Ideas

[ahowl11]

Now he needs to release it 

[ahowl11]

Here are some ideas from Xico Bruto from TWC, I don not yet know what to think of them but they sound interesting, maybe I could edit them to fit my desires.

Regarding the barracks: it simplifies things. The barracks represents the whole military infrastructure of the settlement, where all units are trained and housed. Honestly I got the idea from EB, and grew fond of it in time.


Regarding recruitment levels: when the barracks is built, it grants the ability to train the troops there up to a certain standard, for instance, lvl 1 barracks is just a muster field, it allows the recruitment of untrained troops and mercenaries (whose training is independent from you); lvl 2 barracks, however, houses training officers/warriors, so troops with basic training can be recruited; lvl 3 has improved infrastructure and training standards, allowing better training for the men that need it, granting access to better trained troops.

Higher level barracks may also improve the xp of the lower level troops, provided they are actually trained. This represents their training being influenced by the better officers. (untrained troops are not trained, regardless of how good your officers might be).

So, what are principes? Experienced hastati. They are not independently trained, they just have more experience.
In my system, principes are more expensive and require more time to recruit, but are available at the same level as hastati, because their training is similar. Same goes for triarii and any similar cases.


Mercenaries recruited in barracks: was developed for 3 reasons:

1. To work as a half-arsed AoR
2. To allow Carthaginians to recruit good troops even with a bad roster, as their native troops were limited, and they relied heavily on mercs.
3. But mainly to solve a problem: first lvl barracks had too few troops to recruit, severely limiting capabilities of small settlements.


I got rid of the original temples for 2 reasons:

1. They would be unbalanced if I removed recruiting capabilities from them (which I intended to do).
2. I wanted to simplify things: You want public order? Get temple of justice. You want money? Get temple of trade.
Simple, and effective.


Other things i'm implementing that you might find interesting:

Most buildings are getting an "upkeep cost". I'm going to tone down building costs a bit, but most of them are going to come with a penalty to tax income.
This serves 2 purposes:
1. Represent the maintenance costs of the buildings.
2. Limit construction in cities, so the player won't go around building every possible building, he will have to make choices or suffer more than he benefits.


Divided units into categories. This represents historical availability and status in the army:

Elites and rare troops will cost more to recruit and upkeep. These troops expect better pay, or are simply hard to come by.

Regular troops will have standard cost. They are meant to be the core of the army. Most factional troops fall into this category.

Mercenaries and militias will cost more to upkeep. Mercenaries had no patriotic ideals, and militias had to go back to their land to produce things, besides being discontent with military service.


Hope that was clear enough,

Xico Bruto

[debux]

Most things sound good, I would just like to give my comments on a few things:

-I'm worried about lowering building costs... in base to what? Because vanilla costs are really low.
-It would also be a good idea to merge the ideas of AoR troops with mercenaries... after all, they're almost the same.
-Mercenaries also should have higher recruitment time than normal... to avoid the player filling stacks with mercenaries, and to represent how hard it was to get stackload of mercenaries (besides, one should be able to recruit them outside of a settlement).

On allt eh rest, I agree completely, they're really good ideas.

[ahowl11]

As I was taking time off from the mod I read the book "The Hellenistic Age" by Peter Green. It seems like many of the diadochi armies were mercenary armies, and that the generals all tried to be like Alexander in doing crazy battle stunts. However they lacked the tactical genius of Alexander and they neglected many facets of the army, thus why they crumbled to Rome and insurrections.

How could we replicate this?

I'm thinking maybe have many mercenary troops available around the hellenic world and maybe crappy command ratings for the hellenic family members?

This leads to the idea that I believe their should be recruitable generals to replace the poor generalship of the royal family members.

[debux]

I like to add something to what you've said: mostly, since Alexander was able to win battles using the battle model created by his father (and turned almost to perfection by himself) to what seemed all the different armies of the known world, the Diadochi didn't want to simply abandon what seemed to be the "winning formula". But when confronted with each other, it was hard to win against an army that was so similar to one's own, that they decided to add small exotic elements in the hope to gain a decisive advantage, such as Elephants, chariots, and other mercenaries/soldiers. Usually the backbone was composed of hardly replaceable Macedonians, coupled with native auxiliaries or mercenaries. Maybe the first could be given longer recruitment times, whereas auxiliaries and mercenaries could be easier to recruit (but more expensive and a smaller recruitment pool in general, to avoid AI spamming). That would be my suggestion.

I don't think it would be fair to generalize all the generals of a faction (in that case, Romans should have a terrible LoS, Carthaginians should have command penalties for attacking, among other "chiches"), but maybe it could be a good idea that those generals with a "hellenic" ethnicity trait could get a higher chance of developing negative command traits.

I won't say much on the recruitable generals there... I mostly don't think much on them, nor do I know how to make their difference with royal family members evident.

[ahowl11]

Good points debux, well it's just something for us to remember as we go forward