[Client Rulers] Do you want them in EBII?

[QuintusSertorius]

We're having a debate about Client Rulers at the moment; whether to have them at all, and if so how many. They were a feature back in EB1, where there were 7 very generic ones (out of 255 units), but that was operating under a very different set of constraints to EBII.

You can do it without using unit slots in the EDU, via scripting, but it makes the game increasingly unstable (due to naming). So that isn't really something we're seriously considering. The alternative, which is much more stable, is to have dedicated units for those Client Rulers - but of course they all come out of our ultimate 500 unit-slot budget. So bringing them in would be at the cost of other units we might have done instead.

The consensus seems to be broadly against Allied Generals (to use another EB1 term) - ie characters you can hire to lead your armies. Here we are just talking about characters you can raise (in Allied Governments primarily - but possibly other "local adminstration" type governments too) to administer your provinces for you. They wouldn't be just like cheap knock-offs of your FMs, and some of the better ones might be of dubious loyalty, but they would free up your FMs to lead armies.

The historical justification is that a lot of the nations we have as factions made much use of the local nobility to administer their empires - they weren't members of the ruling elite, but significant people in their locality. By ruling through them they preserved the existing systems and elicited higher levels of loyalty from their subjects than they might if they imposed a governor from their own family upon the natives. On the flipside, though, these satraps and governors were not trusted to lead the royal armies - or indeed any armies beyond whatever local levies were needed to keep order in their province. It was the role of the king and his heirs to lead.

For factions using the "Teutonic" family system, they'd also mean more characters generally (since you could hire governors while your FMs could focus on being heroic leaders of warbands), which is one of the motivations for investigating this further. So the question is, what do you think about it?

[alex33]

I voted for no as I don't want to play an unstable game or want to see precious unit slots wasted on FM's. We could have around 16 badass units instead and that's what I personally want!
Cheers

[The Ferret]

I said no, for the same reason.

Especially if client rulers aren't intended to lead armies except perhaps to patrol their own province, I don't see the point in wasting a bunch of unit slots on them; use the slots for cool regional troops instead!

[gosam]

I'm for using a few generic allied rulers. EB1 had struck a nice variety of units with a smaller unit budget IIRC, so I see no reason not to dedicate something like 10 slots to this.

BTW I can't vote on the poll. Is it a matter of number of posts on the forum?

[Shadowwalker]

Voted no, for several reasons.

(1) Client rulers/Allied generals count against the FM limit set by the game (which is - very roughly - "1 FM per settlement"). So you can't have every settlement administered by a CR and have your FMs out in the field, at least not in the long run. Instead you won't get any children born for your family anymore. (That's unless you constantly expand without ever slowing down or consolidating, of course. But that doesn't sound much fun to me. )

(2) Limited unit slots. Nuff said.

(3) You can't have all your city administrators and your field army generals protected from enemy assassins at the same time since the current cap on spies is "1 per settlement" (and I don't want to see that changed ) and since a faction you're at war with is sending their assassins exclusively to you.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

(You can test this with Pontos or Pergamon - within a couple turns from start all four Ptolemaioi assassins are aiming at your FMs. Which makes a bit of sense in the Pergamon case, since they have a "hot war" at game start, which makes absolutely no sense at all in Pontos' case though since there's half of Mikra Asia between them two and the Ptolies would be better off acting against the Seleukids. - But well, the passivity of the AI factions against the Seleukids is a well-known problem by now.)

So you need to have settlements without governor anyway - unless you want your family to die out, that is .
(Currently I have my FL and all my FMs (excluding the 2 or 3 field generals) in the capital, protected by two spies. The field armies have a spy assigned to them as well. And the enemy assassins therefore concentrate on destroying markets etc in other settlements, instead of killing FM after FM every round. That's still more than annoying but at least not threatening the whole campaign. )

[b0Gia de Bodemloze]

I'm for using a few generic allied rulers. EB1 had struck a nice variety of units with a smaller unit budget IIRC, so I see no reason not to dedicate something like 10 slots to this.

BTW I can't vote on the poll. Is it a matter of number of posts on the forum?

You need 25 posts on the forum.

I voted for no as I don't want to play an unstable game or want to see precious unit slots wasted on FM's. We could have around 16 badass units instead and that's what I personally want!
Cheers

I said no, for the same reason.

Especially if client rulers aren't intended to lead armies except perhaps to patrol their own province, I don't see the point in wasting a bunch of unit slots on them; use the slots for cool regional troops instead!

Voted no, for several reasons.

(1) Client rulers/Allied generals count against the FM limit set by the game (which is - very roughly - "1 FM per settlement"). So you can't have every settlement administered by a CR and have your FMs out in the field, at least not in the long run. Instead you won't get any children born for your family anymore. (That's unless you constantly expand without ever slowing down or consolidating, of course. But that doesn't sound much fun to me. )

(2) Limited unit slots. Nuff said.

(3) You can't have all your city administrators and your field army generals protected from enemy assassins at the same time since the current cap on spies is "1 per settlement" (and I don't want to see that changed ) and since a faction you're at war with is sending their assassins exclusively to you.

Note guys that the unit limit now is 500 units instead of 255 of rtw and now we have in game around 220 units + around 30 that we are going to implement in the next update. So even if we have the maximum client rulers 15, there are still 235 units waiting to implement the next years. The real question is do you think that 250 units without client rulers are worthing more than 235 units + 15 client rulers?

[alex33]

i personaly never used them in eb 1. I know that we have a lot more unit slots now but i'd still rather have more units than generic recruitable FM's

[QuintusSertorius]

i personaly never used them in eb 1. I know that we have a lot more unit slots now but i'd still rather have more units than generic recruitable FM's

Bear in mind that whilst if they were as few as 7, they would be generic, with a larger number they'd be no more generic than many of the existing units. Are Hoplitai or Bataroas or Thraikioi Peltastai generic?

[Celtoi]

Voted yes: I always like extra optionals in the way of playing cq. keeping my empire under control in various ways.

[Anubis88]

One option would be that we would try the client ruler system while we still have plenty of units left. If or when we would reach the 500 number, we could revisit the issue again.

[alex33]

Bear in mind that whilst if they were as few as 7, they would be generic, with a larger number they'd be no more generic than many of the existing units. Are Hoplitai or Bataroas or Thraikioi Peltastai generic?

I see what you mean, but I'd still rather have more units.

[clone]

personality i want as many as possible. they enrich the game. plus who is going to miss 25 unit slot

[Doulkus Pontikus]

I liked the option of Allied Generals in EB1.
It gave a realistic feeling to the game. Gamewise it was a good solution short term.

If you could implement just a few generic units as AG, something like one for each culture I'd be OK with it.

[QuintusSertorius]

I liked the option of Allied Generals in EB1.
It gave a realistic feeling to the game. Gamewise it was a good solution short term.

If you could implement just a few generic units as AG, something like one for each culture I'd be OK with it.

As before, there would only be Client Rulers, not Allied Generals. Allied Generals can't really be justified, historically.

[rovert]

Client Rulers with a family member cap is excellent , i voted for 5-9 but it wont really matter either way to me as they are just city paper pushers anyway , if anything i would say make them all infantry , maybe not the nomad areas.

[alex33]

The other question is how would the ai treat this? If they are supposed to stay at city's and rule them and go out lead field armies how will the ai handle them? They don't seem to have problems with sending stacks without fm around. so they would also send armies with those recruited fm's out. If I would do such a thing or even send a fm with an army that is not my fl they would most likely betray me. I really don't want to see an attacking gaulish army lead by a greek dude

[QuintusSertorius]

The other question is how would the ai treat this? If they are supposed to stay at city's and rule them and go out lead field armies how will the ai handle them? They don't seem to have problems with sending stacks without fm around. so they would also send armies with those recruited fm's out. If I would do such a thing or even send a fm with an army that is not my fl they would most likely betray me. I really don't want to see an attacking gaulish army lead by a greek dude

Firstly, I think the AI already get some hardcoded FM-spawning to ensure they never run out. So this may not be applied to them - not determined yet either way.

Secondly, they'd be regionally-based, so the only way you'd have a Greek leading a Gaullish army (which by the way would be perfectly acceptable in Massalia) is if they've somehow walked/shipped them there.

Thirdly, they'd probably have movement penalties, which would discourage the AI from using them as generals anyway.

[Cohors_Evocata]

How many units have been concepted yet? I remember hearing that number was already pretty close to the 500-unit limit, but I don't remember exactly where I heard that. For now I'll vote for around 10-15 client ruler units, but consider my vote switched to 5-9 if it would come at the cost of leaving some unique units undone.

[QuintusSertorius]

How many units have been concepted yet? I remember hearing that number was already pretty close to the 500-unit limit, but I don't remember exactly where I heard that. For now I'll vote for around 10-15 client ruler units, but consider my vote switched to 5-9 if it would come at the cost of leaving some unique units undone.

Only about half of that 500 limit have actually be concepted to the standard that someone could make a unit from it. About another 25% have some information about them and a discussion in a thread dedicated to them. The remaining 25% are just names on the Unit List which may or may not be obsolete or at best are mentioned in passing either in another unit's thread, or in a general unit thread for a faction or region.

[torzsoktamas]

I voted for 10-15 units,...but if this would really offset the next release date than no.