SSHIP - General Discussion

[Metztli]

Is it possible Kingdom of Bulgaria to be added ?

[Dekhatres]

Is it possible Kingdom of Bulgaria to be added ?

very probably wont be added, iirc the faction limit is reached

[achilles-91]

Please dont limit player recrutment pools...Mod is already enough hardcore with those unrests, civil wars and so on...

[Boogie Knight]

I haven't played SSHIP yet so take everything I say with that in mind, but Stainless Steel early campaigns were always militia-fests and it made for a boring first hundred turns or so. So if you find yourselves wanting to make it harder, how about altering rosters (rather than limiting them) to include an early professional weaker-than-later-professional alternative to militias?

Medieval warfare isn't something I'm 100% clued in on (I'm in the process of teaching myself about it) but I do know that in the English Civil Wars of the 17th century, both sides had a real headache trying to use their militias anywhere outside of the areas they were originally raised to protect. They'd frequently desert or even mutiny, heading back to protect their homes at the first opportunity. Surely it was the same in the middle ages? What I'm saying is, can you imagine anything but the finest general being able to convince a militia to stay with him throughout a protracted offensive campaign? For that matter, even a defensive campaign in which a militia from one side of the kingdom was forced to fight in another, distant part of that kingdom under threat from a foreign power would surely face the same problems?

The best example I can come up with would be if the Normans, in the first fifty years or so after the conquest of England, had tried to draw any London-raised militia into one of their wars elsewhere. London was notorious among the Normans for being rebellious and hostile towards them, and had been the only place during the conquest to actually defeat William the Conqueror's army, however short-lived and minor that victory may have been (despite having fought them off, the city could not withstand a siege and so eventually surrendered; plus after Hastings the fate of the rest of the kingdom was sealed). It was regarded as a dangerous place for any Norman lord (though some Norman peasants and tradesmen settled in very well there) and was allowed to keep its own laws, which contrasted starkly with the rest of the country. Basically, the Normans feared it. It wasn't until Henry I married Matilda - who would've been the Saxon heiress to the crown of England - and he gave vast chunks of the city to her that London began to calm down a bit. They got their English queen, and they were happy.

Anyway, I digress. London's an extreme example, but cities, large towns etc. - the kinds of places in which militia would be raised - have always been uppity and a little unreliable when it comes to the prospect of serving outside their own sphere. Soldiers raised professionally, properly paid, trained, equipped (sometimes paying for their own equipment) are different, as are feudal levies. If you want soldiers to be used in campaigns, these are the ones to base early units on. Of course you then have issues of loyalty in the former and the annual concerns (specifically the harvest and sowing periods) of the latter to contend with. Not sure how these would be represented in the mod, but there we are. By all means keep militia units, but don't forget what they were used for - because IRL, the militias themselves certainly didn't forget.

[LuciferM]

I haven't played SSHIP yet so take everything I say with that in mind, but Stainless Steel early campaigns were always militia-fests and it made for a boring first hundred turns or so. So if you find yourselves wanting to make it harder, how about altering rosters (rather than limiting them) to include an early professional weaker-than-later-professional alternative to militias?

Medieval warfare isn't something I'm 100% clued in on (I'm in the process of teaching myself about it) but I do know that in the English Civil Wars of the 17th century, both sides had a real headache trying to use their militias anywhere outside of the areas they were originally raised to protect. They'd frequently desert or even mutiny, heading back to protect their homes at the first opportunity. Surely it was the same in the middle ages? What I'm saying is, can you imagine anything but the finest general being able to convince a militia to stay with him throughout a protracted offensive campaign? For that matter, even a defensive campaign in which a militia from one side of the kingdom was forced to fight in another, distant part of that kingdom under threat from a foreign power would surely face the same problems?

The best example I can come up with would be if the Normans, in the first fifty years or so after the conquest of England, had tried to draw any London-raised militia into one of their wars elsewhere. London was notorious among the Normans for being rebellious and hostile towards them, and had been the only place during the conquest to actually defeat William the Conqueror's army, however short-lived and minor that victory may have been (despite having fought them off, the city could not withstand a siege and so eventually surrendered; plus after Hastings the fate of the rest of the kingdom was sealed). It was regarded as a dangerous place for any Norman lord (though some Norman peasants and tradesmen settled in very well there) and was allowed to keep its own laws, which contrasted starkly with the rest of the country. Basically, the Normans feared it. It wasn't until Henry I married Matilda - who would've been the Saxon heiress to the crown of England - and he gave vast chunks of the city to her that London began to calm down a bit. They got their English queen, and they were happy.

Anyway, I digress. London's an extreme example, but cities, large towns etc. - the kinds of places in which militia would be raised - have always been uppity and a little unreliable when it comes to the prospect of serving outside their own sphere. Soldiers raised professionally, properly paid, trained, equipped (sometimes paying for their own equipment) are different, as are feudal levies. If you want soldiers to be used in campaigns, these are the ones to base early units on. Of course you then have issues of loyalty in the former and the annual concerns (specifically the harvest and sowing periods) of the latter to contend with. Not sure how these would be represented in the mod, but there we are. By all means keep militia units, but don't forget what they were used for - because IRL, the militias themselves certainly didn't forget.

I agree with this whole-heartedly, but don't forget one can choose the option of just defending their borders until the time comes that they finished recruiting their professional army to make offensive campaigns, which I think is fairly accurate.

[Lifthrasir]

Ok, first of all, I've never mentionned as far as I remember that we would alter the rosters. I only said that we might lower down the avalaibility of some professional units at the beginning of the game.
You need to consider that during the 12th and most of the 13th centuries, the feudal system was in use for most of the factions. There was none or not much professional units. Armies relied mostly on levies, slaves and mercenaries.
I'm summarizing a lot but the idea is to add more variety from the start of the game to offer more options to the player while waiting for the professional units. To achieve this, we don't need to alter too much the rosters. We just need to remove some very late units (those who you can't see before almost the end of the game) and replace them by more earlier units. Also, if we can ally that with good AOR and mercenary systems, I think we should be fine

[Boogie Knight]

I agree with this whole-heartedly, but don't forget one can choose the option of just defending their borders until the time comes that they finished recruiting their professional army to make offensive campaigns, which I think is fairly accurate.

One can indeed choose that, which is great as it fits my preferred strategy for the early part of the game as I like to build up my infrastructure as much as possible before I get into any major campaigns. Of course that tactic inevitably gets disrupted by aggressive AI neighbours but as you say, I can just use militia to defend until I can raise a professional/feudal army to take the offensive.

Even when I finally do move on my enemies, it's inevitable some militia will make it into my stacks if for no other reason than to bulk up the numbers when I see an opportunity that I want to exploit, such as a poorly defended city or castle near my borders. But I try to replace these as soon as I can with mercenaries/feudals/professionals. In history many leaders did occasionally - often, even - have to uproot a militia for use elsewhere so it's by no means unrealistic to do it at all; it's just that when I hear people blitzing early in a campaign with virtually nothing but militia units I can't help thinking that isn't something I could ever bring myself to do.

[jurcek1987]

You all make valid points, but you obviously haven't played as the ERE who can mass produce higher tier units from the start. I agree that militia heavy battles are boring but that is what you'll have to face until 1200 which is the first 136 turns. And it's no fun when Roman professional units breed like rabbits. The battles against Serbs are a joke, they have no archers, 90% of their armies consist of terrible spear militia and an occasional decent infantry and cavalry. A blind man could win a battle easily. Rum is slightly more challenging but still pretty straightforward, they have good horse archers and the excellent dismounted Faris but they're very rare, much more than your own Mourtatoi. Again most of their armies are made of equally terrible Ahdath militia. By far the most difficult battle I've faced in Anatolia was against the rebel stack in Sis which is made of professional Armenian and Roman troops.

[jurcek1987]

I think all units unlocked after the heavy mail event should be available from the start. And if they prove too strong you could downgrade their starting armour to mail with heavy mail as a future upgrade.

[Boogie Knight]

I for one have played as the ERE, and yes I agree that using your own non-militia units at the start gives a massive advantage and makes things a walkthrough, but that's exactly the point; if all factions had access to some non-militia units from the start - as I'm sure they all did in that time period - then the playing field would be levelled. I'd be interested to see if anyone could name any faction playable in this game that had nothing but militia in this time period; because I, with my admittedly small amount of knowledge on the subject, cannot think of any.

[Lifthrasir]

Basically, it sounds for me that you both, Boogie Knight and jurcek 1987, talk about the same thing but in a different manner. I think we can lower down the avalability of professional units at the beginning of the game but add more feudal, levies and mercenaries units available from the start and then, we can adjust/decrease their avalability (especially for feudal units) proportionally with the one of professional units.
I guess that way we can reflect how the recruitment system change during that period without unbalancing the gameplay.

[Dekhatres]

fighting against ERE as Rum i never found them to field too many professional units, pro units take more time to recruit and AI armies (usually) dont seem to field more than 20-40% of them, atleast from my experience, yes you can ocasionally meet an army made almost entierly of pro units but that's an exception and shouldnt be taken in consideration too much

overall i think recruitment is fine as it is now

[Lifthrasir]

For the human player, ERE is not that difficult to fight at the beginning despite the fact they have access to more professional units. If you play ERE, because of that, you can very easily fight any of your neighbouring factions because the AI can mostly oppose to you only miltia or levy units. That's the point I guess.
By lowering down the professional units availability at the start and at least for the human player, that should balance a bit that fact. Also for the gameplay fun, adding unit variety from the start would be good, especially feudal unit or early professional types. For example, playing as ERE, you don't have that many professional units available and have to take care of the one you have or have recruited. In another hand, the AI will oppose you more unit type instead of facing you only with militia or levy units.
While the time goes on, you can develop your buildings and increase the availability of your professional units while the AI will be able to start recruiting professional units as well. All in all, at the end (for "late" period), both ERE and other factions would be able to recruit professional units more or less with the same availability, depending on their development level.

[Metztli]

very probably wont be added, iirc the faction limit is reached

I actually feel that there is too many muslim factions and why not on the place of Zengid Emirate Kingdom of Bulgaria to be introduced ? (The Abbasids can have their lands)
Bulgaria was major medieval power on the Balkans and the main Byzantine rival the only problem is that the 2nd Bulgarian State starts with the revolt of Asen and Petar in year 1185 which is 50 years later into the campaign.

[Lifthrasir]

There are 6 Muslim factions, 3 pagan factions, 5 Orthodox factions and the rest are Catholic (without counting the rebels). I honestly don't think there are "too many" Muslim factions
Basically, you're pointing the game limitations and we had to make choices, sometimes difficult. In the perfect world, we would need at least 10 more factions. As it is now, I think Middle East is really interesting, more than in the original game anyway.
I can't see how to add Bulgaria without unbalancing an important area in the game. The only option I can see would be to replace Serbia by Bulgaria (same rising time more or less). But I'm sure that some people would claim to have Serbia back in that case
So, to summarize, unless we find a good option, the factions will stay as they are at present.

[Metztli]

There are 6 Muslim factions, 3 pagan factions, 5 Orthodox factions and the rest are Catholic (without counting the rebels). I honestly don't think there are "too many" Muslim factions
Basically, you're pointing the game limitations and we had to make choices, sometimes difficult. In the perfect world, we would need at least 10 more factions. As it is now, I think Middle East is really interesting, more than in the original game anyway.
I can't see how to add Bulgaria without unbalancing an important area in the game. The only option I can see would be to replace Serbia by Bulgaria (same rising time more or less). But I'm sure that some people would claim to have Serbia back in that case
So, to summarize, unless we find a good option, the factions will stay as they are at present.

Thank you for the reply.I wonder if it's possible to make some kind of "sub factions mod" using your idea replacing Serbia with Bulgaria.Basically if you can the time and you are wlling to do this you can make more of those mods (like replacing Genua with Milan,replacing Norway with Sweden and so on).

[GenPatton]

@ Metzli, generally the problem is that one can never have everyone happy about something. Asking the team to create factions that would only exist in the mod if people would choose so in some kind of campaign setup sounds like alot of work. I think some of the existing factions still need a good amount of work, a small example is Pisa faction which is pink coloured in campaign map, but in battle their colour is green... reminded me Milan units from vanilla.

[GenPatton]

I have a quick question: is there a late game currently in this mod version? I have passed turn 270 and still no "New Era" message. The late and High units don't exist in the campaign?

[MWY]

Yep they pretty much are the milan units... But to be fair, an army in pink would look pretty weird.. right?

Yes there is a late game, but it won't come via the new era event. Which faction do you play?

[GenPatton]

Im playing as the Franks in VH campaign, currently on turn 287. Elite units so far are still feudal knights and feudal foot knights.