ARMIES
-Live Off The Land
Toggle this option to make the army suffer much less attrition, at the significant cost of movement speed. Simply put, this option would put your army at a strategic disadvantage, due to much reduced speed, but it also allows it to avoid crippling attrition. There would still be some attrition, but not on levels that decimate your numbers.
-Commander Stance
Choose how your army commander behaves in a battle. There are 3 options. First, you have Active Stance, where commander is actively fighting with his troops. This option gives a morale boost to the army, plus a big chance to improve his/her martial, prowess and prestige. However, it also means an increased chance of injury, death or capture. Second option is a Passive Stance, where commander is leading the army from a safe distance. With this option, army suffers certain penalties, but your commander will never (or extremely rarely) die or be injured or captured during battle. Third option is a balance between the other two and serves as a default stance. It is similar to what we currently have.
-Set Up Camp
Similar to Live Off The Land, this option will make your army suffer much less attrition. A camp will be set up, which will provide certain defensive bonuses. Obviously, since your army is in a camp, it will be unable to move until directed otherwise. Setting up the camp and subsequently leaving it will require time, maybe several days. This is to counter exploits, such as running from the enemy and then instantly making camp to get defensive bonuses.
SIEGES
-Siege Supply
Every settlement has a certain amount of supplies for sieges. Supply affects morale for defending troops. As long as there is supply, morale will be high and will not drop significantly during sieges. This means that a well-supplied fortification could hold out a siege for quite some time. Provided of course that the enemy doesn't commit to aggressive assault.
Supply is consumed by defending troops, but also by civilians obviously. This means that a regular Castle, which is mostly comprised of soldiers, will have much lesser supply consumption than a City, which has a significant civilian population. This further means that a castle will have a much better chance of survival during sieges.
This all seems quite obvious and it seemingly works that way in current game.
One notable difference with this system is that proper fortified and well-supplied castles will have to be forcefully assaulted, rather than traditionally starved down. Starving the defenders is still an option, but attackers will have to decide if it's worthwhile to spend many months (possibly even years) trying to take one province.
-Countryside
Province countryside represents the bread basket of a province. It will generate general supply for passing armies and influence siege supplies. Countryside has it's own "buildings", notably farmlands and hunting grounds among others, which produce supply, but also various mines that generate income.
Idea here is to separate settlement and countryside buildings, providing a better province development overview.
Some settlements are huge, meaning that it would take a large armed force to completely and effectively encircle them. Other settlements have natural obstacles that also prevent complete encirclement.
By not being able to maintain the encirclement, settlement will have a way of "siphoning" the supply from the countryside, effectively prolonging a siege.
-Sacking Countryside
This is an option that both attackers and defenders have. Defenders want to do this in order to cripple the advance of the enemy (obviously before siege), who will suffer increased attrition. Attackers want to do this if they are unable to stop supply procurement to the settlement and can withstand subsequent attrition. By sacking the countryside, it's buildings will become inactive for several years. Also, province population will not be overly happy with this decision.
This option is very questionable in overall usefulness, but it can prove as a temporary strategic benefit in a desperate situation.
-Siege Engines
Basic siege equipment (ladders, battering rams) are available to besiegers from the start. More advanced equipment (siege towers) are constructed on the spot, via interaction on the siege screen.
-Assault
Differently from the current system, armies can now directly assault the settlement, even if there was no breach and the walls are intact. Obviously, this requires a numerical superiority by the attackers and will certainly cause great casualties to them. In most cases, it is not worthwhile to assault the walls like this. But it is an option for someone who is running out of time. Every army has basic siege equipment (ladders, battering rams). By constructing more advanced siege equipment, attackers can avoid significant casualties.
If the walls are breached, assault option will of course cause much less casualties.
-Sally Forth
Defenders in a siege have an option to sally forth and cripple the siege equipment of the attackers. Idea is to have more control over sieges as a defender. Result of this action depends on chance, size of the attacking army and how advanced are the enemy siege weapons. Unsuccessful Sally Forth naturally causes a loss of a number of defending soldiers.
-Smuggle Supplies
Same with Sally Forth, siege defenders get another option to influence the siege. By selecting this option, defenders will attempt to smuggle in supplies, in order to prolong the siege. It is a risky option, which may backfire greatly and cause a loss of valuable soldiers.
-Bombardment
Siege attackers have an option to shower the enemy walls with projectiles from their onagers/catapults/trebuchets/cannons. This option will cause the enemy walls to collapse eventually, allowing for an easier assault. Lower-tech bombards will take more time to breach the walls and are more vulnerable to enemy sally forth action. As technology advances, better bombards will be more efficient, but they pose a greater threat to settlement buildings. A successful bombardment will cause significant damage to both defenses and general buildings.
This option is advisable if you want to end a long siege and provide easier time for your attacking soldiers, or if you do not care about damage you may cause.
-Defenses
Walls, towers, gates and moats should all be present as a building option. Perhaps a separate portion of the province view should be just for defenses? Every settlement has the same option regarding defenses. Their cost is different though between cities and castles. Cities generally house much greater population than castles and thus have greater surface area, meaning you need longer walls, more towers, etc. For example, if castle walls cost 100 gold, then city walls cost 300 gold.
Idea is to be able to have huge cities that are also well defended. Constantinople comes to mind. Of course, building huge walls for cities like that would be an outrageous investment. Not every city can reach that level of development and not everyone will have the amount of gold required to build these walls.
Why have many different options for defenses? It is to allow for players to build extra powerful settlements in strategic places. By themselves, buildings like walls and towers provide no bonuses whatsoever, beside defense for a settlement. They provide no income and no troops. There is no reason to go wild and spend gold on building these everywhere. Instead, they should be built in castles/cities that border the potential enemy. They slow down the enemy advance, allowing you to muster your forces in time.
-Automation
Not everyone wants to constantly click on sieges and build equipment or to sally forth and smuggle supplies. That is why these options will be automated by default and happen by chance or in special circumstances. There will be siege events, such as bad weather or confusion in the attacker's camp. If automated, defending army AI will attempt these "covert" actions during these events, because the chance of success is increased at that time.
However, human players can make risks and attempt these actions, disregarding the potential consequences.
Whole point of my suggestion is the availability of player action. But also, there should not be a overload of micromanagement. Commander Stance feature, for example, has a neutral option, which functions as a default setting. Everything is the same as usual, but you can increase or decrease risks for your character in battle, if you wanted so.
With sieges, you hope you get some positive events and harm the enemy. Or you can throw the dice and hope for the best. Completely optional.
-Live Off The Land
Toggle this option to make the army suffer much less attrition, at the significant cost of movement speed. Simply put, this option would put your army at a strategic disadvantage, due to much reduced speed, but it also allows it to avoid crippling attrition. There would still be some attrition, but not on levels that decimate your numbers.
-Commander Stance
Choose how your army commander behaves in a battle. There are 3 options. First, you have Active Stance, where commander is actively fighting with his troops. This option gives a morale boost to the army, plus a big chance to improve his/her martial, prowess and prestige. However, it also means an increased chance of injury, death or capture. Second option is a Passive Stance, where commander is leading the army from a safe distance. With this option, army suffers certain penalties, but your commander will never (or extremely rarely) die or be injured or captured during battle. Third option is a balance between the other two and serves as a default stance. It is similar to what we currently have.
-Set Up Camp
Similar to Live Off The Land, this option will make your army suffer much less attrition. A camp will be set up, which will provide certain defensive bonuses. Obviously, since your army is in a camp, it will be unable to move until directed otherwise. Setting up the camp and subsequently leaving it will require time, maybe several days. This is to counter exploits, such as running from the enemy and then instantly making camp to get defensive bonuses.
SIEGES
-Siege Supply
Every settlement has a certain amount of supplies for sieges. Supply affects morale for defending troops. As long as there is supply, morale will be high and will not drop significantly during sieges. This means that a well-supplied fortification could hold out a siege for quite some time. Provided of course that the enemy doesn't commit to aggressive assault.
Supply is consumed by defending troops, but also by civilians obviously. This means that a regular Castle, which is mostly comprised of soldiers, will have much lesser supply consumption than a City, which has a significant civilian population. This further means that a castle will have a much better chance of survival during sieges.
This all seems quite obvious and it seemingly works that way in current game.
One notable difference with this system is that proper fortified and well-supplied castles will have to be forcefully assaulted, rather than traditionally starved down. Starving the defenders is still an option, but attackers will have to decide if it's worthwhile to spend many months (possibly even years) trying to take one province.
-Countryside
Province countryside represents the bread basket of a province. It will generate general supply for passing armies and influence siege supplies. Countryside has it's own "buildings", notably farmlands and hunting grounds among others, which produce supply, but also various mines that generate income.
Idea here is to separate settlement and countryside buildings, providing a better province development overview.
Some settlements are huge, meaning that it would take a large armed force to completely and effectively encircle them. Other settlements have natural obstacles that also prevent complete encirclement.
By not being able to maintain the encirclement, settlement will have a way of "siphoning" the supply from the countryside, effectively prolonging a siege.
-Sacking Countryside
This is an option that both attackers and defenders have. Defenders want to do this in order to cripple the advance of the enemy (obviously before siege), who will suffer increased attrition. Attackers want to do this if they are unable to stop supply procurement to the settlement and can withstand subsequent attrition. By sacking the countryside, it's buildings will become inactive for several years. Also, province population will not be overly happy with this decision.
This option is very questionable in overall usefulness, but it can prove as a temporary strategic benefit in a desperate situation.
-Siege Engines
Basic siege equipment (ladders, battering rams) are available to besiegers from the start. More advanced equipment (siege towers) are constructed on the spot, via interaction on the siege screen.
-Assault
Differently from the current system, armies can now directly assault the settlement, even if there was no breach and the walls are intact. Obviously, this requires a numerical superiority by the attackers and will certainly cause great casualties to them. In most cases, it is not worthwhile to assault the walls like this. But it is an option for someone who is running out of time. Every army has basic siege equipment (ladders, battering rams). By constructing more advanced siege equipment, attackers can avoid significant casualties.
If the walls are breached, assault option will of course cause much less casualties.
-Sally Forth
Defenders in a siege have an option to sally forth and cripple the siege equipment of the attackers. Idea is to have more control over sieges as a defender. Result of this action depends on chance, size of the attacking army and how advanced are the enemy siege weapons. Unsuccessful Sally Forth naturally causes a loss of a number of defending soldiers.
-Smuggle Supplies
Same with Sally Forth, siege defenders get another option to influence the siege. By selecting this option, defenders will attempt to smuggle in supplies, in order to prolong the siege. It is a risky option, which may backfire greatly and cause a loss of valuable soldiers.
-Bombardment
Siege attackers have an option to shower the enemy walls with projectiles from their onagers/catapults/trebuchets/cannons. This option will cause the enemy walls to collapse eventually, allowing for an easier assault. Lower-tech bombards will take more time to breach the walls and are more vulnerable to enemy sally forth action. As technology advances, better bombards will be more efficient, but they pose a greater threat to settlement buildings. A successful bombardment will cause significant damage to both defenses and general buildings.
This option is advisable if you want to end a long siege and provide easier time for your attacking soldiers, or if you do not care about damage you may cause.
-Defenses
Walls, towers, gates and moats should all be present as a building option. Perhaps a separate portion of the province view should be just for defenses? Every settlement has the same option regarding defenses. Their cost is different though between cities and castles. Cities generally house much greater population than castles and thus have greater surface area, meaning you need longer walls, more towers, etc. For example, if castle walls cost 100 gold, then city walls cost 300 gold.
Idea is to be able to have huge cities that are also well defended. Constantinople comes to mind. Of course, building huge walls for cities like that would be an outrageous investment. Not every city can reach that level of development and not everyone will have the amount of gold required to build these walls.
Why have many different options for defenses? It is to allow for players to build extra powerful settlements in strategic places. By themselves, buildings like walls and towers provide no bonuses whatsoever, beside defense for a settlement. They provide no income and no troops. There is no reason to go wild and spend gold on building these everywhere. Instead, they should be built in castles/cities that border the potential enemy. They slow down the enemy advance, allowing you to muster your forces in time.
-Automation
Not everyone wants to constantly click on sieges and build equipment or to sally forth and smuggle supplies. That is why these options will be automated by default and happen by chance or in special circumstances. There will be siege events, such as bad weather or confusion in the attacker's camp. If automated, defending army AI will attempt these "covert" actions during these events, because the chance of success is increased at that time.
However, human players can make risks and attempt these actions, disregarding the potential consequences.
Whole point of my suggestion is the availability of player action. But also, there should not be a overload of micromanagement. Commander Stance feature, for example, has a neutral option, which functions as a default setting. Everything is the same as usual, but you can increase or decrease risks for your character in battle, if you wanted so.
With sieges, you hope you get some positive events and harm the enemy. Or you can throw the dice and hope for the best. Completely optional.
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