Party roles should be assigned to teams, not single companions

[Lord Irontoe]

Its silly that an army would have ONE scout, ONE medic or ONE engineer. In real life armies, these jobs would be done by full squads. In gameplay terms, it means one companion hogs all the xp and you can't train any backups for when your main guy dies.

A better way to handle party roles would be to turn them into teams for multiple companions. You could still have a team leader for each role who's the one the perk buffs come from, while the team members get partial xp for being on the team. You could even make the size of the team scale with clan tier to add some progression.


And on a related note, why don't captains get tactics and/or leadership xp for captaining?

 

[Brano]

Just "walk it off"

 

[Orion]

Having a team assignment would fix another problem with the clan roles: when one of those characters is captured in a battle or sent on a quest, their role is unassigned. It might not be something the player immediately notices, especially if it's something like Surgeon or Engineer where the consequences won't be felt until another battle or a siege. Having a team for these roles would provide a buffer against empty slots. The party leader is the default to fill empty slots, but sometimes there's a better party member sitting there unused.

Maybe adjust the default assignment to be "most-skilled party member that isn't assigned another role" rather than going straight to the party leader.

And on a related note, why don't captains get tactics and/or leadership xp for captaining?

Excellent question.

 

[Brano]

Oh man I notice it every time. It's just plain silly to reassign over and over again companions returning from missions to their previous party roles

 

[NPC99]

default assignment to be "most-skilled party member that isn't assigned another role"

+1

 

[AxiosXiphos]

Auto assign to best skill would be a logical option. That way if you want to train someone up you need to make that conscious change. Would also help newer players who might not know about this function.

 

[geala]

I don't see big need for a change here personally. You can train companions by changing them from time to time or sending them on caravans. I see a bigger problem in the small amount of xp they generally get, the need to have companions as governors and the restricted number of companions.

...


And on a related note, why don't captains get tactics and/or leadership xp for captaining?

That's however a very good question. They should get xp for it in both skills.

 

[JunKeteer]

It's how the XP is gained, if you have no party role assigned, you get all the passive XP (medicine, steward, scout, engineer), but the moment you assign someone to that role, you don't gain any experience at all.

Not to mention the weird disconnect with governors/companions and whoever you assign as a governor literally stalls in their skills/exp (besides the occasional steward points from a building levelling up).
Why not have the castle ones gain some combat or scouting skills (or whatever befitting), as a way to assume they are playing whatever role a governor of a castle would be doing (ie patrols, training troops, etc...). Then have the town ones maybe develop more on the other skills like trading (ie having to manage caravans/market of said town or resolve issues). On top of the default they should gain in leadership + steward, or whatever else.

 

[Lord Irontoe]

I don't see big need for a change here personally. You can train companions by changing them from time to time or sending them on caravans. I see a bigger problem in the small amount of xp they generally get, the need to have companions as governors and the restricted number of companions.

You have to gimp yourself if you're rotating out clan roles. If you have a 200 medicine surgeon, you really want to bench him so that the newbie with 60 med can get some xp? It's not really feasible.

Sending them out with parties is an OK way to level those skills, but then their combat skills suffer. They don't get nearly as much combat xp when they're out on their own.

It just doesnt make sense that one guy hogs all the xp for performing a role. They aren't solo duties.

 

[Aurex]

Its silly that an army would have ONE scout, ONE medic or ONE engineer. In real life armies, these jobs would be done by full squads. In gameplay terms, it means one companion hogs all the xp and you can't train any backups for when your main guy dies.

A better way to handle party roles would be to turn them into teams for multiple companions. You could still have a team leader for each role who's the one the perk buffs come from, while the team members get partial xp for being on the team. You could even make the size of the team scale with clan tier to add some progression.


And on a related note, why don't captains get tactics and/or leadership xp for captaining?

Great idea! Also, what if you could put, let's say, 2 companions on the "Scout team" and add to them 8 light cavalry? Maybe we could have different troop types give different bonuses in certain roles. Example: light cavalry, skirmishers and archers could be better scouts and trackers, while crossbowmen could give some bonuses to, let's say, engineering.

 

[Lord Irontoe]

Great idea! Also, what if you could put, let's say, 2 companions on the "Scout team" and add to them 8 light cavalry? Maybe we could have different troop types give different bonuses in certain roles. Example: light cavalry, skirmishers and archers could be better scouts and trackers, while crossbowmen could give some bonuses to, let's say, engineering.

That's an interesting idea, but it sounds like it would be very complicated to design that kind of system in a way that doesn't give the player too much of an advantage over the ai.

I'm just trying to keep it as simple as possible, where its still just one companion granting the perk benefits, but other companions can share in the xp.

 

[Aurex]

That's an interesting idea, but it sounds like it would be very complicated to design that kind of system in a way that doesn't give the player too much of an advantage over the ai.

I'm just trying to keep it as simple as possible, where its still just one companion granting the perk benefits, but other companions can share in the xp.

Yeah, it'd be hard to balance it. I would also settle for having a 2-3 extra companions in the same role, with one being the leader and the others getting a certain amount of extra xp as well.
I've been finding that replacing my scout/surgeon/infantry commander who died in battle is extremely time consuming. Grooming a couple replacements to have them more or less ready sounds like it wouldn't be too difficult and it'd be a great QoL addition.