Suggestions

[ex_ottoyuhr]

Post suggestions here! (Note, this should be new features you'd like to see in the game -- rebalancing of existing ones should go in "bugs" -- but don't lose any sleep over it.)

Note, subjects I'm currently working on include the following:

* Sieges -- though on a higher "level" than you might think; castle assaults themselves will almost certainly be present but won't be central to the system.

* NPC stuff: The NPCs from 0.20 are certainly coming back next version, and I'll probably add more. A much more interesting system of interactions with them is definitely in the stars.

* The storyline: Well... eventually.

[The Xeno]

One thing I would ask that you consider, is adding back in some of the native weapons. Not in the abundance or price range of

[ex_ottoyuhr]

I'll give it some thought. I can't think of a culture in this setting that would fit very well with axes, but they might be available somewhere or other -- Rapla, say, which despite its icy conditions has a good bit of foreign involvement. (Provided there's a "foreign" society within range that would concievably use axes... Like I said, I'll have to think further about this.)

What kind of weapons and armors would you (or anyone else reading this) particularly want to see?

[messenger]

Sabres, Scale armour stuff like what's on the Holy War mod .
Does this mean you have new weapons on the mod already?

[Tuckles]

Armors I'd like to see:

 - Shirts. Good old shirts.
 - Armors with different names from:

Kantis and...

Kasja.

[Cirdan]

But Kantis and Kasja makes recognition easy. Kantis is for you, kasja for Naisu or whichever girlfriend you picked.

I'd like to suggest being able to ransom your prisoners; for instance, if I have a captured Sivaic knight, i could request a meeting with the lord of Sisian (or any other Sivas city) and then offer to free the captured knight, in exchange for cash--5 rallen per level of the captured troop sounds about right to me. Obviously, if the city can't afford to ransome him, then i should get a (preferrably rude) message telling me i'm a bloodthirsty extortionist, or something to that effect. Also, you should have the option (when talking to a prisoner) of executing him, preferably in a bloody and painful manner. And if you could have a yelp of agony to satisify our basest instincts, that would be grand.

For sieges, i suppose you are going to be basing them on the defenders's morale and supply levels, am I correct? When it comes to breaching the walls, my suggestion would be to make scenes for each town where they have a breach in the walls and the gate shut, plus more space for manouevering outside than in the normal town scene, and have the breach be created through a menu system. After all, it would be impractical to have interactive scenes where the PC directs a mining attempt or the construction of a trebuchet and subsequent bombardment over a number of days.

[ex_ottoyuhr]

Messenger,

Yes, though they aren't too visible, now that I think about it -- I'm using a lot of the Valentine Armories swords (I forget the weapon pack's author), for one thing.

Tuckles,

Perhaps, then, employing conlang'ed names for the various types of soldiers wouldn't be such a good idea...

(FWIW, the words are actually pretty inconsistent with the language as it currently stands -- and it, of course, is still very much in development...

The basic kantis and family are the shirt-analogues, or will be once I manage to get concept art and a modeller or fifty. I think I may want to learn drawing, though, and do the concept art myself -- to avoid serious IP issues down the road...)

Cirdan,

Ransoming prisoners is an excellent idea -- I'll have to implement that. (Did I mention that it's really refreshing to be talking with you outside the context of "ASLOW and Orientalism," too? )

I don't have a high opinion of "satisfying basest instincts" to begin with, and besides that, ASLOW's aiming for a pretty different tone from the 'mainstream' of M&B settings. So, executing prisoners can be pretty solidly ruled out, apart, of course, from the question of what bit bucket prisoners vanish into when you don't take them with you...

You're right on sieges and defender's supplies (I hadn't thought of morale -- I'll have to add that) -- though the attacker's supplies will be an issue too.

("COOK: But we're not 'in a siege,' we're doing the besieging, it's the other side that's 'in a siege,' when will you get this into your head?
 MOTHER COURAGE: A fat lot of difference that makes, we haven't got a thing to eat either. They took everything into the town with them before all this started, and now they've nothing to do but eat and drink, I hear. It's us I'm worried about. Look at the farmers around here, they haven't a thing.")

I could include the rest of the scene, but I don't think that'd qualify as fair use...

Note that sallies, and duels between the commanders (this is your warning: head to Storymod and bone up!), will be a fairly significant part of the battle, too. I agree that static 'breach' scenes will be the best bet -- though I can't help but think that for twenty cities, that's going to be a lot of scene design.

Do I have any volunteers?

[zjhann]

i noticed that there was a lot of middle eastern theme going on. so i was wondering if you would also consider using armors or weapons from southeast and north east asia. maybe its just me but to be honest, all the armors look very similar and i can't really tell which faction the soldiers are from. it feels like there is no distinguishable features in the armors or weapons.
it is easy to tell the different between Kerghit and Swadian. i think it is fairly easy to tell the difference between Swadians and Vaegirs. i just can't tell the difference between Sivavic and Amiran (i apologize if i am messing up the spellings). i thought it would be a be nice to have more variety of armors and weapons with more distinguishable features.
if you look at the holy war mod, figuring out which soldier belongs to which faction is very simple. it is mostly heavy plate or chain armor, full helm with weapons like claymor, lance and morning star vs. leather or scale armor, turban with weapons like scimitar, spear and axe.

[Papa Lazarou]

Just a quick thought. Maybe a tutorial would be a good idea (done like by the slave trader/trainer in vanilla). In dialogue would be enough I think, not that it's that hard to work out, I just think that the player's character would realistically know how to do what from the start. Stuff like managing alliances, offence/defence of cities, money, "alarm level" (not sure what this does) and similar.

[Cirdan]

Commander duels? not for me, i'm a Machiavellian bastard. If he really wants to come into my siege lines, fine--but it's hand over the keys or I'll have his head chopped off. And how can he trust me if he hands over the keys? well it isn't in my interests to betray my word to often. Oh dear, not another tangent.

Sallies are brilliant, though. I hope we won't be able to see how strong the garrison is without some kind of espionnage. I've been thinking of this (been thinking of making my own mod, in fact, although for the time being it lives solely in my head) and IMO the easiest way to have realistic espionnage would be to require the PC to infiltrate the town, then bribe a shady character in the tavern to tell him the city's garrison strength. Hopefully, once they actually have to pay for those troops, cities won't be hiring new defenders as fast as they currently are in ASLOW.

[Satyr]

I think political bargaining should be more expensive, it costs only 7500r to truce wth Sivas. Which meant I only had to deal with Aimsemes(sp?) The truce should be day based in that you buy the truce for a set amount of time instead.

I reckon there should be more places, not cities, more like townships. It'd be interesting if you added camps like the Gladiator mod too. I guess this is because I realised that once you own the map I don't know if there's much else to do unless you made it so there was a probability that the cities would rebel based on management of it. Say if you managed to catch a town you need a set amound of troops to hold it for a set amound of time because you can have it, sorta Total Warish.

Starting out the game was difficult as the number of troops in each grouping is fairly large which is problematic cause they tend to be all cavalry and swarm you. Is there a place to train? Quests would be good as well.

I really like the opening story even if it doesn't do anything but if each choice affected you stats that'd be awesome. So far brilliant mod. Keep up the excellent work.

[Merentha]

Just a quick thought. Maybe a tutorial would be a good idea (done like by the slave trader/trainer in vanilla). In dialogue would be enough I think, not that it's that hard to work out, I just think that the player's character would realistically know how to do what from the start. Stuff like managing alliances, offence/defence of cities, money, "alarm level" (not sure what this does) and similar.

This could easily be done by your steward, and is an excellent idea.

"Lord ___, you've been travelling for a while, perhaps you would like a reminder of ____"?

Roughly in character, and a great help to many of the people who seem confused by the war economics.

[Rover109]

It would be nice to have a little more purpose to overland parties too and give some meaning to positions of cities relative to Allies/enemies. If instead of tax collectors it was trade caravans from one city and back generating the majority of income. Less foraging parties cluttering the overland and purposeful parties as part of eceonomy.  Could have a steward option for sending caravan to diff. cities, with a correlation between distance and profit (further generates more).

[Merentha]

Could have a steward option for sending caravan to diff. cities, with a correlation between distance and profit (further generates more).

If the caravan actually had to reach the city and return, then I would love this option, especially if attacking enemy caravans could reduce a 'food' variable in the city, as would seiges.

[Satyr]

The problem I think is that if you don't have any allies where would they travel to? This is where my idea for satellite towns and villages comes in. That or the tax collectors set up camp for a set amount of time and return.

Also it'd be great if you could get food from loot. Sometimes you get so much loot but it'd be hard to sell off as the merchant, weaponsmith and armourer may all be out of money.