Some random ideas

[Beiss]

I have some ideas I'd like to get some feedback on. Don't know if any are actually possible to implement.

1. Imagine a mission that asks you, playing a Norse faction, to give the Byzantine emperor some of your units in exchange for some money? This could be done by moving your units to a target region and then disband them there.

2. Would it be at all possible to make the general deliver his speech walking back and forth (or riding) in front on his troops instead of back in his own corner where no one can hear him?

3. Would it be possible to limit the amount of troops that can be transported by a navy, depending on how many ships are in the navy? I don't think you should be able to send a full stack of troops to another island with just one boat... also, if you're transporting troops, the navy should be doing much better in naval combat, since they're all about boarding the enemy's ships anyway. If you're hauling soldiers, you should be doing much better. This would also lower the risk of losing your army because of a lost naval battle.

4. Diplomats should be much more prone to assasination. It's just not realistic to send a diplomat across the entire world in the middle ages and expect him not to get killed or robbed. It would also make sense to be able to use your generals to enter diplomacy with other faction's generals, but this is probably not possible.

5. I think it would make sense to require that in order to trade with another faction, you need to place one of your merchants in one of their provinces, or the other faction needs to place one in one of yours. Maybe this would result in a very large number of merchants on the campaign map though...

[Kahju]

Some of those sound nice, but quite difficult to implement. Besides, none of those would affect gameplay much, except maybe #3.

[Beiss]

True, true.

[tnick777]

some very pleasing ideas!

[mocker]

regarding the diplomats:
Most of the agents use body guards for protection.

No proper king would send his valuable agents out travelling without protection.

[Goatbuster3000]

Yeah, that's how my assassins always get killed. By a diplomat's body guard. Wait, when you attempt to assassinate a spy, how can it fail except by the spy eluding him? Does the spy have his own personal bodyguard?

[mocker]

Yeah, that's how my assassins always get killed. By a diplomat's body guard. Wait, when you attempt to assassinate a spy, how can it fail except by the spy eluding him? Does the spy have his own personal bodyguard?

I don't think the spy has much of a personal guard unit, although city guards could foil an assasination on a spy.

[Beiss]

regarding the diplomats:
Most of the agents use body guards for protection.

No proper king would send his valuable agents out travelling without protection.

I didn't realize this. Makes sense though. Would be fun to be able to kill agents using armies Throw some rotten cows at a diplomat or something.

[mocker]

I didn't realize this. Makes sense though. Would be fun to be able to kill agents using armies Throw some rotten cows at a diplomat or something.

It was, until the french invented politics in the 11th century, thus ending the viking age...

[Beiss]

Yeah. Killing other people's diplomats usually makes things worse for you, even if nobody ever finds out you were the one who did it. IRL I mean.

[Antagonist]

I think all you're ideas have merit, but some are likely to fall afoul of the evil ogre of hard-coding. I really don't know how it would work in M2TW but from my experience picking up things from Rome modders:

1) This would be cool, seems straighforward enough but I don't know exactly what the missions system can and can't do.

2) This was something I really wanted to do in Rome, but was told was not possible... maybe M2TW is different but somehow I doubt it.

3) This is definately a good idea, I have always felt that the way RTW depicts sea transport in general is pretty lacking. Full-stack armies travelling on a single creaky bireme, and storms and shipwrecks a minor nuisance. Unfortunately this sounds to me like it would be hard-coded, unless CA specifically made it changeable in M2TW.

4) I imagine it would be pretty straightforward to make Diplomats more vulnerable to assassination (say, a hidden trait on all diplomats significantly lowering security) but actually making it more likely that AI assassins target them would be a lot more awkward, I'd imagine.

5) I'm not so sure about this idea, and I'm also not sure if it's possible. It would be a use for the Merchant I suppose, but it kind of implies to me a level of centralisation and nationalisation of trade which I just don't see in the Viking age. Obviously it varies from place to place, but it seems to me that most places in this mod were, on the whole, quite decentralised at this point, and having to go through the king or some central government to conduct trade with other peoples seems to go against that.

Antagonist

[Beiss]

You make some good points, and I'm glad to get some feedback on this. If it's not currently possible to change the number of units that can be transported in a navy, I'll do what I can to tell CA about it.

EDIT: Ok, I've posted in the "What do you want CA to let us mod with the next patch" thread and also PM'd Caliban. Let's hope they don't think it's a stupid idea, or that I'm being annoying.

[Athokas]

I like all the ideas, but about 3) the numbers really shouldn't be taken seriously. When you build 1 boat it's probably meant as 1 fleet of boats. A kingdom capable of producing 3 boats a year is completely unrealistic. The same goes for unit numbers. I conquered all of britain with 1200 men! That's impossible!

I seem to have lost the thread in this post. Not even sure what i'm talking about anymore. Sorry

[mocker]

I like all the ideas, but about 3) the numbers really shouldn't be taken seriously. When you build 1 boat it's probably meant as 1 fleet of boats. A kingdom capable of producing 3 boats a year is completely unrealistic. The same goes for unit numbers. I conquered all of britain with 1200 men! That's impossible!

I seem to have lost the thread in this post. Not even sure what i'm talking about anymore. Sorry

Correct. One cog unit equals 25 ships, if I'm not wrong.

[Beiss]

But it says how many soldiers are on the ship, and it's usually 20-60. If it's really a fleet they should say so. And even if you multiply all the numbers by 500, it's still crazy to be carrying 500 000 men in a fleet with a crew of 15 000 sailors.

Anyway, I'm not so sure the unit numbers are that off. In M2TW, the largest city is roughly 50 000 inhabitants, isn't it? And it's capable of producing roughly 500 soldiers in a year (if it's a castle). How large were the large cities during this time, irl?

[Beiss]

That makes more sense, I guess. But if that's true, ships are really cheap, considering how building a unit of cog costs about the same as 60 swordsmen...

[Athokas]

Yeah well, let's just agree that it would be nicer if all numbers were correct, and you were actually able to command 10.000 men in battle:-D

[Beiss]

Yeah. But you should at least be able to expect the proportions to be correct - a "fleet" of 30 sailors shouldn't be able to transport a full stack army.

[Antagonist]

I thought EB dealt with this issue elegantly by changing the text and even the graphics and icons to mean that each ship was a "fleet" instead of a single ship, and the expense and power of each unit being significantly increased.

Antagonist

[Beiss]

That's a way to do it. But then you don't get the option to build a very small fleet that can only carry very small numbers of soldiers. When the Vikings descended on Lindisfarne, they didn't have an entire fleet, did they?