Discussion: Faction Setups *Spoiler Warning*

[Kiado]

***Spoiler Warnings if you have read the books***

Ok, at this point I am working on setting up which Lords are in the game, what castles/towns if any they occupy, etc.  Now this process is bring some things to light.  I am now stuck with a decision of how to layout the factions, and whether to go after game balance, or realism.  I thought I would bring the discussion to everyone and see what people think on the subject.  Multiple heads are better than one they say.

Now, if I go with realism, you are going to have some fairly unbalanced factions.  Then again the other way to look at it would be level of difficulty you want to take on when choosing a faction to join.   If I laid out the factions on the map at the basic start of A Clash of Kings then you have three Large factions (King on the Iron Throne, The King in Highgarden, and the King in the North), one medium faction (Dornish faction), one small faction (King of the Iron Isles), and one tiny faction (King in the Narrow Sea). 

If you laid it out like that you would have King Renly with the largest starting faction.  Which is true to the books.  He had a distinct advantage in numbers, and his patience while the North and the Lannister's fought would have  most likely brought him  an easy victory if not for his untimely demise.  He holds The Reach, and Storms End which makes up a good portion of the populated areas of the Seven Kingdoms.   On the other end of the spectrum, if you laid it out on the map in the game Stannis would only have Dragonstone and nothing else.  So it would be a faction with one Castle and no towns.   In the middle of those you have the North and the Iron Throne about equal in forces and only a little smaller than the Renly faction.   Followed by Dorne which is a little smaller than the top three.  The Iron Isles has two castles and a town basically on their islands, which makes them no quite tiny, at least compared to Stannis' faction.

So the question I pose is do we strike for realism in conjunction with the books, or do we fudge some things and give each faction a decent chance of surviving in the game?

You could also see the realism angle as a difficulty level as well as I said above.   Where playing King Renly's faction would be considered easy, North and Iron Throne fairly easy, Dorne being Medium, and Greyjoys and Stannis being Hard.   I am interested in your opinion on that as well.   

With this being said, the final decision will rest with the team, but I know ideas can be found all over the place. 

EDIT:  Retitled the thread.

[HokieBT]

Well, my first comment is that the land each faction controls is only half of the equation, I think the other question needs to be how many knights/armies should they have, what size and type of troops, and possibly what the default aggression is, or aggression to specific factions is?   For example, if you did the map layout in the books, but every faction has the same number of armies, then somebody like stannis would be raiding a LOT (no castles to protect) while the other factions might have trouble keeping their land since it was so big.   Or you could give somebody like Stannis only 2 knights, but put a LOT of troops in their party templates, so their army was really strong but stayed closed to home and their garrison size was huge, etc.  So I think gameplay balancing could also be done with increasing/decreasing the number of knights and the size of their armies/garrison.  Now with all that being said, I think I'd vote for a faction/map layout close to the books, but giving one or two close castles/villages/knights to somebody like stannis just so that his faction doesn't start with nothing and its a little more balanced. I also thing this is good for the native game, since there are a lot of fairly complicated formula's in the game, some of which involve the number of villages/castles owned and things like that.  So I would have some concern about starting a faction with only a single town, since I'm not sure if this might cause some weird behavior in the game (changing allegiances, etc).  I do like the idea of the inherent different difficulty levels for each faction, so I definitely wouldn't balance them out entirely.

[Kiado]

Excellent comments HokieBT.   I am glad you brought up the subject of knights, army sizes, and the like.  It will play another part in the balance of the game. 

After I made the post I started referencing the books and websites to try and dig further into it.  Basically at the start of Clash of Kings, Stannis is (self-admitted) heavily outnumbered and is hoping the power of Melisendre will help tip the scales in his favor, which is why he embraces her ideas.  So him starting as the weakest faction is true to the story.  At the same time it is reasonable to say since he is a smaller faction, he gets more bang for his buck, meaning his Lord parties could be fairly large due to their condensed area.   So Stannis' small number of Lords have a little bit larger armies than most factions to help give them an edge. 

Now, in the books, the only reason Stannis remains in power is the sorcery that betrayed Renly, provided by Melisendre's power.   We (at least to my skill level) can't duplicate this feat in game just do to what it would involve.    I guess the event of Renly being slain and his host disintegrating or moving to Stannis might be achievable, but you would essentially eliminate the faction, so that isn't acceptable.   

In the same regard, Renly boasts to Catelyn that he has a host of 80,000 + 10,000 at Highgarden, which is significantly larger than even King Robb, or the House Lannister hosts.  Beyond that he has a large number of Houses sworn to him at the time, which should or could translate into Knights/Lords in the game.   

Now, it would be technically wrong to not give Renly large armies, and quite a few lords under him.  At the same time though, these are not 80,000 Knights.   You would have to assume that an army that large in this type of world would be made up heavily of conscript level troops and green Sellswords.  So would giving them a higher amount of lower level troops give an effective balance?  Basically Renly's amries would take heavier loses, but in the end win by pure numbers?   Is this a reasonable balance settlement action or what?

Going on that same line of thinking, you could say that House Lannister (Iron Throne faction) has less men then Renly's faction.  The difference being due to the relatively wealthy status of the Lannister bannerman due to their rich areas of land, could mean they have better trained soldiers with House Lannister soldiers (some already veteran units) as the backbone of their armies.   The Northmen as well could be much better trained or adequate fighters due to the relative harsh lands they live in compared to southern lands.   So smaller force at higher levels again like the Lannisters.     Is this reasonable as well?

Basically could you use all these factors to strike a balance?   Using number of knights, experience of soldiers, and size of armies all together to achieve a nearly accurate* landscape of power?   My hands hurt so I am going to stop here for now.

* - "accurate" will be subjective to the confines of the game, so don't think I am thinking of giving Renly 80,000 troops.

[tommylaw]

in the third and fourth books, most tyrell soldiers are referred to as men-at-arms

i dunno about you, but i always thought that renly had more professional troops with him, and certainly a lot of knights

[HokieBT]

I think what you described would work.  The only thing you'd have to consider is that if you give Renly a lot of lower tier recruits then as game time passes they will be upgraded automatically into better soldiers.  So as you mentioned you may have to tweak each faction troops as well.  Possibly Renly's troops would have higher levels (more expensive & takes longer to upgrade) and low or average weapon proficiency and skills, Lannister could have better armor/weapons (they have more money) and average/high weapon prof & skills, maybe North and Stannis have high weapon proficiency and skills but only average armor, etc.  Also, the kingdom armies are built from the party templates, so you many not want to put the lower tier troops into the templates.  For example, if you had a Recruit that upgrades into either a Footman or a Horseman, then if you added the 10 Recruits into the party template then the game would randomly choose the upgrade path when the army is built.  But if you instead did 8 Horseman and 2 Footman than you could better manage what the army will end up looking like.  You could still leave a few recruits in to give variety, but with these type of changes you might choose to give Renly more footman troops, and the North more horseman, etc.  

My other advice would be to make sure you use lots of variables in your troops file so its easy to balance later.  Like the native game did with the knights (knight_attrib_# & knight_skills_#) I define separate attributes, skills, and other data for each of my factions (ie. f1_skill_1, f1_attrib_1) at the top of the troops file.  So if I want to upgrade the ironflesh or power strike on all troops for faction 2 its easy to do, etc.  You could potentially do this with items as well (f1_plate_mail, f2_plate_mail, etc) but that might get a little cumbersome.  I also suggest checking out the heraldic armors and shields, since I believe a few are commented out in the 1.x code, but they seem to work fine in the game for me. So those work pretty good to give to all faction troops and they look different because of the banners.

[Oroonin]

One way to balance out would be the way it´s done in CaW and tEatRC, where each factions base unit, the recruit, is always upgraded into regular troop, pikemen, archers etc, while the knights derive from a different base unit. This way you could have a Highgarden-tree that is weaker than the others, while still retaining the knights. Also having different non-hero parties would help, the Highgarden patrols consisting of conscripts and the northmen patrols of umber axemen. Also if the startingtime is adjusted to right after the siege of storm´s end Stannis would have that, which could be considered a town due to its importence and Tarth which could be a castle. A bit of tinkering with the lore in this period could also place Renly as claimant for Dragonstone. The placement of bandits could also be used for balance, placing ironmen at Shield Islands (although that is, again, tinkering with lore) and just about no bandits anywhere near Stannis.

[Kiado]

I have been super busy today, so I haven't been able to respond yet.  I like this discussion though.  Very good stuff coming up here.

I think what you described would work.  The only thing you'd have to consider is that if you give Renly a lot of lower tier recruits then as game time passes they will be upgraded automatically into better soldiers.  So as you mentioned you may have to tweak each faction troops as well.  Possibly Renly's troops would have higher levels (more expensive & takes longer to upgrade) and low or average weapon proficiency and skills, Lannister could have better armor/weapons (they have more money) and average/high weapon prof & skills, maybe North and Stannis have high weapon proficiency and skills but only average armor, etc.  Also, the kingdom armies are built from the party templates, so you many not want to put the lower tier troops into the templates.  For example, if you had a Recruit that upgrades into either a Footman or a Horseman, then if you added the 10 Recruits into the party template then the game would randomly choose the upgrade path when the army is built.  But if you instead did 8 Horseman and 2 Footman than you could better manage what the army will end up looking like.  You could still leave a few recruits in to give variety, but with these type of changes you might choose to give Renly more footman troops, and the North more horseman, etc.  

My other advice would be to make sure you use lots of variables in your troops file so its easy to balance later.  Like the native game did with the knights (knight_attrib_# & knight_skills_#) I define separate attributes, skills, and other data for each of my factions (ie. f1_skill_1, f1_attrib_1) at the top of the troops file.  So if I want to upgrade the ironflesh or power strike on all troops for faction 2 its easy to do, etc.  You could potentially do this with items as well (f1_plate_mail, f2_plate_mail, etc) but that might get a little cumbersome.  I also suggest checking out the heraldic armors and shields, since I believe a few are commented out in the 1.x code, but they seem to work fine in the game for me. So those work pretty good to give to all faction troops and they look different because of the banners.

   

I want to discuss this part more, but I have a ton of crap to do right now so I am going to wait and come back to this.   I do what you said though, I have silly amounts of defined attributes and skills for all kinds of things.  Not to mention, Clegane is probably going to murder me for talking about this since he is working on the troops, but I want to make sure everything ties together right.

One way to balance out would be the way it´s done in CaW and tEatRC, where each factions base unit, the recruit, is always upgraded into regular troop, pikemen, archers etc, while the knights derive from a different base unit. This way you could have a Highgarden-tree that is weaker than the others, while still retaining the knights. Also having different non-hero parties would help, the Highgarden patrols consisting of conscripts and the northmen patrols of umber axemen. Also if the startingtime is adjusted to right after the siege of storm´s end Stannis would have that, which could be considered a town due to its importence and Tarth which could be a castle. A bit of tinkering with the lore in this period could also place Renly as claimant for Dragonstone. The placement of bandits could also be used for balance, placing ironmen at Shield Islands (although that is, again, tinkering with lore) and just about no bandits anywhere near Stannis.

I will have to try those mods both out and see what you are talking about.  Plus everyone seems to love tEatRC so I should try it anyways.  That was basically my idea though, in general some factions are weaker fighters then others for whatever reason.   

As far as bandits go I already have Reach Bandits (sellsword types, hedge knights), then Northern Tribesman bandits, and also Eyrie Mountain Tribes (Milksnakes, Painted Dogs, Stone Crows, Black Ears, Burned Men), and there will of course be a very small number of Wilding raiding parties, sellsword companies, and I am sure many other things for random enemies on the map.

Anyways, I will come back to comment further when I have more time.

[Kiado]

in the third and fourth books, most tyrell soldiers are referred to as men-at-arms

i dunno about you, but i always thought that renly had more professional troops with him, and certainly a lot of knights

Renly does have the most professional soldiers just because of his sheer numbers, but he would also have the most green or conscript type warriors as well in large force.   It's just the way of medieval warfare in a monarchy type government.   Conscripts are a large make up of any force, but in the books you aren't going to hear about those men. 

Just do to the number of Lords in the Renly faction I think you would see it the same in the game.   

[Oroonin]

The basic layout in CaW is that you need high influence with a lord and be a member of the faction to be able to recruit noblemen (via conversation, been used in one of the viking mods as well) while membership suffice in tEatRC to recruit faction-specials via the town menue. But yeah, try it, you´ll like it!

[Night Ninja]

I got these excerpts from the RPG book. Hope they're useful.

[tommylaw]

i think it should be done as it is in the book, give stannis very little lords and a few coastal keeps on the stormland shores

[Oroonin]

The numbers and general descriptions seems about right, but the foot/horse ratios seems quite overestimated. as previously stated, the bulk of any medieval army was made up of peasants, conscripts and spearmen. 5:1 should be considered avarage.

[Oroonin]

Just checked numbers for agincourt and stirling, and the french and english respectivly deployed some 10-15% horse. I always found the heavy bias toward cav a bit frustrating in MB, oftentimes inf hardly even makes any sence training.

[Kiado]

Thanks Night Ninja,  I have that same book and it has a wealth of information if I can ever read the whole damn thing. 

The Mounted/Foot ratios stated by the D20 book seem alright to me.  Mounted combat is a big part of the Seven Kingdoms or at least that is the way it seems to presented in the books.  I love infantry warfare as well though, so I think we can strike a healthy balance between both. 

Now, like with Renly's armies (Basically The Reach and much of the Stormlands) you have a 2 to 3/1 Ratio of Foot/Mounted as stated by the above source.  Now the detail as I would see it would be that much of the mounted portion of the army would be at best light cavalry or scout types.   Lets take 3/1 ratio on it for an example.   Thats 20,000 mounted men in Renly's army.   Now lets say 1 in 25 of those 20,000 are actually Knights, and by that I mean the mounted fortress highly trained in war type knight, which would be around 800.   I would also say that 1 in 25 are knights is a little high.  They are like the equivalent of having an M1 Abrams tank these days in cost comparison.   Anyways, so the other 19,200 mostly comprised of scouts and lighter calvalry, then a pretty good amount of medium to heavy cavalry.   

Now, in game terms could you present that with having easy to get weak cavalry, that take a long time to get to a "Knight" level?  Lets say you have a theoretical troop called a "Reach Recruit", now this base unit would branch to either a light cavalry or a light infantry.   Pretty standard stuff.   Now if you take the Light Cavalry route then you get some pretty weak light cavalry and you are stuck with it for some time.   If you can keep them alive long enough though, you will be rewarded with the M1 Abrams so to speak.  You could balance that, and lend to keep it Infantry heavy by having a bunch of nice upgrades you could have had if you took the infantry route.  So basically deck out the infantry upgrades so they are hard to pass up.    Does that make sense?  To me in Mount and Blade it just seems to easy to get such a powerful force. 

I need to get Clegane in here to discuss troops since he is currently working on them. 

I am also thinking of adding House Arryn as a faction, because I don't like the current setup of them belonging to the Lannisters.  I may add them as a perma-neutral faction.  Still thinking on it. 

 

[Night Ninja]

All of those are pretty valid options, and it's just a matter of what you guys think fits the mod better.

What I'm wondering is what period the arms and equipment will emulate. It's mentioned that pikes were in common use (which necessitates disciplined troops in formation), but peasant levies are also common at the same time. ASOIAF troops seem like a massive smorgasbord of different units to me. 

Another thing: full plate seems to be very uncommon for the average knight. It's seen in the Dunk & Egg novellas (admittedly, it's quite early, but I'm assuming Westerosi technological development wasn't very quick) that Humphrey Hardyng, who was one of the better knights at the tourney, was wearing mail and bits of plate. There's also the illustration of one of the covers (A Storm of Swords), with Edmure Tully clad in armour that's primarily mail. It seems to me that this indicates either a lack of good armourers in certain regions, or the extreme cost of a good suit of plate.