Tweaking troops

[shevchenko65]

Since army dynamics were so similar between all the factions, would it be possible just to make one line of knights (instead of the Tyrell and Barantheon and Westernos knights) and just have the only difference between them is that they adapt the colors of the Lord in whose army they are in. So say Tywin's knights will be all decked out in red and gold with liions, but if they get captured and switch sides and fight for Mace Tyrell they will be in green with flowers on them. So they are still all same troops with same stats, but they just look differently.

[Ron Losey]

Since army dynamics were so similar between all the factions, would it be possible just to make one line of knights (instead of the Tyrell and Barantheon and Westernos knights) and just have the only difference between them is that they adapt the colors of the Lord in whose army they are in. So say Tywin's knights will be all decked out in red and gold with liions, but if they get captured and switch sides and fight for Mace Tyrell they will be in green with flowers on them. So they are still all same troops with same stats, but they just look differently.

Cute, but technically an issue.  The only way to make different colors of equipment is with different items.  And the only way to determine which item troops use is by having different troops.

We went through this with Onin-no-Ran ... the samurai are identical units for the various sides, except they have to be different troop types, and each one get the color of his side.

It should be possible to rig a script that will trade one for the other... but in the item file, they still have to be different troops.

[ser Jeekim]

Yeah, that is how it should work.
We would need to devise this kind of script anyway, if we want the Others to turn their prisoners into Wights...

[Sparehawk]

Since army dynamics were so similar between all the factions, would it be possible just to make one line of knights (instead of the Tyrell and Barantheon and Westernos knights) and just have the only difference between them is that they adapt the colors of the Lord in whose army they are in. So say Tywin's knights will be all decked out in red and gold with liions, but if they get captured and switch sides and fight for Mace Tyrell they will be in green with flowers on them. So they are still all same troops with same stats, but they just look differently.

Cute, but technically an issue.  The only way to make different colors of equipment is with different items.  And the only way to determine which item troops use is by having different troops.

We went through this with Onin-no-Ran ... the samurai are identical units for the various sides, except they have to be different troop types, and each one get the color of his side.

It should be possible to rig a script that will trade one for the other... but in the item file, they still have to be different troops.

Yes, it's not too comfortable for modder to have a dozens of nearly identical units, but I can't see any other way to do it in current game architecture realization.

[Phelerox]

Hm.. In my opinion the Ironborn should have way less horses.. I don't recall any situation in the books where the Ironborn use horses in battle.. It's sort of against their culture, so even if the nobility would have acccess to horses (though with very limited skills in horsemanship), it is still highly unlikely that they would use them in battle [Perhaps for scouting though?], since that would logically decrease the morale of the men. Furthermore, what's an "Ironborn Capitan"? (You have mistyped the troopname, though that is no major sin.)
Anyway, everything else so far; Awesome!
[Version 0.42]

[Agent Griff]

I say you should keep the current troop configuration (Westerland troops, Stormland troops etc.) and give the surcoats shown in the link I provided above to most mid-tier troops of said faction (since they are most common) so that they would be easier to recognize on the field by those who don't use name tags to highlight friendly troops. Thus, the red surcoat can be modified to bear a Lannister lion on its breast and be used generally by Westerland infantrymen and horsemen (maybe some poorer knights?), the grey surcoat can bear a Stark direwolf on its breast, and be used by most northmen troops, the green surcoat could be used by the Tyrells and have a the Tyrell rose on its breast and the somewhat yellow surcoat could be used by either the mid-tier Stormland or the Dornishmen. I'd say Stormland troops more, since Dornishmen should look more exotic than your run-of-the-mill Westerosi man-at-arms. In the case of Stormland troops, a Baratheon stag on the breast should fit perfectly.

Perhaps the blue surcoat could be used by the troops of the Vale? As far as I knew, the colours of House Arryn were blue and silver. Add a silver eagle and a moon on the surcoat and you're done imo.

So what do you think of my plan? It should make differentiating troops far easier but at the same time keep the level of variety mostly the same. I mean, not all mid-tier troops need wear the surcoats. Some could wear other armour, as long as the overall look remains the same. And all you have to do, is give them a different piece of equipment. Now, I don't know how equipment is assigned but I guess the A.I. chooses randomly from a selection of equipment, since troops of the same type don't always look the same as they did in previous versions of Mount & Blade.

[Ron Losey]

M&B has always selected items for the troops randomly from the list for that unit type in the "troops" file.  You can force it to pick something of a particular type, say armor or a ranged weapon, just to make sure that archers don't accidentally come out with no bows ... but you have to make sure, for example, that all archers have bows but no other ranged weapons in their stack.  How much variation you get is just a question of how many possibilities you give to the troop type.

Some earlier versions of Native had very limited selection for certain troops ... about the first thing modders did was add a few items to get greater variation.  More recent Native versions have picked up on that somewhat, but there was no real change in the mechanism.

[Agent Griff]

Here is a good example of a wide variety of surcoats which, I'd say, would be very useful for a pseudo-medieval setting like that of ASoIaF. Seeing as almost everyone and their grandma has their own coat-of-arms and family colours, I think heraldic surcoats would prove useful on the field, at least to identify the leaders of the enemy host by the distinct colours of their surcoats and the barding of their horse, which should differentiate from that of most mid and low-tier troops. Anyway, here's the link:

http://forums.taleworlds.net/index.php/topic,33839.0.html

This mod is called Heraldic Calradia and it adds a lot of heraldic items which go with both horses and equipment worn by the player character. It also adds banners that the player can choose which also go with the armour and horse barding. All in all, you can make yourself a worthy knight with the heraldry to show for it. The first post has a fair bit of screenshots, but I think it's only fit to show the scope of all the heraldic equipment and items.

[Nahadiel]

I was just going to post that link but I have been out of my country for a few days.

To me it seems to be the best way to work out the troop tree problem. This way you can get a mix of basic troop tree (villagers, mercenaries and hedge&sworn knights) and some special trees for Dorne, Ironmen and maybe the North (mainly equipment and troop names differences)... and have a smooth way to recognize troops while fighting. Furthermore, each lord would have his men dressed with his banner instead the main faction banner. But dunno if it's to do as my mod skills are really poor.

The problem of this is the lack of variety as almost every faction would have the same troops, thus, no focusing in one area (as Vaegirs in archery or Swadians in heavy cavalry).

IMO there should be two different trees for shooters, bowmen and crossbowmen as the first requires lots of training to get a decent accuracy but it has a greater fire rate and the second has the advantage of inmediatelly having tons of decent accuracy shooters with good stopping power but low fire rate. I mean, it makes no sense that a novice crossbowman becomes a marksman with the bow after a couple of battles or vice versa.

[Ron Losey]

No logical reason for a connection, or lack thereof, between accuracy and rate of fire.  Unlike automatic rifles, where recoil throws off your next shot, it just takes a certain block of time to pull out an arrow, draw the bow and release.  With a bow, you can't aim for longer than a second or two, because you are holding the bow at full draw.

Plus rate of fire is an attribute of the bow - the only way to set that up is to give one group short bows and the other long bows.  That is an option - especially when you're talking about mixing longbows and crossbows ... a few very heavy crossbows for the range and knock-down, mixed with a force of much faster firing conventional longbows to keep the pressure on continuously.  A common trick really used when defending castle walls.

In the ancient world, armies generally hired their archers from woodsmen, hunters, and farm boys who had been using a bow all their lives.  Therefore, accuracy was not their big problem - the military issue was just getting them to march in a straight line, and not break and run when things got hot.

[Sparehawk]

Just for visual information... Currently used troops' trees:

Lannisters	Tyrrels	Martells
Baratheons	Starks

Digits in brackets are troops' level.

[Ron Losey]

Question:

The Northern Recruit - possible to upgrade to either Footman (level 10) or archer (level 14) - does that upgrade properly?  Does it give both upgrade options at the same time, or does the first one to appear overwrite the other?  Because I've never seen an upgrade done that way, with options of dissimilar levels, and I sort of suspect that there might be a reason.

[Nahadiel]

No logical reason for a connection, or lack thereof, between accuracy and rate of fire.  Unlike automatic rifles, where recoil throws off your next shot, it just takes a certain block of time to pull out an arrow, draw the bow and release.  With a bow, you can't aim for longer than a second or two, because you are holding the bow at full draw.

There is, but not due the same reason. English is not my main language so maybe I'm not explaining myself properly.

Rate of fire: reloading a crossbow takes a while, you need to put it down to the floor (the heavy ones), put your foot on it and turn the lever with both hands until the "bolt container" is back to fire position. Then close the "lock" and put the bolt on it. A bow just requires to catch an arrow, pull it back and release.

Aiming and accuracy: in battles, archers usually didn't shoot directly to a man. They shot at the mass of men in a parabolic trajectory. Trained archers start to aim as they bring the bow to fire position. I mean, in the same movement they pull back the arrow, aim and reach fire position. So they can release the arrow after 1 or 2 seconds or even less if they do indirect fire.

A mid-trained shooter can get a decent accuracy with a crossbow for some reasons. It is shot like a rifle, easier than a bow; you don't have to keep the pull, so can take all the time you need without any effort; and you may have the aid from some primitive aiming device. That was the reason crossbows and after gunpowder weapons took over in the battlefields: you get a good fire power just equipping recruits with those weapons. They don't need a long time training, they become veterans as they fight and survive.

In the ancient world, armies generally hired their archers from woodsmen, hunters, and farm boys who had been using a bow all their lives.  Therefore, accuracy was not their big problem - the military issue was just getting them to march in a straight line, and not break and run when things got hot.

I didn't said accuracy was a problem for bows, just that it required hard training. It takes years to train a never-miss marksman with a bow but once they are proficient, they achieve a good accuracy.

And as farmers and villagers in medieval age (feudalism?) weren't allowed to carry military weapons or to hunt in their lord's properties I don't think every villager was proficient with bows. So on, hunters had a special permission to hunt in their lords properties and helped him when he was gone to hunt. I think in a 100 people village (50% male), a maximun of 10 would be hunters IMO as fields&cattle demanded a lot of people.

I'd compare it to man-at-arms and farmer-levies: man-at-arms are trained and more effective but a Lord has tons of villagers to create levies. A Lord has less trained archers with a higher rate fire but has tons of farmers with crossbows that shot slower.

[Agent Griff]

You mean levy troops right? Not leaves.

Anyway, there are some things about that troop tree that I think need changing Sparehawk. First of all, I think the jump in the Lannister troops from Westerland footman directly to Westerland knight is too sudden. I think there should be an intermediate stage between footman and knight, like horseman followed by squire or some such system. And the dornishmen prefer the bow instead of the crossbow, so I don't see why Dornish troops should have crossbowmen in their ranks instead of archers and bowmen. As for the Baratheons, I find the inclusion of horse archers in their ranks to be rather...odd. I never saw it mentioned in the books that there were horse archers of any kind in Westeros, let alone the fact that House Baratheon had them in their ranks. I think there were horse archers in Dorne, though, so maybe you should outfit them with horse archers like the ones the Baratheons currently.

Just as well, shouldn't the Rainbow Guard be part of the Tyrell faction? I mean, Renly was their leader and all and his main support were the Tyrells and their bannermen. The Storm lords and Marcher lords as well, but the Tyrell bannermen made up most of his host.

My main question, however, is what is the actual troop system you'll be using for the next version? This is the troop system for the current release of the mod, but what of the next one?

[Nahadiel]

You mean levy troops right? Not leaves.

Ooops  . Yes, I'm gonna change it to avoid possible misunderstandings.