Im sure people have been posting something similar but will post my thoughts as well:
Seeing a lot of nobles in a tournament made me want a gladiator system. Recruiting and training gladiators who become stars, similar to in the Roman Empire.
Instead of caravans you travel around and compete for glory. There is different teams with overall ranking in addition to the regular rank, so even if you loose you still want to watch the rest of the tournament because you want one of your guys to win. This makes good rivals, and if there is a finale of 3 with 2 from the same team they will cooperate to take you out first before they fight, making it more interesting and hard for the player.
You can also buy an arena and get a home field of sorts, you can upgrade it and arrange tournaments. If you're a big gladiator team you get more nobles, gladiators and spectators. You can also choose the theme, for example everyone can choose their preferred equipment or... everyone just gets a dagger?
Finding the most skilled talents gets more important as equipment is often the same for all during fights, and you can trade gladiators between the teams.
This also give prisoners a new dimension as you'd want to buy a high level prisoners for your team. Buying one you can give them a gladiator name.
Good food, comfort and overall health is also important like for a real world athlete.
That way we would get more named gladiators with a story and not "random archer x" and more interesting tournaments.
Late game tournaments are just a passing cash grabs at this point as the bets gets lower and i just sell the prizes as they often er similar or worse than what i have.
Seeing a lot of nobles in a tournament made me want a gladiator system. Recruiting and training gladiators who become stars, similar to in the Roman Empire.
Instead of caravans you travel around and compete for glory. There is different teams with overall ranking in addition to the regular rank, so even if you loose you still want to watch the rest of the tournament because you want one of your guys to win. This makes good rivals, and if there is a finale of 3 with 2 from the same team they will cooperate to take you out first before they fight, making it more interesting and hard for the player.
You can also buy an arena and get a home field of sorts, you can upgrade it and arrange tournaments. If you're a big gladiator team you get more nobles, gladiators and spectators. You can also choose the theme, for example everyone can choose their preferred equipment or... everyone just gets a dagger?
Finding the most skilled talents gets more important as equipment is often the same for all during fights, and you can trade gladiators between the teams.
This also give prisoners a new dimension as you'd want to buy a high level prisoners for your team. Buying one you can give them a gladiator name.
Good food, comfort and overall health is also important like for a real world athlete.
That way we would get more named gladiators with a story and not "random archer x" and more interesting tournaments.
Late game tournaments are just a passing cash grabs at this point as the bets gets lower and i just sell the prizes as they often er similar or worse than what i have.
