Victor1234
Recruit
Well, I've got some ideas for the mod that I've been playing around with, to give your character plenty to do in the "off-season" when there's no campaigning. Some of these borrow heavily from the Paradox game CK, but it would be so worth it to include them!
Claims/Titles:
The faction leader gives your character a fief, represented by a custom item (in the inventory: a piece of paper with description "Title for <fief name>"). This is proof that you own the castle/village and you need to show it to the steward/village elder before they let you do anything else. You can sell this for money, if captured, buy your life/freedom with it, gift it to another NPC or can have it taken from you after an unsuccessful battle. You can carry them in your inventory or give them to the librarian in the castle for safe-keeping (but if the castle falls, so do your titles, to the enemy!). At the same time, you can lay claim to other fiefs by having the librarian (acting in the capacity of the historian) 'discover' some ancient claim, which you can then take to the other NPC and demand he hand over your rightful property to you. Likewise, every once in a while, an NPC lord will come to you with his 'claim' and demand one of your fiefs. These could be used to represent the civil war/in-fighting aspect within factions at this time, since obviously going up to a lord and telling him to pack his bags won't make you friends.
Factional Infighting:
Once relations between 2 lords of the same faction drop below a certain number, one (decided by you, if you are the faction leader, otherwise by some other mechanism) is automatically, with all his fiefs, attached to the 'Rebels' faction. Obviously, the faction leader will first call both lords in and tell them to sort out their differences, and then whichever one doesn't, will become the rebel. This would also open the potential for entire civil wars rather than smallish affairs between two lords, since the faction leader also will need to maintain good relations with everyone or else have to fight them.
Espionage/Assassination:
Have a spymaster (borrowed directly from CK ) who can find out information for you. What is the garrison and supply situation of particular fiefs, where is a certain character, etc. Assassination could be included by allowing the death of NPC lords (since there are always new ones, this won't be a problem) and by a special system for the player. Since the player cannot die, they are assumed to be essentially clubbed over the head, everything stolen and dumped in the middle of nowhere for a few months. Much like the "night-time robbery" in the vanilla game, very rarely when entering one of your faction's locations (town, village, castle), depending on the renown, relations and honor of the character, a bunch of guys will appear to try and kill you. If they succeed, then you are considered to have been kidnapped for such a period that everyone gave you up for dead and forgot about you, so all you have is your old skills (renown, inventory, party all reset to nothing, like at game start).
Villages:
-As mentioned, use the peasant mod for some ideas on improvement
-Act as judge for village disputes (affecting relations?)
Castles:
-Have an NPC steward at every castle you own. You have to pay the garrison, manage supplies, handle prisoners, repair and upgrade the walls and such, through him.
-Able to hold tournaments or hunts (inviting X NPC's of your faction)
-Ability to hold a feast for X NPC's (increases relations with invited, decreases with uninvited, costs money and food from castle stores, problems may arise during feast that affect relations)
-Ability to call in villagers from surrounding villages into the castle. The villages attached to the castle or just nearby in your control, all spawn a villager group while the village prosperity/economy is reduced to almost nothing. The villagers attempt to head to your castle, once they reach it, the castle's prosperity/economy increases. The enemy doesn't gain nearly as much from looting/burning an empty village, but if they take the villagers en-route or if they take the castle, they get the full reward. The idea is, the villagers have carted away themselves and everything of value that they could from the village, so if the villager group is caught or if the castle with villagers falls, the entire area will be devestated. On the other hand, if it doesn't, the villages won't be as messed up as often as they are now. Obviously, there would need to be some mechanism for telling the villagers to return, and to make sure that the villages are in no way productive while they are gone, but it would add an interesting atmosphere (coming across an abandoned village) and would make sense for areas which are often on the receiving end of raids or are the target of a large campaign.
-Have some knights or such around who you can send out as parties (ie, "Take x <unit type in castle garrison> and go to <village/castle/town>")
-Add a chapel with bishop (for Normans, for example) who handles your religious affairs, keeps track of relics, gives you quests and advises you on religious problems of the surroundings (ie, if the castle is surrounded by villages owned by Byzantines at the start, there should be periodic problems for you if you as a Norman Catholic go in and take them)
-Add a library with librarian (can keep a book collection there, can act as patron to the arts, can spend time 'learning' to improve skills, for the cost of the tutor's wages, can act as your historian to keep track of your titles, claims, history, etc)
-Add a smithy with a blacksmith (creates weapons and armor for you if you give him resources and money, can repair existing weapons and armor, which should suffer from wear and tear much more than in the vanilla game)
Religious:
Add in monastaries/mosques all over the island. They should be fairly wealthy, and lootable. Anyone can loot them, but lords which share the same faith receive a very large honor penalty (and bad relations with religious lords?). Essentially, the pious lord will want to protect the religious locations of their faith against both the impious (and cash-grabbing...) lords of their own faction and the lords of the enemy factions, who can loot without penalty. As an added bonus, they can contain relics which could be looted and taken to your castle/town chapel, they can be involved in pilgrimage quests, and whatever else you can think of.
Claims/Titles:
The faction leader gives your character a fief, represented by a custom item (in the inventory: a piece of paper with description "Title for <fief name>"). This is proof that you own the castle/village and you need to show it to the steward/village elder before they let you do anything else. You can sell this for money, if captured, buy your life/freedom with it, gift it to another NPC or can have it taken from you after an unsuccessful battle. You can carry them in your inventory or give them to the librarian in the castle for safe-keeping (but if the castle falls, so do your titles, to the enemy!). At the same time, you can lay claim to other fiefs by having the librarian (acting in the capacity of the historian) 'discover' some ancient claim, which you can then take to the other NPC and demand he hand over your rightful property to you. Likewise, every once in a while, an NPC lord will come to you with his 'claim' and demand one of your fiefs. These could be used to represent the civil war/in-fighting aspect within factions at this time, since obviously going up to a lord and telling him to pack his bags won't make you friends.
Factional Infighting:
Once relations between 2 lords of the same faction drop below a certain number, one (decided by you, if you are the faction leader, otherwise by some other mechanism) is automatically, with all his fiefs, attached to the 'Rebels' faction. Obviously, the faction leader will first call both lords in and tell them to sort out their differences, and then whichever one doesn't, will become the rebel. This would also open the potential for entire civil wars rather than smallish affairs between two lords, since the faction leader also will need to maintain good relations with everyone or else have to fight them.
Espionage/Assassination:
Have a spymaster (borrowed directly from CK ) who can find out information for you. What is the garrison and supply situation of particular fiefs, where is a certain character, etc. Assassination could be included by allowing the death of NPC lords (since there are always new ones, this won't be a problem) and by a special system for the player. Since the player cannot die, they are assumed to be essentially clubbed over the head, everything stolen and dumped in the middle of nowhere for a few months. Much like the "night-time robbery" in the vanilla game, very rarely when entering one of your faction's locations (town, village, castle), depending on the renown, relations and honor of the character, a bunch of guys will appear to try and kill you. If they succeed, then you are considered to have been kidnapped for such a period that everyone gave you up for dead and forgot about you, so all you have is your old skills (renown, inventory, party all reset to nothing, like at game start).
Villages:
-As mentioned, use the peasant mod for some ideas on improvement
-Act as judge for village disputes (affecting relations?)
Castles:
-Have an NPC steward at every castle you own. You have to pay the garrison, manage supplies, handle prisoners, repair and upgrade the walls and such, through him.
-Able to hold tournaments or hunts (inviting X NPC's of your faction)
-Ability to hold a feast for X NPC's (increases relations with invited, decreases with uninvited, costs money and food from castle stores, problems may arise during feast that affect relations)
-Ability to call in villagers from surrounding villages into the castle. The villages attached to the castle or just nearby in your control, all spawn a villager group while the village prosperity/economy is reduced to almost nothing. The villagers attempt to head to your castle, once they reach it, the castle's prosperity/economy increases. The enemy doesn't gain nearly as much from looting/burning an empty village, but if they take the villagers en-route or if they take the castle, they get the full reward. The idea is, the villagers have carted away themselves and everything of value that they could from the village, so if the villager group is caught or if the castle with villagers falls, the entire area will be devestated. On the other hand, if it doesn't, the villages won't be as messed up as often as they are now. Obviously, there would need to be some mechanism for telling the villagers to return, and to make sure that the villages are in no way productive while they are gone, but it would add an interesting atmosphere (coming across an abandoned village) and would make sense for areas which are often on the receiving end of raids or are the target of a large campaign.
-Have some knights or such around who you can send out as parties (ie, "Take x <unit type in castle garrison> and go to <village/castle/town>")
-Add a chapel with bishop (for Normans, for example) who handles your religious affairs, keeps track of relics, gives you quests and advises you on religious problems of the surroundings (ie, if the castle is surrounded by villages owned by Byzantines at the start, there should be periodic problems for you if you as a Norman Catholic go in and take them)
-Add a library with librarian (can keep a book collection there, can act as patron to the arts, can spend time 'learning' to improve skills, for the cost of the tutor's wages, can act as your historian to keep track of your titles, claims, history, etc)
-Add a smithy with a blacksmith (creates weapons and armor for you if you give him resources and money, can repair existing weapons and armor, which should suffer from wear and tear much more than in the vanilla game)
Religious:
Add in monastaries/mosques all over the island. They should be fairly wealthy, and lootable. Anyone can loot them, but lords which share the same faith receive a very large honor penalty (and bad relations with religious lords?). Essentially, the pious lord will want to protect the religious locations of their faith against both the impious (and cash-grabbing...) lords of their own faction and the lords of the enemy factions, who can loot without penalty. As an added bonus, they can contain relics which could be looted and taken to your castle/town chapel, they can be involved in pilgrimage quests, and whatever else you can think of.