New player's impressions

[Misterpiece]

I will start by pointing out that I only just started playing Silverstag: I am 200-ish days into the game, I have several companions (actually I am abusing the lack ofrelation penality, which has always been Imho an awful concept), trying to save swadia I have joined them, left them, than rejoined them, mainly to marry with a gorgeous lady I met at a feast (just kidding, I wanted to get good relations with her crowded family). So I am a vassal and not a king yet, I only have managed some villages and none for long enough to allow me to raise its prosperity and build more than one improvement.

This was a quick background on my playthrough, just to give an idea of what I have experienced so far.

Here are my two questions:

• Besides winning a tournament with 8 or more points higher than the second ranked, are there other ways to get emblems and veterans to recruit? I guess veterans don't need me to dominate, 1 veteran offers pledges for me even after a regular victory, but if tournaments are the only way to get them, I feel like I have never enough of them. Also before Silverstag I loved tournaments, I would not chase them, but I would join them when one was close enough to my whereabouts, now I find myself forced to pursue them all and instead of going with a more random setup, namely more teams and random weapons/equipment, which is the way I was playing them in Floris where, even if I didn't place first I was having more fun doing thing like picking up the javelins from the wall to throw them back to the assailant, I am playing them with a fixed design/equipment combination that I know allows me to "stomp" everyone and get my emblem. Not enjoyable. While I understand that it is my decision to take on every tournament and be so eager to colect emblems, I think that the deisgn of the game should not encourage this. For me getting emblems just by placing first could be a good fix.
  
  
• One aspect I liked from Floris which made it stand out for me, were the banks and the possibility to invest money buying land. See above how far into the game I made it, but for now my incomes seem to be too reliant on fighting enemies and selling loot/prisoners. This is especially true if, like my current situation, you side with a faction that controls few/no cities: once you engage in a war your incomes from enterprises are cut off, your village is likely to be pillaged (I always put the good of the realm before my own interest, that's why I follow the marshal on his crusade, instead of defending my holdings)and you might have to travel to the other end of the world just to sell some human cattle because the only city you have access to has no slaver. From silverstag I would love to get the option to play less aggressively. Maybe I am missing the point, this is a medieval combat simulation and the whole point of the game is chopping down knights and paesants alike with your warcleaver, but for me the most attractive part has always been the campain map and how randomly everything evolves. Is there any chance for us less bellicose players t oreceive some attention? Or are there different options to make profit that I haven't seen yet?
  

To address the second point I would like to give a suggestion, it doesn't really address my problems but it could be something worth looking into.
The possibility to creade a trade caravan of your own that travels between your enterprises and collects finished products and deposits raw materials. The ability to set the route, price ranges (max prices for raw materials purchases and minimum price for manufactured goods sales) size of the caravan which involves a weekly costs of course, and the need to assign a companion in charge of this operation whose trade, pathfinding and such skills affect them caravan performances.
If possible to implement, if would open up a whole new type of play style: the calradian tycoon!

Also I would like the possibility to get into the fray and set my kingdom up, with a political situation similar to what we get at the very beginning of the game, but as countless users pointed out already, maybe also due to some balancing issues, some factions get literally wiped out of the land in a matter of months. This for me means that when I actually AM ready to start my kingdom, there are only 3 factions into play and they are usually just too damn big for me to take on. The feeling is that I need to maximize the time I spend in game developing my charcter, companions and finances in the most efficient/fast way as possible, so that I can start ruling as soon as possible. The more time I spend "enjoying" the game, roleplaying, helping villages and in terms of efficiency, slacking, the more burdensome it becomes to start your kingdom. Would it be possible to tweak the diplomacy AI to give the player, at the beginning of the game, the option to limit wars between kingdoms? Maybe looking at what territory each controls at the start, if one kingdom conquers a fief they get some sort of malus to their lust for expansion, so that the AI, once it conquered one city will think "alright, I'm fine with this for now, unless someone attacks I'm not gonna go to war", and make this behavior end either after some months, or when the player starts his kingdom.

 

[Marinxar]

I like both ideas. Both M&B With Fire and Sword, and Warband mod Brytenwalda, which I know of, have systems in place where you can send caravans off to trade. At risk of bandits and enemies plundering it. It adds a nice touch to the game.

As for the kingdoms take over, I believe there is still some balancing to be done in the future. There are more factions coming in the future, iirc reading the prospects and goals for v0.28 . So I expect the shift of power to become less once those are in the mix and all factions balanced..., but that's just my guess.

 

[Zanerax]

Couple things. First, Veteran troops are any troops that are at t5 or above it (t6 for Rhodoks). This means you can recruit t4 peasant level recruits and as once they can be upgraded to the more experienced version of that troop they will become t5. They are now Veteran level. You can now dismiss them to get a veteran recruit.

To be honest I think this system is less than optimal personally, as it makes troops gaining experience pretty moot. In my last Silverstag playthrough I spammed the nordic (raider?) two handed bandit troop and once they leveled once I had a veteran recruit for ~200 denar. I had about 70 veteran recruits and probably 200-300 of those guys waiting to be popped into veteran recruits by the end of it. 1 town + a villiage or two was enough for me to pump out about 120-150 huscarls and a 400 man garrison of t4/t5 units with about 300 assorted other units). I literally conquered the entire Kherghit Khanate while they tried to siege my town.

Granted most of that was from abusing the fact that bandit troops can be recruited in fiefs without the dishonor check, and it is still better than native's "here is 60 top tier units because a village is loyal to you."

Anyway, I like the idea about caravans and enterprises. I know in some mod, don't remember which, you could create a wagon and then order one of your companions to take some troops and use it as a merchant caravan. That could be interesting as well. But your idea would really help with flooding the market. Perhaps if you could make it so your companion's caravan used the price your enterprise would sell at instead of what they would be able to purchase at (and vice versa for the raw good) you could get them to do that dynamically? Might require some system with ensuring your enterprise would hold the good. Or it could be straight up how you suggested. That would work also.

 

[Misterpiece]

Thanks for the reply about the veterans, I did manage to find that info somewhere on the internet this morning (was it reddit?), to be honest I don't think I mind it too much, it has a shade of realism to it: you join the army as a regular, get your experience than move on to the special corps. I think though that it should definitely be explained to new players, there are quests introduced to make you chose your special abilities, could do the same for this system.

As for the emblems I'm still trying to figure out all the ways you can get them. I found out that, having enough reputation with a village, if a nearby village is in need of recontruction, you might be able to chose a quest that allows you to bring humanitarian help to the village in need. Than you have to sit there for a couple of days, fending off bandits and protecting the population, and than go back to the original village to receive an emblem as reward, along with xp and standing and money of course.

There might be some other way aswell, I just wish there was a list of all possible sources.

Anyway, the important thing is: now I know how to get a proper army, no more front line soldiers dressed cloth in armor.

 

[UniversalWolf]

I will start by pointing out that I only just started playing Silverstag

I just wanted to encourage you to keep posting your impressions.  I bet Windy finds it helpful.  We have a lot of posters here who have played previous versions for a long time, so your perspective is important.

 

[Windyplains]

I find them quite helpful and just haven't had time to respond due to work.  I will get to that tomorrow when I am off and planning on sharing a roadmap plan for the upcoming versions since a lot of the latest threads seem to be hinting at that information already.

On a completely related note typing on a little phone keyboard sucks.

 

[TheMainMethod]

Emblems in the most recent version (0.27.2) can be aquired several ways. Tournaments (as you know), the village aid quest (as you know), Nissa's quest will give 5 upon successful completion ( Select top options to initiate), and via the Oathbound system. The first three are also present in 0.26.

On a completely related note typing on a little phone keyboard sucks.

Typing from a phone's virtual keyboard absolutely sucks.

Taking a small break from Silverstag while some of the Oathbound kinks are being worked out. Thank you Windy, (and Leifdin?).