Command of Liege Armies

[Xyzzy Frobozz]

I'm sure that this has probably been brought up before, but I can't seem to find any threads that make the suggestion. Please bear with me if it's an old or recurring request.

If my character is made a commander of my liege's armies, it would be great if I had control of that army. This seems to make a lot of sense to me and, built in with demands of my liege, could be very immersive.

At the start of a conflict when my liege puts me in command of an army, I could be given war goals and perhaps even a time to achieve it in. If you wanted to be really ambitious you could add side or stretch goals. This would add an awesome element to liege/lord relationships which can be a little distant in the current game. My liege could then have different levels of satisfaction with my performance, up to and including execution in a botched campaign. This would also give the player an incentive to actually want to take a position as a commander, which at the moment kind of just takes you away from your home duties, and puts your character at risk of the AI and its... shall we say inconsistent strategic performances.

Obviously high performing commanders would gain reputation and possibly favors from their liege, while poorly performing commanders would take a reputation hit both with their liege and within the realm.

You could expand this system to all council positions with regards to events or goals. At the moment being on your liege's council acts as little more than a buff and a restraint on the actions once can take within their own demense.

I reckon there's probably a whole DLC to be had with these additional mechanics!

Thoughts?

 

[Xyzzy Frobozz]

Surely someone has an opinion on this!?!?!

 

[Thrake]

Sounds good as a vassal but I'm not sure wether I would like it or not as a liege. Sure, I could still command part of my army myself to keep control over it, but would I like to let the other two or three armies under the AI control?

Being commander is a must for tribals; it offers a load of monthly prestige to fill in quickly those prestige buildings (it even scales with your liege title tier). It's more of a constraint as feudal indeed though, especially as leading troops seem to lock off from many focus events.

Same for councilors. I suggested a while ago to offer regularly events with choices on wether you want to do your best or intentionnaly mess up (obviously not up front messing up but a diplomat could take an opportunity to be rude instead of staying polite for exemple, or intentionnaly hide out plots as the spymaster), or more under-handed options (not necessarily messing up but just acting for your own good like accepting bribes to turn a blind eye on poaching,...). So I would certainly want more options as a councilor, especially as it fits the theme of conclave; while it added a few events, there still does not seem to have many possibilities as a councilor.

 

[Aries666]

There's one big problem with being allowed to take control of your liege's army, namely you suicide the whole stack into a superior force, start a faction to take your liege's title/ go independent, win the war because you just killed off his army.

 

[Narvait]

This should be discussed more, it has some potential.
I think there were cases historically, at least on Empire level when generals even overthrew existing emperor.
Just not sure how to balance that out.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

As with many "more autonomy in a council role" suggestions, it's great for the person on the council, but would be intensely frustrating to give the AI that freedom to "randomly" screw over the player.

Imagine the situation - you've given your high martial friend an army to command, and suddenly an event fires (with, as usual no warning) that flips him to a rival, causing him to just wander off with the army and disobey you. Suddenly, all your plans are being overturned because of a bad event. At least some players would feel very badly treated by this.

You'd also suffer from having to take your strategy for wars, and put it entirely at the whim of the AI - and worse, not even a consistent, unified AI, but several different variations on the AI that aren't necessarily working together. And don't even get me started on if the commander of an army could turn traitor in the middle of a war and switch sides because RNGods say so.

 

[Narvait]

And don't even get me started on if the commander of an army could turn traitor in the middle of a war and switch sides because RNGods say so.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_von_Renys

The Baltic Crusades are full of events when local tribes who started as partners turned into backstabbers to Teutonic Order during the battle. But maybe it was less common in Christian Europe.

But I agree to your general sentiment, that whilst historic it would totally anger me in the game. And probably would not be a good thing for gameplay. Unless there could be a way to implement it properly. I.e. only dishonest intrigue generals would have risk of doing this. Hence do not put your army in hands of very martially capable yet cunning person.

 

[DreadLindwyrm]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicholas_von_Renys

The Baltic Crusades are full of events when local tribes who started as partners turned into backstabbers to Teutonic Order during the battle. But maybe it was less common in Christian Europe.

But I agree to your general sentiment, that whilst historic it would totally anger me in the game. And probably would not be a good thing for gameplay. Unless there could be a way to implement it properly. I.e. only dishonest intrigue generals would have risk of doing this. Hence do not put your army in hands of very martially capable yet cunning person.

Oh true enough, it happened all the time as a historic thing - the problem would be in the game, players would be furious if (for example) the commander of their biggest stack (maybe even the whole army if you're consolidating for a big battle) flipped to the enemy. Especially as the commander could become disloyal in the field after being your most trusted friend, simply because a bad event has fired at the wrong time.

Just my couple of thoughts on why it'd be bad, along with the AI sometimes being a bit strange when acting as an ally in wars - which presumably would be what a "loyal" commander who'd taken command of your army would use, or at least a variation of it.

 

[gdj]

When i first read OP´s suggestion i thought "no, that´s insane". But pondering this a bit more, i actually came to like the idea. You would choose your commanders much, much more careful. In fact it is the best incentive to lead your armies personally, like medieval rulers usually did. Currently there is no real reason to do that other than roleplaying. It would add a very interesting dimension to the game.

That said, i doubt that it would work out well in reality. The AI has become even worse when it comes to military decision making with conclave. It would be a nightmare to give the order, for exaple, to take a county in North Africa and then see your idiot commander walking all the way from France to North Africa on land via Asia Minor.