Modification to troop experience.

[gutekfiutek]

Hi all.
One thing I don't like, is when I have upgraded my troops - lets say Swadians - and I have Swadian Knights.
What then?
They still gain experience/weapon proficiences (I think) but It's not visible anymore.
So I would have for example "veteran Swadian Knight", "experienced Swadian Knight", "very experienced Swadian Knight".
Or maybe some indication how experienced are my troops (so i can have some extremely good troops after some time).
Badges showing experience? Color?
Something like this is present in Total War.
Something that would show me that i have those troops quite long time, they are experienced, worth more than others, so there's no point of wasting them as cannonfodder.

Maybe additional levels (or maybe "modifiers" - like weapon modifiers, or like Lords reputation) of  troops...
Like "fearless", "cruel" "hardened". If they were in many battles/slayed lots of villagers...
Or maybe "cowardly", "insubordinate" - depends how player would behave (constantly running away/leaving soldiers behind would make them disobey orders).
It would work nicely with battle morale (if it will be implemented...)

G.

 

[Tyrant]

I guess.

 

[Rangarig]

A more plausible way to achieve this would be to grant the troops skill upgrades. How this could work should be familiar to anyone playing the "Civilization" games.

Examples: A Swadian knight reaches the next level of experience and the player has the choice to grant it:

• Warrior Level 1 upgrade: increased strength and melee weapon skill.
• Defender Level 1 upgrade: increased strength and iron skin
• Leader Level 1 upgrade: increased charisma and leadership

Though obviously the actual content of these upgrades needs to be worked out - I just sucked the above from my thumbs for the example.

You could even take it a step further and implement a random hero creator that would upgrade a top tier troop to the level of a hero (... but perhaps one who can die). Same possibilities to outfit them, upgrade them, etc.

 

[TalonAquila]

rather than random hero creator, allow the player the option of making a very experienced troop a hero.  there'd be no dialog (eg: life story, backstory, morality\personality clashes) but making a very experienced troop a companion and allowing player to equip and control skill\ability upgrades as we do now for companion heros would be sweet.

 

[PrinceGhaldir]

I like this idea, especially the idea of the ''fearless'' nord huscarl, the ''cowardly'' rhodok sergeant, and so on.
But Rangarig's idea is also good, but Gutekfiutek's idea is just a bit better.

A question: how would you show this?
If you have like 30 huscarls, of wich 5 fearless, 7 cruel and so on. You're gonna have a very long list.
That makes Rangarig's idea better in my opinion.

 

[gutekfiutek]

Well, maybe some kind of dropdown menus would help?
For example on troops list you would have category "swadian knights" and then inside this category "20 cowardly swadian knights" "7 cruel Swadian knights", "3 fearless swadian knights".
Damn, actually having those folders would be avesome (and possibility of creating them...)
Imagine  that you have folder called "fast pursuit", and inside this folder some (various) units that can move fast on campaign map.
Or folder called "Ranged siege" full of archers/crossbowman to use them in sieges where firepower is necessary.
And then folder called "melee siege" with some archers, but with many rhodok sergeants...
It would be useful - sometimes when i want to change army completely i need to click a lot...

 

[PrinceGhaldir]

Why click a lot?
If you mean changing your army in a castle: you can also control-click, then you take all units, instead of just one.

 

[gutekfiutek]

I know, but if you want to take 50 archers instead of 100....you need to click....
Also I often (when in emergency) use army of all sorts of sodiers from all around Calradia...
Instead i could create folder called "cannonfodder" and throw there all those random troops.
Such folders are often used in (far example) all 2d/3d sowtware - as folders for layers. This is quite intuitive.