Lance system PLUS recruiting peasants

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poncratias

Banned
ok ok don't shieldbash me immediatly, hear me out first:

i'm ok with the new lance system so far, but how about adding a very little something, that doesn't hurt the system at all but offers great pleasure other playstyles?

The suggestion:
-be able to recruit a maximum of 0-3 peasants from villages only, even if you are not it's lord. (plus: the village has to like you >0)

Profit?
-it resembles the few poor souls of a village that would jump at a given opportunity to escape from their miserable lifes
-this doesn't interfere with lance system, as you only get 1 maybe 2 peasants, only from villages that like you, you are not building an army with this, it's more about building like a small tribe of outlaws.
-it gives to the ad1257 players who like the low-level playstyle (independent bandit hunters / bandits)


*hiding behind his shield*

 
*bash bash bash*

Why not recruit the drunkards from the towns taverns?

But perhaps recruiting peasants which want to run away from there serfdom would be interesting. Providing that stealing peasants from a lord would probably mean in a relationship drop with both the village and the lord(and perhaps even the faction). I'll ponder about it.
 
Technically and historically speaking a mix of the two system should be the best. The peasants were used to run away to fight in war but they were serfs and they could be hanged for that. It was more likely that they join "their seigneur" troops and then they proceed in the business as mercenary.  Therefore if you recruit peasants your relation with the noble of the village should decrease because you were stealing serfs from him. The only exception should be if the kingdom is at war and the king wants soldiers or the local noble is a friend. In addition the village recruiting is one of the cores of the game and it can't be abolished. A different matter are the  burghers: they town citizen were free men with no feudal bound therefore they were free to enlist in the army.
The lance system was introduced or started in the XIII century and it was about a professional military units composed by trained soldiers. It is something that you can't find in a rural village but only in a town or eventually in castle (thinking about a lance that it has been demobilized by a seigneur who doesn't need its services any more).  The lances were expensive, they had an huge impact on battlefield (a professional full time soldier was able to face easily several less trained opponents) and they didn't easily follow everybody (no professional soldier would happily join a commander with a bad reputation and several defeats) . In my opinion the lance should be recruitable only in town or at a castle in addition to the local troops. The price should be high and the character should be well known around the kingdom (a minor landlord at least). The mercenaries should stay and coexist with the lance because they have different military function being specialist. The lance was the standard tactical combat unit while the mercenaries were pure specialists: if you want a Genoa crossbowmen or Cuman archers certainly you can't find it within a lance.
Another option could be to make the lance recrut able in the castles only in place of the horse units that will evolve in feudal knights. Technically speaking the lance was basically a heavy mounted unit with some support infantry.  This could be appropriate for all the European Norman/Carolingian culture nations (English, Spanish, French, German, Polish, Italians ecc.). 
An interesting  addition could be to recruit also drunkards, the looters, the pirates and the bandit in generals, introducing them in the troop tree. I make myself clear : I have played a mod were the scums were recruitable as a third option when you met them in addition to the situations when you find them as a prisoners. The scums were insert in the troop tree under the lower level and they evolve later. For example the Sylvan bandits could become the peasants troops normally recruited in the villages.   
 
@ Quintus Fabius Scaurus

    wow that is a fantastic idea!!

also the recruiting of bandits etc., and maybe with a penalty on troop morale if the rest of the troop are regulary troops (they don't want to serve with bandits). the morale penalty is then taken away when those bandits advance in the troop tree, as they "grow" into the army and get respected for their service by the other men.
 
That does sound like a great idea. I hope for the drunkards in towns....... :shock: options make all mods/games better. I also wish for integration of a factions culture when conquering a foreign land; meaning some (only a small portion) of ones "homeland troops" troops are available to recruit. Recruiting entire armies of another culture just does not make historical sense. If anything, the troops you would recruit away from your homeland, would don the same outfits/armour as "your" trained soldiers, not mercenaries. Trained soldiers brought up by my lord would have the outfits I select. Once again options make a mod or game. In order for this to make historical sense it must be done! 
 
stevehoos said:
Recruiting entire armies of another culture just does not make historical sense. If anything, the troops you would recruit away from your homeland, would don the same outfits/armour as "your" trained soldiers, not mercenaries.
It does perfect historical seance that you would recruit local troops. Remember there was no nationalism as we know of today. Meaning, that usually vassals would swear loyalty to the new ruler to keep there land, titles ect. Perhaps not right away and not all of them(and how loyal they would be is another thing as well), but it would not be something uncommon.  Feudalism at it's finest!

This process of-course would have taken a bit longer then that(a year or two perhaps), but then again wars in the mod takes months consuming the whole country in the process. And cultural assimilation takes even longer. Much longer.

In reality, there are many cases of this. Teutonic order in the Baltic had a good number of local Prussians in there ranks (with many of them pagan until later centuries!).

stevehoos said:
Trained soldiers brought up by my lord would have the outfits I select. Once again options make a mod or game. In order for this to make historical sense it must be done!
Soldiers, especially trained ones, would bring there own equipment. You would not select there dress. Especially if they are not yours, but your vassal lords troops. Remember - vassal of my vassal is not my vassal :razz:
 
You are right about many points, I will concede that. I guess I am looking at it from a broader sense of time passed perhaps than what the game presents; cultural assimilation is certainly a lengthy process.  :mrgreen: I still think that some soldiers from your place of origin or "homeland" should be recruitable though, a very small amount mind you.  Conquered peoples acquire new customs, language, and ideologies through contact and education in the dominant society. A good example of this is the Latin language and culture, that was gradually adopted by most of the subjugated people.  Assimilation was something that happened at different rates and times depending on the given circumstances presented. So the debate is different for each region in history, each being their own kind of entity. For the sake of a video game though :mrgreen:, it just feels strange to recruit none of your culturally bound soldiers. I am only talking about the region that you are king of. Maybe an option could be implemented to invite peasent immigrants, or immigrant drunkards to come to your kingdom. Essentially this would prevent me from having always to take a western European town or castle to ship in soldiers or "immigrants."  :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: 
 
I agree with Tomas the changing of culture was an extremely slow process. You think that still during the first half of the XIII century the Emperor Frederick the II was able to recruit Arab archers in southern  Italy even if the whole area had been reconquered by the Normans more than 150 years before.
Talking about that I suggest a little historical update: the troops to recruited in the south Wales villages and castles (Powys and surrounding) should be Welsh and not English even if they were owned by the Kingdom of England. On the other side the troops to be recruited in the south Scotland villages and castles (Edinburgh area) should be English because historically speaking the lowlanders weren't Celtic peoples but mostly Saxons and Normas (Robert the Bruce himself was more Norman than Celtic). 
 
but didnt Tomas remove the decrease the morale loss that different faith between troops gave? sure it would be nice to see for example teutonic knights recruitable from conquered novgorod cities etc, but as Tomas said its not accurate. so you either mix the troops, or wait couple days until u get more lances from your fiefs.
 
I dont know if anyone is familiar with crusader king 2 , but in it theres a system that make sense and is a nice alternative to warband. It takes years ( obviously can be altered ) to convert newly conquered land to your nation, im fine with it being a slow process as long as it happens eventually, it also makes holding on to your native land much more of a priority.
 
yeh used to play it for abt month after it got released. but certain places werent a historical so it was a bit of a disappointment for a game that was supposed to be historically correct. but I dont blame them coz that part of history is very blurry even in the writings that has survived to this day :roll:
sure there could be some timer set after the conquer to swap the troops recruited? like 2 years after the conquering the troops would change? tho it would for sure be extra scripting for Tomas >.>
 
I still hold to reserve my opinion that not all of your armies should consist of 100% foreign soldiers. Nothing in history is 100% anything when it comes to these kind of things. It is a broad encompassing generalization to equate them as such. There is no empirical evidence to prove this was always the case everywhere. If I start a kingdom somewhere, I should be able to dictate what clothing my soldiers have.  If I am the king of my faction( ordained by GOD), and I decree that my lances should have European garb in North Africa, then it shall be, or off with their heads!! If I am king I should be able to send a group of immigrants to my place of choice, preferably where my court is.? I am king right?  :mrgreen: :mrgreen: If there was an option to switch faction cultures wherever, we would need not even discuss this. Just saying, options make a mod.
 
u can be the king in your game, but ur not the modder who decides what he does for the mod  :lol:
 
Sotuu said:
u can be the king in your game, but ur not the modder who decides what he does for the mod  :lol:
Doesn't change the fact that it would be nice option.

What's the point of setting faction religion when most of your troops end heretic/muslim anyway just because you captured muslim/heretic/pagan towns/castles.

That option is probably just changing one simple number from X to Y so that faction is castle/town changes its regional religion.

Option could cost a lot of denars but imo it should be there.
 
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