnerlord) and barely received any feedback or response. This was my last ditch effort to get ideas out and hopefully start a conversation about it or simular things.

 

[Ackdam]

Here's hoping. It brings another angle to the recruitment that is interesting and deals somewhat with some issues I've been experiencing with it, namely the insta-armies that some people are complaining about (an army ready and waiting at a moment's notice, just add nobles!).

I don't know that I would completely do away with normal recruits, but possibly turn them into peasants so that they are less appealing but the player can still build their forces. I also don't think I like that they wouldn't keep their ranks, especially if I went around training a bunch of elite conscripts just to go back to get them later and find out they've lost all their training.

 

[InsanoPotato]

Essentially, I'm trying to keep it within the realm of feudalism. During the period of the middle ages, it was rare to have a standing army. Pretty much during feudalism, kings would tell their vassals to gather a military, and the vassals would conscript (force) peasants into service. Kingdoms would keep some professional soldiers (maybe a few hundred) depending on the size of the kingdom, for rebellions, but the wars were fought by the peasants.

It's just an idea, though.

 

[Ackdam]

Yes, I understand that. However, if a need was short-lived, the peasant conscripts wouldn't forget all of their training. As such there should be something in place so at to not make the nobles (player included) subject to complete RNG with the conscripts. Having randomly generated conscripts each time would, with bad luck, leave one with an uneven ragtag army when days before they may have had an army of elite conscripts who had been trained up through numerous battles. Since the game already keeps track of how many of what troops are in each party/garrison/prison/recruitment window, it shouldn't be too much trouble to add another window to each village that handles their conscripts specifically. That window would only refill once the conscripts were released, or fill a void caused by the loss of a conscript only after so much time had passed since their death. There could also be the possibility of the windows clearing, partially or in whole, upon the culture of the fief changing as it was moved between kingdoms in order to match the units of their current fealty.