Hi Guys,
I’ve been playing the Thrones for quite a while. I think there’s an enormous potential for modding of gameplay since currently, it is very easy and not-so-historical. I mean: there’s a very nice historical map with proper names, units that are fit for the era (but the dogs, I suppose), but the gameplay is easy, un-logical, and very un-historical. The current mechanisms provide plenty of opportunities that only moders seem to be able to use (as CA is moving to another Saga game).
Maybe a few ideas would be useful for you – I’ve gathered them below. I know the rule “you want something, you do it”, but I don’t have time for modding these days, so these are just ideas, no requests.

· Auto-resolve should be seriously rebalanced. For the moment, at the hard or very hard difficulties, it almost always pays off to auto-resolve than to fight personally. This concerns especially the sieges. Additionally, you’re not rewarded in the traits for fighting personally.
· Impact of the traits – most of them are so irrelevant to the game that it doesn’t make sense to pay attention. I make very few choices on the basis of the traits. Some are just irrelevant (cheaper recruitment bonuses: you recruit units so rarely that you never pay attention who is recruiting), some just go up with leveling the general up (upkeep costs), some features all characters in one form or another (eg. differentiation between upkeep bonus for spears / cavalry / missiles /all troops – they are pretty the same as the all armies are compound of different types of units; so why to bother to differentiate between them?)
· Loyalty – there should be a probability of the characters rebelling, starting from 3. There should also be unexpected swings in loyalty – for the moment everything is so deterministic.
· Loyalty should be scaled with the size of the realm. It should be the point of every TW game: the larger the kingdom, the more rebellions and civil wars are likely. And this is absolutely not the case in the Thrones. Quite opposite: you’re likely to have problems at the beginning but later your king and his son would get a lot of influence and the risks disappear.
· In general, civil wars and rebellions should occur more frequently and should be scaled with the size of the kingdom. This should limit the snow-ball effect that’s very palpable now. For civil wars you’ve got leveled-up kings and estates, for rebellions – the buildings built.
· Money – (based on the experience on very hard difficulties) currently most of the factions are rich from the beginning thanks to the large king’s purse. Upgrading the settlements is very cheap. The limiting factor for the armies is food. A strategy of expeditions and sacking far-away settlements doesn’t pay off – it doesn’t bring food or really significant money.
· Concentration of a few armies in one place should be punished somehow. For instance, if there’re many troops in a province, the supply should run out exponentially (there’s supply in the game, just use this feature!). Or there should be a chance of rebellion. Or the campaign speed should be cut down noticeably. Or the battle values should drop. Or whatever. For now, there’s every incentive to bring 3+ armies together to conquer the lands. The AI doesn’t do it (in the Thrones it actually very rarely use more than one army), so you just go on a steamroll.
· Technologies and buildings – higher levels of the buildings should be unlocked by the technology levels. This would make civic technologies more important. As in the other TW games, the speed of research for higher level technologies should be slower.
· Replenishment – current high levels of replenishment make recruitment very rare: you recruit a unit just once, and even if it gets damage, it’d replenish automatically. And you can replenish in the newly conquered settlement. So I think the newly recruited units should have more strength but the replenishment should be cut down (or possibly eliminated altogether – but I don’t know how the AI would react to this).
· Supply of the armies doesn’t matter at the moment if you employ the strategy of conquest (not raiding). You go on the offensive and take a village / settlement, then you don’t lose supply. There’re no long expeditions possible (unless you’re Sutheyar and sail somewhere), so you’re always with a full supply.
· As mentioned, fighting the battles should be more rewarded. There should be a flood of new traits after a successful battle, especially against the odds (for the moment it’s mainly +xp and few traits).
· There should be no penalty from switching from generalship to a governor position (for now, the -1 Loyalty penalty is neither justified (he gets a new position, doesn’t he), no good for the gameplay (a disincentive for the player to swap roles of the characters). (there’s already a mod doing it, I’m using it).
· Older generals should be not fit for good combat and should die more easily. There may be traits adding Loyalty for the characters appointed generals at a young age (a youngster is happy to fight), while adding it to those appointed governors at the older age.
· Ability to board ships should be restricted even more for the Anglo-Saxon factions, ie: made contingent on a certain technology, or possession of a longphort, or having a skilled general. No Anglosaxon forces were transported by ships at that time, I think.
· Cavalry units should not be able to board on ships at all until some point of time. It was possible very marginally in this period, I can think only of Hastings, some 200 years later.
· Fame – that part gained in battles should be visibly stated. I have no idea where my fame comes from, besides traits, buildings and technologies.
· Estates: currently they constitute neither a limit of the size of the realm nor a solution to the problems of loyalty. As mentioned, the demand for the estates from the nobles should be related to the size of the realm. This should be an incentive to research and build noble estates: that you can keep your nobles happy while having less control over them (because the kingdom is big you cannot keep an eye all the time). So there’s a serious need for balancing.
· Small garrisons in the villages – for the gameplay: to prevent the freshly created armies (a few units with 1/3 strength) from taking them. Now the player can create an army out of the blue and take the AI villages on the border instantly. Same goes for the AI – a roaming Viking king with 7 companions may take your villages and get strong there (there’s already a mod making it in a very good way, so for me it’s solved).

I hope it might be useful for you, the Shieldwall moders, as you're the only hope for the game to be improved.
JoC