Couple of Ideas...

[ChaosLord]

Had a couple ideas and figured i'd post them, probably too late for any to get added in to VI, but maybe R:TW? Anyway, here they are.

Marriages: Allow use of marriage by your Princess to Rebel Generals to claim province, a 'peaceful' way of expanding. Also allow marriages of your princesses to Generals enable them to take the throne. (But only for that generation) And lastly allow you to marry your princess to a Mercenary unit/general so that units loyalty is increased and its support costs are standard.

Mercenarys: Allow the hiring of Mercenary generals, perhaps make having Castle along with Inn pre-resrequite? They should be rare and not all that loyal, but have them specializing in different things. Have some vices surrounding Mercenaries. I've played a few campaigns using mercs as the mainstay as my army, and they've played a partly important role in others.

Perhaps the Vices could be something like Heartless Employer -2 to -6 Merc morale, with desc of Often leaves Mercenary units out to die and so forth. With a good vice being the opposite of it focusing on boosting Morale or maybe Generals Command if Army is more then half Mercs.

It would also be nice for Mercs to slowly regen unit strength, as its annoying to disband 20 1/10th sized units and have them keep appearing in inns. Maybe have it so when passing through friendly lands with inns they have a chance to regenerate some? I don't think it'd be too unbalanced so long as it was spread out awhile. Maybe balance this by making them cost the support cost for full unit at all times?

I'd also like to be able to give lands to Mercs in exchange for great deeds and so forth, turning them to regular non-merc units under my control like I mentioned above. Its just to add a bit of theme and expand on it abit. Anyway, tell me what you think.

[A.Saturnus]

Welcome to the Org ChaosLord http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif

Interesting suggestions. Mercs have played a significant role in the armies of the high and late medieval period, so I think they are a bit underrepresentated in the game. Hm, don`t know how that was in Roman times, but I can imagine there were a lot of mercs too, so some of this could be used in RTW.

[ShadesPanther]

i like the idea of the mercs regenerating as it is really annoying not being able to give them more men as honestly they should be able to put up recruiting posters everywhere they go http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif
its would also very nice if you could create hybrid units like some mercs and some regulars but they would have a big upkeep cost and their morale suffers a bit because the regulars dont trust mercs as much as they should

[Gregoshi]

Hi ChaosLord. Thanks for dropping in.

Nice ideas. The princess idea would definitely expand their usefulness. Regarding the merc general, are you saying to all hiring just the general himself and not units? Like the others stated, I like the merc too.

BTW, your comment about using a mostly merc army sounds like a very interesting approach to the campaign. Do you typically hire and disband them as needed or do you find you keep them hired until they are eliminated or too small to be effective?

[ChaosLord]

Thanks for the warm welcome.

The mercs not regenerating is one of my major annoyances, we should at least be able to train them back up to full strength in regions with inns.

As for the Merc general I just meant it like hiring a regular Mercenary units, just one who had command rating. Though maybe instead of Mercenary generals you could contract out entire Mercenary companies. Say you hire an Irish Merc Company that consists of 4 Kerns and 2 Gallowclasses, the contract lasts for X number of years then they disperse. Or maybe hire them specifically for defense/assault contracts and treat them like crusades in that if nothing happens they dwindle away. But the main reason for Generals would just be to boost factions who are cursed with horrible heirs and few Generals.

As for my mostly merc army, it was more of necessity then anything else. Playing the latest version of the MedMod so I decided to try the Aragonese. They start with a fairly well developed region and a good trade potentional. But, they're limited because they're lucky to take Navarre or Valencia before the Spanish/Almohads do. And even if they do they've got to first develop those regions to start producing units.

So I went with building ships instead of mass units to increase trade, only building occasional units to use as garrison forces. My main attacking army in-game consisted of all mercs until recently, now they're about at 1/3 and slowly disbanding as I consolidate Spain. Its expensive to do but when you're trading alot its a workable tactic. It allows you to field some quality troops early on as well, I just make sure i've got a good loyal General in charge of them.

Also I usually keep the ones I hired unless theres a better unit available to switch them with. I'll start disbanding them once they're at half strength or below unless i'm in desperate need of forces.

[hooah]

Couple more suggestions:

I think it should be very difficult to actually unite your kingdom under one popular king - there should be many more uprisings and troublesome generals, if not full-scale civil wars, so that you have to watch more than just your borders for threats to your kingdom. After all, it took a very charismatic and wily king (Henry II of England was one of the few) to get a loyal and productive government to work for him. This is especially true if the monarch leaves the homeland to fight for expansion of the kingdom.

Also the whole unit/region restriction thing is a good idea, as any province could only raise so many feudal knights, and the idea of huge standing armies existing in every border province of a kingdom is insane. There might be a royal army (or a few) of professional troops used for major offensives but any other army (especially ones to defend a suddenly invaded province) would be little more than hundreds and hundreds of peasants punctuated by smaller groups of men-at-arms, archers and an even smaller core of knights.

[ichi]

Quote[/b] (ChaosLord @ April 04 2003,01:59)]Marriages: Allow use of marriage by your Princess to Rebel Generals to claim province, a 'peaceful' way of expanding. Also allow marriages of your princesses to Generals enable them to take the throne. (But only for that generation) And lastly allow you to marry your princess to a Mercenary unit/general so that units loyalty is increased and its support costs are standard.
I agree with the first idea, of allowing princesses to marry rebels to gain the province. I do not fully understand your idea about letting Rebels 'take the throne', but if you mean they would become heirs I think that might work.

IIRC, one can marry princesses to Mercs as if they were one of your 'regular' generals; their loyalty increases but they stay Mercs (at Merc prices).

Finally, when a general marries a princess his unit should turn into a Royal Knight or other high end unit. It seems so out of place to have the King's daughter wed to spearman.

ichi