[Submod - WIP] Tactical Troop Trees
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Yeah cuz that's close to how it was IRL, if not exactly how it worked.
If I were a warlord from the Mongol Ilkhan, for example, and some Genoese mercenary crossbowmen were in the area I was raiding and they are looking for work, they would look like people from Genoa even after I hired them. Same thing in this submod. If I hired some Swadian Rangers as a Rhodok, the Swadian Rangers would still look like Swadian men, and I would be hiring them because of their mastery with their equipment.
Something I was considering though, if only I had the skill to make retextures/recolors of existing armors was to make some kind of script that changed the armors of mercenaries based on the faction they're currently serving, to differentiate your mercenaries from mercenaries serving the enemy on the field. Khergit Skirmishers working for Swadia should be wearing red robes so that they wouldn't be confused for with the Khergit Skirmishers working for the Vaegirs, who would be wearing brown robes. I have an idea on how to do the script for it, but we don't have that many color choices in the existing armors. So I decided to put that on hold.
If I were a warlord from the Mongol Ilkhan, for example, and some Genoese mercenary crossbowmen were in the area I was raiding and they are looking for work, they would look like people from Genoa even after I hired them. Same thing in this submod. If I hired some Swadian Rangers as a Rhodok, the Swadian Rangers would still look like Swadian men, and I would be hiring them because of their mastery with their equipment.
Something I was considering though, if only I had the skill to make retextures/recolors of existing armors was to make some kind of script that changed the armors of mercenaries based on the faction they're currently serving, to differentiate your mercenaries from mercenaries serving the enemy on the field. Khergit Skirmishers working for Swadia should be wearing red robes so that they wouldn't be confused for with the Khergit Skirmishers working for the Vaegirs, who would be wearing brown robes. I have an idea on how to do the script for it, but we don't have that many color choices in the existing armors. So I decided to put that on hold.
Warning: walls of text regarding the systems I'm working on right now!
Topic: Wages, Troop Levels, Regulars vs. Irregulars vs. Mercenaries and how AI lords use them
Thinking about the wages system made me rethink how troop levels work.
It's just internal stuff but it will affect faction balance quite a bit. Originally I was intending to make faction balance limited by wages so that you would find it harder to recruit 1,000 Nords because of how expensive they are, since I firmly believe that would be quite imbalanced since they're the most effective infantry.
The large army sizes will require large amounts of money, in the area of 30,000 denars a week for a standard configuration of troop types for most factions, in your personal retinue not even counting your garrisons and patrols. If you recruit 500 Nords, the standard size for a large party for them, it would've cost about 20,000 denars a week, while a Khergit Mingghan (1,000 troops) would cost something like 33,000 a week.
This is of course offset by the large amounts of loot you get for winning in combat, and the other economic changes I'm doing, so having a standard army configuration should not make you go poor unless you don't get into combat for weeks.
Anyway based on this idea, I want to further balance the faction troops so that each of the regular soldiers are basically the same "level", which means nothing other than for auto-calc battles. So if you bring 700 regulars and the enemy has 700 regulars (martial personality lord), it would usually be a very close auto-calc battle. Actually there are many other factors other than level that affect auto-calc, such as Ironflesh apparently and other skills, perhaps even proficiencies. So...
Instead of levels, they'll have specialized proficiencies and skills that will differ based on their faction, so Rhodoks like spears and crossbows and will be very good at those, etc., and Nords will have higher levels of Ironflesh and Shield. But the troops are actually the same level. This only applies to faction regulars, who are the professional soldiers, because of the simplified assumption that every faction [in this game--not necessarily their real life counterparts] trains their professional soldiers for similar lengths of time but with focus on their faction's style.
Most armies will also include many of the irregulars, whose levels and skills will vary greatly. It's the irregulars that will be pretty much the X-factor in auto-calc battles, and the usage of irregulars or mercenaries combined with clever tactics will be the ultimate deciding factor for who wins a large battle even in the ones that the player participates in.
Now here's the balancer, which comes from wages. The regular troops have a fairly fixed salary and you can expect to pay a certain amount every week if your army size doesn't change. The mercenaries have a larger salary but are, in return, significantly more effective at certain things (300 Mercenary Pikemen will defeat 300 Rhodok Pikemen all the time barring any clever tactical usage on either side).
But the irregular troops will not have a weekly wage (!!), instead, they will be very fickle and it will be a gamble for you if you choose to take them into your army. The simplest problem will be mass desertions if you haven't been in combat in a while, since their wages are actually from shared loot instead of from your coffers. There are many other problems I have planned, including things like them causing problems in your army due to their lack of discipline.
However, irregulars are really useful because of their difference from the regular army, and their ease of recruitment and therefore their deployable numbers. You can get large numbers of these guys from taverns (like mercenaries) and villages, while the regulars are from castles and towns. Again it's up to the player what kind of army he wants to build.
One possible scenario is using an all irregular army to run raids on villages, caravans, etc., which was one of the ways they were used in real life. It's not really my thing, but I wanted to cater to the the cunning guerrilla commanders as well. Anyway the benefit of this is that you don't pay any wages for your army, while at the same time you earn a lot from loot. Your irregulars are happy just to keep fighting, etc. You can earn a lot of money from doing that, which you can later use to hire more professional armies like mercs or faction troops.
On that note, recruiting bandits will have the same effect as irregulars. One could even RP a bandit leader if he wants. I'm going to include a troop type in Player Faction that's basically bandits as their irregular troops.
Later on, I'll include an option to send your irregulars to your constable for training to turn them into regular troops. The training time will be a long process, probably 6 months or more. But it's good for long term army building, since you can't rely on your irregulars to stick around.
AI lords will use different troops based on their personality. I'm still trying to decide how it will go for some of the personality types, but I'm pretty sure I want a martial lord to use the base troop configuration for the faction. Their personality affects their strategic decisions, so the types of troops they bring will matter. Cunning lords love to raid, so they need raider type troops, etc.
That's all for now. I have so many notes but everything else is stuff that isn't worth talking about just yet lol.
Topic: Wages, Troop Levels, Regulars vs. Irregulars vs. Mercenaries and how AI lords use them
Thinking about the wages system made me rethink how troop levels work.
It's just internal stuff but it will affect faction balance quite a bit. Originally I was intending to make faction balance limited by wages so that you would find it harder to recruit 1,000 Nords because of how expensive they are, since I firmly believe that would be quite imbalanced since they're the most effective infantry.The large army sizes will require large amounts of money, in the area of 30,000 denars a week for a standard configuration of troop types for most factions, in your personal retinue not even counting your garrisons and patrols. If you recruit 500 Nords, the standard size for a large party for them, it would've cost about 20,000 denars a week, while a Khergit Mingghan (1,000 troops) would cost something like 33,000 a week.
This is of course offset by the large amounts of loot you get for winning in combat, and the other economic changes I'm doing, so having a standard army configuration should not make you go poor unless you don't get into combat for weeks.
Anyway based on this idea, I want to further balance the faction troops so that each of the regular soldiers are basically the same "level", which means nothing other than for auto-calc battles. So if you bring 700 regulars and the enemy has 700 regulars (martial personality lord), it would usually be a very close auto-calc battle. Actually there are many other factors other than level that affect auto-calc, such as Ironflesh apparently and other skills, perhaps even proficiencies. So...
Instead of levels, they'll have specialized proficiencies and skills that will differ based on their faction, so Rhodoks like spears and crossbows and will be very good at those, etc., and Nords will have higher levels of Ironflesh and Shield. But the troops are actually the same level. This only applies to faction regulars, who are the professional soldiers, because of the simplified assumption that every faction [in this game--not necessarily their real life counterparts] trains their professional soldiers for similar lengths of time but with focus on their faction's style.
Most armies will also include many of the irregulars, whose levels and skills will vary greatly. It's the irregulars that will be pretty much the X-factor in auto-calc battles, and the usage of irregulars or mercenaries combined with clever tactics will be the ultimate deciding factor for who wins a large battle even in the ones that the player participates in.
Now here's the balancer, which comes from wages. The regular troops have a fairly fixed salary and you can expect to pay a certain amount every week if your army size doesn't change. The mercenaries have a larger salary but are, in return, significantly more effective at certain things (300 Mercenary Pikemen will defeat 300 Rhodok Pikemen all the time barring any clever tactical usage on either side).
But the irregular troops will not have a weekly wage (!!), instead, they will be very fickle and it will be a gamble for you if you choose to take them into your army. The simplest problem will be mass desertions if you haven't been in combat in a while, since their wages are actually from shared loot instead of from your coffers. There are many other problems I have planned, including things like them causing problems in your army due to their lack of discipline.
However, irregulars are really useful because of their difference from the regular army, and their ease of recruitment and therefore their deployable numbers. You can get large numbers of these guys from taverns (like mercenaries) and villages, while the regulars are from castles and towns. Again it's up to the player what kind of army he wants to build.
One possible scenario is using an all irregular army to run raids on villages, caravans, etc., which was one of the ways they were used in real life. It's not really my thing, but I wanted to cater to the the cunning guerrilla commanders as well. Anyway the benefit of this is that you don't pay any wages for your army, while at the same time you earn a lot from loot. Your irregulars are happy just to keep fighting, etc. You can earn a lot of money from doing that, which you can later use to hire more professional armies like mercs or faction troops.
On that note, recruiting bandits will have the same effect as irregulars. One could even RP a bandit leader if he wants. I'm going to include a troop type in Player Faction that's basically bandits as their irregular troops.
Later on, I'll include an option to send your irregulars to your constable for training to turn them into regular troops. The training time will be a long process, probably 6 months or more. But it's good for long term army building, since you can't rely on your irregulars to stick around.
AI lords will use different troops based on their personality. I'm still trying to decide how it will go for some of the personality types, but I'm pretty sure I want a martial lord to use the base troop configuration for the faction. Their personality affects their strategic decisions, so the types of troops they bring will matter. Cunning lords love to raid, so they need raider type troops, etc.
That's all for now. I have so many notes but everything else is stuff that isn't worth talking about just yet lol.
Hm, interesting
I imagine this gives a great opportunity to roleplay a raiding/mercenary party. Honour loss for raiding villages is a great pity, because if it worked like in real life, one could gather a lot of honour for raiding(Viking would certainly do, and possibly other nationalities, especially nomadic tribes and so on). However, player should only gather honour with his own faction(people don't usually consider it honourable when you raid their villages), while loosing honour with the other one. Or, even better, player could gather a personality(similar to lords). Raiding and such activities would result in prestige amongst martial, cunning and similar lords, while honourable actions would result in good relations with good-natured lords. This isn't really a suggestion, I'm just bored and too tired to do anything else than writing my thoughts here
I imagine this gives a great opportunity to roleplay a raiding/mercenary party. Honour loss for raiding villages is a great pity, because if it worked like in real life, one could gather a lot of honour for raiding(Viking would certainly do, and possibly other nationalities, especially nomadic tribes and so on). However, player should only gather honour with his own faction(people don't usually consider it honourable when you raid their villages), while loosing honour with the other one. Or, even better, player could gather a personality(similar to lords). Raiding and such activities would result in prestige amongst martial, cunning and similar lords, while honourable actions would result in good relations with good-natured lords. This isn't really a suggestion, I'm just bored and too tired to do anything else than writing my thoughts here
Hmm.
Okay, I've been thinking about it and even if I originally wanted to not have to touch those things, I just realized that adding some tweaks to these things might not be too hard, as they sound even simpler than the checks I have for forcing certain factions, lords, etc., to use certain troops. I think I'll make some adjustments to how honour is rewarded or taken from the player per faction. For Nords it certainly should add honour if you frequently raid. However I also want to limit it that you only gain friends from honour within the faction that thinks it's honorable to raid. It doesn't make sense that good-natured lords from the Rhodoks, for example, who might not believe in raiding a defenseless village as an honorable activity, would think highly of a Nord raiding party commander.
Okay, I've been thinking about it and even if I originally wanted to not have to touch those things, I just realized that adding some tweaks to these things might not be too hard, as they sound even simpler than the checks I have for forcing certain factions, lords, etc., to use certain troops. I think I'll make some adjustments to how honour is rewarded or taken from the player per faction. For Nords it certainly should add honour if you frequently raid. However I also want to limit it that you only gain friends from honour within the faction that thinks it's honorable to raid. It doesn't make sense that good-natured lords from the Rhodoks, for example, who might not believe in raiding a defenseless village as an honorable activity, would think highly of a Nord raiding party commander.
I had a similar idea really, but perhaps much simpler. Your honour stat should affect what kinds of troops are more readily available, but I was thinking of adding a new hidden stat that keeps track of how many villages you've raided, how many caravans, etc. The irregulars certainly like that kind of activity as that's what brings them money, so you might get even more irregulars to join you more easily if you have high stats in those, or something.
Heheh that's exactly why I type up all of these things even if they turn out into walls of text. I wanna hear input from other people, as well as remind myself of the awesomeness of the features I'm working on. It stimulates my brain since the actual modding stuff is extremely boring.I'm just bored and too tired to do anything else than writing my thoughts here
Good to hear, thanks! I'll be out of the country and without my computer for about a week so I won't have any updates until then.
Here's some slight update teasers that came up when balancing the Vaegirs and Swadians.
- edit: Also some new planned features regarding officers and cavalry factions.
- edit: The reason I put so much emphasis on officers and maintaining troop morale, discipline, etc., is that it's a large part of being a commander to have to deal with these issues. If you want to maintain your fighting force, keep your officers in check and they'll keep your men in check for you. As the old military saying goes, "sh*t rolls downhill."
I'm pretty excited about testing all of these factions in a real game when the public release goes out. It'll really put a player's command skills to the test. As of right now I'm starting work on some of the core scripts so they aren't placeholders anymore. I don't expect any major bugs with these scripts so far because they're not really complex or anything. I might have to work on the scripts for AI lord army composition when I get back though. That's kinda complicated because it requires a bunch of checks and some flowcharting due to the number of possible combinations (7 factions including player faction, 7 lord personalities including the king).
Here's some slight update teasers that came up when balancing the Vaegirs and Swadians.
- edit: Also some new planned features regarding officers and cavalry factions.
The Vaegirs are in a tough position, with the high possibility of war on two fronts against the toughest pure infantry with the Nords and the toughest pure cavalry with the Khergits. I've adjusted their troop trees to allow players to switch most of their troops around between mounted and dismounted versions as they see fit, with the mounted versions using more cavalry-friendly weapons like longer spears and slashing weapons. It's up to the player to figure out whether they want to match infantry with the Nords (Vaegir infantry also has shields, but not round overlapping shields) or try to outmaneuver them with cavalry instead.
Swadians have it worst though. Swadians may seem to have the most straightforward tactics but they actually have a lot to worry about, because of their highly-specialist troops that require the support of other troops in order to stay effective. Swadians can also be at war on two fronts with the Nords and the Khergits, so they suffer the same problem as the Vaegirs but lack the same solution, as they don't have the ability to switch most of their units between mounted and dismounted troops. To make matters worse, they can also be at war with the Rhodoks in the south, another strong infantry and archer force.
Swadians are therefore probably best used as aggressively as possible, getting into range and position before a shield wall becomes effective for the Nords, before the Khergits can swarm them, and before the Rhodoks set up their own volley-firing archers. Cover the flanks with infantry, set up the cavalry at the enemy's flanks, and loose as many arrows as possible before closing with the enemy.
- edit (November 4, 2013):
Just hours before my trip, here are some more planned changes lol.
1. Since the Training skill is basically deprecated in this mod except for companions, I'll make it so that aside from helping to level up your companions, it'll also improve the chances of getting more regular troops from castles and towns. It'll also be useful for companions to have points in them, described below.
2. Gonna try to allow companions to be promoted to officer status. They'll be in charge of your troops, but to balance it out, whenever your companions are wounded, maybe below 60% health, your men will feel less motivated and have problems as if they have no officer due to the their officer's effectiveness being diminished. Also, if the companion is too low level, he or she might not be effective as an officer anyway.
My initial idea on how it works is like this:
Level: Troops generally don't respect an officer that has little or no battlefield experience. Companions like Lezalit, who start at high level in this submod and are supposed to be officers according to their story, make for a naturally good choice as an officer.
Training: Higher levels in the Training skill among your officers combined (including the players) reduces the chances for discipline type complaints by a very small percentage per point.
Leadership: Similar to above, but limited to morale type complaints.
3. Each faction's officers will have different stats in those skills, which will be checked by the scripts to see whether you have troops that will cause problems or not. If you have sufficient numbers of officers, you should never have any issues with regular troops. The number of officers required per certain number of regular troops (again irregulars and mercenaries don't require officers) will be determined by their skill levels. I'll have to calculate the skill values, but I basically want to have this kind of balance:
Swadian: 1 officer per 50 (Swadian Knight)
Vaegir: 1 officer per 30 (Vaegir Druzhinnik)
Khergit: 1 officer per 100 (Khergit Horde Officer and Khergit Ilkhan Officer)
Nord: 1 officer per 25 (Nord Huskarl)
Rhodok: 1 Rhodok Captain per 5 Rhodok Sergeants, and 1 Rhodok Sergeant per 25 Rhodok regulars
Sarranid: 1 officer per 30 (Sarranid Knight)
Player Faction: 1 officer per 50 (Knight)
Special note on the Rhodoks here and an insight on how the whole officer system works. If you only have 4 Rhodok Sergeants, you don't need a Captain as you will be their captain. So a party of about 100 Rhodok regulars should be fine without a Captain. For every 125 Regulars you need 5 Sergeants and should be headed by at least 1 Captain. If the Captain dies, there is a chance that the Sergeants will start to cause problems and take their troops with them, until you replace the Captain. If a sergeant dies, some of the regulars will leave your party for various reasons until you have enough troops that the remaining sergeants can handle. This will happen slowly over the course of at least a week, so you have time to try to replace the officers. It's essentially how all of the officers work but the Rhodoks have a 2-tier officer system so it's kinda complex.
4. Going to edit the checks in PBOD/FormAI to better support full-cavalry factions, since there's two of them now (Khergits and Sarranids). Originally there was a problem with FormAI that caused all cavalry under the command of AI lords to form in one long line. The mod should now consider their lancers as infantry and horse archers as regular cavalry. This should theoretically allow the horse archers to come in for skirmishing runs through the enemy line, while the lancers will form up and position closer to the enemy while the horse archers are doing harassing, and the lancers will charge when they get close, just like the infantry does. This should theoretically work, the same way the AI lords in normal Floris/PBOD are actually marked as infantry and will advance slowly with their infantry, making them sitting ducks for archers to pick off.
Swadians have it worst though. Swadians may seem to have the most straightforward tactics but they actually have a lot to worry about, because of their highly-specialist troops that require the support of other troops in order to stay effective. Swadians can also be at war on two fronts with the Nords and the Khergits, so they suffer the same problem as the Vaegirs but lack the same solution, as they don't have the ability to switch most of their units between mounted and dismounted troops. To make matters worse, they can also be at war with the Rhodoks in the south, another strong infantry and archer force.
Swadians are therefore probably best used as aggressively as possible, getting into range and position before a shield wall becomes effective for the Nords, before the Khergits can swarm them, and before the Rhodoks set up their own volley-firing archers. Cover the flanks with infantry, set up the cavalry at the enemy's flanks, and loose as many arrows as possible before closing with the enemy.
- edit (November 4, 2013):
Just hours before my trip, here are some more planned changes lol.
1. Since the Training skill is basically deprecated in this mod except for companions, I'll make it so that aside from helping to level up your companions, it'll also improve the chances of getting more regular troops from castles and towns. It'll also be useful for companions to have points in them, described below.
2. Gonna try to allow companions to be promoted to officer status. They'll be in charge of your troops, but to balance it out, whenever your companions are wounded, maybe below 60% health, your men will feel less motivated and have problems as if they have no officer due to the their officer's effectiveness being diminished. Also, if the companion is too low level, he or she might not be effective as an officer anyway.
My initial idea on how it works is like this:
Level: Troops generally don't respect an officer that has little or no battlefield experience. Companions like Lezalit, who start at high level in this submod and are supposed to be officers according to their story, make for a naturally good choice as an officer.
Training: Higher levels in the Training skill among your officers combined (including the players) reduces the chances for discipline type complaints by a very small percentage per point.
Leadership: Similar to above, but limited to morale type complaints.
3. Each faction's officers will have different stats in those skills, which will be checked by the scripts to see whether you have troops that will cause problems or not. If you have sufficient numbers of officers, you should never have any issues with regular troops. The number of officers required per certain number of regular troops (again irregulars and mercenaries don't require officers) will be determined by their skill levels. I'll have to calculate the skill values, but I basically want to have this kind of balance:
Swadian: 1 officer per 50 (Swadian Knight)
Vaegir: 1 officer per 30 (Vaegir Druzhinnik)
Khergit: 1 officer per 100 (Khergit Horde Officer and Khergit Ilkhan Officer)
Nord: 1 officer per 25 (Nord Huskarl)
Rhodok: 1 Rhodok Captain per 5 Rhodok Sergeants, and 1 Rhodok Sergeant per 25 Rhodok regulars
Sarranid: 1 officer per 30 (Sarranid Knight)
Player Faction: 1 officer per 50 (Knight)
Special note on the Rhodoks here and an insight on how the whole officer system works. If you only have 4 Rhodok Sergeants, you don't need a Captain as you will be their captain. So a party of about 100 Rhodok regulars should be fine without a Captain. For every 125 Regulars you need 5 Sergeants and should be headed by at least 1 Captain. If the Captain dies, there is a chance that the Sergeants will start to cause problems and take their troops with them, until you replace the Captain. If a sergeant dies, some of the regulars will leave your party for various reasons until you have enough troops that the remaining sergeants can handle. This will happen slowly over the course of at least a week, so you have time to try to replace the officers. It's essentially how all of the officers work but the Rhodoks have a 2-tier officer system so it's kinda complex.
4. Going to edit the checks in PBOD/FormAI to better support full-cavalry factions, since there's two of them now (Khergits and Sarranids). Originally there was a problem with FormAI that caused all cavalry under the command of AI lords to form in one long line. The mod should now consider their lancers as infantry and horse archers as regular cavalry. This should theoretically allow the horse archers to come in for skirmishing runs through the enemy line, while the lancers will form up and position closer to the enemy while the horse archers are doing harassing, and the lancers will charge when they get close, just like the infantry does. This should theoretically work, the same way the AI lords in normal Floris/PBOD are actually marked as infantry and will advance slowly with their infantry, making them sitting ducks for archers to pick off.
- edit: The reason I put so much emphasis on officers and maintaining troop morale, discipline, etc., is that it's a large part of being a commander to have to deal with these issues. If you want to maintain your fighting force, keep your officers in check and they'll keep your men in check for you. As the old military saying goes, "sh*t rolls downhill."
I'm pretty excited about testing all of these factions in a real game when the public release goes out. It'll really put a player's command skills to the test. As of right now I'm starting work on some of the core scripts so they aren't placeholders anymore. I don't expect any major bugs with these scripts so far because they're not really complex or anything. I might have to work on the scripts for AI lord army composition when I get back though. That's kinda complicated because it requires a bunch of checks and some flowcharting due to the number of possible combinations (7 factions including player faction, 7 lord personalities including the king).
Welcome aboard.
Anyway I'm back from my trip and I'll be back to working on this later. I had a lot of new thoughts that change how some things work, such as diversification of the faction armies and having different lower-ranking officers for different troop types. I haven't tested them yet but they seem like a good way to handle it.
Plans:
These should all be easy to script, however I dunno how much script lag will be an issue here in Floris because of how many scripts are going on at once already. It would be much more accurate and speedy in Native or other lighter mods. I'll have to come up with a way to ensure that script lag isn't too much of an issue if I wanna implement this stuff.
Again, officers and recruitment are a big deal for this submod because of how important they were in real life. Even if you lacked 5 "elite" soldiers, as long as your other 95 troops were well-organized under your officers you'll do just fine on the battlefield.
Anyway I'm back from my trip and I'll be back to working on this later. I had a lot of new thoughts that change how some things work, such as diversification of the faction armies and having different lower-ranking officers for different troop types. I haven't tested them yet but they seem like a good way to handle it.
Plans:
Recruiting troops from castles will produce officers instead of regular troops. Having officers in your party will cause regular troops to join your army based on how many that officer can handle, with some random variance. You can later customize the regular troops of course as you see fit. So if I recruit a Rhodok Sergeant from a Rhodok castle, around 25 Rhodok Crossbowmen and Rhodok Spearmen will join your army later on. Let's just say the officers also handle the recruitment process for you.
The actual numbers per officer is subject to balancing later on.
The actual numbers per officer is subject to balancing later on.
Your infantry will have their own sergeant, longbowmen with their own sergeant, etc. This varies per faction of course. For the Swadians, Longbowmen are specialists and can't switch into anything else, so they need their own specialist officer that doesn't deal with spearman or cavalry tactics. The Khergits meanwhile are all organized by number instead of roles, so around 40 lancers and 60 horse archers will be in every 100, headed by 1 officer.
These should all be easy to script, however I dunno how much script lag will be an issue here in Floris because of how many scripts are going on at once already. It would be much more accurate and speedy in Native or other lighter mods. I'll have to come up with a way to ensure that script lag isn't too much of an issue if I wanna implement this stuff.
Again, officers and recruitment are a big deal for this submod because of how important they were in real life. Even if you lacked 5 "elite" soldiers, as long as your other 95 troops were well-organized under your officers you'll do just fine on the battlefield.
It'll be a while before a release though. Anywhere between a week and a few months lol. I only do this in my short free time when I'm taking a break from working. D: Every time a core system changes it means I have to redo some things, so the actual estimated time for completion varies. If I didn't have to work I could totally have this done in a week or so, as most of the core systems are already in place at least with placeholders, and I only need to fix and clean up some things here and there as well as test the whole thing if it all works together as expected.
I've made some major changes to accommodate the officers and have updated the first post to reflect the current features and plans. For anybody interested, please take some time to check the first post to see what this submod is looking like at the moment.
For anybody just joining the discussion, please don't refer to any other post in this thread other than the first one for features. The posts after the first one are mostly just brainstorming stuff and continuously change a lot if I see it doesn't work so well in attempting to implement. If it isn't written in the front page, it probably is not going to be implemented either because I can't figure out how to do it or I've thought of a better system to replace it.
I've made some major changes to accommodate the officers and have updated the first post to reflect the current features and plans. For anybody interested, please take some time to check the first post to see what this submod is looking like at the moment.
For anybody just joining the discussion, please don't refer to any other post in this thread other than the first one for features. The posts after the first one are mostly just brainstorming stuff and continuously change a lot if I see it doesn't work so well in attempting to implement. If it isn't written in the front page, it probably is not going to be implemented either because I can't figure out how to do it or I've thought of a better system to replace it.
While working on the officers system and the wages calculation, I've thought of the following things:
1. In the current system, having an irregular army is a little bit imbalanced. You can carry thousands of these guys without having to pay wages as long as you keep getting into combat every few days. I'm thinking of making their willingness to join and stay in your party based on Renown (or some other stat?), while Renown goes down a little every day or every week or so, based on how many irregulars are in your party. This will encourage you to keep looking for fights to get into, to maintain your irregular armies.
Renown makes the most sense, as a commander with a large irregular army that isn't really using them for anything is bound to be the topic of negative rumors even amongst his men. The amount of renown lost gets progressively larger. So if you have 900 irregulars, you'll lose more renown than if you only had 100, which is probably the bottom limit where you won't lose renown anymore even if you don't get into fights. I haven't done any math for it yet, but it seems like a fair compromise.
In addition, I also want to make some kind of penalty for getting all your men killed. Kinda like how companions complain about that. I'm thinking this could be a Renown hit, because a commander that gets his guys killed a lot is going to be the topic of negative discussion as well.
Lastly I'm thinking of ways to make Renown useful and adjustable even for AI lords. I haven't thought of any yet, but it'll likely be similar to the player's stuff.
2. Every faction now has a multi-tier officer system, with some being as deep as 3 tiers (captain, lieutenant, sergeant). If you recruit a sergeant from a garrison, he'll recruit a squad for you. If you recruit a lieutenant, he'll recruit the appropriate amount of sergeants for you (usually 3-4 sergeants per lieutenant), who in turn will recruit the squad, and if you recruit a captain, he'll recruit lieutenants (the number varies per faction) for you and so on.
Each officer recruited directly will have a recruitment fee apart from their weekly wage. This makes it a choice for the player if he wants to recruit the captain and let the captain deal with recruiting his subordinates. This will take some time, probably 2 weeks or more (depending on the faction) before your party is completely filled. Or the player can recruit each sergeant directly, then recruit the lieutenants, then recruit the captains. It'll cost more because of the recruitment fees, but you can have a full army of 700 or more soldiers (again depending on the faction) within days.
1. In the current system, having an irregular army is a little bit imbalanced. You can carry thousands of these guys without having to pay wages as long as you keep getting into combat every few days. I'm thinking of making their willingness to join and stay in your party based on Renown (or some other stat?), while Renown goes down a little every day or every week or so, based on how many irregulars are in your party. This will encourage you to keep looking for fights to get into, to maintain your irregular armies.
Renown makes the most sense, as a commander with a large irregular army that isn't really using them for anything is bound to be the topic of negative rumors even amongst his men. The amount of renown lost gets progressively larger. So if you have 900 irregulars, you'll lose more renown than if you only had 100, which is probably the bottom limit where you won't lose renown anymore even if you don't get into fights. I haven't done any math for it yet, but it seems like a fair compromise.
In addition, I also want to make some kind of penalty for getting all your men killed. Kinda like how companions complain about that. I'm thinking this could be a Renown hit, because a commander that gets his guys killed a lot is going to be the topic of negative discussion as well.
Lastly I'm thinking of ways to make Renown useful and adjustable even for AI lords. I haven't thought of any yet, but it'll likely be similar to the player's stuff.
2. Every faction now has a multi-tier officer system, with some being as deep as 3 tiers (captain, lieutenant, sergeant). If you recruit a sergeant from a garrison, he'll recruit a squad for you. If you recruit a lieutenant, he'll recruit the appropriate amount of sergeants for you (usually 3-4 sergeants per lieutenant), who in turn will recruit the squad, and if you recruit a captain, he'll recruit lieutenants (the number varies per faction) for you and so on.
Each officer recruited directly will have a recruitment fee apart from their weekly wage. This makes it a choice for the player if he wants to recruit the captain and let the captain deal with recruiting his subordinates. This will take some time, probably 2 weeks or more (depending on the faction) before your party is completely filled. Or the player can recruit each sergeant directly, then recruit the lieutenants, then recruit the captains. It'll cost more because of the recruitment fees, but you can have a full army of 700 or more soldiers (again depending on the faction) within days.
Better troops are generally slower to recruit due to the extra training they receive, therefore factions that have elite soldiers like the Vaegirs and Nords will take much longer to fill their ranks than lightly-trained armies like the Rhodoks and Sarranids.
First, your recruitment systems sounds quite intriguing, can't wait to try it out. Thanks for the efforts.
As a suggestion for the irregular armies, if possible within the scripting system, you could make it such that as the number of irregulars grow, others will be less likely to join (less share of loot) with renown providing a positive effect to offset this somewhat (to a point). The renown loss system over time is a good idea to counter mid/endgame easy mode with irregular hoards.
Good luck.
As a suggestion for the irregular armies, if possible within the scripting system, you could make it such that as the number of irregulars grow, others will be less likely to join (less share of loot) with renown providing a positive effect to offset this somewhat (to a point). The renown loss system over time is a good idea to counter mid/endgame easy mode with irregular hoards.
Good luck.
Hmm yeah that should be possible to script. It also makes sense. I wonder what a "balanced" number of irregulars would be, though. You should be somehow able to manage carrying an entire army of irregulars numbering in the high hundreds to fight against other big armies as well, even if it is with much difficulty. I don't want to limit a player that has some talent in these things from achieving what he wants. It could be an interesting player goal lol. Conquer Calradia with a purely irregular army.
- edit: I have a feeling the Nord army is a little too simplistic. The only officer I can come up with is a Housecarl, and under him are the 3 infantry types that can switch into each other (Spearman, Axeman, Archer). In this case the best they could do in terms of tactics is form one giant shield wall even if you had 1000 of them in your army.
There isn't enough reliable information online for me to try to diversify their army as people seem to care more about their equipment and raids rather than their pitched battle capabilities and how they did formations, while what little information there is about their military tactics seems to be highly debated.
Anyway right now all three existing infantry types have shields and can be used for shield walls. I might make 2 other infantry types that have no shields, like long spear and other two-handed weapon-users, to form wing/flank formations under a different officer. Long spears as a specific anti-cavalry solution and two-handed weapons as specific flanker infantry deterrents (the Swadians and Vaegirs use a lot of flanker infantry).
This may or may not be historically accurate, but I don't really care. They aren't the real Norse armies anyway lol. Also they need to adjust their tactics if they're going to face the heavy cavalry of the Swadians and Vaegirs, and perhaps other troop types to push further inland to fight the Khergits, Rhodoks and Sarranids.
I think know how to make FormAI make these guys use a different formation now too.
- edit: I have a feeling the Nord army is a little too simplistic. The only officer I can come up with is a Housecarl, and under him are the 3 infantry types that can switch into each other (Spearman, Axeman, Archer). In this case the best they could do in terms of tactics is form one giant shield wall even if you had 1000 of them in your army.
There isn't enough reliable information online for me to try to diversify their army as people seem to care more about their equipment and raids rather than their pitched battle capabilities and how they did formations, while what little information there is about their military tactics seems to be highly debated.
Anyway right now all three existing infantry types have shields and can be used for shield walls. I might make 2 other infantry types that have no shields, like long spear and other two-handed weapon-users, to form wing/flank formations under a different officer. Long spears as a specific anti-cavalry solution and two-handed weapons as specific flanker infantry deterrents (the Swadians and Vaegirs use a lot of flanker infantry).
This may or may not be historically accurate, but I don't really care. They aren't the real Norse armies anyway lol. Also they need to adjust their tactics if they're going to face the heavy cavalry of the Swadians and Vaegirs, and perhaps other troop types to push further inland to fight the Khergits, Rhodoks and Sarranids.
I think know how to make FormAI make these guys use a different formation now too.
Just food for thought, the Scandinavian warriors who went Viking (verb) and thus earned the name Vikings were circa the dark ages (600-ish to 1000-ish A.D. (don't quote me on exact dates) and thus, were several hundred years before the Middle Ages in which 1257 A.D. was well into. Just like the evolution of the Roman legions of Imperial times through time and to counter new exotic troops and tactics, the Vikings would evolve by 1257. Feel free to "Medieval" them up as there IS no history of how they fought against troops and tactics that wouldn't exist for several hundred years after their reign of terror in the British Isles.
IMO, the Nord troop tree of Expanded Floris 2.54 works well. You could use that as a model and flavor while reducing the number of variations if that is your style. Either some cavalry and some archers (just not as good as other cultures who specialize more in those areas), or the near universal throwing weapons for almost all troops and a spear line to counter cavalry have worked well in other mods.
Again IMO, it is the tactical diversity and simply fun to watch factor of a good number of troop variations that make the battles fun (as done VERY well in Floris Expanded). Upgrading troops provides some of what is lacking in the Mount & Blade series - which is tangible BENEFITS from fighting all those battles and a COMPELLING REASON to want to capture castles and towns. If ever a modder could combine the town/castle holding benefits of the Total War series (more and better troops, buildings with benefits required to keep conquest going) with the kick ass battle system of M&B, the game would quadruple in popularity.
My .02, keep the change.
IMO, the Nord troop tree of Expanded Floris 2.54 works well. You could use that as a model and flavor while reducing the number of variations if that is your style. Either some cavalry and some archers (just not as good as other cultures who specialize more in those areas), or the near universal throwing weapons for almost all troops and a spear line to counter cavalry have worked well in other mods.
Again IMO, it is the tactical diversity and simply fun to watch factor of a good number of troop variations that make the battles fun (as done VERY well in Floris Expanded). Upgrading troops provides some of what is lacking in the Mount & Blade series - which is tangible BENEFITS from fighting all those battles and a COMPELLING REASON to want to capture castles and towns. If ever a modder could combine the town/castle holding benefits of the Total War series (more and better troops, buildings with benefits required to keep conquest going) with the kick ass battle system of M&B, the game would quadruple in popularity.
My .02, keep the change.
Yep. Exactly how I was thinking. This game is really about pitting the different medieval styles against each other rather than historical accuracy. But having said that I also feel like it's therefore not a good idea to stray too far from what they might've felt like. I'll make some kind of compromise just for gameplay's sake though.
This is the current plan, except no cavalry.
We might have different definitions of "tactical diversity". For me it's combat styles different from each other. Like one side being well-trained with shield and spear formations, while the other has multiple cavalry wedges and skirmisher lines that move around constantly.
I'm not a fan of "a good number of troop variations", because the troop variations are actually one guy having better stats and equipment than the other, but they're all actually technically the same troop type (meaning, they fill the same role in combat). I also don't want each faction to actually have a solid answer to potential problems they face in terms of troop types. I love the idea of obvious and even somewhat exaggerated "strengths" and "weaknesses", like a complex rock-paper-scissors game. Swadian missile troops and aggressive heavy cavalry and infantry beats Sarranid vast numbers of mobile troops beats Rhodok static positioning with pavise shields + spear formations beats Swadian longbowmen + aggressive heavy cavalry and infantry. That sort of thing.
I also don't really like "troop A is stronger than troop B so I have no reason to use troop B except I need to use him because upgrading him is the only way to get troop A." I'm going for "troop A does this and troop B does that, and they each have their roles to fill. I can reassign troop A into troop C, which is more useful for a different purpose, but it will have its drawbacks and I have to be willing to accept that." Doesn't that sound way more interesting?
Not the intention of this submod at all though.
The questions I'm trying to answer when I'm making this submod are like these: What tactical options do I have with my 400 spearmen that have no shields and my 120 crossbowmen with pavises against the enemy that has 600 very fast horse archers and 400 heavy lancers? What maneuver, what positioning will give me the best chance of victory, or, barring that, inflicting as much damage as I can on the enemy numbers before attempting to escape? How quickly and how tightly can I set up my spearmen on either wing, before the enemy completely encircles me? Should I even bother splitting my crossbowmen into sections, which means they need some time to set up but would allow me to do rolling volleys, or should I keep them bunched together so that their flanks are easier to cover with spearmen? Can I even win this battle?
These are hard questions I have never asked myself in combat in any mod prior to working on this submod.
This is an old, old idea of mine that came out even before Floris 2.54 came out (I think 2.53 was the new thing at the time--I just know I was already working on the Archery Tweaks submod then). At first I simply edited the existing Player Faction troop trees and made them available to recruit from Player Faction villages. They had no low-middle tiers and were recruited as-is. It was fun but imbalanced because the Player Faction with 70 I6 troops was definitely stronger than the Swadians with 170 tier 1-4 troops and maybe 5-10 tier 5 troops and stronger. I started editing the other factions, and then started working on getting rid of the tiered equipment system, and that's where it all began.
I've been explaining this to others for quite some time now, and while I understand everybody's point of view and I actually agree that having stuff to upgrade can be fun, I also want it to be clear that I have no intention of changing my mind when it comes to non-upgradeable troops and pretty much nothing to upgrade in this submod, especially because there are already other mods that do this, Floris 2.54 and Native included. I provide detailed descriptions of the systems and anyone with knowledge of the Module System can figure out what I'm doing really, and they are free to do so. But don't ask me to do it for you because I don't have that kind of time luxury. I'd be lucky to squeeze in an hour a day working on the submod the way I actually want it.
The point of this submod is the tactical battles, and to make sure the player has to fight tooth and nail for every scrap of land. The tactical battles aren't a fun optional feature of this submod that the player can ignore. The battles are the compelling reason.
In this submod, you'll [hopefully] never say, "Let's get this overwith, I need to get some exp for my new recruits to upgrade them into the next." You're more likely to say, "Holy crap, those guys have a lot of shielded infantry and I don't know if I have the right kinds of troops for this particular battle. What formations and tactics could I possibly use to beat them?"
The tactical troop trees ("roles" really) and tactical battles are not a nice little addition to have on top of the features I have planned. They ARE the submod, and all of the features I have planned revolve around that. In fact, if I removed all the other features, the submod would still be about the troop trees having simplified troops with no real "upgrade" paths, and each faction having a unique faction balance. And it would still be very interesting to me. (It was actually unreleased alpha version 0.01, which I lost when I forgot to back up the module system).
In this submod, the motivation for defeating the enemy in open field is to reduce the enemy's ability to wage war at least temporarily and/or prevent him from terrorizing your lands, and the motivation for taking over a castle will be to obtain a strategic launching point from where you can get more troops or escape from the enemy. As a mandatory bonus, each fight will be challenging, and therefore, at least for me, lots of fun.
This is where I get my kicks: Fighting tough battles that you can only win via an odd combination of tactical command skills and luck. It's like playing a friendly sport with friends. You win no medals, and you don't get a salary for doing so. Friendly game so there were no wagers. The game itself is the fun part, not what you get afterward. You can play another round today or tomorrow, and it'll still be just as fun. In the case of this game, it's the mental stimulation of having to deal with a tough battle every time, and the rush you get from achieving hard-earned victory due to some key decisions or even luck. I believe the way I'm designing this submod right now will be able to achieve that.
I've been explaining this to others for quite some time now, and while I understand everybody's point of view and I actually agree that having stuff to upgrade can be fun, I also want it to be clear that I have no intention of changing my mind when it comes to non-upgradeable troops and pretty much nothing to upgrade in this submod, especially because there are already other mods that do this, Floris 2.54 and Native included. I provide detailed descriptions of the systems and anyone with knowledge of the Module System can figure out what I'm doing really, and they are free to do so. But don't ask me to do it for you because I don't have that kind of time luxury. I'd be lucky to squeeze in an hour a day working on the submod the way I actually want it.
The point of this submod is the tactical battles, and to make sure the player has to fight tooth and nail for every scrap of land. The tactical battles aren't a fun optional feature of this submod that the player can ignore. The battles are the compelling reason.
In this submod, you'll [hopefully] never say, "Let's get this overwith, I need to get some exp for my new recruits to upgrade them into the next." You're more likely to say, "Holy crap, those guys have a lot of shielded infantry and I don't know if I have the right kinds of troops for this particular battle. What formations and tactics could I possibly use to beat them?"
The tactical troop trees ("roles" really) and tactical battles are not a nice little addition to have on top of the features I have planned. They ARE the submod, and all of the features I have planned revolve around that. In fact, if I removed all the other features, the submod would still be about the troop trees having simplified troops with no real "upgrade" paths, and each faction having a unique faction balance. And it would still be very interesting to me. (It was actually unreleased alpha version 0.01, which I lost when I forgot to back up the module system).
In this submod, the motivation for defeating the enemy in open field is to reduce the enemy's ability to wage war at least temporarily and/or prevent him from terrorizing your lands, and the motivation for taking over a castle will be to obtain a strategic launching point from where you can get more troops or escape from the enemy. As a mandatory bonus, each fight will be challenging, and therefore, at least for me, lots of fun.
This is where I get my kicks: Fighting tough battles that you can only win via an odd combination of tactical command skills and luck. It's like playing a friendly sport with friends. You win no medals, and you don't get a salary for doing so. Friendly game so there were no wagers. The game itself is the fun part, not what you get afterward. You can play another round today or tomorrow, and it'll still be just as fun. In the case of this game, it's the mental stimulation of having to deal with a tough battle every time, and the rush you get from achieving hard-earned victory due to some key decisions or even luck. I believe the way I'm designing this submod right now will be able to achieve that.
In short I'm trying to make a tactics/chess game with a context of fighting for something. You fight a new battle each time, with new circumstances, against lords that have different preferences and tactical command styles, and it will almost never be a cakewalk (against other lords anyway and warband leaders anyway). Every move even on the open world map needs to be calculated and thought through. You need to assess every situation on the large and small scale and make a decision for the best possible outcome, because you are unlikely to come out of it unscathed.
Thanks for the reply, a good read.
I can definitely follow your thought patterns and I look forward to seeing how the mod turns out. Fun, challenging battles is definitely a good thing.
I can definitely follow your thought patterns and I look forward to seeing how the mod turns out. Fun, challenging battles is definitely a good thing.
New Planned Feature: Defender Troops.
Towns, castles and some rich villages will now have special reinforcement troops that spawn in them when your city is besieged. It varies per faction, but the primary idea is for them to be like militia. This is a simple feature I kept trying to figure out how to implement from before but didn't know how yet.
In most cases, militia are only called to service when necessary. Otherwise they are people with other jobs. Farmers, merchants, carpenters, hunters, etc. They are given basic weapons training, mostly in formations and tactics that help them defend against sieges and raids, which proved to be quite effective. There are many historical cases where militia held successful defenses and other small maneuvers against professional armies. Militia were also rarely ever used outside of defending their home town/village. This was where my original struggle was with it.
Now that I know how to make the game check for troops that shouldn't be in it, I can force militia to fall out of your army if you take them away from their home town for too long (maybe a week? Still balance testing this). I can also force militia to disband from the garrison when it is not being besieged. The size of the militia force available will be dependent on the area's wealth. The poorest villages will have none, while the richest town can muster up thousands.
Militia will be designed differently per faction, and probably even per location later on (?), based on the terrain and expected raiding/besieging enemies. Castles will usually have militia with shields to nullify archery besiegers, for example. Villages of the Khergits will likely have more archery, and Rhodok militia will be using crossbows.
Why do this?
1. It's one of those X-factor things that can make a difference during sieges and raids.
2. It also makes it so that if a town has a small garrison and it is suddenly besieged, it stands a better chance of holding out until reinforcements can arrive, if it has a sizable militia force. Again, militia are only called when it is besieged.
3. Lastly it also makes sieges one of the most difficult and important types of battles, because taking and holding a fort will mean much more. I noticed that in Native/Floris/most mods, sieges get too easy when you have a big archer force and some strong front line infantry to lead the charge. All you need to do is soften them up with arrows. In fact, in many cases you can "cheat" and just keep shooting arrows, retreat after your guys run out then besiege again. Now if a town has a large militia force, designed to be good for defense (shields, etc.), that old worn-out tactic doesn't work so well anymore.
This is sort of a balance issue though. Militia are paid for by the local citizenry in Europe, and in central Asia and the nomadic tribes, they were mostly the families (mostly the women) of the men that went to war. Therefore their numbers can be quite huge without requiring any salary from the player. Somebody needs to really bring their A-game when attempting a siege.
The AI also reacts differently to them. Since the AI actually checks for a valid target based on number of defenders present in a garrison during the decision-making process, if 500-2,000 new troops show up during the siege, it could throw them off. Still, considering the army sizes for offensive campaigns (the expectation goes up to 40,000 troops for some factions like the Khergits and Sarranids), it should be quite interesting.
Towns, castles and some rich villages will now have special reinforcement troops that spawn in them when your city is besieged. It varies per faction, but the primary idea is for them to be like militia. This is a simple feature I kept trying to figure out how to implement from before but didn't know how yet.
In most cases, militia are only called to service when necessary. Otherwise they are people with other jobs. Farmers, merchants, carpenters, hunters, etc. They are given basic weapons training, mostly in formations and tactics that help them defend against sieges and raids, which proved to be quite effective. There are many historical cases where militia held successful defenses and other small maneuvers against professional armies. Militia were also rarely ever used outside of defending their home town/village. This was where my original struggle was with it.
Now that I know how to make the game check for troops that shouldn't be in it, I can force militia to fall out of your army if you take them away from their home town for too long (maybe a week? Still balance testing this). I can also force militia to disband from the garrison when it is not being besieged. The size of the militia force available will be dependent on the area's wealth. The poorest villages will have none, while the richest town can muster up thousands.
Militia will be designed differently per faction, and probably even per location later on (?), based on the terrain and expected raiding/besieging enemies. Castles will usually have militia with shields to nullify archery besiegers, for example. Villages of the Khergits will likely have more archery, and Rhodok militia will be using crossbows.
Why do this?
1. It's one of those X-factor things that can make a difference during sieges and raids.
2. It also makes it so that if a town has a small garrison and it is suddenly besieged, it stands a better chance of holding out until reinforcements can arrive, if it has a sizable militia force. Again, militia are only called when it is besieged.
3. Lastly it also makes sieges one of the most difficult and important types of battles, because taking and holding a fort will mean much more. I noticed that in Native/Floris/most mods, sieges get too easy when you have a big archer force and some strong front line infantry to lead the charge. All you need to do is soften them up with arrows. In fact, in many cases you can "cheat" and just keep shooting arrows, retreat after your guys run out then besiege again. Now if a town has a large militia force, designed to be good for defense (shields, etc.), that old worn-out tactic doesn't work so well anymore.
This is sort of a balance issue though. Militia are paid for by the local citizenry in Europe, and in central Asia and the nomadic tribes, they were mostly the families (mostly the women) of the men that went to war. Therefore their numbers can be quite huge without requiring any salary from the player. Somebody needs to really bring their A-game when attempting a siege.
The AI also reacts differently to them. Since the AI actually checks for a valid target based on number of defenders present in a garrison during the decision-making process, if 500-2,000 new troops show up during the siege, it could throw them off. Still, considering the army sizes for offensive campaigns (the expectation goes up to 40,000 troops for some factions like the Khergits and Sarranids), it should be quite interesting.
