SP - General Issuing orders and information network

[GG Cannon]

The two suggestions below are both independent from each other and integrated with one another, so they can be added individually or together to the game.
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1. Who's the boss? You're the boss.

One thing I found sincerely lacking in the game while playing as the ruler of my own empire was the lack of an ability to issue orders to other clans and other armies.

As someone who played a bit of Total War, I know very well how effective just having a big army standing still somewhere not doing anything can be, strategically, to take a whole section of an enemy kingdom with another army.
Or also, how coordinated strikes can force an enemy to draw back all their armies from your territory not to lose their whole kingdom to you.

When you are the ruler of your own kingdom, you should be allowed to give orders to the parties and armies of your clans, or even force the creation of an army you are not a part of with the use of your own influence.

You could issue, to clans, orders like:

• Patrol this route and create the specific route yourself while also selecting which parties of which clans are gonna be patrolling that specific route.
  
  
• Stand guard "Here" and choose a place on the map.
  
  
• You could even set parameters like "Engage"(Looters, Desert Bandits, Enemy Parties, etc), "If"(Above X troops, Has another party within X distance) and the likes. Maybe even several parameters in a sequence, making your own "Programmed Protocol" that parties should follow.
  
  
• Maybe even combine all three in one big algorithm. "Stand X time [Location 1] Patrol to [Location 2]..." with the parameters mentioned above for each section.

While to armies, you could issue orders on where they should strike and have a similar ability to program them in short term, like "Besiege [Location 1] IF [Army 2] is besieging [Location 2]".

This would give the ruler more control over the war front if he wishes to use said control, if not, the clans and armies would behave by the AI as they currently do.
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2. Tell me the news.

I always found it very weird that we can only know of what is happening in the world around our own character.
It could be interesting if, from time to time, certain sections of the map very far away from you also turned visible over conditions.

For example, from time to time, parties belonging to your clan and parties of other clans you have a high "Clan Affinity" or even the current system's "Relation" with could send you "Messengers" with "News of what is happening around them", and when you received that message, for about half to a whole full day, you would be allowed to see that party on the map and all of their field of vision as well.

You could also pay to hire spies in cities, villages and maybe even castles after getting in and walking around and they would do the same thing. As your parties, by showing a field of vision around where they are or show the location of enemy armies with no field of vision around that army.
They would also provide information on trade prices and quests available in NPCs within their fields of view or the settlement they are in.
These would affect your roguery levels and how much they cost by the day would also be influenced by your roguery skill.

These spies could also be used as an alternative way to free NPCs of your kingdom that are locked in the dungeons of a castle you have a spy in or to infiltrate a city you are at war with but has a spy inside.
They could even possibly be used to help you escape in a small mini-game when you are captured as a prisoner yourself.

These information could also be requested by paying influence in the kingdom screen to see what is happening inside the fields of view of every single party that belongs to your kingdom.

If the "Programmed Protocol" of the first suggestion on ordering armies around is added, your armies could also take information acquired by this method to trigger "IF" conditions.
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These would severely help the players both when they are and they are not the rulers as you'd have more access to information around the map when you are not and more control over your kingdom when you are.

It makes sense that a ruler can give an order and that anyone can send a message telling what is happening around them, specially spies.
In the matter of spies, the AI would also make use of them to acquire information on your activity and each other kingdoms activity.
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deGoucan Scrolls Index

 

[Ackdam]

Topic 1: While getting too detailed may be an issue and some aspects should be limited to the AI and the party/army leader's discretion and personality, this is a good suggestion. I myself would like the option to keep my allies from looting settlements of castles/towns that I am besieging. Having a standing army, or rotating armies, at chokepoints during a war is also a good idea. Possibly also incorporate the ability to build temporary fortifications as an outpost of sorts.

Topic 2: Information is everything in war, and I believe it should play a much larger role than it does. I agree that the player should be able to hire spies (and coerce enemy spies into double agents) to gather information about enemies and spread misinformation about one's own status. Spies could even be incorporated into tournaments/taverns to listen in on the conversations happening and report back. A good source of such rumors might be the beggers that currently serve little purpose other than a possible source of clues for The Spy Party quest (ironic). Messages should be received with a date of when the message was sent. The delay would be relative to the distance between your location and that of the sender. This also adds the possibility of interception and deceit via changing the message or stopping it all together.

 

[GG Cannon]

Topic 1: While getting too detailed may be an issue and some aspects should be limited to the AI and the party/army leader's discretion and personality, this is a good suggestion. I myself would like the option to keep my allies from looting settlements of castles/towns that I am besieging. Having a standing army, or rotating armies, at chokepoints during a war is also a good idea. Possibly also incorporate the ability to build temporary fortifications as an outpost of sorts.

As I mentioned in a few of my posts, I used to play a bit of Total War and see a lot of influence and similarities from it to Bannerlord, so there are quite a few things from there that I miss here, yet I very much like the fact that your armies and NPCs from your parties have wants, needs and take decisions for their own as well.
Though a too specific protocol would indeed be possibly getting too detailed as you said, by limiting the AI too much, I do feel a lot of need to give them certain commands or provide certain parameters, so something like my wife's 40 men party does not attack a 100 men party close to me after I call her to join my army, as it happened a few times.

And about building your own temporary fortifications, that could very well be a part of the Camp Mechanic, as suggested by @tane , as a more long term revisitable camp and/or of the ability to build your own fief, as suggested by @andycott , both suggestions I liked VERY MUCH.
Possibly even both of them, as they could be tied together, as in, you start with a short term small camp, evolve it to a temporary fortification built with hardwood that you can revisit, evolve it to a stone fort, at which point it would already be a permanent fief with 0 villages, than to a castle after a while, after receiving the possibility to start a 1 village closeby to those that work and help with the fort to also help produce food, and finally to a Town after you have built your third villlage.

Topic 2: Information is everything in war, and I believe it should play a much larger role than it does. I agree that the player should be able to hire spies (and coerce enemy spies into double agents) to gather information about enemies and spread misinformation about one's own status. Spies could even be incorporated into tournaments/taverns to listen in on the conversations happening and report back. A good source of such rumors might be the beggers that currently serve little purpose other than a possible source of clues for The Spy Party quest (ironic). Messages should be received with a date of when the message was sent. The delay would be relative to the distance between your location and that of the sender. This also adds the possibility of interception and deceit via changing the message or stopping it all together.

YEEES!! I miss information the most in this game. And having to understand and interpret written information and maps locations from a few days back would be VERY interesting and immersive. The possibility of having received misinformation from a double agent or that got intercepted would also be interesting and make the roguery skill even more important yet again, as there could be a perk for it or a skill check so that your character notices that "This can't possibly be right..." and tries to contact that spy again.
Beggars would definitely be one of the choices, but also certain "Suspicious person" NPC inside taverns and walking around towns as more expensive, yet also more effective spies that provide more results faster, just as nobles from other clans that you have very high "Personal Affinity" with.
It would be very fun and immersive to have a "Messages" window where you see the messages you received as pieces of written parchment to make it more immersive.

Adding a "link" to key words so you can click them to see their location on the world map.
The "M" key is currently unmapped, so it could be used for the messages window, and if you clicked a keyword to check their location on the map and then returned to the messages window, it would return you to the same message you were already reading, to give it a bit more quality of life so you don't need to reopen the message and find where you were reading everytime you check a location that is being mentioned on the message.

 

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

Excellent suggestions.