Infallible suggestion: New party and bandit types.

[The Pope]

The new war system is great, but it doesn't have much variety of parties. The various factions seem to only come in massive hordes of knights and sometimes caravans, leaving a new character with a choice between running away or using cheap tricks to solo. Bandits also have far less variety than in previous versions. Now it seems to be just river pirates (defenseless and worthless in terms of loot), small group of bandits and big group of bandits. There needs to be a whole lot more in order to keep the game interesting and give new characters some decent fights - the only enjoyable part of soloing hordes is bragging about it on the forum, and half the readers will think you're lying anyway. Here are my suggestions for what the various factions should get (In alphabetical order, so don't get upset if your favorite isn't first):

Khergit:
Great Horde - led by the khan, this large army consists of about 50 elite horse archers, 100+ weaker horse archers and about 50 javelin and sword wielding elite heavy cavalry. As it's a cavalry army, it's faster than most royal armies, but still too big and unwieldy to catch small groups. It's there to beseige cities, kill other armies and give high level characters epic battles.
Horde - led by a nobleman, these armies contain a core of 10-20 elite cavalry/horse archers and 30-50 regular cavalry/horse archers. Still slow enough to be avoided by anyone not bogged down with lots of cargo.
Raiders - 5 or so elite cavalry and 10-20 weak to horse archers and medium cavalry. Quite fast, so very dangerous to caravans and the like.
Scouts - About 5 elite horse archers. They mostly run away from big groups, and are good at it. They are quite dangerous, however, as they let bigger armies know where to strike. Starting characters can get quests to hunt them down.
Nomads - A group of around 50 weak cavalry. They ride around khergit lands defending villages.
Riders - 25 or so medium and high quality cavalry who defend khergit villages and caravans.

Nords:
Kings Host - The kings army. 50 huskarls, 25 elite archers, 150 vikings, 75 archers and 25 knights. Very slow, but very dangerous.
Jarls Host - A noblemans army. A few will consist of 30-50 knights, but most will have a mix of huskarls, vikings and archers totaling 100-150 men.
Berserkers - 10-20 fast moving berserkers. Mighty warriors, but prone to charging off into hopeless battles. This does, however, pin enemy armies in place for the bigger groups to arrive.
Raiders - 5 huskarls, 10-20 vikings and 5-10 archers. Mostly goes after caravans.
Scouts - 5 knights.
Leidang - 50 or so light infantry who defend nord villages from enemy raiders.

Rhodoks
No idea. I haven't played enough to know what kind of stuff they get, and I'm not even sure I got the name right.

Swadians
Royal Army - again, a big army for the king. This one has around 300 men including pikes, crossbows, halberds, knights, two handed swordsmen and dismounted knights.
Army - A noblemans force. It will consist of either knights and men at arms (50-70 men) or around 100-150 of the previously mentioned infantry types.
Patrol - A party of 20-30 knights and men at arms who defend swadia from enemy raiders.
Militia - 30-50 crossbowmen and light infantry who defend swadian villages.
Scouts - ~5 scouting knights.
Ritters - A raiding party of knights and men at arms.

Vaegirs
Kings army - The kings army. Lots of knights, boyars (heavy horse archers), heavy infantry, archers and heavy axemen totaling ~300 men.
Army - Noblemans army. Either 50-70 knights and men at arms or 100-150 heavy infantry, axemen and archers.
Boyars - 15-25 Horse archers and knights who both defend vaegir towns and attack enemy caravans.
Scouts - ~5 scouting boyars.
Raiders - 20-30 Light cavalry and knights who raid enemy caravans.
Shieldwall - ~40 Heavy infantry and archers who defend vaegir lands.
Fyrd - ~50 light infantry and archers who defend vaegir lands.

Bandits:
Each faction would have a few kinds of bandits preying on their lands. Khergit would get steppe bandits and black khergit, swadians would get bandits, deserters and black knights, vaegirs/nords would get sea raiders, bandits and deserters and rhodoks would get something else.

 

[Archonsod]

There is some variation across the factions. Rhodoks seem to prefer spears and similar polearms for example (makes them a bugger to take on with cavalry).

Soloing is pretty much no longer viable once you reach a certain level. The actual basic troops you can recruit from taverns are of superior quality though, which balances it out somewhat. I've managed to take out two Vaegir parties (around 60 men each) with 30 troops (mainly cavalry for some reason), and only lost around five or so men (in .808 I'd be expecting to replace my entire party at that point). I think in the main this is due to the AI - not only did my troops maneuver to get the enemy on an open field, but they actually charged as cavalry should (line abreast) rather than following one or two opponents like a mob of hornets. Either way, cavalry performance against infantry seems to be massively improved (apart from against those Rhodoks and their spears anyway).

I'm not sure if smaller and more varied parties is the answer. Perhaps cheaper and more frequent troop recruitment available to the player would be a better solution. I guess it depends how much you want to encourage the player to form his own party.

 

[The Pope]

I kind of like the difficulty of getting an army - .800 armies were too easy to amass and replace, which makes them feel less valuable. What I'd like to see is lots of things to do before you become an important nobleman. When you're starting out or recovering from losing your army, it could be scout hunting, caravan escorting and message running. Maybe you could even warn friendly villages of nearby enemies, letting them know to prepare their defences or flee with some of their stuff. When you have a few troops and a fief but not really an army, you can either form a caravan of your own, go raiding or defend your fiefdom against raiders and bandits. The 200 man battles and sieges would make a good endgame.

 

[ThVaz]

I like this variety, as it is now I only take hero-leaded parties when they are reduced for constant battles.

 

[oRGy]

I agree with the Pope.  He's pretty clever for a creepy old guy.  The structured faction variety he suggests is good; it would also help if the different factions were better differentiated by equipment, surcoats, and shields; currently I find it hard to tell them apart.  Yes the Khergits look a bit more mongol, but that's about it.  They just blend into each other. 

It would also be great to have a smooth gameplay curve from fighting weaker, smaller groups of bandits, to fighting scouting and advance faction parties, to fighting epic battles with hundreds on each side.

I would say that bandits have been pretty characterless in all M&B versions, though.  I'd advocate something like:

1) Sea Raiders - based heavily on vikings, use only throwing axes, hand-axes, spears etc, mostly leather armour and some mail, also nordic swords and helmets, round shields, all infantry and high athletics.  Behaviour wise they should stick around the coast and rivers.  Each party should also be composed of a few different troop types ie:  Chieftain (NPC), Sea Raider Noble, Sea Warrior.  Would be nice if when outnumbered they used a shield wall circle formation, as was historically the case.

2) Forest Bandits - based heavily on idea of foresters and longbowmen.  Use mainly axes and long-bows, leather armour.  All infantry.  Use tactics of being spread out and avoiding combat until forced to.  Are expert archers to make up for weaker defense.  They should also stick mostly to forests.

3) Mountain Bandits -  more of a mixture.  Wear fur/leather armour that insulates them from the cold.  Some use horses.  They use mostly javelins, spears, and axes, some bows.  Stick to hilly areas where they have an advantage against cavalry.

4) Steppe Raiders - based on 13th century Cossacks.  Wear either light or no armour, all very fast expert horsemen who use shashqa's, spears, some nomad bows.  Stick to the Steppes.

I've actually done this for a private mod in .808 but I deleted it because I wasn't getting any reallife work done. 

The map also needs to be bigger; currently you can hardly move without running into bandits, etc.  It also needs more forested areas, and the plains need to be flatter - seems to be a lot more hilly maps in this version for some reason, which isn't very realistic.  In real life even hilly areas are broad and rolling and expansive, not constant little hills.  M&B landscapes have improved a lot but still feel "computer gamey", in that the battlefield is purely a heightmap with various textures overlaid depending on angle/topography and random trees scattered about. 

Medieval Total War II probably has the best battle landscapes; of course they have a budget of some millions.  Nevertheless, flatter and with more evidence of human cultivation/habitation seems to be the way to go.

 

[Servitor]

I agree with the Pope.  He's pretty clever for a creepy old guy.

To cruel!  Siged.

 

[The_Invincible_Knight]

What about 'Signaller' parties whose sole purpose is to alert allied villages, castles and towns to attacks?

They'd could consist of light cavalry and a small number of heavy cavalry; similiar to version .8xx scouts, but with a different purpose, scouts are more for exploration than anything else, signallers would be purely defensive and would be very fast.

Just a thought, TIK.

 

[The Pope]

I'd figured scouts would do that, but a separate party type might be a good idea. Perhaps some lower end troops like mounted watchmen might be a better choice than heavy cavalry, as these guys don't need to operate behind enemy lines and fight off  larger parties.

 

[Ingolifs]

I'd lump signallers and scouts into the same function. Scouts are best used to locate enemy parties in the vicinity, so the bigger parties know where to go.

Scouts roaming the countryside just looking at stuff is useless imho. Any important info from distant lands will reach you by hearsay anyway.

 

[oRGy]

Would be nice to have a "Knight party" running around on occasion too.

You know: you have a Knight with a Charger, a Squire on a saddle horse, two men-at-arms and maybe an archer.  They could spawn based on a Quest - "Capture Sir Alfonso, he'll be near Reyvadin hunting for two days".

I'd also love, for the new player, quests involving hunting deer or wild boars for nobles.  Just yourself, a horse, some arrows and a knife or boar spear. 

 

[The Pope]

I really like that idea. I think they called those groups lances, so perhaps thats what it could be called in game.

 

[The Pope]

It's kind of like a knight, but with a beard and an axe.

 

[fisheye]

Awesomeness.

These changes are not hard to make. An hour or two setting party compositions and voila.

PLEASE put these in v0.891. I hate the parties of v0.890.

 

[morgoth2005]

This d'be great... No great modelling or coding works of art required... Just simple upgrades that'd make the game much more indepth and enjoyable...

 

[Merentha]

This d'be great... No great modelling or coding works of art required... Just simple upgrades that'd make the game much more indepth and enjoyable...

Quite.  Agreed, as I do with most of the Pope's suggestions.

 

[Hellequin]

Da. Is gut.

A thought on the Rhodoks for style - make their formations much more uniform.  None of this 15-30 nonsense for them, no sir.  If a particular unit setup is 20 men, it's 20 men, period.  All the same type, or a fixed unvarying distribution.

You wanna tie it to level, write them a trigger which checks player level and upgrades those in increments of 10 men, or even 20 and a rename to "Double <Partytype>", or whatever.  Or, since parties now do a much better job of ganging together both in movement and in battle, tie the rhodok-spawn scripts to level, keep all their parties at exactly 20 men or whatever, just spawn more of them.  That would be a really interesting different feel - a massive Rhodok force actually covers a lot of ground and is visually impressive, just because it actually consists of 15 separate parties, all exactly 20 men.

Slightly more complex than the Pope's baseline suggestion, but it would be a strong differentiator and good stylin'.

 

[Corinthian Hoplite]

This is one of the very rare occasions I have to agree with a religious man. Definitely worth it.

 

[morgoth2005]

Who's religious?

 

[The Pope]

Da. Is gut.

A thought on the Rhodoks for style - make their formations much more uniform.  None of this 15-30 nonsense for them, no sir.  If a particular unit setup is 20 men, it's 20 men, period.  All the same type, or a fixed unvarying distribution.

You wanna tie it to level, write them a trigger which checks player level and upgrades those in increments of 10 men, or even 20 and a rename to "Double <Partytype>", or whatever.  Or, since parties now do a much better job of ganging together both in movement and in battle, tie the rhodok-spawn scripts to level, keep all their parties at exactly 20 men or whatever, just spawn more of them.  That would be a really interesting different feel - a massive Rhodok force actually covers a lot of ground and is visually impressive, just because it actually consists of 15 separate parties, all exactly 20 men.

Slightly more complex than the Pope's baseline suggestion, but it would be a strong differentiator and good stylin'.

Casualties would quickly ruin the effect.

 

[DarkAnd]

You can bet on that