Campaign Mechanic suggestion: reworked War Weariness

[Charerg]

A Short Intro:

I originally planned to implement a modified version of the "War Weariness" introduced in AoC for the IBIII modification I'm working on, but given that I'm going to be busy with asset creation for the foreseeable future, and since scripting stuff into Attila may well be beyond my limited coding skills, it's probably better just to throw the idea out there. Since I noticed that MKTW is currently working on creating a campaign, and the very talented scripter Causeless has recently joined the MKTW team, I decided to post it here. Ofc I'm not saying that this idea is "the most original ever", it may well be that MKTW plans to implement something along these lines. But in case you haven't thought of it, here it is.

Inspiration:

If you've played AoC, you've probably had a chance to test War Weariness, so I'm not going to explain the mechanic itself in detail. In general, it means that your success in warfare will have an effect on the campaign map and the battlefield, causing decreases in public order, army integrity, loyalty of generals, as well as troop morale. It is a well implemented mechanic that works by having a "War Weariness percentage": the greater the percentage, the worse the effects. However, this mechanic has a serious downside: it is purely negative. In my opinion a mechanic like this should not be there purely to "punish the player" (as usual, I think the AI probably cheats out of it), but also to reward the player. After all, should not a leader who wins all his battles and does not suffer territorial losses enjoy the support of his nobility and peasantry?

The Idea:

The basic idea is to take the War Weariness mechanic, and change it to what I like to call the "Prestige mechanic". This is basically intended as a meter that shows how respected your kingdom is based on military success (and possibly other factors like political events, if that can be implemented). So, instead of the present War Weariness you would have something along these lines:

Max positive level: 0% (Tier +4, major positive effect)

• 0-10% (Tier +3, noticeable positive effect)
• 10-20% (Tier +2, moderate positive effect)
• 20-30% (Tier +1, minor positive effect)

Starting level: 30-40% (Tier 0, no effect)

• 40-50% (Tier -1, minor negative effect)
• 50-60% (Tier -2, moderate negative effect)
• 60-70% (Tier -3, noticeable negative effect)
• 70-80% (Tier -4, major negative effect)
• 80-90% (Tier -5, severe negative effect)

Max negative level: 90-100% (Tier -6, punishing negative effect)

Moreover, the effects could be expanded to include diplomatic bonuses/maluses, after all, should not a militarily succesful and feared leader be more likely to be taken seriously on the negotiation table? On the contrary, a ruler who has a record of losing his lands probably would be seen as weak and ineffectual, and therefore less likely to be listened to. Of course, the exact effects of each tier and what kind of bonuses/maluses they should have is up for debate, this is just a suggestion to give some idea of the possibilities.

Advantages:

- Easy to create (in theory, at least): takes advantage of an already existing and working mechanic, does not require the scripter to start from scratch.
- Intuitive implementation: the War Weariness level is easily visible in the campaign bar, making it easy to check the effects. This is much better than having several "hidden effects" ongoing, that require the player to basically read a tutorial before playing in order to understand how the mod works.
- Can be easily tied in to other events/mechanics (again, in theory): I'm not a scripter, so I'm not fully aware of what difficulties the implementation of this mechanic would have, but I think it should be possible to change the "Prestige percentage" based on other events than just battles. For example, if your faction leader dies, you could make it cause say -10% on the "Prestige meter", representing the political instability.

So, that's basically it. Any discussion/suggestions regarding the suggested mechanic are ofc welcome, and I hope the MKTW team finds this helpful (or in the very least interesting/inspiring)!

[Causeless]

Wow! That's a fantastic idea! It's quite remarkable how much depth could be added through what is ultimately technically quite a simple change, allowing positive bonuses.

Really when thinking from this perspective it's quite interesting how many scripted effects could be tied into what I had initially planned for War Weariness. This "Prestige" concept seems like a really good idea as it allows the complexity of multiple overlapping systems to cleanly be presented to the player in an intuitive way.

And, of course, this can tie into the manpower system too. It is now quite clear to me that in terms of global manpower growth modifiers that a lot of these systems could instead feed into this proposed prestige mechanic, therefore indirectly modifying growth. That would would make things cleaner mechanically speaking and reduce the risk of gameplay dissonance, as having separate gameplay systems seem out of sync i.e having high manpower growth while your empire is doing awful etc isn't really possible if these systems tie into an over-arching mechanic such as prestige.

It's easy for people to get caught up in technical fancy and feature ideas without a regard for game design difficulties, but it takes an experienced modder to see when existing systems could be made so much deeper through little changes. Great idea!

[warman222]

I agree with Causeless, sounds like a great idea! Off hand it could be useful for England since I plan on having it vital for the player to get on the Earldoms good side early on given John's poor reputation. This could be a good way of executing that, cause I was thinking if you attack France or another enemy of England it improves your standing with them until you have enough power to keep them in line by force.

[Charerg]

I might add that another possibility (to translate the mechanic into a more "Medieval" timeframe) might be to directly tie the "prestige level" to your faction leader. Basically, any time your king dies, you get a reset to Tier 0 (this could prevent the effect from making the game too easy as well, so the player won't always be at max level even if he wins almost every battle). Also, this way the starting level could be adjusted based on faction. For example, England could start at "rock bottom", and have to get either the unpopular John killed to "clear the slate" or take the hard road of climbing back into the favour of the nobles/peasantry. Just something that popped into my mind after reading warman's comment. Also, connecting it to the manpower system sounds a great idea, particularly for a feudal state, where the popularity of the ruler would have a major effect on how many vassals would actually answer if the king "called the banners" (to borrow some terminology from GoT).

[You_Guess_Who]

Yes please. Yes please. Playing Attila GC itself with simple AOC War Weariness Mod is already a must for me.

Also Causeless, I heard you interested in Storm scripting?

[Causeless]

Yes please. Yes please. Playing Attila GC itself with simple AOC War Weariness Mod is already a must for me.

Also Causeless, I heard you interested in Storm scripting?

Yeah, I was a fan of Hassassin's suggestion. He's not responded on whether I can utilise the idea as of yet however.

[Joseon194]

A Short Intro:

I originally planned to implement a modified version of the "War Weariness" introduced in AoC for the IBIII modification I'm working on, but given that I'm going to be busy with asset creation for the foreseeable future, and since scripting stuff into Attila may well be beyond my limited coding skills, it's probably better just to throw the idea out there. Since I noticed that MKTW is currently working on creating a campaign, and the very talented scripter Causeless has recently joined the MKTW team, I decided to post it here. Ofc I'm not saying that this idea is "the most original ever", it may well be that MKTW plans to implement something along these lines. But in case you haven't thought of it, here it is.

Inspiration:

If you've played AoC, you've probably had a chance to test War Weariness, so I'm not going to explain the mechanic itself in detail. In general, it means that your success in warfare will have an effect on the campaign map and the battlefield, causing decreases in public order, army integrity, loyalty of generals, as well as troop morale. It is a well implemented mechanic that works by having a "War Weariness percentage": the greater the percentage, the worse the effects. However, this mechanic has a serious downside: it is purely negative. In my opinion a mechanic like this should not be there purely to "punish the player" (as usual, I think the AI probably cheats out of it), but also to reward the player. After all, should not a leader who wins all his battles and does not suffer territorial losses enjoy the support of his nobility and peasantry?

The Idea:

The basic idea is to take the War Weariness mechanic, and change it to what I like to call the "Prestige mechanic". This is basically intended as a meter that shows how respected your kingdom is based on military success (and possibly other factors like political events, if that can be implemented). So, instead of the present War Weariness you would have something along these lines:

Max positive level: 0% (Tier +4, major positive effect)

• 0-10% (Tier +3, noticeable positive effect)
• 10-20% (Tier +2, moderate positive effect)
• 20-30% (Tier +1, minor positive effect)

Starting level: 30-40% (Tier 0, no effect)

• 40-50% (Tier -1, minor negative effect)
• 50-60% (Tier -2, moderate negative effect)
• 60-70% (Tier -3, noticeable negative effect)
• 70-80% (Tier -4, major negative effect)
• 80-90% (Tier -5, severe negative effect)

Max negative level: 90-100% (Tier -6, punishing negative effect)

Moreover, the effects could be expanded to include diplomatic bonuses/maluses, after all, should not a militarily succesful and feared leader be more likely to be taken seriously on the negotiation table? On the contrary, a ruler who has a record of losing his lands probably would be seen as weak and ineffectual, and therefore less likely to be listened to. Of course, the exact effects of each tier and what kind of bonuses/maluses they should have is up for debate, this is just a suggestion to give some idea of the possibilities.

Advantages:

- Easy to create (in theory, at least): takes advantage of an already existing and working mechanic, does not require the scripter to start from scratch.
- Intuitive implementation: the War Weariness level is easily visible in the campaign bar, making it easy to check the effects. This is much better than having several "hidden effects" ongoing, that require the player to basically read a tutorial before playing in order to understand how the mod works.
- Can be easily tied in to other events/mechanics (again, in theory): I'm not a scripter, so I'm not fully aware of what difficulties the implementation of this mechanic would have, but I think it should be possible to change the "Prestige percentage" based on other events than just battles. For example, if your faction leader dies, you could make it cause say -10% on the "Prestige meter", representing the political instability.

So, that's basically it. Any discussion/suggestions regarding the suggested mechanic are ofc welcome, and I hope the MKTW team finds this helpful (or in the very least interesting/inspiring)!

Someone give this man a dukedom!