New Entourage Characters...

**Jush** · April 01, 2006, 07:59 PM

What sort of entourage updates would you all like to see in MTW2? Any philosophers, famous thinkers, scientists? Personally I'd like to have more entouragers that have a visible and direct impact on the campaign map/battle map rather than just a slew of characters that only affect the statistics of my general and armies. Ideas?

-"Famous Traveller": A Marco Polo sort of character that can affect the campaign map visibility of any general he's attached to, as well as offering advice on the disposition of the people of any area you've recently conquered, such as how they'll react to your taxes, religious changes, or how long it will take them to rebel.

-"Siege Specialist": I know MTW and RTW probably had this, but I just thought of a possible update the devs could do for MTW2, but it would rely on specific game adjustments they probably won't make. Take a castle wall, and imagine that the game engine randomly assigns "weak spots" to various parts of the wall. The longer you wait to assault, the greater the chances of these "weak spots" appearing . However, you can't perceive these weak spots without a siege specialist. The word "unstable" shows up as part of the stats that appear next to your cursor when you hover it over the wall. Apart from that, he could also affect the speed at which the sappers dig, or the hitpoints of your siege towers. I dunno...

-"Pagan seer": A nice bonus for the player that doesn't like to play every single battle in person, and sometimes auto decides. Now, before the battle commences we are given info on how many men both sides have, but every so often we all get trounced by a supposedly smaller, weaker enemy when auto-decide is used. So, with the seer, we would be given a little prognostication at the battle window next to the auto-decide button. "Glory awaits", "Avoid this battle", "You will die here..." and so on. However, as it is a *pagan* seer, if an inquisitor happens by your character, the pagan dies, and your general/prince/king will likely follow suit.

Any others? I'm just hoping the devs don't just add crap like a "Robin Hood" entourage character that gives 50% bonus to archers. Zzzzzz....

**Diomedes** · April 01, 2006, 09:54 PM

This could be an interesting addition I like the idea of the Pagan seer as I am one of those that only likes battling forces equal or greater than mine, there is no glory to be had in killing peasants! lol

**Final Frontier** · April 02, 2006, 12:17 AM

I try to make these ancillaries as balanced as possible so that they make the game more challenging.

"Indulgence Seller": A character with this unit will lower the unrest of any city he is in, as long as it is Roman Catholic. The downside is that the ancillary can corrupt the person who he follows, which makes using the card a challenge. This character is best used when a city is on the verge of revolting.

"Famous Priest": This man will also help lower unrest in Roman Catholic cities, and he will also be able to make converting cities easier. The soldiers under the command of whoever has this follower, however, will lose morale because their general will be devoting more time to praying and less to training. This unit should be attached to family members who will be primarily in the cities.

"Heretic": This ancillary can put any character in grave danger. If a general is caught with this person tagging along they can be severely punished. The heretic will also affect the religious beliefs of the character being followed, which can either be a good or bad thing. The upside is that the unit makes the general more skeptical, thus improving his security.

"Jack-of-all-trades": This unit will allow buildings to be constructed faster in any city he is inside, but the general he follows will become corrupt due to amount of money being saved by only using a few workers. Best used when a city is small and needs to be developed quickly

"Bagman": This ancillary will improve the management skills of any general they follow. Because they collect the money themselves, however, the income of a city will decrease due to their extra "taxes." Best to use when a general is roaming around, but when placed in a city the character should be ridden of.

**Tostig** · April 02, 2006, 03:50 AM

Efficient Servant (+1 management, -1 influence)
Satirist (+1 Influence, +10% to unrest)
Mistress

**Fiachdubh** · April 02, 2006, 05:30 AM

Entourage characters are a good idea but they are just a fancier version of MTW's character traits such as piety, cruelty, great builder etc. Ive never paid attention to them in either game because they are just another annoying message to click past at the start of each turn. If they made them rarer and more important so they had a larger impact then they might work better within the game.
The only ones that have a visible impact are those that let armies move faster and see farther.

**Ewan** · April 02, 2006, 07:31 AM

I also found them a fancy way of saying ( +2 influence) but it was a gd idear to give ur leaders more characters

**Jush** · April 02, 2006, 02:03 PM

Originally Posted by Fiachdubh

Entourage characters are a good idea but they are just a fancier version of MTW's character traits such as piety, cruelty, great builder etc. Ive never paid attention to them in either game because they are just another annoying message to click past at the start of each turn. If they made them rarer and more important so they had a larger impact then they might work better within the game.
The only ones that have a visible impact are those that let armies move faster and see farther.

Jeeze, who peed on your blanket? It was a nice touch on the devs part, I thought. Especially for those of us who like to role play with our armies once and a while.

Brighten up, little rain cloud.

**Tostig** · April 02, 2006, 02:16 PM

Without being as offensive as Jush I would like to say that I for one quite liked ancillaries as well as traits. They gave a bit of flavour to the game which was lost with the removal of titles.

I wonder if titles will be treated like ancillaries, so you could swap them without needing to bring over an emissary.

**Jush** · April 02, 2006, 09:01 PM

Oh humbug, I was just teasing. Have people already talked about titular nobles passing their station down to an heir of their own? These are non-dynasty members I'm talking about. Perhaps, we might get a message notifying us of our general's death, but how he passed his title of Marshall to his son? I'm hoping we get both a Family tree screen like in RTW, and also a "Council Chamber" screen resembling something like RTW's Senate office screen, but just for our faction. Probably a lot of busy-work though...