Massive changes ideas ! must read !!!

[pierne93]

I got the idea to bring some topics that I found on the forum that moderators of legions will maybe like to improve Legions and increase the popularity of this mod that will bring it at the top of the most played

The ideas

Make Towns and cities siege multi-staged { posted by Nahkuri }

I realize this is probably too late to actually have an effect in the game development, but I'm gonna write it down anyway to kill some time and to see what other people think about it.

When I first heard that town sieges had been introduced to the game, I started squirming in excitement and plotting a bank robbery that would get me some money for a decent enough computer to run any M&B version that came after .751. But when I took over a town for the first time, I couldn't help being a little disappointed. The castle sieges are alright as they are as far as I'm concerned, but  why do we use just 1/4 of all those beatiful town scenes in the actual gameplay(I don't consider running around them actual gameplay if you can access everything via menus as well) ?

So here's what we have.

-run up the ramp and kill stuff on the walls(and prey that your men will do that as well and not just watch the situation on top of the ramp, placing wagers on how many bad guys it takes to bring the boss down.)
-kill enemy reinforcements spawning below the walls.
-kill enemy reinforcements spawning below the walls.
-kill enemy reinforcements spawning below the walls.
-kill enemy reinforcements spawning below the walls.
-kill enemy blah blah blah.
-win the battle, ask for the town to be given to you.

A rough, unpolished idea of how the Town sieges should be done.

-run up the ramp and kill stuff on the walls(preferably without having to prey that your men will do that as well.)
-Kill two or three waves of enemy reinforcements consisting mostly of the higher tier troops that the town has.
-win the battle, have a screen pop up that would tell you something like: "You have captured the walls and enemy has retreated further into town. Now it's time to take the battle to the streets! Do you wish to 1. charge the enemy 2. wait for some time(maybe this option shouldn't exist/ would have a high chance of the enemy making a counter attack) 3. leave"

-Fight on the streets and push on forward towards the castle, killing  large waves of reinforcements that spawn closer and closer to the castle as you progress and that consist of random mix of troops the enemy has and maybe even townspeople, depending on how much the people love their lord/how much they hate you.
-win the battle, have a screen pop up that would tell you something like: "You have taken over the streets and the enemy lord has locked himself up in the castle with the remains of the defenders. Do you wish to 1. attack the castle. 2. wait for some time 3. leave

-Fight in the castle. This wouldn't be a big fight and the troops would be just whatever survived the wall and the streets + the lord and a few high tier troops acting as his guard. Maybe a new scene should be added to make things bit more interesting than fighting in a small room?
-Win the battle. Ask for the town to be given to you.

What do you think? Feel free to add to the idea as well, because it's just something that popped in my mind while I was playing and I wrote it as such.

Discuss.

posted by Nahkuri

That suggestion will make Legion mod the most played modle for Mount&Blade

A picture to show you :

Overhaul of village {posted by ingolifs}

Ideas for a more dynamic system of towns and villages

Ok. Playing this recent version has given me many more ideas for game dynamics, especially when it comes to the villages and castles.
It seems obvious to me that a lot of the current in-game stuff is unfinished placeholder, and that eventually you can expect much more from the game in terms of managing villages and whatnot.

But anyway, here are my ideas for expanding and tying together the roles of villages and castles etc in-game.

What is a village?

A village is a small settlement, containing a hundred or so inhabitants. These people are farmers and tradesmen. They work for a living, doing various things from growing food to making clothes.

Ok, let's think of the variables that can influence a village's status and goals.

Population

Village population will determine many things about the village itself and its capabilities, ranging from how much money it produces to how many troops it can produce on demand.

The rate of population growth is dependant on the size of the population itself, and limitations to do with supply. This can be modelled (warning, math alert) by the differential equation dP/dt = -kP2+cP where cP is the growth rate, and -kP2 is thelimit on growth casued by a limit of supplies. (for those of you who don't speak math, basically this means population increases exponentially as long as the population is small, but bupulation increase curtails at larger populations. This allows villages to recover rapidly, but prevents them from becoming overcrowded)

Population is affected by other things, such as prosperity of the town (which affects the birth rate), and supplies (which reduces the limiting population factor). Of course, population is also affected by immigration (refugees coming to the village) and death from battle.

In turn, population plays a crucial role in other aspects of village dynamics.

Workforce
It is assumed that the entire population is capable of work.
Villagers spend their time and resources working on a variety of things. Here's a basic rundown.

-Growing food and raising livestock
-Building/repairing or improving housing
-Building fortifications
-making fabric or other products (such as fur or wine or oil) to sell at the nearest city
-making weapons
-Training for battle (increases the proportion of inhabitants who are milita class or higher)

The villagers do not do these in equal amounts. Most of the time, they'll be growing food or making other items to sell.
The things they do are not fixed, either. They'll change focus if told to by the fief's lord, or by necessity from recent events.

For instance, if a lot of trade goes through the area, the village will concentrate on making tradeable items accordingly. (the actual type of item produced mught be at random, or could be dependant on local conditions.)

Another example, if the village had recently been ransacked and looted, the villagers will put more effort into making fortifications, making weapons and training themselves to be decent fighters. That way if they get attacked again, they'll put up more of a fight. This way, villages near to the borders who are prone to getting raided, they will eventually become mini fortresses as long as they have the time and resources to recover after each looting.

Commodities

Every now and then (say once every 3 days), a small villager caravan will be sent to the nearest town to sell their food and other wares. The quantity and quality of these items (and therefore the revenue they bring for the village) is dependant on the village's size, the number of people working on these commodities, and the quality of the actual facilities at the village for making these commodities. (Flour ground at a better mill will fetch a higher price than flour ground at a crap mill)

Prosperity

Like morale, but for villages. Prosperity is mostly dependant on revenue, and other issues, such as having a lack of food, or having beaten off an enemy attack. Prosperity increases population growth, and also increases production power of commodities or whatever else the villagers work on. It also attracts foreign villagers to the town. (the effect of these foreign villagers is to decrease prosperity, so things even out eventually)

Food and housing

A village, like a party, will need food to function. With a lack of food, the village will starve and productivity plummets. This is rare, however, because a typical village will produce far in excess of what it consumes. This excess goes towards trade with the cities. A village also needs houses for people to live in. If the housing cannot support the population, prosperity and productivity goes downhill.

Battle

At any one time, roughly a third of the population is fit for service in an army (going on marches and fighting in general), while in an emergency, another third of the population can be called up to fight, if it is to defend the village. Obviously, the number of battle-ready villagers is proportional to the total population.

The number of villagers able to fight is also proportional to the cumulative effort the villagers have put into training themselves for battle. The longer and harder they've been preparing, the more battle-ready villagers there will be. This effort put into training for battle also influences the porportion of battle ready villagers are militia, rather than standard peasants. For a village that puts no effort into training, none of them will be militia. For a village that puts substantial effort into training, a good half of them could be militia.

Being raided

After a successful raid against the village, the surviving population scatters, and is represented by parties of refugees on the world map. The refugees will all basically flee in different directions and move to the nearest city or village.

The amount of money and goods found in the village after looting is proportional to the total wealth of the village and the amount of manpower it currently devotes to making goods respectively.

Recovering

Villages recover slowly, as they currently do. The population must work its way back up from the small number it had immediately after the attack. During this recovery period, their main focus will be on rebuilding the village, and a minimal standard in housing needs to be met before they can move on to other tasks.


Owning a village

Not that i've outlined the basics of how villages function autonomously, i'd like to address how the player, as lord of a fief or just a passer-by, can influence and affect things.

Trading with villages

The amount of goods that you can trade with a village will depend on the village's prosperity and amount of goods, and their relationship with you. If your relationship with them is poor, they'll offer you little, if anything at all.

You should be able to recruit troops from any village. Again, the number of troops should be dependant on several factors, such as:
-The total population
-The proportion of the population fit for service
-Your relationship with the town and the faction in general. (Anything negative, and you won't get anyone volunteering)
-Your renown (villagers will be looking for some adventure, they'll want to know who you are and what you do)
-Your recent battle success (villagers won't want to join if they think you're likely to be steamrolled by a bunch of river pirates)

Managing your village

As elaborated earlier, your village will have various wants and needs. As the lord of your fief, it's up to you to look after it. The most obvious way of doing so is to protect it, but there are other ways.

Upgrading your village is one way. I propose that instead of having set upgrade 'tiers' ("you have upgraded your mill to level 3"), the system could be more continuous and flexible. Basically, you can improve different areas by donating money or items accordingly.

Here are some examples.
-By donating stone and wood, you help the village in building houses
-By donating wood and iron, you help the village produce weapons
-By donating raw fabrics, such as linen or wool, you help the village produce clothes
-By donating food, the village is relieved of the pressure to grow food, and can concentrate on other matters.
-By donating money, the village is relieved of the pressure to create goods for trade, and can concentrate on other matters.

Telling your village what to do

As lord of the village, you get to see where the villagers are concentrating their efforts. You also get to order them to put their effort elsewhere. If you're in need of an army, you'll tell them to focus on making weapons and training themselves for the next few days. If you have an economic strategy worked out, and you're planning to corner the market, you can order them to concentrate on producing goods.

One has to be careful not to ruin his village, however. Getting the village to concentrate on something trivial like fortifications when they are starving, is a good way to mess up the village's productivity, prosperity and population. On the other hand, focusing on growing food and making goods and not on defense exposes your village to attack.

Whether or not they actually follow these orders, and to what degree, is dependant on their relations with you.

Defense and conscription

If you feel your village is lacking in defense capabilities, you can always station troops there. Stationing troops in a village also has the advantage of aiding villagers in battle-training.

But there are downsides. Villages are not like cities or castles, with lots of free living space. Having soldiers in a village can impact on it dramatically, as they use up food and housing space, but do not contribute to the vilalge's work effort. They also have the tendancy to get into all the local women, and just generally get on everybody's nerves and pull prosperity down.


If you are desperate for an army, and you don't care how disorganised it is, you have the option to levy up to two thirds of the village, and take them with you on a campaign.

There are serious consequences to doing this, though. Removing two thirds of a village effectively cripples it. The village won't be able to defend itself because all the battle-capable villagers are gone, and the village revenue is seriously reduced. The village takes a hard hit, prosperity-wise. If the conscripted villagers are not returned after service, or are all killed, the village may be permanently affected.

The other downside is the unwilling villagers will pull your own party morale down. And unless you're a wizard at managing your party, they're gonna get more and more depressed the longer they remain away from home.


Maintaining relations with villages

As stated earlier, many dealings with villages are affected by your standing with them. It makes sense to keep them in your good books (or at least the ones that you don't pillage all the time.)

for villages that you do not own:
You can increase relations by coming to their aid in a battle, donating money or goods to them, trading with them, sending caravans their way, escorting their villagers to the nearest city and doing quests for them.

You decrease relations by threatening them, by attacking them, or if they are positively related to you, by refusing to aid them during a raid (being nearby but not coming to their aid during an attack).

For villages that you do own:
Your relations are dependant more directly on the prosperity of the village. If you screw things up for them, they'll hate you for it. It's not exactly fair (prosperity can be lost for reasons that are in no way your fault), but you can't really expect a peasant to have a fully logical understanding of cause and effect. Besides, it keeps you on your toes.


Some sort of summary

I believe that a lot more depth and complexity can be added to this facet of the game, while still maintaining the fun factor. These ideas are designed to add a higher level challenge to the game, at a point where your armies steamroll everything anyway. My belief is that larger amounts of power in the game should be counterbalanced by larger amounts of responsibility. You still have the ability to roam the land with a band of loyal knights, but if you want to own stuff and command large armies, you should be expected to work for it.




Visitable Battlefields {posted by ingolifs}

I've always wanted to do this. You are out on the worldmap on your sunday stroll, and you come across a battlefield. One of those big X things on the map (at the moment you need tracking to see it, but perhaps that could be changed)

You click on it, and your party travels to it. Upon arriving, you are given the option of investigating it. When you investigate it, you learn details of what happened in the fight (how many were killed, say), and you also have a chance at finding loot and finding wounded soldiers.

The loot you find is rare and of low quality (because all the good stuff is already taken), and the chance of finding a wounded troop you can take with you is also small.
Investigating a battlefield takes time, making you vulnerable on the world map. So when you come across a battlefield, you have to make up your mind whether or not to look for loot. On one hand you can make some extra money and bolster your forces with wounded troops that eventually heal. On the other hand you could be surprise attacked by an enemy. (which means a tactics disadvantage)

Furthermore, the chances and quality of the stuff you find is inversely proportional to the time the battlefield has been present on the world map. The idea is that as time passes, more and more people nick the loot, and more and more wounded die.

All of this would probably be menu and text driven. But it would be really cool if going to an actual generated battlefield (generated to look authentic with all the dead bodies scatered in the clusters you'd expect, and arrows sticking out of some of them here and there), and you see your men looking around searching through the wreckage.

When you defeat an enemy yourself, there's the initial loot screen, from the loot that is quite easy to find, and remove, and then you can choose to spend some time (4-5 hours maybe) searching through the battlefield to find the rest of the loot.

Finally, other parties can search battlefields too, if they're confident enough, and they're of the right type (e.g. war parties, and not caravans)
Once a battlefield is searched, it cannot be searched again. You can attack enemy parties looting a battlefield for a tactics bonus. If you approach a friendly party looting a battlefield, they'll politely tell you to piss off.

 

[ealabor]

Alot of good ideas just came out of this thread.

Some things I forgot to note to myself when envisioning similar ideas, some entirely new concepts

 

[pierne93]

Camera Effects { posted by Lancer2D }

The Problem
Please, picture this scene in your head:

You are riding your horse over the vast rolling plains of Calradia, tinged golden orange by the hastily receding sun.  The pink horizon delivers the final beams of light over the darkening mountain range in the distance.  Long grass glitters with dew, filling the air with a thick, cool scent that satisfies your lungs each time you inhale.  The power of the galloping beast under you combined with your still-warm armor protects you from the harsh yet beautiful environment flowing into your hemlet, filling you with energy.

In your hand you feel cool steel thirsting for warm blood.  With each pounding hoofbeat, a helpless victim draws nearer.  You can taste his terror in your throat as you raise your sword, taking a deep breath.  "One, two, three..."  You count off each group of steps in your mind as you close in.  On the count of five you tense every muscle in your body as you release the air in your lungs and swing your sword simultaneously, using all the energy in your body in one brief moment.  As your weapon reaches out to the side, you feel it make contact with thick flesh.  It takes all of your strength to keep yourself mounted and your weapon in hand.

Instantly, your energy is replenished as you feel a scream reverberate through your helmet.  A drip warm blood falls to your hand and instantly cools in the wind.  The final rays of sunlight make your blade shine a deep red as you examine it with satisfaction.

Okay, now keep that scene in mind while I ask the following questions.  As your horse flew over the plains, did you feel each powerful leap?  When your blade struck did you feel the hard contact pull you back?  If you were imagining that scene as a battle in Mount & Blade you sure didn't.

The Solution
A great way to express the raw power of battle is with various camera effects.

Mounted:

    * As your horse gains speed, the camera should gently bounce with the horse's gallop.  This will make horses feel much more powerful.
    * Once your horse reaches a certain speed, the camera should begin to slide away from your character.  This will greatly improve sense of speed.
    * When you strike an enemy at a certain speed the camera should quickly jerk back and maybe gently yaw into the swing as well.  This will make killing even more fun than it already is.
    * When making sharp turns the camera should roll slightly into the turn and drop very slightly.  This will make turning at high speeds feel nice and sharp.
    * When aiming an arrow or couching a lance, these effects should be temporarily reduced or removed to keep them from hindering gameplay.


Both mounted and on foot:

    * When struck by anything the camera should be jarred accordingly with the blow.  Headshots should cause the same effect, but with more force.  This will make people take blows seriously.
    * When a large group of horses are galloping within a certain range, the camera should rumble gently.  This will just be plain awesome. <_<
    * Players should have the option of turning these camera effects off in the options menu.  I wouldn't doubt that this would cause motion sickness in a few people.


The Conclusion
Mount & Blade is great fun, but it is still lacking in immersion.  These camera effects should add a lot to immersion while doing little to no damage to framerates.
If you still don't think this suggestion is totally awesome, then I suggest you grab a fresh pair of underpants and try to open Mount & Blade and your imagination at the same time.

but there would be a option to activate or desactivate the effect

 

[pierne93]

Alot of good ideas just came out of this thread.

Some things I forgot to note to myself when envisioning similar ideas, some entirely new concepts

I'll find a lot because many people have Idea in the forum but mods doesn't have time to search that why I i got the idea to bring them all in the legions mod to make it the mbest and the modt played mod in Mount &  Blade

 

[ealabor]

Yes I rarely have time to visit out the mod forum, or mod help related forums, so its good to have people bring work and ideas in.

Thanks.

 

[pierne93]

Yes I rarely have time to visit out the mod forum, or mod help related forums, so its good to have people bring work and ideas in.

Thanks.

do you have some projection for that ?
and for the multi staged siege for legions because it will very cool
and I will tell you that Legions mod doesn't work with the 0.955 M&B please try to resolve that

thanks

 

[pierne93]

Hold Fire

I was thinking of posting a suggesiton like this, but I didnt make up my mind..
It is a good idea, here is what happens in game;
1)I line up my archers with hold ground.
2)There is a small hill aprox. 700 meters away from my archers, the hill blocks my archers and my vision from the enemies.
3)If a single enemy's head is visible after he climbed up the hill, even though the distance is 700 meters... My archers immediately starts shooting, all of my archers, shooting at the single visible enemy's head(even though its 100% miss)...
4)By the time the enemies reach my archers, there are no more or very few arrows left and very few enemies are actually hit.

tha's why a  hold fire command will be useful for archers control

 

[ealabor]

and I will tell you that Legions mod doesn't work with the 0.955 M&B please try to resolve that

thanks

yeah.. I'll just uh.. get right on that one

 

[pierne93]

RUN !!! { posted by illinest }

In Call of Duty, you are given a "sprint" button.
When you press the sprint button, your speed increases dramatically while an "endurance bar" decreases quickly. When your endurance bar reaches 0, (after about 5 seconds of sprinting) You slow down to a jog and cannot sprint again until the endurance bar refills completely. (Which also takes about 5 seconds)
If you can limit your sprint to less than half of the length of the endurance bar, then you can immediately resume sprinting again before the endurance bar completely refills, but if at any time you drop to less than half endurance, you MUST wait until the bar is completely refilled again.

I think that this feature would add depth to the gameplay. Timing your "runs" would become an important part of your melee combat strategy, as you would need to balance the needs of closing distance with an archer versus "saving" your run for a quick retreat from the horde of axe wielding barbarians.
Sprinting could also be a trainable skill (differentiated from "running" of course) which would allow you to lengthen the endurance bar and allow for longer sprints.

In addition, the same mechanic could be applied to mounted combat, with sprinting (hopefully) giving the additional benefit of added charging damage.
That should be part of the athletics skill...
a stamina bar will be limit the run

Heavy armours should limit sprinting more than they seem to limit normal movement. It's really hard to notice any difference when walking around in heavy armours in the game, but sprinting in chainmail wouldn't be that easy.


New spears style combat{ posted by Vilhjalmr}

've got a few (mostly) simple suggestions for spears, which I think would make this currently rather boring weapon more like the long, terrifying, phallus of death it was on the medieval battlefield. I'm just going to list them with numbers, rather than weave them into a long and engaging masterpiece of prose, because I'm too lazy to do otherwise.

(N.B. Most of these suggestions are for spears being used in one hand in conjunction with a shield, or possibly for those older spears that don't swing.)

OK, here we go:

1. Change the grip point on spears. Currently, the spear is held in the centre of the shaft, which is extremely damaging to the advantage of length, an important aspect of the spear. I propose that it simply be moved back to about two thirds back from the head, which is, to my knowledge, more how spears were carried in reality.

2. Give spears more attack directions. This is a change people have wanted forever, but it's rather hard to implement in practice. The reasoning for this change is very simple: a person should not be able to block an infinite number of spear strikes from an endless number of spearmen without having to move his arm so much as an inch. It’s ridiculous, to say the least. So, my solution is this: in addition to the standard frontal stab, which is what we have now, why not add in three new animations which allow the spearman to throw his arm out left, right, or above, and aim the spear inwards from that direction? (If you don’t understand what I mean, please ask. I know it’s a bit hard to picture.) These directional attacks would match up just as well with their relative block directions as the current one does with the somewhat dubious stab-parry. These attacks would still essentially be stabs, meaning the spear would not be swung and the speed bonus would still result from forward movement -- the only difference would be the animation and the block direction required to parry the attack. (Again, please fire away some questions if you don’t get it.)

Picture to show you :

3. Give them a few more points of damage. No matter how strong I am, I should only be able to have my organs forcibly rearranged by means of a sharp pole of wood being rammed into my gut so many times before I fall over dead. It's not like getting part of my arm cut open by a hatchet or something -- a spear through the lung will end you very, very quickly. (I've found the current spears have to be strongly rammed into a fur or leather armoured victim's chest about three times before he properly dies. I think this is a bit too much.)


Anyway, those are my suggestions. Please comment.



Tauting for units{ posted by Stratigos001 }

Taunting would be an excellent new addition to Mount&blade. It would work best with Nords or Rhodoks, and especially bandits. Or any faction. It would be enjoyable to watch you're enemy taunt before getting attacked. Also you're own troops. Showing emotion and actions would make Mount&blade more realistic.
Before the battle, the general holds a speech and the units shout at the enemies:
I bring you death! I will chop off your head!

There could also be special taunts for M&B like if you fight the Khergits your men will shout: "Horse kissings bastards" and the Nords could be "uncivilized animals and pagans".

Warriors were common men and not very polite so I support this idea.


Adding Ambushes { posted by Stratigos001 }{ reply  by Jon Snow }

{ posted by Stratigos001 }
If you agree that adding ambushes to Mount&blade would make it more realistic and fun, then please reply.



{ reply  by Jon Snow }
You guys' ideas of what ambushes are seem pretty limited. An awesome implementation of this would be to be able to move your army in a stealthy manner (just a toggle button somewhere) at the cost of much-reduced speed, with the enemies' ability to spot you based upon your party's pathfinding skill (or maybe an average of your pathfinding, spotting and tracking skill) and the size of your army, maybe. The higher your pathfinding skill and the smaller your army, the smaller the radius around you in which they can spot you. This could mean that at high pathfinding skill at night, with a small enough group of soldiers, you could be completely invisible while moving discreetly. Obviously the conditions for this would be fairly difficult, with a higher pathfinding skill meaning a larger group could move completely discreetly. This could allow you to fight the enemy with the addition of a modest tactics bonus if they are unaware of you before you initiate combat.
If there's an easy way to check for cavalry across a whole party, I think that mounted troops should increase your detection range in this system.
Damn, I'm in a really overblown-ideas mood tonight. This stuff will never end up in the game except as a mod.

 

[Tercero]

awesome post!

 

[pierne93]

Death Options Proposal { posted by ryanwigginton }

I know the developers have already suggested this will happen.  This is how it should happen in my own opinion.  I've tried to keep it as logical and simple as possible.

You're knocked down in battle and lose all your hitpoints, you're killed.  The game is saved as a dead character along with all the stats etc.  This one's easy.

You're knocked down in battle with hitpoints remaining, you're unconscious...
A: Your army wins:
i) They carry you from battle to revive you.

B: The enemy wins:
i) The enemy is not taking prisoners and you are executed
ii) The enemy ARE taking prisoners (this option could have different branches however, escape should NOT be default.  If you have some renown it could be likely someone pays a ransom for your release)
iii) You awake on the battlefield sometime later amongst dead bodies, either with kit or with no kit/items missing.



Siege machines should be improved,especially ladders

for example,tonight I had an siege with over an hundred men and they are all trying to get on the ladder.It is too small for an swarm of 20 men,less alone 180.So I propose that the team of M&B fix the siege towers and ladders,lengthen the width so more people can go on the ladder.Also second,create siege weapons that cost money and can shoot projectiles before battle,like it would be an set amount of time before an wall etc is breached by bombardment.Just think it over and keep up the good work.

exemple for problem native :

Honor rating and Character Death { posted by maelstrom }

Hello Players (and wonderful Devs if you are a-lurking),

I was talking to a buddy of mine who introduced me to this fine, fine game. We were talking about the honor system.
While I understand this subject has been touched on frequently and the on-going answer is 'who knows for sure', I was thinking about the expansion of the honor system based on KOEI's Romance of the Three Kingdoms series, or something similar.

Here's how that series (roughly) worked. The lords all had a loyalty score. If you captured a lord in battle, you had three options:

1. Recruit the lord to your side. This could be implemented in M&B using the (imho) under used Persuasion skill. No, it shouldn't be easy to do and I will offer more on this in a moment.
2. Release the lord. This improved the relationship between that specific lord and your character (like M&B).
3. Execute the lord. This action had a dramatic effect on relationship on all the other rulers and lords (by lords I mean those that serve the ruler/king/khan/whatever) and typically it was negative for all within the clan/kingdom and (to a lesser effect other rulers). Nobody likes a king-killer and rightly so.

So, how does this fit into M&B? Glad you asked; here's my take on it.

Releasing a lord/ruler already creates a boon between that specific lord/ruler and gives the main character a bump in honor. What if the main character could suffer from character death (i.e. potential execution)? How does that affect change on the player's options? Should I siege this castle until I'm out of troops? What if I fail the first siege and while rebuilding new ladders/towers my support officers leave to chase a roaming enemy officer, whatever?
Now consider capturing and releasing an enemy lord; then, at some later point, they manage to capture you while your weak (or ganged up on). If the main character has shown mercy, then that lord may refrain from imprisoning the character. Why is the player the only lord granting mercy after battles? If the player plays a feral beserking lord executioner, then if s/he is caught, well.....

This adds to the idea of recruitment. After capturing a lord a few times, if the player builds up her/his Persuasion skill, they may have a chance to switch that lord's loyalty. Not all lords believe whole-heartedly in their lord; especially, if the player's side is winning the war. Why go down with the ship? This would make charisma based characters even more of an option (again like ROTK, where characters were high in intelligence, war or charisma; and sometimes in more than one stat).
In ROTK, diplomacy skill became a strong factor in the latter versions. The player could contact an enemy lord in a non-combat setting and get him to switch sides in combat or just leave his lord now and join up (without the effort of capturing them...much harder, but not impossible). Let me state emphatically, I don't want M&B to become a diplo-style game. It's not that kind of animal, but a few more options for the skills would let us honey-tongue our enemies instead of always slicing them with vinegar-coated steel---more options for the player to conquer the world. "Ah yeah, that lord with 100 men and a city you used to own...he's mine now...thanks".

Lastly, the honor system creates a more postive effect during recruitment, or a negative effect when in need of clemency. This might also aid the difficult progression for the player if they want to become a ruler themselves. Build up under a ruler for a while, developing the character and relationships with other lords, resign that position and take some lords in tow.
Okay, I could go on, but this opening piece is long enough. If you've read all of this, many kudos and thanks for taking the time out to do so.
And once again, thanks to the Armagen and the devs for such a wonderful game.



Please if you like the post reply

 

[Havoc134]

Wow dude you have some awesome ideas.  One thing i would like to point out, the multi-siege idea is partly implemented.  I took part in a battle when the enemies were fighting in the streets, just as you are describing.  Also, my friend was besieging a castle with several lords, he won but the lords retreated inside the castle and he and a few of his warriors had to storm the keep and kill the remaining defenders.  These are in .95x, which is not stable yet so keep up the good work.

 

[FrisianDude]

Havoc, those aren't HIS ideas, he's only grouping them together here.

 

[TITANAS84]

the village have biger population and space than the city.this is weird.

 

[Havoc134]

Havoc, those aren't HIS ideas, he's only grouping them together here.

Well in any case i just thought i would point at out.

 

[pierne93]

Secondary Attacks { posted by Destichado } { reply by Eogan }

{ posted by Destichado }
The idea of having secondary attacks has been kicked around on this forum off an on, half-heartedly, for at least a year now.  Someone suggests it, some few of us think it "might" be an "okay" idea, but implamentation has always been a problem.  So has the idea of what the secondary attack would actually be.  My suggestion takes care of implamentation, and proivides a platform for shield-bashing, hilt-punching, making polearms behave more like poilearms, fechtbook moves, and any number of other frequently suggested ideas.

Well, they say that a picture is worth a thousand words.  So, if you will forgive me for a mess of near stick-figures, hastily sketched on the spurr of the moment, allow me to substitute a few dozen paragraphs.

Now, if you'll permit me to explain:


One of the beauties of M&B is that the left muse click ASSUMES the ready possition, and that relase triggers the attack.  This compares favorably to a game like, say, Oblivion, where the click triggers attack wheather you would have prefered to wait for a better moment or not.
I believe that the way to make secondary attacks work well is to make the both the primary and secondary attack flow from the same ready position("wards" or "guards" in fechtbook terms).  Pressing the left mouse button will assume the guard postion based on the position of the cursor, just as it is now.  Releasing the mouse button will trigger attack, just as it does now.  Releasing the mouse button while simultaniously pressing the "secondary attack button" will produce a new attack with a different animation.  (For the secondary attack button I like Z or Ctrl, personally, but that can be configured to taste like everything else.)


The purpose of having a secondary attack is usually to produce a different kind of damage.  Here it is no different.  A thrust-only spear does piercing damage.  Its secondary attack, a butt-stroke, would deal blunt.  You can see the usefullness already.  When fists were introduced, we realized that if we were prepared to accept much less damage, we could stop carrying around a blunt weapon for knocking out the Noble.  Siimilarly, if you're prepared to accept lesser damage, using the secondary attack you could pommel, butt-stroke and shield-bash your enemies into submission.
But with M&B's parrying system we would get a new utility, for while primary and secondary attacks would flow out of the same initial position, the attacks can come from in different vectors.  (EG: the primary attack with sword & shield, vs a shield bash.)  If you're in the high guard with an opponent who's bliocking high?  Thrust your pommel at him instead, before he changes guards. Using a quarterstaff like a quarterstaff would actually become possible.

I think we're all clever enough to figure out the logical secondary attacks for each guard position, especially given the drawing, but I can list them all if need be.



I realize that this would be a chore and a half to animate -doubling the attack animations- and would require adding even more stats to weapons and shields  It may potentially add to system requirements, but not in a comparitively signifigant way.  On the other hand, think of all the benefits.  It's a relatively simple way to get the shield-bashing we want.  It would add a great degree of realiism to the game -some of it straight out of the fechtbooks.  And it could be used to give throwing troops melee options without switching weaons.


(PS: Forgive the second row illustrations.  The stick figure is clearly readying and delivering a thrust, but I mis-labeled it as an overhead cut.  Sorry!)


{ reply by Eogan }

Beautiful.  Wonderful.  Glorious.

So, uhh... what's the secondary attack button?

Actually, I think a double-click would work well with your system.  Well, not a standard double-click, because it would work with a delay.  What I mean is that if you left-click within, say, an half-second of releasing the attack button it would perform the secondary attack.  So:

- if you hold down the left mouse button and then release it you do a normal attack.
- if you left-click you do a normal attack.
- if you hold down the LMB, release it, and then click again within a half-second you do a secondary attack.
- if you double-click you do a secondary attack.

That also opens up the possibility of repeating that system with the right mouse button, which could open the door for grappling, shield-hooks, or even dodging.  Actually, no.  If you're blocking with a weapon, sometimes you need to click that fast just to defend yourself.  Doing a random shoulder roll in such situations would be annoying.




Heavy weapon swings wound multiple opponents. { posted by Felklaw }

G'Day all.

Not sure if this has been mentioned in a suggestion as I couldn't find it in my searching.

Heavy weapons like the glaive, 2 handed heavy axe and 2 handed swords have a large damage potential to anyone infront of the wielder of said weapon.

Currently, swinging these weapons results in a single person taking the brunt of the damage. Same as if I charge along on my warhorse at a group of enemies on foot and swing my sword down the side, I hit one person, and if they block then I hit nobody.

In reality I would be able to wound a couple of people in a single swing, especially with a heavy weapon.

My suggestion is if you are using a 2 handed weapon on foot, that it has the potential to harm more than a single person in the path of the swipe.
To compensate for the larger damage output, this should only apply to heavy 2 handed weapons, and it would also be reflected by a lower weapon speed to make it slower to swing. (speed <= 85 ?)
This way it can dish out more damage, but you have to be able to swing it in the first place !
This doesn't apply to 1 handed weapons, or fast 2 handed weapons when on foot, as they are too light to transfer the momentum damage to more than the first person they impact with. (balance issue)

Also, a similar system for when mounted on horseback and swinging your weapon.
2 handed weapons or heavy 2 handed weapons damage multiple people when the horse is moving at medium speed (just below couched lance speed)
A stationary horse doesn't convey the bonus, so don't get swamped down by foot troops 

Single handed weapons can harm multiple enemies if the horse is moving at it's fastest speed (couched lance speed). Maybe make a minimum horse speed of 4 for these multiple hit bonus to be effective, that way you will never get the bonus if riding on a lame horse.



Distance based reinforcements spawning for raids/defense, Arena, Battles.
{ posted by DamienZharkoff }

This is a common complaint, and still a valid one.

In a castle siege I did earlier, my men in the first wave (Not seperate battle, each wave in this case being my original men at start of fight (first wave) and my two reinforcement sets) were dwindeling in numbers, but were kicking some serious ass. We fought the enemy back and.... they spawn right ontop of my men! So since their men all carry short swords, and my nord huscarls all carry axes, a slaughter began on my men.

What we need is maybe, three or four different spawn points. Each spawn point will not activate if there are troops there. If there are troops around all spawn points, then either...
A) Troops spawn in even(ish) amounts at all spawn points (would add archer based military)
or
B) Troops spawn on the one with the most(or least) men

Note: Feel free to discuss all forms of enemies spawning, I changed the topic so we can nip the whole issue of bad spawning, not just some

If there are troops around all spawn points, then either...
A) Troops spawn in even(ish) amounts at all spawn points (would add archer based military)
or
B) Troops spawn on the one with the most(or least) men



Executing prisoners for profit (Or disposition)  { posted by DamienZharkoff }

In medieval times, killing criminals was damn near a party for the townsfolk. Cheering, dancing, fun!

So why not be able to execute a number of your prisoners to attract more income (As the citizens will be spending more at the market hucksters, and therefore increase how much you get from said citizens")

Or instead (a more likely idea) you may do it for a large, small, non existent, harmful, or wounding disposition gain.

an Example.

You have 92 prisoners. You choose to kill 30 of them. you are killing 33% of your prisoners. The city may, or may not like this. After a day of executing prisoners, you will get one of give rewards (or punishments)

The city of Jelkla cheers at your show of power upon your enemies. After spending a day of celebrating and taunting the dead foe, they move on to the taverns and markets, spreading the joy in the form of spent gold to the taverns and market stalls throughout the city! (+2-3)

The citizens of the city smile and cheer at the death of the criminals. After the events die down, they move on with their lives, heading off to home to tend the children, or to work the fields. (+1)

The citizens occasionally gawk at the executions that take place. But most seem to rather work then watch the events unfold. (0)

The citizens, having seen enough violence, turn in early, shaken by the blood bath. (-1)

The citizens are outraged at your cruelty and bloodlust! Some protest the "murders" of so many prisoners and a few brave ones charge the executioner and gaurds. [afterwards one of two lines may appear in this sentance] The gaurds kill the petty attackers, and the crowd falls silent, slinking back to their homes after seeing such horrid acts that day (-3)
The gaurds manage to kill the large and rowdy group of attackers, though, some gaurds were killed and injured. the crowd falls silent, slinking back to their homes after seeing such horrid acts that day (-3, Randomly Wounds and kill some of the lowest tier troops garrisoned)

Different cities would have different tastes in # of troops (or % depending what works better) that they would like to see executed. This would (preferably) also be partially decided by region.
Perhaps for party morale.



Recruit Deserters { posted by DamienZharkoff }

I bet this topic has been posted before, Just can't find a topic based on my own thus far

Simply put...
EG: You are now at war with Rhodoks. You have -10 Relation (This is assuming your not aligned to a kingdom for this example)
A extra topic will ALWAYS be in a deserters chat (In this example they are rhodok trained crossbowmen, 10 of them, that you encounter)

Deserter: We are free brothers! We blah blah blah (Insert dramatic desire here) (Insert taunt here)
I will make you regret ever leaving the army!
Surrender (Wussy)
How about I give you a chance to get some revenge on the (Kingdom)s? [Player selects this one]

Deserter: You ain't done nothing more then start a petty squabble with our side! Why should we trust you?
You can't! (Attack)
Never mind... (Go back to last page)
I have coin. just name your price [Player chooses this one]

Deserter: Let us see here... Well me and my boys ain't just out to piss off our old lords... We also need some coin to fill our bellies! 400 Denars for the 10 of us. Pay up and you got yerself some men!
Sure! Heres your pay!
I don't have that kind of denar to spare!
Know what, forget it! I'll fill your bellies with my blade!
Never mind...

If you are aligned with, or neutral, they will just suddenly attack you. This would place you at a tactics disadvantage.

Ok, I am done ranting! wewt!



Face smashed in by losing in a battle {posted by Ingolifs }

I was just thinking, that maybe if a player loses a battle and gets knocked unconscious, there could be a random chance of something happening to his face.

This 'something' can include: losing teeth, getting scars in various places, having a nasty gash that goes through the eye so you only have one eye. (like one of those faces in hugemod i think) or getting your nose broken and wonky.

These effects would only be cosmetic, but they would be permanent.

any thoughts?



Companions { posted by Shadow_73 }


Just wondering, I'm probably going to get shot down in flames but, I have 3 questions


1)
If your companions can become nobles or your own squires, taking to the map them selfs and giving the soldiers of your own maybe to get them to go raid villages or start a siege on a town that you can later go on to? or something else that I didn't think of.

2)
If not that, maybe if them disband from your army because they are not happy with you, they can join a faction or wonder the map as a bandit and build up there own army, and maybe if they have a grudge against you (leaving because they hate the way you lead or hate your other companions), they can spend there time looking for you to destroy your army and making your life hell, which would make the game harder in my opinion.

3)
If you are in a faction and have a good relation with the king or another lord, would it be possible to get them to train up and army for you, this would only be good at the start of the game, I find it hard myself to train an army at levels 1-10, but anyway, if not a lord or king, maybe a town or village of your own? this would come at a cost and take some time.

If something like this has been posted before, sorry, but I couldn't find anything on it, and don't be harsh on me please, i'm just learning about this, and actually thought though unlike few of my other posts




Travern : Treat your men to dinner { posted by DamienZharkoff }

Would be nice if you could enter a tavern, and, for a cost of some denars per man, treat your men to a feast to raise morale

Meals available would be based on region, and cities prosperity

A rich city would be obviously have more food, better quality TO the food, and better chefs

When you walk into a tavern, you may talk to a bartender about this topic
(In this example, we will use a rich city so i may show all options)
Tavern Keeper: Greetings
You: I wish to buy my men a meal
Tavern Keeper: Well, what should we prepare?
You:
Some Swill and Fresh bread (2Denars a man)
Some Strong Ale, Bread, and Fine cheeses (4Denars a man)
Some Wine, Cheeses, Breads, and your choicest meats! (10Denars a man)
Let them order what they wish and eat until their stomachs burst! (15Denars a man)

Now of course, different regions would have different options

Also, the morale gain would be based on a factor of region + food + troop type

Say you have this army setup

10 Nord Footmen
20 Swadian Recruits
5 Mercenary Crossbowmen
and say currently the swadians are at war with the nords. You go to eat at a swadian city, with you yourself being a swadian lord. In this case, the following would happen

10 Nord footmen will add -2 to the morale gain (modifers of -1 for being at war with that region, and -1 for the meal being provided by a swadian lord)
20 Swadian Recruits will add +2 to whatever meals modifer you choose (+1 for eating a meal in their own region, +1 for it being a lord of their country (would be an honor))
5 Mercenary Crossbowmen would add +0 (They don't have preferences to regions, and They don't care whose side they are on)

In this case, to NEGATE the negative modifier of the nords, you would need to buy a great meal for them to forget it came from the lord of a nation that their brothers are at war with.

Same topic theme: Banquet { posted by Snorky }

I have played M&B for some time now, but didn't really feel the need to register on the forum. Until i had an idea, which in my opinion could greatly enhance the immersion of the game.

Taking cities and castles is fun and all with your mighty throne room in it, but i always felt like it missed something. I would just like to hang around my own fiefs a bit more but the problem is, as a player you have no real reason to do so.

So my idea of giving the player more reason to stick around his castle/city, would be the ability to organize banquets and letting you choose which lords to invite. Some lords would greatly appreciate your offer and therefore greatly improve your relations with the lord in question. Other may see no reason to join your banquet and would kindly, or not kindly refuse your offer, this all depending on your current relations with the lords, however some lords whom you did not invite, but did expected to be invited might cause a loss of reputation so you should choose your guest carefully.

As for the banquet it self, It could be just a way of gathering the lords you want to talk to regarding quests and stuff, you could discus war, finance or just more social talk. It could even be a way of displaying your wealth, by wearing expensive cloths or how extravagant the feast is organized.

But i don't think it shouldn't end up in a hall full of lords standing in line for you to talk to, the lords should also talk to each other in such a way that the feast can even have a certain mood, more social or more political, for instance if you invited enemy lords this could drastically change the mood or it might even lead to peace. If you would be the Marshal you could greatly use the Banquets to give lords mission and so on.

In any case i feel it could give the characters and the game over all, allot more depth.

 

[pierne93]

I find one of the better, the bigger idea i ever seen before but not be use for Legions maybe for M&B 2

I post it anyway :

No world map    {posted by Sgt. Blackthorne }

I want to start off by thanking the developers of M&B for making such an incredible game! Truly M&B is the best game I've played thanks to it's realism and immersiveness.

However I have a suggestion that would add a very realistic aspect to the game and improve the immersiveness very much. I think that the battles in M&B are awesome and you really feel like you're there on the battlefield ordering your men to battle, but as soon as the battle is over and you go to the world map you loose that feeling. I think that it would be better if there was no world map but instead one very large map in real scale.
  This might seem a very large task and maybe it is not something I would not hope to see in the near future but perhaps in a later version of the game. There is a lively discussion on "the completely unrealistic, frustrating terrain generation" and I agree that it is a thorn in the eye of immersion. With this idea that problem would be solved in a very nice way.

So how can this be done? It sounds like a very daunting task to make a huge world map (rather the world map in higher polygon detail) but this should be able to be done without an extreme amount of effort, the world map could be scaled up and added higher terrain detail with a terrain generator that could also populate the world with trees bushes etc.

So after a battle, instead of being sent to the world map, which kind of feels like your on a chessboard, you would now have to organize your men into travelling columns (your strategic ability very much depending on your travelling formations) and march them to the next destination, this should be done by looking at a world map, like a paper map of the world, so it is not updated automatically. You will know of the wars and who owns what city only from tidings from travellers or seeing it for yourself. When you look at the world map you can set out waypoints to where you wish you army to go, then press "March" and they will start to move.

To take away from the tediousness of this process you should be able to fast forward the march. for example 2x, 4x, 8x, 16x etc. (but never zoom out very far for the group) how about if an enemy shows up and you happen to be in 16 x speed? Well you will have the option for the game to go back to normal speed automatically as soon you or any of your men spot an enemy, caravan, traveller or anything of your choice.

In your travelling formations you should also be able to set scouts. You could perhaps have three scouts set half a kilometer ahead the army with perhaps a hundred meters a part, then as soon as they spot something they will hurry back to you and report what they have seen and the game speed will be 1x again (not pause because it is unrealistic and the effect of ambushes will rely on your preparedness for battle like in real life)

At any time you should be able to take a group of your army and have them follow you or even set a separate waypoint for them, perhaps you spot a band of light bandits but your heavy infantry cannot walk fast enough to chase them, then you should be able to lead your cavalry separately and give chase to the enemy. This could be very useful strategically!

I expect that in the near future setting camp in M&B will have a more important role, I hope that soldiers fatigue will be replenished if they are allowed their rest and that forced march should be very strenuous and morale damaging. Then with this type of travelling your choice of campsite will be very important, just as it is and has ever been. Setting up camp near water will be very positive and defensive value of the campsite will be of utmost importance!

So when you are on march you will have to keep your eyes open for good campsites and when you have found one you can order your men to set up the tents and they will do so on your chosen spot.


Summary:

I think if this idea would be implemented in the game it would add immensely to the games immersiveness as you never will have to leave your soldiers. Just think about this scenario:

As the sun goes up you order your men to break camp and the bustle begins with everyone packing packing the wagons with supplies. There is some dangerous terrain ahead; you have to cross a forest and the road is the bottom of a little valley, there are hills on either side of the road. So you decide to set eight scouts far out in all directions. a few minutes after they leave you set up your formation with pikemen around the infantry and cavalry in the rear and march your men forward. After a few minutes on the road you see two of your scouts running towards you from the left, as the come closer they report that there are a hundred and some infantrymen waiting around the next bend, mostly spearmen and archers. you order your pikemen instantly to form a line four ranks deep in front and then swordsmen and archers behind them, you order them to take the nearest hilltop. Then you leave a small part of your cavalry with the infantry and lead the rest of them around the left flank. but before your men have been able to secure the hilltop an enemy of a hundred spearmen come running over the hilltop charging your men, you abandon your thoughts of a wide flanking move with your cavalry and charge the enemy right away... You end up with only half of your men alive but the enemy has been killed, since you cannot linger here in these enemy lands you must leave the dead and badly wounded, you only have time for some hasty bandaging and tending of wounds then you must march on. When you get back to Sargoth your men will have time to rest, so having Sargoth as your next waypoint actually raises morale.


The scenarios are endless and if you use your imagination I'm sure you can come up with some pretty awesome stuff this idea brings with it.


If you like the post Reply

 

[ultimaratioregum]

HOLY CRAP GO OUTSIDE

 

[ultimaratioregum]

never mind you didn't actually write all those.

Still you should know that modders aren't capable of doing most of this stuff.. there's only so much a modder can do, and there's only so much of the game's code available to them. Most of these are things the M&B team would have to implement.

 

[Merlkir]

see, there is no point to this. Most of these ideas were meant as suggestions for the developers. And they didn't do it. Stuff like secondary attacks is 99% impossible for Ealabor to make. Why bother making a big deal of this thread?