I've been playing for a couple of days now and I have some suggestions to make, mostly to do with kingdom management but a couple of other things too.
Firstly, great work here. This is one of the great mods out there, both in scope and more importantly in flavour. I don't think there is a more fleshed out world in any other M&B mod. I didn't get much time to contribute during beta testing (which I'm hoping to make up for now I finally have a few days off), but I did get to see it all come together and the amount of work and thought that went in to it is just phenomenal.
That said, there's always room for improvement in anything, so on with the suggestions.
Kingdom management still needs work, although it's mostly the already reported bugfixes.
1. On the "assign castle etc." page would it be possible to add who owns the fief on the list, like (Marleon's - Lord Montewar)? Also to have it link back to the list rather than the great hall? Also, the ability to assign a fief from its management page would fit nicely with one of my later suggestions.
2. Getting lords is tough. Very tough. Could this be toned down a bit or (and this is my preference),
3. Titling of companions. In PoP I've developed a real attachment to some of my buddies and would like nothing more than to give Leslie Sarleon and have her run the kingdom's treasury, or give Sara the Fox that chance to outshine me that she keeps banging on about. It'd particularly suit the knightly types, giving them a chance to reestablish their orders.
This would aid the player in a few ways, and still leave enough room for limitation to avoid it nerfing the game too much.
Firstly it would give the player a lord or two early on in kingdom development. It'd also give you something to do with those quarreling companions (a nice touch there would be them refusing to aid each other on the world map if they have a poor relation to each other), and free up one of those pesky 31 slots, which given the diversity of troops in PoP is not to be sneezed at.
To limit them, you have them require certain cities (an ancestral knighthood seat, designated capital, close to their homeland etc.) or buildings (Market/treasury or other financial building for Leslie, training ground for Donovan, knighthood orders etc.) which gives you yet another incentive to plan your builds and conquests and goes one step further towards making Pendor the living, breathing land it's destined to be.
My favourite part of this idea is the whole immersive part of it. Sure I'm riding to battle with Lord Montewar, but who is he, really? Is he an *******? Is he nice to small, furry animals? Was he making it up about Lady Eloise being a slapper or am I in with a chance? I don't know. And because I don't know, I don't really care about helping him out against which ever pileup of Fierdsvein caught him this time.
But riding to save Kaverra from certain sacrifice at the hands of the three seers or relieving Sir Rayne before the besieging might of Ravenstern extinguishes the Order of the Falcon forever?
That, my friends, that I can fight for.
Crap, now I forgot what was next.
Oh yeah,
4. Improved lord dialogue so poor Lord Montewar gets to explain why Lady Eloise just slapped me, and so he doesn't get more prison love off the Fierdsvein. Just flavour really, something that would be nice, but is by no means essential. Actually, it could be a handy way to get better relations with lords. Find their jokes about squirrels and goose fat in poor taste? Tell them so. It'd also add some depth to the almost pointless castle Ladies. A few more companion interactions would be nice too.
5. More uses for buildings. A the moment, I'm not even sure what purpose most of them serve. I know they improve the economy, but from what I can figure, that's it.
I was thinking along the lines of having training grounds in castles allow you to recruit troops from the steward there, like in taverns in old M&B and occasionally adding a couple to your garrison from time to time (self interest there, it's been murder trying to keep up a stock of pendor recruits). Or maybe having craftsmen give the enigmatic increase in tradeable goods to goods markets as well as just a boost to the economy, or ports in seaside towns adding more opportunity to hire Barclay or Singalian mercenaries.
If we add the ability to choose a capital, add capital only buildings like a treasury (collects all taxes from your fiefs) or a chancellery (management of all fiefs). There's pretty much no end to what you can do with this.
Ok, non kingdom stuff. Not so much of this...yet.
1. Quests. The native quests, though much improved from dayes of yore ("No. Get your own damn 30 pitchforks.") are still somewhat lacking, and in some cases ("No. Post your own damn letters.") just irritating.
They could use some work, from "Who will rid me of these turbulent renegade knights?! 10 parties please." to rescuing Leslie's old business partner from a Jatu camp, to just getting rid of that damn letter quest, any improvement here will do.
Anyone who played the old Calradia at War will know what I mean. Fairly simply implemented (usually just "go kill these guys") but they did add quite a lot to gameplay for me. Or even Storymod style, though I hear that wasn't quite so simple to implement.
Umm, that's pretty much it so far, I'll probably sneak some more in with an edit when nobody's looking.
In closing, Prophesy of Pendor has got the one thing right that most mods don't; the setting is truly magnificent and that alone gives it the potential to be the best M&B mod of all time. Mod system limitations and human frailty not withstanding (you can only whip SD so much before he starts crying or gets over excited), the sky is pretty much the limit.
Hmmmm...
2. Airships.....
