Will there be standard build times on buildings?

**Haakon** · March 28, 2010, 09:34 AM

One thing that really bugs me in my current England campaign in stainless Steel, is that despite having tons of funds I have to wait forever in order to create elite stacks i.e the best infantry with the best armour/best archers and so on.

Will the build times in DOTS we like all the other mods, or would it be an option to add some type of choce that you could build a building faster at the cost of increased building price.

Also, it would be awesome if diplomats could recruit mercenary ships, so they could travel faster from A to B

**Hengest** · March 28, 2010, 11:49 AM

That's a difficult question because the situation will always vary.
We are keen on realism. Realistically it took 15 years to train a knight, but we are not going to represent that however we will have the costs in equipping him- if he is a royal retinue knight, with fairly low wages. If he is an urban or rural knight that is levied into service he will equip himself, but his wages will be high since he is 'helping out' and just wants to get home to govern his estates again.

This of course is highly oversimplified but that is the kind of thing you'll be able to expect. There will not be a single elite and unique unit per faction, that you have to wait until 75 turns to create like Third Age TW. However it will be unlikely you'll have an elite stack ever.
There are a number of options for you though, for Europeans there will be potentially three ways of getting loans. Jewish, Templar and Italian banking will allow you to get thousands of florins in one turn but with a high interest rate after say 5 turns. This allows you to take capital and recruit like hell, either for a quick raid or defence, or even to invest in financial buildings.

We also have conscription which runs parallel to farming, at least in the Euro cultures. So you cannot recruit levy units unless you build conscription. Conscription is not a building but a 'decree' and needs only one turn, however it is unpopular and disrupts business and agriculture. If you have developed a farming region from serfdom, through peasantry all the way up to sergeantry, then you will have to 'build' conscriptions one for each level per turn to reach the higher levels. So for instance, if you want access to peasant levy units you need peasantry farming level (which is farming level 2). You then need to build consciption 1 (1 turn) and then consciption 2 (on the 2nd turn) to unlock units on farming level 2. The higher your farming level, the higher the conscription levels you can build and each unlocking more units all the way from serfs up to rural knights. THe problem is that for every turn that the conscription building exists you are going to get very negative effects, so it will be a risk and need destroying as soon as you have finished recruiting.

The AI won't destroy the conscriptions obviously but they will have a helping hand and not to feel the negative side effects anyway, so they will have an easier time to quickly recruit lower level levies.

Build times will be quite realistic but they are not too bad, around 20 turns for a cathedral for instance (far end of build times). Costs will be a real issue we think though. We have an internal project (that we call the Authentic Economy Project) looking at recreating and representing the exact costs of medieval equipment, training, upkeep and recruitment. We have really worked hard to look at REAL costs, and the relative comparisons between say trade values, building costs and the costs of equipment. For instance an Italian Palazzo cost 1000 florins to make and took around 6 turns. However elite European units have comparable costs such as

unit: men-at-arms
size: (100 men)
recruitment cost: 3000
upkeep cost (per turn): 875

unit: knight
size: (50 men)
recruitment cost: 5000
upkeep cost (per turn): 875

unit: knight bannerets
size: (50 men)
recruitment cost: 5000
upkeep cost (per turn): 1750

So in comparison units are far more expensive than buildings. So for the top level of knights, it will cost around the 5 times the price of an Italian Palazzo and almost double that every turn in upkeep. Be warned.

**Haakon** · March 28, 2010, 12:03 PM

Proper answer, this is very interesting.
Quick edit : I think this will result in people valuing the elite units far more than they do with existing mods.

So in comparison units are far more expensive than buildings. So for the top level of knights, it will cost around the 5 times the price of an Italian Palazzo and almost double that every turn in upkeep. Be warned.

This made me laugh nervously

**Hengest** · March 28, 2010, 04:52 PM

I know, it sounds like crazy amounts of money but the mid-ranged units are pretty well-princed, normally what you would expect. I mean the Men-at-arms would be your typical armoured infantry and the knights bannerets are probably going to be the F-16s of the game, so I wouldn't expect anything more than those costs. Ofc ourse levies will be quite cheap but the difficulty will be having the buildings (conscription) long enough to recruit them without a rebellion etc.
Besides which the costs are relative to each other, to be realistic. Which means in fact we don't have to do so much calculations to know we are being fair, we just do the maths given to us from historical sources.
On the other hand, Steppe units are going to be practically nothing to recruit and very little in upkeep however some of the elite foot guards (royal tent guards etc) are going to be pretty expensive- at least as expensive as European units of the same type. So like I said, all of this will vary depending on the faction. But I think this gives you some idea of the campaign, it really isn't strightforward. Which also explains why we are taking so long!

**Haakon** · March 29, 2010, 09:39 AM

I really like the sound of this. Especially if the elite units are going to be "elite" compared with the cheaper units. I can imagine it would allow scenarios somewhat similar to the battle of Thermopylae or the siege of Malta.

Holy crap......excited!