Siegfried's "Is It Possible?" Thread

[Siegfried91]

Over the summer I picked up and played Mount and Blade a great deal. With the release of Warband coming up, I'm thinking about playing it again, however the upcoming release (and having just finished a unit in College on Medieval History) has me thinking about certain peeves I had with the M&B, mainly regarding the functionality of factions. Having modding modded ES games in the past, I was thinking about trying to mod some of the problems away myself. That leads me to my primary peeve:

The politics of Calradia never Change

Sure once in a while a lord is captured or a castle falls to a rival kingdom, but aside from what I do myself, M&B world in terms of territory and politics never change. In all my playtime a Town never fell to one faction or the other except when I captured it myself. Furthermore after studying the middle ages recently, I realize politics were much much more decentralized than a group of nobles being completely loyal to one of 5 Kings. So in the interest of remedying this issue I've come up with a number of ideas, but they beg the question "Is it possible?"

-Each Town that is not ruled by a King is more or less an Autonomous Kingdom in and of itself.
  *Those town are treated as separate Kingdoms by the game (not referred to as such ingame), but allied with eachother and predisposed to remain in alliance
  *Each town (and its tributary fiefs) has a seperate color variation (ex, Sargoth is the Standard Nord yellow, but Wercheg is a Dark yellow)
  *The Towns have the potential to rebel and shift alliance (color change would be nice, but I doubt it is possible)
  *One or two neutral cities exist on the map (apparently this existed in M&B and then was cut)

-Bandit Factions
  *There are a few "bandit lords" scattered around the game world
    +These "Lords" start the game without any troops like the player does, and over time gain bandit followers
    +They will not align with a traditional kingdom under any circumstances
  *In particularly wartorn areas a group of bandits with a lord may conquer a poorly defended castle or two, thus altering regional politics
  *Potential for player to swear fealty to a bandit and eventually form the marauders into a viable kingdom

-Destabilizing Events; Potential random happenings to tip the balance of power
  *Plagues: % chance to strike a town and decrease population by 30-80% in the town and surrounding fiefs
  *Depression: % chance to reduce the prosperity of a town and surrounding fiefs by 1+ rank
  *Famine: % chance to ???
    +Not sure what a good effect would be I was thinking troops are weakened/Lords go into battle with only recruits
    +Causes kingdoms to become more warlike, break alliances and raid villages

-New Celtic Themed Faction
  *Further alters the battle of power in Calradia
  *Horde and Guerilla tactics
    +Higher numbers of troops in battle, but weaker
  *Lightly armored, mobile, high damage troops
    +Interesting new units like war dogs (maybe)
  *Alternatively a barbarian or Moorish themed faction

-Church Pseudo-Faction
  *Modelled after medieval Christian Church
  *Allied (permanently) with factions that adhere to its faith, likely Rhodoks, Nords, and Swadia
  *Lacks an army and has very limited traditional infrastructure at the game's outset
      +Weakened by wars between aligned "Faith factions"-- Rhodoks, Swadia, etc
      +Offers greater stability within aligned factions-- less chance for disasters?
  *A few Lords with elite groups of Knights (a la Templars, Hospitallers, Teutonic Knights, etc)
  *Crusades against "pagan" countries, Knights can capture territory and recruit from the local populace, thus forming into a more traditional "Kingdom"
  *Offers unique quests

-Improved AI
  *Lords will actually mass together and finish sieges of Towns, instead of launching a siege for 2 days then going home
  *Deposed Heirs may launch a revolution without the player's aid based on a very low % chance and a weekend kingdom
      +Gain Lords from the opposing faction
      +Only one revolution will ever take place at any given time

Obviously this is a lot, and I don't intend to try implementing it all tomorrow, but if plausible I would certainly like to take a stab at adding some of it in bit by bit; particularly the bandit lords and the Celt Faction. Anyway I am open to suggestions, and that brings me back to my main question:

"Is it plausible?"

 

[Pisces]

It is all plausible, the wardogs *might* not be possible, but aside from that it is just many weeks of scripting. If I were to make wardogs I would start by finding out if it is possible to create seperate animations for the undead race (probably not), then give up if not. M&B's system is simple and doesn't create too much chaos, I suspect you will have to overcome the chaos problem, as you want things to happen, but you wouldn't be very happy if the faction you wanted to ally with was destroyed before you could join. The problem is how to make things interesting and relevant (for example not all the lords like the King in M&B, but it doesn't have much bearing on the game), without making things confusing and chaotic.

  *Modelled after medieval Christian Church
  *Allied (permanently) with factions that adhere to its faith, likely Rhodoks, Nords, and Swadia

That's not very historically accurate. *cough* England, Poland vs Teutonic, Holy Roman Empire, Venice, Black Friday, etc. *cough*

 

[amade]

Good news for you, there is a new and very dynamic political system in Warband. Lords can defect or get indicted, they like and hate each other including kings. Kings can also rule in favor of one over another or make two rival lords like each other, etc...

And what isn't included in Warband can be expanded in mods through the new political system while some of the things you mention have already been done in certain mods which makes it possible to expand further with Warband.

 

[Austupaio]

Dogs are certainly possible with new races and skeletons.

Personally, I would love to have war dogs as the only game I've seen them realised in would be Total War.

 

[Siegfried91]

As far as destruction of one faction or another is concerned, frankly I think that just would make the game more interesting, where as in Native if one faction is gone that radically decreases the diversity in the game world.

  *Modelled after medieval Christian Church
  *Allied (permanently) with factions that adhere to its faith, likely Rhodoks, Nords, and Swadia

That's not very historically accurate. *cough* England, Poland vs Teutonic, Holy Roman Empire, Venice, Black Friday, etc. *cough*

I always took it that the factions were respecitively Italian, Germanic, and Frankish influence (never saw anywhere that said specifically). Given they may not all be aligned with eachother all the time, but in the 13th Century they are all going to be aligned with the Church.

War dogs were not a huge point for me; just an idea-- I thought I saw a dog of some sort floating around and was like dang, that would be neat in a new faction.

 

[Super Kitty Trollslayer]

As far as destruction of one faction or another is concerned, frankly I think that just would make the game more interesting, where as in Native if one faction is gone that radically decreases the diversity in the game world.

  *Modelled after medieval Christian Church
  *Allied (permanently) with factions that adhere to its faith, likely Rhodoks, Nords, and Swadia

That's not very historically accurate. *cough* England, Poland vs Teutonic, Holy Roman Empire, Venice, Black Friday, etc. *cough*

I always took it that the factions were respecitively Italian, Germanic, and Frankish influence (never saw anywhere that said specifically). Given they may not all be aligned with eachother all the time, but in the 13th Century they are all going to be aligned with the Church.

War dogs were not a huge point for me; just an idea-- I thought I saw a dog of some sort floating around and was like dang, that would be neat in a new faction.

Actually, the Calradian Empire was the Holy Roman Empire, Swadia was what's left of it, Rhodoks are Italian, Nords are Vikings/Danes,  Vaegirs are Russian and Khergits are of course Mongolians.

War dogs can be used, as Austupaio points out. You just need OpenBRF. Or, you can make an invisible person whose weapon is a war dog and make it so that the war dog weapon can only thrust.

 

[Lord Leoric of Wercheg]

Wardogs can exist in-game but it would be hard to give them attack capabilities. Related to that, when you press Ctrl+J does the horse rearing cause damage to troops in front of the horse?

 

[Pisces]

Could you not just give them a unique invisible weapon. If it is a new race with a new animation than an attack animation would be replaced with a biting animation. The weapon would do the damage but as it is invisible it would appear as if the dog did it.