MP [Suggestion] Multiplayer Campaign Warfare

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Hello,

TL-DR: This was previosusly done for Warband as a mod.

Imagine an online multiplayer mode where people are moving on the map of Calradia simultaneously in real time as their own parties, and every battle is fought online on a server using only real players.


No NPCs in any battle - People recruit their own soldiers and have to equip them with every piece of gear they want to use, as well as gather the money required.

Movement is done on an online Calradia map, only movement speed is much, much slower than in the singleplayer game.

Players earn gold and experience via playing on the battle and siege server, and when participating in actual battles from the online multiplayer campaign map.

Battles are scheduled 24 hours ahead
during defenders chosen available hours (say 19:00-23:00), and...

Players have to apply for each side of the battle and then both teams are played using only real people, no AI.

Similar to a previous thread but different, I want to create a thread about and wish for a playable online multiplayer campaign map, where battles are fought online with only real players. There would be no NPCs on the map, only in the game as traders and inhabitants in villages and such.

Every player has their own character on the campaign map with their own soldiers, but every player has to buy every piece of equipment to be used for their soldiers (weapons, armor, shields, arrows etc), and fight over domination of the map, taking over villages, castles and towns.

When a battle is fought players apply to fight for each side (attack/defense), and the attacker/defender accepts those he wants to play as his soldiers in the game. Every fight is fought using real players playing each soldier on each side. With VOIP either in-game, our used outside of the game, this game-mode is incredible. Most fun I have ever had in game to be told.

It would work such as you spawn somewhere on the map with a set number of soldiers - let's say 50. You can chose to recruit X-amount of soldiers per hour for a few gold pieces, and in the original mod called Strategus you'd be able to recruit 2 men per hour until you had 100 soldiers, and 1 soldier per hour after that.

You paid wages as well, and would have to rely heavily on trading, fighting and raiding to get money. Everyone starts with the same set sum of gold to be carefully invested in both men, cheap gear and trade goods if lucky - depending what your plans are - and then take it from there.

Any time a party attacks another on the campaign map they would get locked in place as "Engaged in Battle".

The battle would be scheduled 24 hours ahead to take place - but only during the Defenders pre-set available hours for example 19-23:00 - and Players can then look in an "Upcoming Battles" tab, to see "The Mighty Boars" vs "The Mighty Ducks" will battle tomorrow at 19:30 EST.

Players apply for the side they want to play, and owner of each side goes through applications and accepts who they want in their team. Everyone then joins a specific server for these battles 5-10 minutes prior to the game and then it starts. Defenders would be allowed a 5-10 minutes preparation phase, depending on if it was a field battle, village/castle/town, and you got more time to prepare for larger fiefs.

While two parties are locked in place, other parties may join either side on the campaign map up to 12 hours before the battle will start, allowing for small and big parties to ambush or catch prey while a larger force is hiding in the woods nearby, or for reinforcements to arrive to any battle provided the party is close and fast enough.

In this game mode, if you had 50 soldiers and you wanted armor, you'd have to buy 50 sets of armor - or do you maybe go for 10 strong armors, 40 basic tunics, and shields for everyone? Do you spend more on defensive or offensive equipment? Do you buy wooden defensive walls with holes, that you can use for your archers and deploy in the fields?

You need ladders? Buy them, just make sure you buy the right length. Remember that your men can only carry so much, and horses and pack animals can help increase your carrying capacity as well as your movement speed on the map.

The movement itself on the map would be like in singleplayer, click to move, only instead of taking seconds and minutes to move across the map, it would takes hours and days (and sometimes more), depending on the terrain, your inventory, number of men, and so forth. The terrain would also affect vision, woods for example greatly reduce vision, and is perfect to use for setting up points of ambush, whilst being on a mountain, although very difficult to traverse the steeper and higher you go, would provide a great boon in sight range, enabling you to spot parties from afar before they can see you (especially a big party).

You could also use a "Quick March" function, which increased movement speed for 500 minutes, but then you had reduced movement speed due to fatigue for 500 minutes after. Very useful for catching up to or running away from other parties - as well as give you that speed burst when you want to enter a location somewhere you already plan on spending time after.

In this game mode then a lot of different players, with or without clans would be going around simultaneously in real-time and interact in the world, fighting battles, trading, and so forth. Minor as well as huge battles would be fought, with all players on both sides, with great tense decisive moments where ruler and ownership changed. People would collaborate, communicate with other players as well and send messages - honest as well as dishonest - and amazing stories would unfold. Crazy good fun.

Thank you all for reading, thank you TW for all the hard work you are doing.
You can read a more detailed description of the original mod here.
 
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This has been the community's wet dream since the first day of Mount and Blade, doubt we will ever see it but man, just thinking about it...

I'm glad you feel the same way, and I think we will get it one way or another. The best of course would be to have it as part of Bannerlord so that it gets the highest possible visibility, and hopefully quality as well. I have a dream...
 
this would require an entirely different approach maybe for mb3

It's already been done for Warband. It can be done for Bannerlord too, and even better than it ever was done for Warband. People played this for years and it was crazy fun man, 100vs100 and all kinds of stuff. All players and all VOIP with big guilds/clans on both sides, with friends helping out and stuff.
 
sounds like a great system.
I think taking hours to move though makes it more like those browser based strategy games which kinda puts me off a bit. I think it's best if the speed would be normal as in 1x speed in SP and battles happen on the spot (with maybe 5 min prep in which other parties can come join)
When a players logs out it takes 1-5 min to actually have his character disappear (so as to not have people logging off before being caught by a bigger army or by a player they don't wish to fight) and if they get caught after logging off, the AI will automatically fight and control the units in place of the player (f6 should be a thing still in this mode)
Target could be similar as SP, having to conquer the entire map. Players can make alliances and elect kings or anything of the kind. Join in armies and so on, I think it would be fun :smile:
 
sounds like a great system.
I think taking hours to move though makes it more like those browser based strategy games which kinda puts me off a bit. I think it's best if the speed would be normal as in 1x speed in SP and battles happen on the spot (with maybe 5 min prep in which other parties can come join)
When a players logs out it takes 1-5 min to actually have his character disappear (so as to not have people logging off before being caught by a bigger army or by a player they don't wish to fight) and if they get caught after logging off, the AI will automatically fight and control the units in place of the player (f6 should be a thing still in this mode)
Target could be similar as SP, having to conquer the entire map. Players can make alliances and elect kings or anything of the kind. Join in armies and so on, I think it would be fun :smile:

Hey man, glad to see it sparked your curiousity! This has already been done in Warband, and it has to be slow, because your character actually never disappears from the map, even if you log out. The idea is not to be constantly checking your character as it walks on the map, rather log in a few times a day to see OR keep a tab open that you check when you have time.

You see how it was done before (but could be made in-game this time) is that you logged onto this website for this mod, and you had this map in the browser. In this browser you saw your character - a simple blob of color - on the map and you could click to move and interact in various ways with things and other people. Movement was very slow because you are not supposed to be on that map 24/7, you're supposed to play Warband/Bannerlord and do other fun things instead with your free time - and when things take long it adds to the feeling of achievement and what's at stake.

What this map and mod was about however, is that is was a visual representation and way to interact with each other in a campaign, where also the battles would all be fought using only real people. No AI. Of course, there were the added elements of strategy and planning as you had to buy everything for your troops, everything.

The various clans and guilds had various goals, some were only traders, some neutral, some were on a conquest and a lot had pacts with each other, and battled it out for total dominion. Certain alliances would claim certain big parts of the map - like the desert, or the northen part.
Just like you write in the end of your post! :smile: With things taking time it really added to the whole atmosphere and feeling of how much is at stakes. Taking a castle took weeks of preparation, from recruiting all the troops necessary, finding and buying the right gear for the goal and then also to move to location - and then imagine you're up against 100 coordinated players on VOIP, with your own 100 guys on VOIP - makes for a totally different experience than singeplayer!

People would scout the map for their guild and say "Enemy army 5 days away, heading our direction", and people would take action accordingly and plan, set up scouting parties and send out reinforcements.

Of course, seeing settlements change colour and ownership in an online map, with only real players playing and no NPCs, with everything on the market bought and sold by players, made for a truly interesting and unique experience, kind of similar to a medieval EVE Online, just much more fun!

To add: maybe your idea with having your character log off is good as well, but there is a feature in the original mod where everyone gets to choose certain hours where they are considered "Away", and as such if someone attacks you and the battle would have been scheduled 15.00 and you set your Away-time between 00:00-20:00, it means the actual battle would be booked 24 ahead from attacking time and only in bet-ween 20:00-23:59. This was to prevent people from attacking others during night times or when they are at work and thus not being able to participate in their own defense. Thus, regardless when anyone attacks someone else, the battle will take part only during the available hours that are pre-set by the one being attacked (the defender).
 
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Hey man, glad to see it sparked your curiousity! This has already been done in Warband, and it has to be slow, because your character actually never disappears from the map, even if you log out. The idea is not to be constantly checking your character as it walks on the map, rather log in a few times a day to see OR keep a tab open that you check when you have time.

You see how it was done before (but could be made in-game this time) is that you logged onto this website for this mod, and you had this map in the browser. In this browser you saw your character - a simple blob of color - on the map and you could click to move and interact in various ways with things and other people. Movement was very slow because you are not supposed to be on that map 24/7, you're supposed to play Warband/Bannerlord and do other fun things instead with your free time.

What this map and mod was about however, is that is was a visual representation and way to interact with each other in a campaign, where also the battles would all be fought using only real people. No AI. Of course, there were the added elements of strategy and planning as you had to buy everything for your troops, everything.

The various clans and guilds had various goals, some were only traders, some neutral, some were on a conquest and a lot had pacts with each other, and battled it out for total dominion. Certain alliances would claim certain big parts of the map - like the desert, or the northen part.
Just like you write in the end of your post! :smile: With things taking time it really added to the whole atmosphere and feeling of how much is at stakes. Taking a castle took a weeks of preparation, from recruiting all the troops necessary, finding and buying the right gear for the goal, and then also to move to location. People would scout and say "Enemy army 5 days away, heading our direction" in their guild messages, and people would take action accordingly and plan, set up scouting parties and send out reinforcements.

Of course, seeing settlements change colour and ownership in an online map, with only real players playing and no NPCs, with everything on the market bought and sold by players, made for a truly interesting and unique experience, kind of similar to a medieval EVE Online, just much more fun!

To add: maybe your idea with having your character log off is good as well, but there is a feature in the original mod where everyone gets to choose certain hours where they are considered "Away", and as such if someone attacks you and the battle would have been scheduled 15.00 and you set your Away-time between 00:00-20:00, it means the actual battle would be booked 24 ahead from attacking time and only in bet-ween 20:00-23:59. This was to prevent people from attacking others during night times or when they are at work and thus not being able to participate in their own defense. Thus, regardless when anyone attacks someone else, the battle will take part only during the available hours that are pre-set by the one being attacked (the defender).
Basically a massive and elaborate and immersive medieval MMORPG that's actually good.
The game is plain and simply way too bare-bones for any of that, although you could RP 90% of the story outside the game which requires a pretty decent community.
 
Basically a massive and elaborate and immersive medieval MMORPG that's actually good.
The game is plain and simply way too bare-bones for any of that, although you could RP 90% of the story outside the game which requires a pretty decent community.

Hell yes! People were roleplaying really cool in the previous mod as well, writing each others factions/Clans/guilds letters in "high english"/"old english"/"bandit language" etc. Was tons of fun, lots of diplomacy and other events happening. There were mercenaries guilds that roleplayed that, traders, bandits, Templars, all kinds.

I updated the whole original post to be more concise and informative, if you wouldn't mind giving a quick read-through again. Thanks for replying.

In this previous mod, every village, fief, castle and so on would produce different resources, that would be used for trading. They also produced different types of armor, weapons, and horses. This led to a very interesting economy where people had to travel to get what they needed, or rely on honest trade to get everything. All weapons and armors were also produced at different quality, and starting at something like rusty, and the owners of every fief once they claimed ownership would have to invest prosperity and money to make their village better at producing X-product. So you'd have people investing and specializing in making for examaple cheap, but not rusty and maybe even quite good maces, or cheap good swords, or shields, or expensive good weapons, or horses, and so forth. It was incredible.
 
Hell yes! People were roleplaying really cool in the previous mod as well, writing each others factions/Clans/guilds letters in "high english"/"old english"/"bandit language" etc. Was tons of fun, lots of diplomacy and other events happening. There were mercenaries guilds that roleplayed that, traders, bandits, Templars, all kinds.

I updated the whole original post to be more concise and informative, if you wouldn't mind giving a quick read-through again. Thanks for replying.

In this previous mod, every village, fief, castle and so on would produce different resources, that would be used for trading. They also produced different types of armor, weapons, and horses. This led to a very interesting economy where people had to travel to get what they needed, or rely on honest trade to get everything. All weapons and armors were also produced at different quality, and starting at something like rusty, and the owners of every fief once they claimed ownership would have to invest prosperity and money to make their village better at producing X-product. So you'd have people investing and specializing in making for examaple cheap, but not rusty and maybe even quite good maces, or cheap good swords, or shields, or expensive good weapons, or horses, and so forth. It was incredible.
Would battles be fought in private servers with custom maps and units? Because none of that is in the game... Yet.
 
Would battles be fought in private servers with custom maps and units? Because none of that is in the game... Yet.

If TaleWorlds implements this game mode, they would host their own servers for sure. But like I said, this has been done previously for Warband, people played it like crazy, and all we used were some dedicated servers for this battle (actually they were duel servers, but any time a battle was about to happen it would kick everyone and convert for the battle instead).

Units worked such as: every unit is created naked. So every soldier in every players party is a naked unit. However, people bought every piece of gear they want their army to use. So when people joined a game and played as these soldiers, for every life they would spawn, they would first get to choose what items to spawn with. Just like in regular native Multiplayer you know - click the boxes and select what items to equip before you spawn. And then you spawn. The units would also in Warband have the attributes and skills of the actual player playing the soldier - so people would add short messages to their applications such as "21 str 21 agi xbow shielder".

This made it so you'd go through applications and accept people with the right skills depending on the weapons and plan you had in mind for your soldiers.

Maps would be either randomly generated field battles if you engaged someone in the fields on the map, but every village and town and castle had their own maps already of course. So like in native Warband.

Best thing about it this game mode is that it worked and very well! We know for a fact it can be done again - the question right now is, will TW implement this or will someone else? I am here because I believe many people like me would love it if this game mode was implemented natively by TW, so that it gets the biggest possible audience immediately, and official development and support.
 
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