Feature Request: Personal Guard

[Ekrexor]

I've seen this feature in the Warhammer Mod Geheimnisnacht before and it's basically a from your own Varangian Guard feature.
Select a castle, choose between Heavy Cavalry, Heavy Infantry et cetera, spend 1000 gold and boom your own personal regiment of 1.000 Elite Soldiers.

It's a mercenary company that's like the Varangian Guard that you can recruit for free (+ a mediocre maintenance cost).
I think this feature would fit this modification perfectly, as many rulers at that time had their own guard.

Maybe the title of leader of your guard could be an honorary title. A cool additional feature could be to upgrade your guard and give them small holdings like baronies or churches to increase their numbers.

It would be nice if you could incorporate this feature into the main mod or more likely one of the modules, as this would skyrocket the Immerse-O-Meter to abnormal levels.


By the way, I'm still waiting for a decision to buy new super fancy clothes worthy of an emperor!
Only those who are worthy shall see them!

 

[StarlightTW]

Isn't this basically what retinues already are? Admittedly the flavor stuff like the minor title is cool, and actually gives me an interesting idea.

 

[Shadow86]

Isn't this basically what retinues already are?

Sounds like it.

 

[Ekrexor]

It's a bit like retinues but retinues don't have flavor titles and stuff. I'd actually rather compare it to a Holy Order with the Holy.
Also, more flavor is always nice. Damn, I would install a mod that lets me choose which kinds of food get served on my feast! ^^

 

[Rylock]

If someone's willing to do all the work to create such a system, we'd consider adding it into EMF.

Otherwise? It seems unlikely.

 

[HandicapdHippo]

There are some problems with this in the Warhammer mod, the mercenary list become a bit bloated with personal mercs no-one else can recruit and it becomes a pain in the ass to go through, plus you can retract you vassals mercs fairly easily for free troops. Some of the problems are migrated by it only being available to the imperial cultures who are king tier and they get reduced levy to compensate. Here even if only kings or higher could do it it's going to be a problem even if you only let rulers have one unless you make it player only which would be pretty big advantage.

 

[Ekrexor]

Awww...

 

[StarlightTW]

Honestly the part of that whole thing I like best is the Captain of the Guard minor title. Cause I have some ideas about events that could center around such a person. Involving thwarted assassination attempts, bribery, that kind of thing.

 

[Ekrexor]

Nice! But the minor title should have a name related to your tier and government. Maybe even some additional things like culture and even if your character is part of the royal family (king +) the name should be also royal guard even if you're just a duke or count.

Here are some exaples for names 'n' stuff. It would add so much flavor to the mod.

Baron -- Personal Guard - Captain of ..

Count -- Household Guard - Captain of .. / Castle Guard - Captain of ..
Duke -- Elite Guard - Great Captain of .. / High Guard - High Captain of ..
King -- Royal Guard - Royal Captain of .. / Royal Order - Order Master of ..
Emperor -- Imperial Guard - (Imperial)Guard General of .. / Imperial Knight Order - Grandmaster of ..

of .. is just optional if it still fits in the minor title box thingy

Doge - i think a doge would hire expert mercs from all over the world so no real name probably just Mercenary Guard - High Captain

Chief only famliy members or maybe blood brothers (for additional flavor)? Huh huh?

Blood Guards - Bloodsbrother or Veteran Warriors - Old Warrior (30+) or Elite Warriors or Swordsmasters - High Swordmaster

Tribes don't have different names for tiers because 1. tribal empires nah! 2. tribe government don't change as much as maybe an empire or actual kingdom would.


Btw maybe the skill of your guards leader could increase the chance of you escaping a siege and surviving assassinations.

 

[StarlightTW]

I mean, I'm not sure all of that is really even necessary, seems to be overly complicating something that's fairly straightforward. Even tribal leaders often had guards. So really, just Captain of the Guard would fit nicely outside of regional localization if something like this were implemented, imo.

 

[Rylock]

I would assume that all rulers had guards and other close attendants, none of whom need to be represented by an in-game character.

 

[StarlightTW]

I would assume that all rulers had guards and other close attendants, none of whom need to be represented by an in-game character.

Well yeah. My own interest in the (admittedly far more toned down and generic) idea is solely as a minor title linked with the mod I've been working on for some time. That being said, I'm not sure if such a thing is actually beyond the scope of said mod. I want to say 'yes' simply because I'm trying to keep it solely based on events for maximum compatibility. I don't want to start adding things in that might hinder its ability to play nice with other mods. My reasoning, really, is that a 'captain of the guard' could be someone that the ruler has a personal relationship with (not in the romantic sense, though I suppose this isn't out of the question for a female ruler), and the aim of the events I've been writing is to expound upon the story aspects of your ruler beyond the inconsequential one-off aspects of other events. So I'm sure you can see why I'd take at least a measure of interest in the idea. Still, I suppose what I have in mind could be represented in the abstract and simply spawn a courier if I needed one.

 

[BigPharma]

This idea has already been discussed internally at one point or another in various contexts, and my personal opinion after having begun some preliminary work on coding such a system a while back is this:

Benefits:
a) they're not unconditionally loyal and we can easily script reasoning for them not to be, mainly because they're now led by characters we can interact with
b) we can implement much more fine-tuned reasoning for the AI for when to expand it through triggers and such than with the current system, such that the AI might even be better than the player
c) it offers the player options for customizing compositions and numbers as much as they would like without having to stick to our preset compositions like with retinues
d) I was working on each guard commander having a custom title based on his culture, as well as allowing you to pretty much pick the culture of your guard depending on who you were choosing to lead it

The problems I can foresee are:
a) no easy interface to use, and as was already mentioned, the mercenary interface gets very cluttered
b) only one vassal merc per title, practically, and it's bound to titles, not to characters. Even if the one in charge of the guard may not like the new title holder or have fought against him/her in the past, they are somehow duty-bound to serve them.
c) not very friendly for splitting and using in several different places like retinues
d) no maintenance to pay for them when they're not being raised
e) raised immediately and with no hassles in the player's capital
f) can't add combat bonuses to troops like with retinues

Overall, it seemed like a lot of work to create an interesting, but ultimately clunky mechanic that does more or less what retinues already do. It'd be nice to have more character based interactions in this regard, but the game can only handle so much customization before we hit hardcoded walls.

 

[BigPharma]

As for the idea of just a captain of the guard minor title that can increase the intrigue of the holder and the intrigue of his liege (or some other stat that guards against plots), that's something that's easily implemented and could even form the basis of some interesting events.

 

[Zylathas]

As for the idea of just a captain of the guard minor title that can increase the intrigue of the holder and the intrigue of his liege (or some other stat that guards against plots), that's something that's easily implemented and could even form the basis of some interesting events.

I think an event based system -could- work, perhaps the likelyhood of bad events could be determined from a mix of ruler diplomacy and intrige?

 

[BigPharma]

I think an event based system -could- work, perhaps the likelyhood of bad events could be determined from a mix of ruler diplomacy and intrige?

Define "bad events".

 

[Zylathas]

Define "bad events".

Ok, some examples of these bad events:

Poor personal guard (+plot chance on you)
Assasination attempt (Wounded, perhaps maimed)
Assasination succesful (you die)
Personal guard ineffective against mob (+revolt risk, ruler wounded)
Compromised personal guard (-steward, - intrigue for ruler)
Personal guard sells secret (- vassal opinion)
Personal guard blackmails ruler (Pay gold or get a penalty).

Basically the bad events around these personal guards could have to do with the personal guard being bad, corrupt or mostly acting out of self-interest. This would create a problem for your ruler and might cost you stats or even your life.

 

[BigPharma]

Ok, some examples of these bad events:

Poor personal guard (+plot chance on you)
Assasination attempt (Wounded, perhaps maimed)
Assasination succesful (you die)
Personal guard ineffective against mob (+revolt risk, ruler wounded)
Compromised personal guard (-steward, - intrigue for ruler)
Personal guard sells secret (- vassal opinion)
Personal guard blackmails ruler (Pay gold or get a penalty).

Basically the bad events around these personal guards could have to do with the personal guard being bad, corrupt or mostly acting out of self-interest. This would create a problem for your ruler and might cost you stats or even your life.

Oh, I thought you were referring to events already in the game. We're more or less thinking of the same thing, then.

 

[2ndPorphyry]

So basically an expansion of the sort of events that already happen for emperors involving courtiers with the Imperial Guard/Courtier/Bureaucrat traits? That is, expanded to rulers of other ranks and tied to a new minor title? Sounds exciting, immersive, and (probably) not to difficult to add.

 

[Rylock]

So basically an expansion of the sort of events that already happen for emperors involving courtiers with the Imperial Guard/Courtier/Bureaucrat traits? That is, expanded to rulers of other ranks and tied to a new minor title? Sounds exciting, immersive, and (probably) not to difficult to add.

Possibly! I look forward to someone creating it.