RPG Elements?

[Commissar Caligula_]

Hi team, I've got a few questions/suggestions since you're on the cusp of starting work on the campaign. Basically, in a video OfficiallyDevin did, he talks about the differences between Total War and the Civilisation franchises and concludes that Civilisation is more popular because every single turn for the entire campaign you're tangibly working towards accomplishments that unlock new things such as units, more technologies, buildings and more. In contrast, most Total War technologies just give you tiny bonuses like +5% tax income. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo5j1U1eNuE

So, my question is will you be addressing this problem? A few RPG style features could fix this in my opinion (not sure how feasible they are).
Firstly, a Mount and Blade style recruitment tree. In this game you can either recruit mercenaries you find in taverns that are high tier but very expensive, or the way you recruit 90% of your army is by recruiting peasants, and then as they gain experience you can level them up into better units and split up their specialisation. Below is a very simple recruitment tree.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

I'm not quite sure how the "retrain" mechanic works, but if its possible to offer two or more separates branches it'd work as intended.
So early game you can only recruit via peasants or expensive mercenaries.
Mid game via peasants, expensive mercenaries or low tier units via recruitment buildings.
Late game via peasants, mercenaries, or mid tier units available via buildings.
Very late game you can recruit however you want, peasants, mercenaries, or any unit via a recruitment building.

Secondly, in addition/instead of this, make it so as time passes new technology is made available. This could follow the historical timeline, or you may need to ignore history in order to make the game mechanics.
Eg handgunners, mortars, cannons could be only available mid to late game rather than early game.
Early units available at the start, then High, then Late (I presume you're going to do this anyway).
On top of this, make it so early units don't start out with abilities such as shieldwall or testudo, and these are only unlocked by later units. I'm not sure whether it's possible to link researching technology to abilities appearing for units such as it was in Empire and Napoleon, but if it is that'd be awesome. Otherwise you could make it so research unlocks the next tier in a building chain, and that next building lets you retrain units into shieldwall variants (it'd mean s of database work =P)

Thirdly, make a semi-return to Medieval 2 and Rome 1's building chain. I realise the amount of building slots for settlements can't be changed, but you could make it so a specific building is required for walls on a city settlement, and the military recruitment buildings are split up into Infantry, Ranged, Cavalry and Siege Engines. It'd just be nice to be able to actually customise a settlement and the small amount of building slots COULD make it more interesting as you have to plan whether you want to make a settlement military focused or civil focused. In addition, make a difference between cities and castles. Similar to the suggested recruitment, make there be a branching choice, either make a specific settlement a city or a castle. If its a city it gets increased civil bonuses such as more wealth from buildings and more public order whilst the ONLY military buildings it can create are walls, a reduced garrison compared to castles and auxiliary units recruitment. In comparison, only castles can build the main military recruitment buildings, they have bigger garrisons and more recruitment capacity per turn at the cost of not being able to make buildings such as markets or commercial ports.
If you don't like cities only being able to make auxiliary recruitment buildings, you could let them have low tier Infantry, Ranged and Cavalry buildings whilst higher tier and siege works can only be built in a castle.


I believe ALL of these changes are possible with the game mechanics, and I could test it (in a fortnight or so), but what does everyone think? Do you agree that Total War needs to have more tangible rewards per turn in the form of unlocking new stuff? Do you have any extra suggestions?

[Heisenburrg]

Ok, this is an interesting theme to discuss. I know what you mean, newer TW games (since Rome 2 I think) have lost a little bit of their motivation system. Indeed it would be awesome if a little bit of this would return through modding (but like you said; it would be a huge bunch of additional work and we all want to play this mod at least in the next 2 years... ^^)

So I think there was a lot stuff like that in the old TW games...

1. The technologies; Yeah, I agree to your point and think they should have more impact on campaign. Good example was TW Empire. It had lots of techs (dont think it´s possible to add more techs to Attila though) which brought big changes. Some of them were really essential to get a huge advantage in battle over your enemy (bayonettes, explosive ammunition, rear loader, rowwise fiering). Others unlocked important/unique buildings (e.g. the Royal Academy of Science for Prussia in ETW or the legendary buildings in Shogun 2 which gave you a permanent bonus over your enemies) or new units. It was a real fun to achieve these goals. Another way would be to just make improve the effects of technologies (for example "compass" with +75-100% range for ships instead of lame 10%). Would be cool if some of this could be reinvented with modding.
Some examples for new techs: Swiss tactics (unlocks Swiss mercenaries or phalanx formation), Blackpowder (maybe as event, unlocks guns and cannons), Compass (see above), Three-field rotation (ok, bit late for 1212... Big food and agriculture boost)...

2. The events and dilemmas; This is a reason to play a long, long campaign. You just wanted to see the first cannons appearing on the battlefields (of course invented by your superior engineers ^^), whether your empire could stand against the terror of pestilence and the mongolian invasion or to decide important political questions. Greatest master of this system was Medieval 2. Just a few, well placed and good presented (nice little movies) events, maybe with some selection options ("Should I join the Hanse?") would be enough. Minor events could just be shown as an text message. Attila had a few of this (Climate change, Hun´s rising...). I think it would be possible.
Some examples for events; Pestilence, Inquisition, 100-Years-War, Formation of the Hanse etc.

3. RPG-elements (for example Characters); I think there is already quite enough stuff to feel attached to your characters. They have a skill tree, traits, can be marriaged and have political influence through offices or things like that. Only traits could be more immersive or have more impact.

4. Recruitment system; Regarding this my opinion is "Less changes count more". Population system, a completely new recruitment system or stuff like that is not needed. Attach some units to the tech tree, build up the re-recruitment system (e.g. peasants become militia) a little and yeah... maybe add a clean border for recruitment like Caligula said. (siege engines in manufactures, cavalry in stables and above this; top tier units like knights in castles and urban units in cities)

5. Building system; I believe in this section first steps have been made already. Yeah, let´s say clear differences between castles and cities (in things like economy and recruitment) would be nice, like stated above clear recruitment borders should been given and another important thing is, that you have to feel the development of your cities. For this unique "capital"-buildings, the opportunity to focus on certain cities or important building-boni (e.g. Monastery school gives 20% on research rate or City centers improve greatly the defense through bigger garrisons) could be helpful. I remember, that I never build up the religious or sanitary chain because it was simply not so important.

Ok, that are my thoughts. Other ideas, additions, critics?

[Vonchiefer]

Ok, this is an interesting theme to discuss. I know what you mean, newer TW games (since Rome 2 I think) have lost a little bit of their motivation system. Indeed it would be awesome if a little bit of this would return through modding (but like you said; it would be a huge bunch of additional work and we all want to play this mod at least in the next 2 years... ^^)

So I think there was a lot stuff like that in the old TW games...

1. The technologies; Yeah, I agree to your point and think they should have more impact on campaign. Good example was TW Empire. It had lots of techs (dont think it´s possible to add more techs to Attila though) which brought big changes. Some of them were really essential to get a huge advantage in battle over your enemy (bayonettes, explosive ammunition, rear loader, rowwise fiering). Others unlocked important/unique buildings (e.g. the Royal Academy of Science for Prussia in ETW or the legendary buildings in Shogun 2 which gave you a permanent bonus over your enemies) or new units. It was a real fun to achieve these goals. Another way would be to just make improve the effects of technologies (for example "compass" with +75-100% range for ships instead of lame 10%). Would be cool if some of this could be reinvented with modding.
Some examples for new techs: Swiss tactics (unlocks Swiss mercenaries or phalanx formation), Blackpowder (maybe as event, unlocks guns and cannons), Compass (see above), Three-field rotation (ok, bit late for 1212... Big food and agriculture boost)...

2. The events and dilemmas; This is a reason to play a long, long campaign. You just wanted to see the first cannons appearing on the battlefields (of course invented by your superior engineers ^^), whether your empire could stand against the terror of pestilence and the mongolian invasion or to decide important political questions. Greatest master of this system was Medieval 2. Just a few, well placed and good presented (nice little movies) events, maybe with some selection options ("Should I join the Hanse?") would be enough. Minor events could just be shown as an text message. Attila had a few of this (Climate change, Hun´s rising...). I think it would be possible.
Some examples for events; Pestilence, Inquisition, 100-Years-War, Formation of the Hanse etc.

3. RPG-elements (for example Characters); I think there is already quite enough stuff to feel attached to your characters. They have a skill tree, traits, can be marriaged and have political influence through offices or things like that. Only traits could be more immersive or have more impact.

4. Recruitment system; Regarding this my opinion is "Less changes count more". Population system, a completely new recruitment system or stuff like that is not needed. Attach some units to the tech tree, build up the re-recruitment system (e.g. peasants become militia) a little and yeah... maybe add a clean border for recruitment like Caligula said. (siege engines in manufactures, cavalry in stables and above this; top tier units like knights in castles and urban units in cities)

5. Building system; I believe in this section first steps have been made already. Yeah, let´s say clear differences between castles and cities (in things like economy and recruitment) would be nice, like stated above clear recruitment borders should been given and another important thing is, that you have to feel the development of your cities. For this unique "capital"-buildings, the opportunity to focus on certain cities or important building-boni (e.g. Monastery school gives 20% on research rate or City centers improve greatly the defense through bigger garrisons) could be helpful. I remember, that I never build up the religious or sanitary chain because it was simply not so important.

Ok, that are my thoughts. Other ideas, additions, critics?

Stuff like this is what is going to make the mod feel alive and breathing. Some pretty okay overhauls have tons of new units and factions, but they get stale and boring fast due to lack of proper progression, events and the sort. Things like the dilemma system and events is going to make the mod more expansive than any amount of factions. Look at AoC, it feels bustling even though it's a fairly small area.

[You_Guess_Who]

Okay, one at the time. (I hate how TWC log out on itself when making long posts)

So, my question is will you be addressing this problem? A few RPG style features could fix this in my opinion (not sure how feasible they are).
Firstly, a Mount and Blade style recruitment tree...(snip)..., or the way you recruit 90% of your army is by recruiting peasants, and then as they gain experience you can level them up into better units and split up their specialisation. Below is a very simple recruitment tree.
I'm not quite sure how the "retrain" mechanic works, but if its possible to offer two or more separates branches it'd work as intended.

As I understand the unit upgrade and retraining works in Attila, I do not think diverging branches would work. But converging branches on another hand, surely works.

Here's the deal. In Attila, an upgraded unit automatically use the prequisite unit's building recruitment ID. This is why in the data tables there are so little recruitment ID for high tier units. As such, if a unit have diverging upgrade branch, how could we know which branch takes up the building recruitment ID? Well, on buildings, redundant recruitment ID might do the job anyway if its uncertain; but how on the unit upgrade button? Is this possible for the UI? Need further testing.
Converging upgrade are already in Attila, in the form of both T1 and T2 unit can upgrade into T3 unit. This way, T1 unit can directly be upgraded into T3 unit without needing to go through T2 first.

On unit options, there are something I'm already sure would work: General Bodyguards. When appointed as a general, a noble can pick their type of bodyguard, between 2 options (actually could be more, but Attila's bodyguard selection UI don't have slider, unlike R2's, for some reason). So, imagine a Mongol General, you choose whether he'll lead from the front, charging together with his personal Keshiq; or staying away from the dangerous melee by picking Horse Archer Bodyguards which default behaviour is skirmishing (this may helps suicidal AI generals). The same for a Venetian Admiral, either surrounding himself with heavily-armed Fanti da Mar, or directing Arsenalotti's long range fire from safe distance. More "popular" faction's more down-to-earth commanders may even choose infantry bodyguards, for instance the Swiss Waldstatte or the Hussites.

Firstly, a Mount and Blade style recruitment tree. In this game you can either recruit mercenaries you find in taverns that are high tier but very expensive, or the way you recruit 90% of your army is by recruiting peasants,
So early game you can only recruit via peasants or expensive mercenaries.
Mid game via peasants, expensive mercenaries or low tier units via recruitment buildings.
Late game via peasants, mercenaries, or mid tier units available via buildings.
Very late game you can recruit however you want, peasants, mercenaries, or any unit via a recruitment building.

Not mercenaries for MKTW, but rather Knights and Noble Units which are available from the start, but capped. This would tie to the building system, which would be discussed later. TW games have its own separate Mercenary and Client State recruitment system.

Secondly, in addition/instead of this, make it so as time passes new technology is made available. This could follow the historical timeline, or you may need to ignore history in order to make the game mechanics.
Eg handgunners, mortars, cannons could be only available mid to late game rather than early game.
Early units available at the start, then High, then Late (I presume you're going to do this anyway).

1. The technologies; Yeah, I agree to your point and think they should have more impact on campaign. Good example was TW Empire. It had lots of techs (dont think it´s possible to add more techs to Attila though) which brought big changes. Some of them were really essential to get a huge advantage in battle over your enemy (bayonettes, explosive ammunition, rear loader, rowwise fiering). Others unlocked important/unique buildings (e.g. the Royal Academy of Science for Prussia in ETW or the legendary buildings in Shogun 2 which gave you a permanent bonus over your enemies) or new units. It was a real fun to achieve these goals. Another way would be to just make improve the effects of technologies (for example "compass" with +75-100% range for ships instead of lame 10%). Would be cool if some of this could be reinvented with modding.
Some examples for new techs: Swiss tactics (unlocks Swiss mercenaries or phalanx formation), Blackpowder (maybe as event, unlocks guns and cannons), Compass (see above), Three-field rotation (ok, bit late for 1212... Big food and agriculture boost)...

Of course. Precisely that

On top of this, make it so early units don't start out with abilities such as shieldwall or testudo, and these are only unlocked by later units. I'm not sure whether it's possible to link researching technology to abilities appearing for units such as it was in Empire and Napoleon, but if it is that'd be awesome.

It is possible for abilities to be tech-lockable. Even projectile types can be tech-lockable as well.

Thirdly, make a semi-return to Medieval 2 and Rome 1's building chain....~snip~... It'd just be nice to be able to actually customise a settlement and the small amount of building slots COULD make it more interesting as you have to plan whether you want to make a settlement military focused or civil focused. In addition, make a difference between cities and castles. Similar to the suggested recruitment, make there be a branching choice, either make a specific settlement a city or a castle. If its a city it gets increased civil bonuses such as more wealth from buildings and more public order whilst the ONLY military buildings it can create are walls, a reduced garrison compared to castles and auxiliary units recruitment. In comparison, only castles can build the main military recruitment buildings, they have bigger garrisons and more recruitment capacity per turn at the cost of not being able to make buildings such as markets or commercial ports.

5. Building system; I believe in this section first steps have been made already. Yeah, let´s say clear differences between castles and cities (in things like economy and recruitment) would be nice, like stated above clear recruitment borders should been given and another important thing is, that you have to feel the development of your cities. For this unique "capital"-buildings, the opportunity to focus on certain cities or important building-boni (e.g. Monastery school gives 20% on research rate or City centers improve greatly the defense through bigger garrisons) could be helpful. I remember, that I never build up the religious or sanitary chain because it was simply not so important.

I agree. However...

I realise the amount of building slots for settlements can't be changed, but you could make it so a specific building is required for walls on a city settlement, and the military recruitment buildings are split up into Infantry, Ranged, Cavalry and Siege Engines. If you don't like cities only being able to make auxiliary recruitment buildings, you could let them have low tier Infantry, Ranged and Cavalry buildings whilst higher tier and siege works can only be built in a castle.

4. Recruitment system; Regarding this my opinion is "Less changes count more". Population system, a completely new recruitment system or stuff like that is not needed. Attach some units to the tech tree, build up the re-recruitment system (e.g. peasants become militia) a little and yeah... maybe add a clean border for recruitment like Caligula said. (siege engines in manufactures, cavalry in stables and above this; top tier units like knights in castles and urban units in cities)

I do not agree with this solid splitting of Infantry, Ranged, and Cavalry. Siege Weapons need Engineer's Guild, yes, but on the rest of it, Medieval army organization and recruitment do not work that way.
Instead, I'm more interested on Linke's building system he proposed for his own 1066 mod:
http://www.twcenter.net/forums/showt...1#post15134639

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

Ever think it's weird that a region the size of a kingdom only can house 5 "buildings" at most? Sure one possibility is to just rename every building to plural, so you build churches instead of a church. I've done something similar but more expanded.

In the middle ages 90+% of all economic activity was likely based on agriculture, and thus on holding land. Since land is a limited comodity it makes far more sense for the building slots to represent the regions agricultural territories divided by however any building slots there are. Growth represents the colonisation of forests and the like into agricultural estates as the population growths. Now not all regions are the same size so the land isn't exactly the same in size, but that is negligible. The main point is that a building slot represents a territory of farmland and that regions income. That is instead of the modern economy depicted in ca's games where most income comes from specifically specialized industries, whilst farms just provide food.

The different (5-6 depending on faction) building chains's first buildings represent the party wich holds the lands and it's incomes from the state (mostly the king). The options for land ownership are:
1 for a lord/king to hold it himself as his demesne, earning it's income himself (royal income) whilst becoming immensily impopular and without political and military support as his vassals are jelous and refuse to aid him with troops and political support
2 for a feudal vassal to hold the land and it's income. The state losses out on most of the territories income (feudal income), whilst the vassal in exchange provides political (po) support and supports military troops with the income wich you can levy.
3 for the church to posses the land. Again the state losses out on most of the territories income (eccclessiastical income) whilst the church in exchange provides great political leverage and support (political support and public order and religious influence)
4 for common people to hold their own land, or their allods as freeholds without any significant overlord. Your political rivals who could've had the land instead will be unhappy but the (allodial income) will increase as no there's no overlord to tax it all away
5 for a city to hold the land, a city would've been a semi-democratic island. Being granted a countryside estate it would've used it's income (city income) to raise militias and buildings. The wealthier townspeople exploiting the farmers would lead to unrest
6 for a commune (a city) to hold the land (Italy only). It will receive the territorys income (city income) or it may enfeoffen the territory to a knight who will serve the city (wich looses out on the income) or it may build a militia garrison, loosing the money

What you have to understand with recruitment is that for mid and high level units, you can't just construct a building and recruit unlimited amounts of the unit. The knights for example serve in exchange for granting them land and it's income, but the land can only be granted to so many knights. Each territory of land granted will thus yield in the state receiving 4 or so units of knights, you can't recruit anymore knights units though, unless you build more such charters. Cities will begin with 5 or so knight units so you're not completely dependant on the fiefs. Militias and levies available from allods and cities follow the same pattern, except there are many more of them and they are not as good. You can't recruit both feudal knights and common militias from the same building; in the feudal buildings the common people is forbidden to use arms as they would otherwise revolt against the overlord knights. Whilst in the popular buildings the income the knights would otherwise claim for themselves is distributed amongst many more people who can afford worse weapons but who will use them to prevent any knight making them his vassals. (note not all knight units are feudal there are household knights aswell from the cities aswell as generals and mercenaries).

And about the different incomes, feudal, royal and so on. They represent the income of wichever party holds the lands, so if it is held by feudal vassals it has feudal income. But weren't you giving away the income if you granted it feudaly, why should you then ge it AND knights if the knights are supported by the income you're supposedly giving away by not constructing a royal demesne?
Because the feudal income is very very small. You can increase it by researching technologies, but those will decrease your political power even more. Some regions have feudal institutions, meaning a large unfree population, wich will thus increase the income from feudalism (even if it is small), church charters and royal land all wich use succumbed populations to create taxes/agricultural income (even if who gets that income varies). More centralised regions like england will have more royal income meaning (wich is the main income, 80% or so for most factions). Tribal regions or regions where the population still resists feudalism will have bonus to allodial incomes, meaning you will earn less from building estates there as there are fewer serfs, aswell as get fewer knights. That will make it hard for feudal france to occupy say Denmark wich has a entirely different economy. Meanwhile France and England wich both have region economies based on succumbed populations will have less problem absorbing each other (or parts of eachother as with the angevin empire). But not all factions are feudal and have the royal income as their main income. The tribal wends have allodial income as their main one, as their state constitutes not a dynasty but a whole tribe. Likewhise Italian city states such as pisa are republics and will prosper from city income. They have a great boost to incomes from such buildings though they earn very little from occupying feudal and "royal" regions like France because the local nobility has a very strong influence over the subdued people there (potential free city/tribe population) and will resist in liberating the people wich is how those above factions make money; through people's trade and common income.

Finally there are still "buildings" so to say, as in structures. In some chains after granting the land to a party, you may invest further in structures there by granting it a special royal charter; meaning it gets special rights in exchange for sharing some of it's produce with the state. For example you can charter a cathedral, wich will make the church happy and give you more support (and po). Or you can charter a guild, wich means you will enjoy the rights to part of it's income or a special resource in exchange
(all the resource lines are vanilla but work with this general idea). That doesn't mean that there are only cathedrals wheer you build them, but you cna't charter every cathedral can you?

Basicly you'll have to mix all of these chains depending on your militarily and economic needs and your factions economy and the economy of different regions.
Moddin wise all these are implemented in game but without icons/effects/names so it's a bit hard to showcase atm

Some examples:

This, as a further development of City-Castle split, is very interesting. Buildings like Barracks/Archery Range/Armory/Stables should serve like Encampments in S2 instead, offering upgrades/faster recruitment/more recruitment slot; rather than confining unit types to a specific buildings (with the notable exception of Siege Engines).

Talking from AI unit recruitment perspective, this also prevents the AI from recruiting one-trick armies. This Linke's 1066 system might be adopted, modified for MKTW if necessary.

[You_Guess_Who]

dopost

[You_Guess_Who]

sorry I got confused myself

[Heisenburrg]

But how do you want to implement the differences between castles and cities in such a rather complex system? Trough integrating castles in the King´s/Vassal´s building chain? Cities have their own party/building chain, though.

[Heisenburrg]

So I think, most thoughts have something in common but regarding the building/recruitment system I dont know, whether I completely get the idea.

So you have for example in one province with 3 regions, so to say 14 "building"-slots (minus 3 for the region´s main slots), which you could distribute to the six parties (king/you, feudal vassals, church, common people, cities and eventually communes). As soon as you distributed the land you can charter specific building-chains on these lands (on churche´s lands for example in this order monasteries, church schools, cathedrals and military order bases, which will give you mostly civil advantages... church taxes, public order and so on).
On Vassal´s lands, which increases mostly the knights support/recruitment limit, you charter for example the building chain; Rustical Accomodations (1 Foot Knightly Retinue, 2 Foot Sergeants) , Barracks (2 Foot Knightly Retinue, 3 Foot Sergeants), Stables (2 FKR, 3 FS, 2 Knights on Horses) and a Noble Estate (3 FKR, 5 FS, 3 Knights on Horses and let´s say 1 unit of Gendarmes, if a specific technology is known or a certain time-period has come). For increasing the limit of urban- or militia troops you have MOSTLY the cities´lands, for increasing the limit of royal troops (guards or sth like that) you have MOSTLY the King´s lands, but there are no clear borders in recruitment because the king or feudals could obviously also bring own militia troops from their holdings. Same with taxes or other important "ressources", distributing lands to the church will grant church taxes, while distributing lands to common people could bring allodial income.

Did I understand it right?
Because it sounds really similar to Attilas System, but with additional recruitment limits and mixed "recruitment authority" for the specific building chains. (Like both building chains, the one on King´s lands and the one on Feudal Vassal´s land´s, could bring infantry, ranged infantry and cavalry - maybe only with differences, which specific units could be build in which amount)

Overall; really nice idea!

[Commissar Caligula_]

Anyone on the team got any thoughts about this, or is stuff like this that'll increase the play-ability already in the works?