Supply System
Currently an army will begin with and can get fully supplied by spending time in a settlement of greater than 50% own religion, making it not so easy for some newly conquered places.
In any foreign territory your army will take supplies from that region, but after 4 turns in any foreign region you will have stolen all there is to steal.
Your own supplies will then begin to drop by 1/4 and for every further 4 turns you spend in that region.
If you move to another enemy territory then you can ravage that for 4 turns too.
If you move rapidly through foreign territory you will not need to use your own supplies. e.g. you could spend 3 turns in enemy territory then move on to greener pastures in another enemy territory.
You will not be able to top up your supplies with enemy resources, just use them instead of your own to prevent further loss.
If you are crazy or unfortunate enough to allow your army to fully run out of supplies then you will be hit by a massive penalty that will make your army weak in battles, likely to revolt on the map and unable to keep order in a city if they are capable of taking one. ( I will add unrest)
When you return to or enter a settlement with a supportive religious population you supplies will recover by 1/4 each turn.
I will add a one time boost of 1/4 supplies for when you take an unfriendly religious settlement.
What I need now is thoughts on other ways to resupply or lose supplies. Or if you think the current system is fine or in need of tweaking.
Here are my unstructured thoughts. The possibility of some of these I do not yet know, but they may inspire some other more possible idea.
My favourite first:
Using a transferrable ancillary icon to represent supplies and therefore being able to use a spare general to carry extra supplies for the main general and his army.
Able to take supplies from conquered armies. Very doable. I'm sure I will add this.
Unable to get supplies in enemy territory when enemy nearby. Thus using more of your own, faster. They prevent you from foraging, which is very realistic.
Resupply near allied settlement
Taking a "resupply merchant" with armies. Their distance to him enables resupply. Unlikely to get killed, so not so good as with general enabling supplies to be captured.
Resupply from ANY merchant when close.
Use supplies up even in home territory - those long marches across deserts should have a supply cost. I think this is a definite.
Standing on food resources gives supplies.
Resupply at ports, near river.
EDIT Coming soon:
Timurids and Sallying
On another matter entirely, I want to sort out the ineffective Timurid armies (see my posts in screenshots thread).
To that end I may remove Timurid Elephants ability to run amok and reduce their HP to slightly make up for it. Watching the entire Timurid faction die at the hands of one half garrisoned, captained fort and a captained, half army in reserve is most upsetting.
There's nothing I can do about this with traits, so this has to be done via units, unless anyone knows something better. Can they be given cannons that work perhaps? (kk?)
Also I want to see if stakes can be prevented from being used in buildings to defend streets or gates.
Finally for now I will induce penalties for the human player who decides to beat off every enemy attack from inside a castle, fort (like me) or city.
Also, the AI has no ability against us sallying, so for those of us that fight this way I will punish with significant morale loss or maybe just significant supply loss, whichever worksm out most realisticly.
I will do all I can, as top priority, to encourage us to take our fight out into the open by attacking a besieging AI with another of our units from outside or to encourage us to intercept them as they approach.
If this isn't enough to fairly balance the game then I will release Spiny Norman... or reduce arrows in some way.