Suggestions

[Ashes42]

This is a forum to suggest new things to be in Bandit King, in order to facilitate new discussion here is a handy list of whats on the plate already, and what we've already shot down.  I'll try and keep the list up-to date.

Next feature in
- NPC AI update

To Do

first pass at player companions as 'captains'
Rebalance the money system, and make the player and NPCs the same
chance for heroic troops to be promoted to heroes, (if possible) which can be commissioned as captains


Combat Grouping
Mercenary expansion system
Fix player kingdom display on the report screen
leadership total a soft limit, having more than limit lowers morale
prisoner total a soft limit, having more risks escapes and slows party down
improve recruitment from prisoner system
set up caravan inventories and money
correct siege events so that players are included in sieges that happen in towns the player is in
fix neutral-owned centers getting correct flag when player is awarded flag via event
storage inventory in castles and towns
player must capture enemy king to get 'birth marque'  (papers that show proof of noble birth)
routing/fleeing from morale loss
ability to get a privateer letter of marque which eliminates criminality of raiding caravans (legally)
add recruitment pools to castles and towns
meaningful town improvements
ability to fly other faction's banners (with privateer marque)
add new trooptypes available only in castles
make city sieging a 3-stage process (walls, streets, courtyard)
chance to lose privilege with any kingdom when you lose faction with them (trade rights, privateer, peace treaty)
turning noble prisoners over to any faction gains/loses related factions depending on that factions relation to the prisoner

~- captains -~
Control their own stacks of units
Can be commanded to do anything NPC ai can do (patrol an area, siege, engage, join forces with you)
Draw a salary and upgrade their own gear
Can be captured by the enemy, and killed.
Have traits (honor, dread, corruption, bravery, bloodlust) that affect their choices in battle.
will upgrade their equipment and horses from storage inventory in towns (i.e. equip themselves from armory depending on their skills)


Shot down
-More hero followers.  (Band of Warriors)


Up for Discussion
-Aid and XP

 

[HSharp]

How about hiring your own mercenaries?

Instead of the normal hire troops for initial hire fee and then have weekly wages you can actually hire troops for a set length of time and at the end of that time they leave you (or possibly an offer to renew contract). Or instead of hiring normal troops you hire "hero" type troops (like Rolf etc...) for a set period of time, of course you need to make sure that when you talk to them you can't just strp them off thier armour to steal it for yourself but I suppose you could treat them as 'captains' who you can order to protect/invade.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Idea number 2.

Deserters show up as a party, when you have really low morale, or if you recruit from prisoners, some of your troops may desert, this gives you the oppurtunity to go hunt them down and show em why they shouldn't desert.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Idea number 3

Make the Kidnapped Girl killable instead of invincible. Two ways I can think of is try and use BoW or Expanded Gameplays deaths for heroes thing or make Kidnapped Girl a regular troop unit instead of a 'hero' unit which then gets removed once you return the girl back to the town.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Idea Number 4

Different levels of diplomacy between Kingdoms (and player Kingdom once implemented), can have trade rights, ceasefire, non-agression pact, alliance and war (oh and neutral). Can use those handy Swadian Messengers to deliver the messages as well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Idea Number 5

Having outlaw bases, these are basically like villages (or possibly a few towns) but are for bandits and pirates and raiders etc..., they are not really a kingdom but are more like Zendar in being neutral (even though everyone hates them). If implemeted could have it so that you can own some of these towns and villages to recruit bandits and a place to rest inbetween ambushing caravans.

~~~

 

[Ashes42]

How about hiring your own mercenaries?

Instead of the normal hire troops for initial hire fee and then have weekly wages you can actually hire troops for a set length of time and at the end of that time they leave you (or possibly an offer to renew contract). Or instead of hiring normal troops you hire "hero" type troops (like Rolf etc...) for a set period of time, of course you need to make sure that when you talk to them you can't just strp them off thier armour to steal it for yourself but I suppose you could treat them as 'captains' who you can order to protect/invade.

I really like the mercenary idea, a new recruitment system is already coming down the line.  It's not fleshed out yet, but thats some of the gist of it.  Castles and Towns will produce troops, towns some kind of militia and guard (basic infantry) and they will  have mercenaries for hire, as they are now, though perhaps different mercs.  Castles will produce trained troops, for greater expense.  Towns will produce cheap untrained troops, with the possibility of levying numbers quickly.

As for the "heros" thing, once the NPC revamp goes in, all "hero's" will be killable.  The way I see it working, is if dropped in combat, there is a small chance of the character (we'll call them characters now) being actually killed, and a small chance of him getting away.  This then leaves a large chance that he is taken prisoner, when taken prisoner he can be released, killed, or held captive.  And you may take his gear and horse if you wish.  I may or may not make it when you are taken prisoner you can be killed, I'm still on a toss up on that one.  But the best you can hope for is released with no gear no horse.  The worst being taken and held ransom for excessive amounts of money and land, where you come out with practically nothing.

Idea number 2.

Deserters show up as a party, when you have really low morale, or if you recruit from prisoners, some of your troops may desert, this gives you the oppurtunity to go hunt them down and show em why they shouldn't desert.

I suppose that is an idea.  I do want to address the lack of smaller parties, I never really liked the deserter parties though, it seemed too similar to bandits

Idea number 3

Make the Kidnapped Girl killable instead of invincible. Two ways I can think of is try and use BoW or Expanded Gameplays deaths for heroes thing or make Kidnapped Girl a regular troop unit instead of a 'hero' unit which then gets removed once you return the girl back to the town.

That was just a bug, I think quest characters may be the only thing in the game which remain unkillable, merely because I saved her and then other bandits came and killed her when she charged them with her fists seems silly.

Idea Number 4

Different levels of diplomacy between Kingdoms (and player Kingdom once implemented), can have trade rights, ceasefire, non-agression pact, alliance and war (oh and neutral). Can use those handy Swadian Messengers to deliver the messages as well.

Good idea, not for a little while though.  (Oh and all the messengers are Swadian because I didn't get the code to choose their nationality in and working, I may leave it, say that Swadians are the masters of the postal service?)

Idea Number 5

Having outlaw bases, these are basically like villages (or possibly a few towns) but are for bandits and pirates and raiders etc..., they are not really a kingdom but are more like Zendar in being neutral (even though everyone hates them). If implemeted could have it so that you can own some of these towns and villages to recruit bandits and a place to rest inbetween ambushing caravans.

That is part of the plan, but only one keep, and a way to recruit bandits you find.

 

[Vympel]

Bigger , harder , ambushing bandit parties near forests and on main roads.

 

[Ashes42]

One of the things I'm tossing around is a greater variety of party sizes.  Early game its kind of rough with the bandits now, and some people don't want to play war.  I'm thinking of using knights errant to do that.

 

[paladinjedi]

Good to hear from you again. It's nice that a suggestions board was made.

1. All that TODO list posted here will be included in this new release?

2. About that "birth mark", I mean the paper which can be obtained from a captured king and it shows that you have legal rights to conquer etc. I think this should not be the only way of being accepted into "their world". What about developing your own career as a king/emperor, winning the support of masses (peasants, troops...) by treating them nicer than their actual leaders do, helping them with quests etc. Why should a bandit king necesarrily be that evil and that prefabricated? I understand political circumstances and the fact that it became a tradition that kings should be born like that already but don't we want a changeable world, with evolution and history, including changing rules, changing points of view and the way some factions behave in novel circumstances? I consider this relationship: new, ascending leader -- his/her own troops, peasants, townspeople very important. Otherwise it's arid, people have nothing to say, no peasants revolts (supported by some small leaders and trained troops...), all the stuff is decided indoors, between kings.

3. Related to my 2-nd statement. The new "Bandit King"  we create should have two main choices: 1. A new tyrant, cruel and savage, no relation with people except torture... 2. A kind of noble outlaw, helping people, especially simple people like peasants because without this social class all others would be zero. So the masses would love him/her and that could be a way of becoming king/emperor.

I say "a way", only one possibility. Of course other ways should be possible, like the official one...

4. How about declaring your kingdom (when you have a certain number of fiefs) and giving it a name in the game's interface?

 

[Ashes42]

No, the TODO list is not all for the next release, I wish I was that epic.  I plan on releasing the main features about 1-3 at a time, depending on how together they are.  That list is the same as Nox's old list, is not prioritized, and is basically just some plans.  The direction the mod actually takes may be somewhat different.

The new Bandit-King thing already has two main choices, as a bandit you are not barred from villages, you can make the villages and towns like you, or you can raid and enslave them.  You can pick fights with bandits and lords, or with caravans and villagers.  You can still play your way.  Some in game recognition of this would be nice, but thats not that high on my priority list.

About naming your kingdom, it's a little more complicated than it seems... I want to do it but I can't figure out how really.

It goes hand in hand with the party screen topic, once the mod system moves into a screen, I can't really control it, or I can't figure out how.  I really need the ability to make my own screens.  Any help would be appreciated.

 

[FantastikO]

Will you combine with Expanded gameplay again?

 

[VariousArtist]

Bigger , harder , ambushing bandit parties near forests and on main roads.

Maybe bandit-groups should be able to join together to from larger gangs.
They should also be more agressive towards caravans and when caravans are ambushed close to your estates you should get negative relation from not protecting them.
Also it would be neat to get positive relation with the closest village/castle/citie when you successfully fight bandits.

 

[Ashes42]

I never combined with extended gameplay, if anything they took my code and used it, which is ok by me.  I don't like bandit groups joining together, orginizing isn't something I see bandits really doing.  Right now if I changed bandits to attack caravans it would be a mess.  No one protects caravans, and they currently have more people than the bandits.
I believe you already get positive relation with the closest village castle city when you sucessfully fight bandits via the witness script, is that not working?

 

[X23]

You should make it so you can capture fiefs. The penalty would be the villagers hating you for a while (which would subside) and enemies coming to take it. This would be a cool way to annoy/distract the enemy, or start a takeover.

 

[VariousArtist]

After I captured my first castle most of the vaegir lords offered my money for my castle. But only once.
Would be neat if we can offer them our estates when we want, too.

 

[Ashes42]

After I captured my first castle most of the vaegir lords offered my money for my castle. But only once.
Would be neat if we can offer them our estates when we want, too.

How shall your message be phrased->
Propose a deal (TODO)

I believe is how its phrased?

You should make it so you can capture fiefs. The penalty would be the villagers hating you for a while (which would subside) and enemies coming to take it. This would be a cool way to annoy/distract the enemy, or start a takeover.

The villages don't really owe strong allegiance to anyone, once in a while someone comes and collects taxes in some name, but you can't really hold the village from the enemy.  It kind of just doesn't make sense.

 

[VariousArtist]

After I captured my first castle most of the vaegir lords offered my money for my castle. But only once.
Would be neat if we can offer them our estates when we want, too.

How shall your message be phrased->
Propose a deal (TODO)

I believe is how its phrased?

Sounds great! That brings another suggestion to my mind: How about to propose a deal to buy soldiers from a friendly lord, too?

 

[dPB]

(Oh and all the messengers are Swadian because I didn't get the code to choose their nationality in and working, I may leave it, say that Swadians are the masters of the postal service?)

Why not just call them "Messengers" without a nationality? you would assume their nationality to be whoever holds the town/castle (this way you don't have to have a script to change the nationality anytime someone else takes over)

My suggestion: I've noticed some of the NPCs within a faction seem to have tiffs amongst themselves? One lord asked me about my friendship with another lord and I had a choice of saying I was with him, the other guy or none of them. I've only observed this in .89x (only because I've just started my .9 game) is this part of Bandit King or Native? Anyway I was thinking it would be cool if you could kinda break up faction by starting a rebellion and attempting to overthrow the King of that faction? You could instigate it by playing NPCs against each other?

Also how about hiring scouts or getting a scout when you take over a castle/town. I was thinking along the lines of a scout being like a traveler but instead of them showing up randomly with random faction information, you can order your scout to infiltrate a faction and then maybe a couple of days later come back with info on men etc.
Note: I think I mentioned something like this in the original thread.

Finally, How about if you don't have a lot of troop strength or renown at the start, you can't get hired as a merc directly by the king, but you can hire yourself out to one of his lords, you'll be restricted in what you can do (like you can't just go out and siege the nearest castle) but you can go and loot a village perhaps but you'll have to share your spoils with the lord you've hired out to?

Edit: Just thought of something else to add

 

[VariousArtist]

Leaving factions:
It seems there is no way to become factionless again, once youve joined a faction. You can switch between this and those faction but not become factionless. Would be cool to have this option (but with a neat hit towards different relations, cos basicly you become an insurgent/renegade/traitor).

Lords and relation:
I noticed that the lords are too easy to use for your cause in vanilla and BK. Once youve build up enough relation you can order them around as your personal slaves. I would suggest changes to the way relation and orders/requests towards lords work. Instead of building up enough relation so you can order them around freely every order/requests costs you relation towards the lord. (Yes, favors should have limits) Maybe you can offer a lord a little fincancial "gift" so the relation drain is reduced a bit. This changes would make relation a valuable ressource and gives a reason to fight with lords (to get better relations) and do quests for them. But I would increase the relation gain a bit to balance the system.

 

[Ashes42]

Leaving factions is on the to do list.  I actually would like to do away with some of the factionyness of the game entirely, allow much more room for... faction fun?  Intruge and story etc.  The main things keeping me from that is a) haven't got around to it and b) need the good NPCs

No you will not be able to use NPCs as your personal slaves come the next patch.  You will be able to order around your sub-ordinates though.  Who may be NPCs, of course ordering them around too much may cause some dissent... and they may still not obey you sometimes.

Why not just call them "Messengers" without a nationality? you would assume their nationality to be whoever holds the town/castle (this way you don't have to have a script to change the nationality anytime someone else takes over)

Because it was culture, not current faction I was using, and because I coded it in, then commented it out when I was bug-fixing.

My suggestion: I've noticed some of the NPCs within a faction seem to have tiffs amongst themselves? One lord asked me about my friendship with another lord and I had a choice of saying I was with him, the other guy or none of them. I've only observed this in .89x (only because I've just started my .9 game) is this part of Bandit King or Native? Anyway I was thinking it would be cool if you could kinda break up faction by starting a rebellion and attempting to overthrow the King of that faction? You could instigate it by playing NPCs against each other?

The within faction tiffs in native are a facade, but YES YES YES, the actors in the play on your stage need ACTION.

Also how about hiring scouts or getting a scout when you take over a castle/town. I was thinking along the lines of a scout being like a traveler but instead of them showing up randomly with random faction information, you can order your scout to infiltrate a faction and then maybe a couple of days later come back with info on men etc.
Note: I think I mentioned something like this in the original thread.

Thats somewhat on the back-burner, I think it may just be abandoned for now, I dunno.  We'll see after NPCs.

Finally, How about if you don't have a lot of troop strength or renown at the start, you can't get hired as a merc directly by the king, but you can hire yourself out to one of his lords, you'll be restricted in what you can do (like you can't just go out and siege the nearest castle) but you can go and loot a village perhaps but you'll have to share your spoils with the lord you've hired out to?

I like this idea... I'm not sure how to mesh it with the game though, its complicated to make.  What I would do is make it so that while under someones command, they send you quests to do.  You don't get payed unless you do the quests.
Thats a lot of work to set up though, for now I'm not going to worry about it.

 

[Sibilance]

Hi Ashes. I'm crossposting this from The Privy Council, but I think this suggestion will fit in well here too, as you've done so much work with the messengers recently. Also, with any luck you might actually listen and implement this idea.


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Calradia is filled with all kinds of fascinating and diverse people, and they should get out of their cottages and taverns and start adding some character and variety to the parties we encounter. I know I can't be the only one who misses the old "Peasant" wandering around, right? "I can't even afford a new pair of boots!"

So, how about this: Instead of being a magical teleporting 100-denar encyclopedia of critical state secrets, make the Traveler into a type of migratory localized scout who occasionally rests at a tavern and spins yarns about his travels. It doesn't make sense for a random guy in a tavern to be blurting out things like exact manpower counts and food supplies of castles, as that kind of spying and treason would get him dumped into a dungeon pretty dang quickly. However, making a wanderering Traveler party or two with plenty of Pathfinding and Spotting skill to outrun the bandits would be way cool. He could gossip with you about the journey he's taken, maybe disclosing handy-to-know stuff like where the Book Merchant or Ransom Broker are staying. And perhaps, with enough denars or a high enough Persuasion skill, he'd be willing to reveal the juicy classified information and scandalous secrets. I know that Bandit King has a functioning witness script implemented, and TLD had scouting parties who would give you localized news even back in .808, so I'm pretty sure this is a technical possibility.

Also, though it remains to be seen what Armagan will do with them, the Minstrels could work in a similar fashion. Let them function as wandering troubadours, taking the scenic route between kingdoms to collect epic tales for their ballads. You could pay one to follow your party as a retainer, improving morale and slightly amplifying your renown gains, perhaps even acting as a Charisma booster or skill increaser like one of the books. Maybe he and the Traveler could also give you clues about whatever plot Armagan eventually comes up with, too.

Mount & Blade seems with the last couple of versions to have really begun making the transformation from being just a gritty horseback combat game into being a sophisticated medieval world simulator, and I hope that the Player will get some company on his long sojourn. A few fellow travelers would improve gameplay, add realism, and most importantly be a whole lot of fun!

 

[Ashes42]

Calradia is filled with all kinds of fascinating and diverse people, and they should get out of their cottages and taverns and start adding some character and variety to the parties we encounter. I know I can't be the only one who misses the old "Peasant" wandering around, right? "I can't even afford a new pair of boots!"

So, how about this: Instead of being a magical teleporting 100-denar encyclopedia of critical state secrets, make the Traveler into a type of migratory localized scout who occasionally rests at a tavern and spins yarns about his travels. It doesn't make sense for a random guy in a tavern to be blurting out things like exact manpower counts and food supplies of castles, as that kind of spying and treason would get him dumped into a dungeon pretty dang quickly. However, making a wanderering Traveler party or two with plenty of Pathfinding and Spotting skill to outrun the bandits would be way cool. He could gossip with you about the journey he's taken, maybe disclosing handy-to-know stuff like where the Book Merchant or Ransom Broker are staying. And perhaps, with enough denars or a high enough Persuasion skill, he'd be willing to reveal the juicy classified information and scandalous secrets. I know that Bandit King has a functioning witness script implemented, and TLD had scouting parties who would give you localized news even back in .808, so I'm pretty sure this is a technical possibility.

Also, though it remains to be seen what Armagan will do with them, the Minstrels could work in a similar fashion. Let them function as wandering troubadours, taking the scenic route between kingdoms to collect epic tales for their ballads. You could pay one to follow your party as a retainer, improving morale and slightly amplifying your renown gains, perhaps even acting as a Charisma booster or skill increaser like one of the books. Maybe he and the Traveler could also give you clues about whatever plot Armagan eventually comes up with, too.

Mount & Blade seems with the last couple of versions to have really begun making the transformation from being just a gritty horseback combat game into being a sophisticated medieval world simulator, and I hope that the Player will get some company on his long sojourn. A few fellow travelers would improve gameplay, add realism, and most importantly be a whole lot of fun!

That's a great idea actually.  Not only would I do that, I would make it work with the system I'm currently implementing, which is giving the NPCs *shock!* personalities!  They are not longer parties to fight, wander around, and try to exploit to your advantage, they will become, people!

Thats the goal, gotta work out some technicalities first.

 

[Solace]

A suggestion regarding the level up scheme:

I know you intended to change EXP rewards (from the sound of it) but after playing for (what I feel is) far too long, I figured readjustment overall would be more called for.

Instead of making it more difficult across the board, since we have our own faction in this mod, character growth should be slower initially, but the later levels come too slow, IMHO. Perhaps make level 1 - 20ish significantly slower, but after 20+ the levels may come quicker than in Native? That would facilitate increased leadership scores for the larger armies at the latter phases of the game.

Additionally, instead of getting a flat -10 to your reputation when taking over an enemy castle/city, is it at all possible to make it relative to their disposition with the current lord? For example, if Lord XYZ has a -100 relation with a city he owns and you 'liberate' it from him, you gain some percentage in proportion to how negative he was... Also, when you sack a city, you get -40 with everyone... Why is this a global-hit? It seems like the enemies of that particular faction would appreciate the action moreso than hate you for it. Neutral kingdoms I could see taking a hit, since they may be wary of a new military power, but outright declaring war on the player faction (with a -40) may be a bit extreme. Granted, to differentiate between neutral and alliance relationships is difficult in this version of the game, but just a thought. I just can't help but think if some newly discovered general from a third party kicked the tail of your worst enemy, you'd come far from hating him.