Ideas regaurding logistics and seige battles.

[Godfree]

First off the game is solid but building great job and good work.

As I play I have noticed several things about this game and the last one with regard to siege warfare. Logistics are messy.

AI have real trouble managing to keep armies fed in the field this does not even consider influence cohesion.

Ideas for possible fixes. I will try to keep to what the game already can do.

The AI Army commander if they control a settlement or castle could spawn a caravan moving food to the army in the field.
Defending / Attacking this caravan becomes very lucrative for defending or attacking factions in terms of influence points and favor/ disfavor with the faction/ family that spawned the caravan.
I expect if would be possible to weight AI commanders to support or attack this caravan depending on different factors.
It might be interesting to have the Player be able to do the same at a decent cost when in command of an army in the field from a settlement they own.
( this new and dynamic mission set is attempting to rely on the defend caravan mission where a caravan is simply spawned by a notable that roves between cities) ( if the army in question was defeated before the caravan arrived it would simply go to nearest allied settlement and offload all goods dissolving)

Next thought is about the siege itself. Historically taking out a city troops would go out and forage the countryside. Here troops from the surrounding area would try to contain them. Thus forcing them to have to depend on supplies on hand or from home.

This already kind of appears in game.
What I propose however is that smaller forces from both sides fighting around a siege gain greater influence and gain favor with the families and factions fighting over the city or castle itself. This would be in the form of a zone in a ring around the siege point that includes both the connected villages.
The finishing touch to this is that within this zone when the assault of the castle or town is about to commence the attacking side sends out a message inviting those in the zone to join the assault.

It would be epic for defenders to be able to do the same in a sally action but the fort leader might need a fairly high skill in the criminal tree or something. Just a thought however.

The reason I think these two changes would make a great addition to the game is to create a place for the player as he is growing in abilities and actions to fight and gain influence on the edges of the action. This also allows smaller factions and mercenaries who do not do well in large battles to gain loot influence and relation points with different families.

God bless and thanks for a great game

 

[Godfree]

One point in favor of the more dynamic fights around sieges is for people with lower tier computers to be able to effect those fights without having to directly engage in them.

On the zone around settlements during sieges. Some villages are quite a distance away. Sometimes putting a small ring around a village in addition to the ring around the main settlement might be a better option.

If the ring of improved influence/rep/ faction and relational rep is completed. Finding a way to set it over the caravan as it travels to the army might create an easy solution to weight fighting against or near the caravan. Possibly creating epic running battles on the way into a contested zone around a siege. This would help pull captains away from the area around a siege where bonuses are active and have fights begin around the caravan.

I expect ( I do not have data but my reason suggests) that the supply caravans+ contested zone might help factions that are down. Especially if/ when a faction can not form a army big enough to oppose the enemy faction. If the forces of a faction is indeed depleted, the factions forces become weighted instead of combining to fight separately around sieges and become extra aggressive about picking off supply caravans.

While there may be missions from Army commanders to go out and collect food currently. Sending out part of there current force to act as a screen while sieging to contest the area around the settlement and to collect more food to sustain the army. Personally I like to use high end units. Players with high end units would make excellent area denial units and also be good at gathering more food for the army.
A mission or set of directives while a siege is underway could make the situation around sieges much more dynamic. Especially with the call back mechanic.

Impact of a caravan loss on moral. If a caravan suppose to feed an army is lost the army is likely to lose cohesion and moral. Opposing this the successful arrival of a caravan could boost both cohesion and moral. This could mean that the arrival of a caravan could peak moral and cohesion in an army leading to that being the best time to assault the walls. Opposing this taking out a caravan could become the straw that broke the camels back and break up and army in the field.

Thanks again for your time. It would be beyond awesome to see this in game.

 

[Godfree]

A couple of possible issues down the road if implemented with the caravan supply column.

If a player has decimated an enemy army and is sieging there settlement and his supply convoy is sniped killing his siege. This could cause great frustration. A possible fix is being able to use influence to send a ( possibly a clan party) to defend the supply convoy. While the supply convoy could still die on the way at least there is counter play.

Second way to help avoid this is for higher amounts of troops having fairly accurate days estimated food supplies ( already in game) and the ability to request a supply column while in the field before you get into a siege to top up there supplies and avoid the supply issue all together. The reason why getting it in the field is better is that the army can move towards the caravan decreasing the distance it has to travel and lowering the danger to the caravan especially if that caravan only has to travel a little out of there home territory.
This last bit is basically telling the player get better at logistics. If a weaker faction becomes weighted to go after supply caravans it would be wise to let the player know some how so they can prepare countermeasures.
Anyway fighting in pockets and going after the supply caravan would create an interesting challenge in nearly defeated factions giving them a chance at coming back to life. This strategy would also allow new player factions to survive easier and be more fun to play as especially if they could set this weighting as an objective against opponents they could not match on the battle field.