Originally Posted by
Jambat
Ok, have put in about forty total turns now. (Combined with a little Norway and France), and some thoughts:
* I actually like having to completely re-do the recruiting system when I take over a town. It makes sense, and even though it takes a few turns and costs a couple of grand, you do get a bunch of rewards and units that you can recruit out of it. However, like AOR, I think it would be kind of neat to have a miniature-building of the same sort you can build that gives you access to a very limited range of the other factions units (Perhaps only capable of being built at certain town sizes). If I'm England and I take over Leon, then it makes sense I'm going to set up an English government and train English warriors, but it would be nice to be able to have a few Leonise holdovers who keep with the old traditions.
*Speaking of Iberia, the Moors are on crack. Seriously. Two campaigns of around 20 turns each so far testing things out, and both times the Moors have dominated everyone around them.
*The map really does help balance things out for the most part. Many of the smaller factions were able to expand out and snap up a few territories when in normal SS they usually don't have the chance. The ERE lands are a good example as Hungary, Seljuks, and the Crusaders managed to get a few pieces of the new unclaimed Roman lands. The ERE is number one in just about every statistic still, but it's a narrow lead that they realistically could lose, unlike vanilla where they are 2-3x stronger. Big fan of the map, and the expansion that goes along with it.
*I do think some units may need to be spaced out a little bit. Take France for example: Perhaps they start off with Miles (foot and mounted), and they gain the ability to recruit the Chevaliers after they construct a few buildings. (Say, some sort of metalworker, adding in a stables for the mounted version.) I really enjoy the variety of options you get starting at 1100, but there seem to be a few obsolete versions in there that once you have a decent amount of land-mass, you never need to train them, and from what I can see you don't really progress your military in any way from Turn One.
*Speaking of which, training. It could probably be tweaked a little bit. Some units have really deep timers, so it keeps me away from spamming them - like Crossbows. I can probably get about 8ish total units of crossbows right now with what I already have, and if I train up everything. Not bad at all with all of France under my control. But then there are things like the Chevaliers and the Foot Knights, I can literally make entire, multiple armies out of how easy it is to recruit these things. Hell, I was able to make 7 or 8 of them in one turn (yes, it did cost a lot, but unlike Norway, France swims in money) just in the provinces outside Caen, so I could go beat the hell out of [Caen] in the next turn. Paris itself can crank out a monster in one turn if it wants too.
*Just a question I am sure has been asked before, but this thread is long...What do Castles give that Cities don't? Right now it seems like anything you can do or get in a Castle you can get from a city.
*Was the decision to give so many free upkeeps a way to try to keep larger NPC forces inside their cities? I'm not complaining, I like it, and I haven't gone after a town with a small garrison yet, it just surprised me how many free troopers I could keep going.
Anyways, that's it for now. Don't take this as a 'I played your mod, let me tell you how it sucks..', I actually really like this and think it could become a mainstream thing for me. A ton of potential, a lot of fun...