Polycarpe Presents..
War of the West Recruitment System
Welcome to the preview of WotW's Recruitment System. I am honored to present you all the features of this complex but freshly interesting system which would give a quite innovative and challenging gameplay to suit our most hardcored and historian players of M2TW!!
Culture Percentage Requirement (%)
In Britannia campaign, there is no religion (since all the factions are Catholics) but rather their will have cultures, which works pretty much as the same as religion gameplay speaking (public order and such). In order to recruit units, you will require a specific amount of culture %, otherwise, you will not have access to your main units and you will have to rely on Auxiliary units (described later). The amount of percentage required for units depend on their Unit Category; the more prestigious and larger your unit is, the higher the amount required. Here's the list of each cultures in the campaign as well their owners:
·
Norman: Kingdom of England , Kingdom of Scotland (Lowland).
·
Brythonic: Kingdom of Gwynedd (Wales).
·
Norwegian: Earldom of Orkney (Norway).
·
Scottish Gaelic: Lordship of the Isles, Kingdom of Mann
·
Irish Gaelic: Kingdom of Desmond, House of Ù'Neill
England Unit Roster Pool in London (100% Norman)
England Unit Roster Pool in Dublin (70% Irish Gaelic, 30% Norman)
Unit Pool and Replenishment System
The system may be the most drastic change in M2TW along several other mods. One weakness of the game was the replenishment rate and the unit pool size, making the game utterly easy causing what I call the
Army Factory Syndrome. That syndrome was you actually needed only one or two castles to train and form huge armies for your whole kingdom. In order to fix this issue along having a more realistic and accurate approach of recruiting medieval armies, the replenishment rate and the unit pool size have been drastically reduced. By doing that, you will need ALL your cities and castles in order to make large armies, just like in the Middle Age. In addition, Many factors will affect the replenishment rate such as regions, strength/weakness of the faction, buildings, events, etc.
To picture the feature, here's a little table to what approximately the values are:
Household Noble
· Unit Pool Size (Max Unit): 1
· Replenishment Rate: Special (described later)
Household Professionals
· Unit Pool Size (Max Unit): 1-2
· Replenishment Rate: Between 10 and 2 turns.
Recruitment Time: Between 2 and 7 turns.
Professionals
· Unit Pool Size (Max Unit): 1-2
· Replenishment Rate: Between 10 and 2 turns.
Semi-Professionals
· Unit Pool Size (Max Unit): 1-3
· Replenishment Rate: Between 6 and 1 turns.
Conscripts
· Unit Pool Size (Max Unit): 1-3
· Replenishment Rate: Between 4 and 1 turns.
Zone of Recruitment (ZoR)
The ZoR is a feature that restrict certain recruitment conditions in regions across the map. The first thing is units recruited from their native regions (Eg. London for England, Perth for Scotland, etc.) will have a better replenishment rate than units recruited in conquered/non-native regions (Eg. Dublin for England). As such, any units recruited in non-native regions will have a replenishment rate reduced by 25 %, which means it will take more time to refill your unit pool.
Recruitment in Native region (England with London).
Recruitment in Non-native region (England with Dublin)
Also, mercenaries are greatly affected by the ZoR. In native regions, mercenary units will not need culture % to be recruited however, they will be restricted to their native regions. But, a faction could train these units outside their native borders if they have enough of their culture %. For example, the Saethwyr (or Welsh Longbowmen) could be recruited without culture % in any native Welsh regions (both for Wales and other factions) however, in non-native regions (such Perth), only Wales could train Saethwyr there (which, of course, would require a minimum of Brythonic culture %).
Zone of Recruitment London (Norman Region): This region have Mercenary
Telderon de Brant and
de Lance.
Zone of Recruitment Dublin (Irish Region): Since this region is non-Norman,
Telderons de Brant and
de Lance cannot be recruited there.
Also, Auxilliary Units are also part of ZoR. Restricted only to native regions, these units will be available as long as their native culture % is high enough. Eventually, in the long-term process of cultural assimilation, the conqueror faction will overwhelm the native culture and no more the auxiliary unit will be available. In addition to these restrictions, the replenishment rate of Auxiliary Units will be equivalent to - 50 % of the native faction, to explain everything, let's give an example: England conquered the castle of Islay, in the Hebrides regions, Norman culture is almost non-existent in that region (5 %), so you will get access to
Gaisgeash as
Auxiliary Units. After 40 turns, England still own Islay and Norman culture is strongly implanted in that region (85 %). As consequence, England can recruit
Paisants,
Geldons and
Serjeants however, the
Gaisgeash are no more available since their requirement is no more fulfilled by the Scottish Gaelic culture.
Household Nobles Recruitment System
The feudalism system work under a system of vassalage where one ale to hold a land in exchange for military services. This is where the knight (the vassal) stand for. Our noble own a land but when his feudal lord required military services, he need to take up the arms and answer the call.
However, the nobles weren't many and if they were summoned by their sovereign, a
Banneret will be tasked to lead the nobles. In Middle Ages, a Banneret was a nobleman who led a company of troops during time of war under his own banner or the sovereign's banner.
Thus, in gameplay speaking, the Banneret will be represented as a recruitable general with the Household Nobles unit as his retinue. The Banneret will be your representant of your settlement's nobility, leading the Noble Bachelors (nobles fighting under another's banner). As long as the Banneret is alive, you will not be able to recruit any other Household Nobles unit in the settlement where you recruited your Banneret. If your banneret dies, automatically, your settlement will have his Household Nobles unit pool unfrozen.
The advantage of this feature is the Banneret is equivalent of a General unit, your household unit will replenish by itself. This reflects the replacement of the knight through a commendation ceremony (making a bond with a new selected noble). It also reflects a more accurate aspect of Medieval nobility where few knights where available, rare and precious but were among the best warriors a kingdom could have, therefore a small elite retinue for each region. They will be cheap to recruit to represent the military duty they own to their feudal lord and the king. Having Free Upkeep to represent the nobility landowning but they will have an expensive Upkeep if they are used for war (meaning moving outside your settlements). Regarding the family members and adopted characters, they will use the standard Royal General's Bodyguards.
Newly recruited Banneret (general) in London
Recruitment Limitation
Your Factions population can only support so many units based on its population. Once that limit has been reached you can't recruit anymore until your faction grows, expands etc.
As you expand and upgrade, your factions population grows. based on the number of settlements you own and the number of upgrades per settlement your unit limitation is set. as you train and recruit new units your unit limit gets smaller and smaller until it is reached. Once you recruit enough units to put you over the threshold of your factions size you are unable to recruit more units until you upgrade a settlement (or capture one), thus forcing the player to think about expansion sooner and more often.
Players will be Forced to think before recruiting random units. Recruiting just to keep order may not be wise anymore. Suicidal Tactics become null and void. if you sacrifice units in battle (or even lose when auto battle) then you are just wasting your population, you can't recruit dead people!. So you can't waste your population on suicidal tactics. You can't rely on 'cannon-fodder'. Each unit becomes more valuable to you. Peasants may be worthless in battle, but they can become precious with this script.
Mercenary Units will become extremely important and more valuable as they don't count toward your factions unit limit.
The loss of a settlement is now a huge deal. Not only do you lose the income from that city and any other benefits, but now your unit limit gets even smaller, making the challenge to take it back a little harder. and in some cases, very hard. The game is alot more
challenging. You must balance your income and plan your strategies around your populations limit.
Mercenary units are not factored in and are therefore free in regards to your Factions Unit Limit.
Mission Rewards are not included. So if you are granted units for completing a mission they will not affect your Unit Limit. This makes missions more rewarding, and mercenaries more valuable.
Migration has been factored in. There is a chance every so often that people will migrate to your kingdom, if they do then expect to see small increases in random settlements population levels. These events will also increase your factions unit limitations. People are more likely to migrate if your kingdom is large.
The Draft. You can draft your population once every turn, this will increase your factions size for a period of several turns when it will then return to normal. You can draft your population as often as you like but there may be dire consequences if you draft too often. You can only enact the draft once per turn. It is possible to have single settlements shut down recruitment options for the duration of one turn just because you over drafted your population (this can cause issues if it is your primary recruitment settlement). Settlements may also experience unrest whilst being drafted, this effect is not so severe, it decreases per turn and your settlement will only revolt if you already have unhappy citizens.
Peasant Uprising, This is tied directly with the draft, If you draft your population too many consecutive times peasants may spawn near the settlement that does not agree with the draft. It will not happen often, but if it does it may last years with multiple peasants rebelling. If you are too harsh on your citizens they may all eventually turn against you.
Population Recruited; Every unit you recruit will deduct population from the settlement it was trained in. In addition to that, Disbanded units will give you population increases across your settlements. Disbanding a unit does not give immediate gains, and in some cases can take years for the units to actually affect your population sizes, but you will gain the population back. You must give the units time to migrate back into society. You only gain half of the population cost, this is simply to simulate loss of units in battle and mercenary units which are not part of your population.
Hope you enjoyed the preview. Comments, suggestions, please share it with me, it will be a pleasure to respond to you!
Special Thanks
- Special thanks for Point Blank as he inspires me with his Real Recruitment system.
- Special thanks to Tsarsies for giving me his permission for using his Recruitment Limitation submod.
- Special thanks to Withwnar, Gigantus, den5104 and King Philip II for helping me in the Mod Workshop.