Global AOR System Suggestion Box

[Meneros]

As many of you are probably aware, our 0.9 release will be focused on our planned global AOR System. The system is still in the design process and we haven't yet determined exactly how many AOR zones to implement, which these should be and what units they should contain. Because this system is intended to be global, every region in the game needs to be tied to an AOR zone (either one of its own, or as part of a larger one). Since our community has been so productive in giving us sound suggestions in the past, we thought we'd start this thread early on in the design process so that we can get as many ideas as possible as to what sort of units/cultures would be interesting to include.


Explanation of the AOR System

The purpose of the AOR system is to allow any faction that conquers a region access to suitable regional units. This means that regional units will no longer be tied to a faction's roster (such as Steppe units for Cimmeria, native Egyptian units for the Ptolemaics, Iberians for Carthage and so on). Rather these units will become recruitable to any faction that would come in control of their homelands. Conversely, this also means that if a faction loses control of important regions (such as Carthage's iberian holdings), they would lose the ability to recruit key elements of their army.

Another effect of the AOR system is also that regional units can only be recruited from their homelands, and thus will present the player with a greater logistical challenge of transporting troops through his or her empire. The AOR units will principally consist of low to medium tier units, with a few exceptions such as Balearic Slingers, Iberian Scutarii, Cretan Archers and so on. All AOR units will be capped as well, so that it is not possible to recruit unfeasibly large amounts of them.


If you have suggestions about cultures/units that would be interesting to include in the AOR system or other elements of it, please post them in this thread and with sources if possible.

List of already mentioned units/cultures:

Balearic Slingers
Cretan Archers
Iberian Scutarii
Sarmatian Cataphracts
Thessalian Cavalry
Greek Peltasts
Agrianian Peltasts
Agrianian Assault Infantry
Spartans
Greek Phalanx
Dacian Falxmen
Native Italians
Germanic Cavalry
Gallic Cavalry
Italian peoples

[Wintermist]

So it's like a new Auxiliary barracks? We can still build our old barracks too right and train troops as normal?

[Meneros]

So it's like a new Auxiliary barracks? We can still build our old barracks too right and train troops as normal?

The AOR system will not add any new buildings and will seamlessly be integrated into already existing buildings. Either through the main settlement buildings, or in the military buildings. With the exception of the more high-end AOR units, we want these to be readily avaliable to the player upon capturing a region. Regarding training your normal troops, we will introduce a culture requirement for all of the faction core units. So if you conquer a region that does not belong to your culture it will probably take a long time before you are able to recruit your core units from it. Thus you will be limited to using local levies for a lot of your regions until they can be raised to a sufficiently high culture percentage.

[Wintermist]

Sounds interesting, will be fun to see how that plays out for real. How will unit replenishment work, same as always?

[Meneros]

I'm not sure how much can be done with the replenishment system for now. If we can/will make changes to it, it'll probably be for 1.0 and not 0.9 (making the AOR system will keep us plenty busy).

[Wintermist]

I'm thinking it might be possible to copy what some traits do perhaps, and add that ability to the building, but who knows, well, I guess you do. Like that building offer greater replenishment for those troops while in that territory, meanwhile you will always have a slower replenishment for all units. That would be interesting

[Meneros]

Indeed. If possible, that's something we'd want to do as well.

[Steph]

I'm not sure how ti works for Rome 2, but that's what I'm doing for my NTW mod (Masters of Europe). PM me if you want to discuss some design strategies here.

[Legatus21]

One suggestion for the reqruitment system would be to somehow raise the training times of troops depending how far they are from the regions you want to "bring them from" . F.E. if you play as Macedon and you have a settlement in Iberia you may have the option of hiring Iberians in Greece but with the cost of extra training time (f.e. 1 turn -> 3 turns) . This extra time would be considered as the time needed to get an agent abroad hire the units and bring them back . That's just an idea

[Rob003]

One suggestion for the reqruitment system would be to somehow raise the training times of troops depending how far they are from the regions you want to "bring them from" . F.E. if you play as Macedon and you have a settlement in Iberia you may have the option of hiring Iberians in Greece but with the cost of extra training time (f.e. 1 turn -> 3 turns) . This extra time would be considered as the time needed to get an agent abroad hire the units and bring them back . That's just an idea

Hi, I think this is also the best implementation of how to recruit core units in foreign territories. I understand the realism of having to consider logistics and having to move troops around. But I also find from other TW mods that this it can be very tedious. Then the focus of the game is just constantly ending turns to try and get units to a certain province. Also find that you only are using your core troops early game because as you expand it just becomes a pain to try and move them over a massive campaign map. Also like the idea of being able to recruit core units at regions that have ports, as if you are transporting them by sea.

Just my opinion though. I think the culture conversion method is good idea as well.

Cheers.

[Soontir]

Core units, at least most of them, will be aviable globaly but will require your culture to be dominant.

[mightnight]

O man I hope to find some Apuli Ferentarii somewhere in Brundisium

[Diadochiwelike]

So low/mid tier units for the AoR. Sounds great. Maybe it's a nice addition to make High tier AoR units available too but only in capitals like Rome/Massilia/Athens/Carthage/Bactria/Antioch. Like Elite Massilian Thorax Swordsman if you capture Massilia with any given faction or Chosen Italian Swords if you capture Rome. As for AoR units in general and their regions of effect maybe divide it up into these regions: Spain - Iberian units/ Gaul - Celtic units/ Britannia - Chariots and ambush celts/ Germany - Germanic warbands/ Steppe - Nomadic lower tier and so forth. I would split up Africa in East and West Africa. East would have ethiopian troops and Egyptian troops whilst West would have Libyan and Numidian units.

Hope this helped. Maybe it would be awesome (if do-able) that a General can use Elite AoR units as Bodyguards if he is being summoned in a Capital like (again) in Massilia he can use Elite Massilian Thorax Swordsman.

[Dresden]

So low/mid tier units for the AoR. Sounds great. Maybe it's a nice addition to make High tier AoR units available too but only in capitals like Rome/Massilia/Athens/Carthage/Bactria/Antioch.

This is an interesting idea, and wouldn't be hard to implement. We could tie a unit to a specific region and also to the tier 3 or 4 version of the major city core building.

[Diadochiwelike]

This is an interesting idea, and wouldn't be hard to implement. We could tie a unit to a specific region and also to the tier 3 or 4 version of the major city core building.

Sounds awesome!

[dajarvi]

So low/mid tier units for the AoR. Sounds great. Maybe it's a nice addition to make High tier AoR units available too but only in capitals like Rome/Massilia/Athens/Carthage/Bactria/Antioch. Like Elite Massilian Thorax Swordsman if you capture Massilia with any given faction or Chosen Italian Swords if you capture Rome. As for AoR units in general and their regions of effect maybe divide it up into these regions: Spain - Iberian units/ Gaul - Celtic units/ Britannia - Chariots and ambush celts/ Germany - Germanic warbands/ Steppe - Nomadic lower tier and so forth. I would split up Africa in East and West Africa. East would have ethiopian troops and Egyptian troops whilst West would have Libyan and Numidian units.

Hope this helped. Maybe it would be awesome (if do-able) that a General can use Elite AoR units as Bodyguards if he is being summoned in a Capital like (again) in Massilia he can use Elite Massilian Thorax Swordsman.

In my mind, high-end tier units are an elite pick. Say Rome conquers Nervii it wouldn't make sense that Rome could then recruit the elite units since that country is destroyed. It does make sense that lower-tier units would be available as levy since the population still exists (farmers, villagers, ect). If the existing government structure was destroyed and replaced by Rome, it would make sense then that Roman military customs would adopt some of the lower-tier units as auxiliary (since they are the population) while instituting their own government structure over the conquered regions.

However, what I think could be interesting, is the benefits of client-states. Check this: I would be willing to make client-states if I knew I could recruit some of their top-tier units (though limited recruitment) from my capitol. Say I want Nervii heavy cavalry in my army. I could conquer them, make them my client-state, and thus have the option to recruit an extremely limited number of their elite cavalry in Rome.

[icerunner5326]

In my mind, high-end tier units are an elite pick. Say Rome conquers Nervii it wouldn't make sense that Rome could then recruit the elite units since that country is destroyed. It does make sense that lower-tier units would be available as levy since the population still exists (farmers, villagers, ect). If the existing government structure was destroyed and replaced by Rome, it would make sense then that Roman military customs would adopt some of the lower-tier units as auxiliary (since they are the population) while instituting their own government structure over the conquered regions.

However, what I think could be interesting, is the benefits of client-states. Check this: I would be willing to make client-states if I knew I could recruit some of their top-tier units (though limited recruitment) from my capitol. Say I want Nervii heavy cavalry in my army. I could conquer them, make them my client-state, and thus have the option to recruit an extremely limited number of their elite cavalry in Rome.

I suggested this several pages back and would like to reiterate my support for the idea. I'd also add that I would prefer if satraps (as distinct from Client States) not be included in this mechanic, as presently IMO client states far less useful than satraps due to how they work diplomatically. This mechanic could therefore bring Client States closer to parity with satraps from a gameplay/balance perspective.

[Wintermist]

I think this might be really, really interesting to play with, but I do hope what can be recruited doesn't always trump what you can build as your own faction. The reason I say that is because otherwise, it wouldn't much matter which faction you played. But if it's pretty much like the Roman Auxiliaries, then top notch!

EDIT; Also, is it even possible to script which textures to load on a unit? I'm thinking if that is possible, you could always load the proper shields for your units no matter what faction. That would be absolutely epic.

[Meneros]

The balance that we're aiming for is that AOR units will be less disciplined and less capable than a faction's core units (but more easy to get ahold of and because of that useful for guarding settlements and such). There will be high-end AOR units as I mentioned in the OP (Cretan Archers and Sarmatian Cataphracts being two), but these will require top tier buildings to recruit, they will be expensive and they will be strictly capped so that they cannot possibly form the backbone of your army in any way.

@Diadochiwelike that's a good idea about the capital cities. This would definitely give more incentive towards conquering a faction if you, as a reward, were given access to a special unit (but strictly capped). Regarding bodyguards I don't think this is possible to mod in.

[Diadochiwelike]

@Diadochiwelike that's a good idea about the capital cities. This would definitely give more incentive towards conquering a faction if you, as a reward, were given access to a special unit (but strictly capped). Regarding bodyguards I don't think this is possible to mod in.

Awesome, hope you guys will implement it! +rep