Q. Velanor Lycanus
Recruit
Hi. I would like to see a feature added to the game which allows you to declare retainers from common troops so they can be identified from the low ranked troops. If these minor retainers can be declared, named, and eventually made Baronets(landless nobility) once you start a kingdom, I think this would add quite a bit of narrative richness without requiring any rebalancing considerations.
As an extension, it would be wonderful if you could develop your own companions from within your troops. I can see an interesting "Populism" dynamic potential where elevating a lowly foot soldier up and eventually to Baronet would boost your troop morale but heavily damage your reputation with noble born lords.
Here's why I want this...
The grand battles are amazing, but when all is said and done and I'm looking over piles of corpses, I find myself wondering how the troops that have been with me since the beginning of the journey fared and there's really no way to tell one Banner Knight(example) from the next because they're all simply known as "Banner Knight."
But assuming that I want to have more than one banner knight, the one that's been with me since he was squiring as a boy, stabbed his first bandit in front of my eyes, went adventuring with me, and stood by my side through it all is completely different than the ones that I hired to fill out my cavalry for a field battle.
Foremost, I would like some way to signify common troops as being important to me. If I can name them, have a special marker for them on the battle map, and have a narrative card kept for them(like the Hero timelines that keep track of when they're married/captured/etc) that keeps history of their battle accolades, that would get me 80% of the way there.
I keep track of this on paper right now and I make it possible to track my retainers in this way by avoiding including more than 1 troop of the same type so that I can always find them and know whether they've survived...but it is really annoying to have to avoid having more than one Banner Knight or more than one Fian so that I can pretend that I have minor retainers.
I currently have:
- a Banner Knight named Sir Eldric Albafor who has been with my clan since the beginning. We have won tournaments together all over Calradia, he competed in the first tournament that I won outright where I championed my wife and won her favor, and he's proven himself in bandit raids, cavalry charges across open fields, and in back alley street fights. He's been outnumbered and encircled by Steppe Bandits with me and lived to tell the tale and he's met foreign lords on the field of battle by my side. He leads my Vanguard along with a small cadre of Knights and I trust him as my own brother's personal escort when he is traveling with his own party for the kingdom. He has become my brother by choice.
- a Kheshig named Khashin and his two surviving sons (Noble's sons) with a small band of Khuzaiti horse archers who narrowly escaped Monchug Khan's wrath after he made a move on the capital and an attempted overthrowing of the Urkhunait. Monchug had other plans and Khashin and his family fled to the Northern Empire under the guise of being soldiers for hire where we met them in the tavern of Amprela (not really true to game. I found them in Baltakhand and Ortongard)
- a Fian from Rhemtoil who joined with me as a boy on my trip into the fringe of Battania for my first bow that I could draw with my novice skill. The boy taught me how to shoot a bow like a Battanian and now that he is a man, he serves as second in command of my archer corps.
...but this is all only on paper. Please let me mark them in-game as important to me, name them, and turn them into companion characters. I have a lot of ideas on the "how" side of implementing this, but I wanted to focus on the what and the why for my initial post.
Thanks for reading and considering.
As an extension, it would be wonderful if you could develop your own companions from within your troops. I can see an interesting "Populism" dynamic potential where elevating a lowly foot soldier up and eventually to Baronet would boost your troop morale but heavily damage your reputation with noble born lords.
Here's why I want this...
The grand battles are amazing, but when all is said and done and I'm looking over piles of corpses, I find myself wondering how the troops that have been with me since the beginning of the journey fared and there's really no way to tell one Banner Knight(example) from the next because they're all simply known as "Banner Knight."
But assuming that I want to have more than one banner knight, the one that's been with me since he was squiring as a boy, stabbed his first bandit in front of my eyes, went adventuring with me, and stood by my side through it all is completely different than the ones that I hired to fill out my cavalry for a field battle.
Foremost, I would like some way to signify common troops as being important to me. If I can name them, have a special marker for them on the battle map, and have a narrative card kept for them(like the Hero timelines that keep track of when they're married/captured/etc) that keeps history of their battle accolades, that would get me 80% of the way there.
I keep track of this on paper right now and I make it possible to track my retainers in this way by avoiding including more than 1 troop of the same type so that I can always find them and know whether they've survived...but it is really annoying to have to avoid having more than one Banner Knight or more than one Fian so that I can pretend that I have minor retainers.
I currently have:
- a Banner Knight named Sir Eldric Albafor who has been with my clan since the beginning. We have won tournaments together all over Calradia, he competed in the first tournament that I won outright where I championed my wife and won her favor, and he's proven himself in bandit raids, cavalry charges across open fields, and in back alley street fights. He's been outnumbered and encircled by Steppe Bandits with me and lived to tell the tale and he's met foreign lords on the field of battle by my side. He leads my Vanguard along with a small cadre of Knights and I trust him as my own brother's personal escort when he is traveling with his own party for the kingdom. He has become my brother by choice.
- a Kheshig named Khashin and his two surviving sons (Noble's sons) with a small band of Khuzaiti horse archers who narrowly escaped Monchug Khan's wrath after he made a move on the capital and an attempted overthrowing of the Urkhunait. Monchug had other plans and Khashin and his family fled to the Northern Empire under the guise of being soldiers for hire where we met them in the tavern of Amprela (not really true to game. I found them in Baltakhand and Ortongard)
- a Fian from Rhemtoil who joined with me as a boy on my trip into the fringe of Battania for my first bow that I could draw with my novice skill. The boy taught me how to shoot a bow like a Battanian and now that he is a man, he serves as second in command of my archer corps.
...but this is all only on paper. Please let me mark them in-game as important to me, name them, and turn them into companion characters. I have a lot of ideas on the "how" side of implementing this, but I wanted to focus on the what and the why for my initial post.
Thanks for reading and considering.
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