i imagine a mp campaign...

[MizuKokami]

first off, it would be real time. the world would allways exsist, tho perhaps it would be wise to shut it off once in awhile, say...from the hours of (blank) to (blank). all players would constantly manuever their armies on the strategy map, and build land and troop ugrades at the same time. while your army is spending a month marching, you would zoom into a territory to take care of business. a little icon on the bottom of your screen would begin to flash, or your military advisor would warn you, if one of your armies reached it's destination while you were in city mode. when, during the course of your army's march, you run into an enemy army. real time would then be halted. diplomacy and spy interactions could still be accessed, but your armys would cease to move on the strategy maps. at this point, if you and your opponent only had one army each meet on the strat. map, you would just enter battle mode.
but if one or more of you had more then one army with you, you would push another little icon on the bottom of the screen that brought up the list of all players in the 'regular' multi players, the ones not in the campaign. you would then be able to private message players to hire them to control your extra armies. what is the incentive for mp'ers not in campaign to fight in campaign battles with armies that allready exsist?...the ladder system. in fact, the 'only' ladder system that would be available for mp. how you do in campaign, tells the world how good you are. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif once the reg. mp'er was hired, and now connected to the campaign mode of multiplay, the results of spies and diplomacy are now announced. info from your spies are sent to you. and if your diplomat had tried to bribe an army, it is now revealed as to wether or not it was successful. if your bribe was accepted, you are sent the info on who your enemy hired to fight the campaign battle, so you can pm him /or her, that they are really on your side. insert wicked smile here.
ok, from here, a small scenario. all players in the campaign battle reach the field. all players study the terrain. all players recieve a list of all players so they can mark who their archers will fire at, and which army your impetious knights will not attack. afterall, you don't want your troops to fire on, or attack enemy troops you bribed. insert another wicked grin now, the bribed army, still appears, as far as your enemy knows, as your enemy's ally. you may have bribed the army to do nothing at all, or bribed it to attack when you send the word. perhaps you bribed it to simply withdraw from the field? of course the bribed army general could still elect to do pretty much what it wanted, tho it would never be allowed to attack your men.(completely unable to target you.) you however, could still be treacherous, and after being assured victory, could still elect to attack the bribed army to recoup some of the money you spent bribeing them. yet another wicked grin for sanctifaction,...hey, do you really want a bribable general left alive? (warning....this will earn you the vice...treacherous, -one loyalty with most generals.) you can, in battle, destroy a lot of houses to lift your dread, and loot for gold, tho vices should be a bit harder to get then the gold http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/tongue.gif end of battle. the campaign ladder advisor asks...how did hirelings do? you would answer...above expectations...at expectations, or below expectations. real time resumes.
this multi campaign, being largely clanbased.....(this post is getting long, so will pause it to hear imput, and wait for confirmation that the rest of my idea want's to be heard.) questions are welcome.

[Orda Khan]

Some nice ideas there. Constant real time would, I feel, disadvantage those who don't live at their PC's but it does sound workable. As for bribed armies not being able to target you....Why not? ( insert massive evil grin ) Sure I'll accept your bribe......and then I will double cross you http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
The ladder system you propose sounds great, however the battles fought will not always be Fair as opposed to say...1v1 15k Steppe. Your way I believe would carry more credibilty as you would be reporting your opinion of the player's performance to an arbitrator ( am I right here? ) That would be fine with me so long as petty bias did not creep in ( and well it could )
A Clan based Campaign does sound exciting

........Orda

[MizuKokami]

orda...you are absolutely right, on both counts. the ladder would be a peer to peer rateing scale, and treachery can happen. afterall, the bribed army might want to negotiate with both kings, to get the better deal. however, to do this up right, players should be able to communicate far easier when on the battle field. a voice communication would have to be implemented. the microphone would be centered on your general's unit. in order for players to talk with each other, they would have to have their generals close enough to hear what the other is saying. perhaps personal diplomacy could even take place at this point. meet under a banner of truce, discuss terms of surrender, or make plans for your simultaneous attacks against a mutual enemy. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif your mutual enemy would be none the wisor...unless he had happened to have a spy infiltrated in your army. if he had a spy in your army, he could listen in, and watch the battle. of course, there would have to be the chance he could get discovered. perhaps, just before battle, you could have your spy dessert in plain site, run out of the formation, and head for a patch of trees. right where you had your assasin hideing. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif diplomats would also have to have mics, and you should be able to have then on the field of battle, if you wanted to watch someone else's battle.
as i was also saying...being largely clan based, the king, queen, emperor...etc... would asign titles to their clanmates, makeing them responsible for the lands under their control. here would be incentive to have clan members spanning the real globe, so you could, as much as possible, have someone trusted controling your empire on at all times. your clanmates would be responsible for supplying taxes and troops to the king. as a clanmate, the king would tell you that he trusts you to provide him with whatever you provide, or you could have certain request made of you...such as...500 cav, 300 spears, 200 sword, by the end of the year. building troops would have to change, you could build several units at once, depending on the buildings you built, and the population of the lands under your control. to build a unit of peasants...well say, you can conscript 10 peasants a day, more if zeal is higher. it would take ten days to build that peasant unit. if you had a stable in the province, while building the peasants, you could also train horsemen at whatever rate it would be decided. let's say in five days you built fifty peasants and five horsemen, you could at this time stop building these units, and send them to fill in the ranks of depleted units. when attacked, these units would be available to field, not actually being in a build que. retraining would change too, as your units would not have to be present to get refited...you would just send a messenger to say that you needed more men for this particular unit. then replacements would be built, and head out marching automaticically to catch up with it's regimate. if you have production from the province comeing in rather high, and have a surplus building up, you could of course, as a clanmate under your king, build some forces of your own to build your own armies, (provided you have fulfilled your king's requests.) just in case you have your eye on a little piece of property controled by a rebel. your king might of course annex it into his own kingdom, but hey...maybe you'll get lucky. and as i was saying, these would all be the responcibilities of clan mates.
also...as people...you and your clanmates would.....

[tootee]

Quote[/b] (Orda Khan @ Nov. 01 2003,18:47)]As for bribed armies not being able to target you....Why not? ( insert massive evil grin ) Sure I'll accept your bribe......and then I will double cross you http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/cool.gif

[MizuKokami]

(important note on real time...it can't be paused since a campaign would likely have more then two players, furthering the need to have clan members to constantly keep up on the strat map.)
as real people, you and your clan mates would each have their own general unit, that works like a king's unit. where your unit is on the campaign map, that's where you are. if you and your clanmate are in the same place when battle insues, you are both in the battle. takeing special note here, if the total allied forces in the battle area is smaller then two armies, then you could come on the field splitting these forces between the two of you how ever you like.
if you each have your own armies, one of you haveing all spears, and the other haveing all horse, the ability to trade forces, as well as take control of allied forces, should be possible. scenario..."help"...."what you need?"... "spears". the person answering the call for help would then click on a couple of spear units, select the comand...'aid allie'... the spear unit flags would disappear from your screen, and reappear amongst the flags of the allie's army, now under his or her control. (i realize this is just a fantasy. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/rolleyes.gif )this might make it so you have more then a 16 unit army, so thinking ahead before giveing the command would be wise. if it's just you and your clansman on line dureing the campaign, one of you can withdraw their general unit, give command of your troops to the other, and return to the campaign map, game in progress. and...because we know there will be drops from time to time, takeing over the forces of dropped players should be possible. sometimes battles in their entirety get screwed....perhaps this would be the only time the campaign map should be paused, if a battle needs to be refought. anyone who's even in the slightest bit familar with mp, should understand http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/joker.gif a new feature would be in order here....online mp 'quick battles'...so that the others waiting for the paused game to resume don't get bored waiting...challenge each other to quick battles. fast, and often furious, these battles would almost sure to be over before the game is unpaused. they wouldn't count for anything more then bragging rights, screenshots, and home video, but what more do we really need? http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wacko.gif
picking up on the possibilty of having armies larger then 16 units, the player interface would have to be changed. while you could still do the click and command on units, the need to keep better track of your units would increase. for this reason, the unit flags would now appear on either the left, or the right of the battle screen, each assigned specific numbers. press '5+enter, unit number 5 is now selected...etc... ... press '5+enter', hold 'ctrl', press, '6+enter',... units 5&6 are now selected. flags like we have now would only be on the bottom of the screen when they are selected. the icons would be reader friendly with the flags on the left or right. crossed spears and unit number for a spear unit. a little horse and a unit number for a cav unit....etc... issues like morale of men would now be color coded with the flags on the side. white for routing, red for wavering, blue for steady, green for impetious. the flags in the side margin would be lined up according to their relative positions on the battlefield. mind you, with a lack of space in the margin, you can't show actual distance between the units, but as i said, reader friendly icons.... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif the units icons will appear right next to each other in the margin, and lines will be drawn between the icons, connecting these icons with one line for one tile, two lines for two tiles... to a maximine of... say, 5 lines. perhaps this margin wouldn't be a margin at all, but a formation grid similar to the radar screen, or instead of the radar screen. perhaps...this replacement for the radar screen would still have a correlation between you and your opponent, but would now look suspiciously simular to a chess board. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif groups would be changed to alpha, beta, gamma, and would be assigned these designations automatically, so groups could be selected easily. press...'a', alpha group is now selected. press 'a, ctrl, b', alpha and beta groups are now selected. and of course, as before, these selected groups would now appear as flags on the bottom of your screen. as for the interface change, a couple of drawbacks would arrise...possibly, depending on the size of the chessboard radar map, we may lose some space on the battlefield. we wouldn't really be able to press f5 to reduce lag. hotkeys for unit commands would change, perhaps becomeing far more complicated. tho perhaps you could press a button that toggles on and off commands for units...like...press f8, then the number of the command...for example...you want your spear unit to engage at will. you would press '5+enter' to select the spear unit. press f8 to toggle to commands. press '1+enter' to command your spears to engage at will. condensed explanation ... '5', 'enter', 'f8', '1', 'enter'. (this would make the need to know your commands imperative.)
pauseing post here, and imput is appreciated.

[Dionysus9]

I like this idea and I think it is the best so far-- need only to iron out a few details.

[MizuKokami]

*bows to bachus* thank you. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wave.gif what details you got in mind?
special note on quick battles...with real time, sometimes the campaigns will move slow. 'duels/quick battles', can be done anytime two players agree. perhaps you could even have 4v4 duels?
a note on movement commands. 'alt' click commands your men to move in formation. this should be the way they are trained all the time to march....duh.... so instead of 'alt' click to have them march in formation, 'alt' click would be to have them go without keeping formation, and regular clicks would be in formation.

[hellenes]

After reading the whole topic i have to add some of my own observations/ideas (respect to mizu, no offence man):

First of all i would prefer the turn based nature of the campaign preserved otherwise the whole thing would go to the click fiesta camp aka warcraft AoM etcetc, now the solution of the im-waitin-get-borin-while-others-playn-their-battles problem would be the existence NOT only one mp camp BUT several and combined with the ronin hired generals option when there are not enouth generals present there would be plenty of battles going on so the nothin to do generals would have something to occupie themselves...Also the richness os negotioation options in the strategic part would IMHO keep players without battles occupied so they wouldnt need any battles.Now while the King/Sultan/Emperor is fighting his emmissaries can negotiate some treaties with the non battling rulers of other countries (in the middle of the turn) also i believe that the addition of strategic units to battlefield will make the whole process complex and the option of having them at the same time as the battle on strategic map acting would be more functional IMHO...
The strategic map now i would like it to have 400-500 "provinces" so you cant conquer the whole france in 5 turns...Now the turns could be seasonal and the armies could move each turn 1 "province" for an army with infantry (the armies would move with the speed of the slowest unit) 2 "provinces" for an army with heavy cavalary fast infantry and 3 "provinces" for an army only with fast raidnig cavalary...Now these "provinces" could be classified to the central provinces/historically important ones: There you could build all the advanced buildings and they would be the central production place of all advanced units and they could be the only place that can produce militia...Their "castles" could be fortyfied cities with many buildins incide wich if destroyed could be destroyed also on the strategy map...
For the minor/not historically important ones: They could build only peasants and limited number of knights/heav.cav(for non cath)/some maa (more on that below) these "provinces" could have a simple castle with couple of buildings inside (the limited buildings that can be build in the "province") wich if destroyed on battlemap are also destroyed on the battlefield...the "borders of these "provinces" would also have fortified villages (a VI feature http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif ) wich will differ depending from wich border the invasion is happening now these fortified villages would have a small protection and would be manned automatically by peasants and (if the noble had arranged) some knights (h.cav for the easterns) and archers, these villages would provide a mere protection against mainly raiding companies without artillery and would ONLY protect the population and not the crops (wich are destroyed if the raiding army has deployed on them all their men for some time (depending on the level of farms).
Each "province" would have two population loyality AND number indicators one for the nobility and one for the peasantry/merchants,craftsmen in the cities .
For the nobility their number could be dependant on the number of loyal peasants meaning that sufficient number of nobles can keep the peasantry under control and provide men as knights now if someone takes a great part of nobility as knights in the regular army the peasants start to revolt/turn to bandits and there is instability and decrease of income in that province...
Now for the peasants their number could depend on events like plague/childrens crusade etc etc, and if their number isnt sufficient to the "upkeep" of the number of nobility the nobles in need turn into bandits (of good quality not like peasant bandits) and will need to be dealt with...
The taxation of the "provinces" would be double also one for the nobility and one for the peasantry:
The one for the nobility, the nobility would be very sensitive to taxation (that would vary from east west like byz/cath/mus) and with events like the marragie of one noble a crusade that one participates and others would decrease the income for some time until the "province" is stable again. Also if the number of nobles increases their loyality would drop (because of the realisation of their power and the tendency for independance) as would drop the income, after the return of one of the nobles from a crusade the income would increase for some time (depending on the wealth of the cruades target, and if it was succesful) BUT it wiould drop drastically after some time because of the intrusion of luxury wich demands funds...
The increase of the numbers of the eastern nobles would make the peasants unhappy and lower the taxes paid by the peasants also it would increase the option of heavy cavalary in the army BUT would decrease the number of the infantry...(and their morale).
The loyality of the peasantry would depend on the religion of that area (as for the nobles but to a lesser extent) and their number wich would be positivly proportional to the income meaning that because of the low population of the europe in medieval the more peasants the more income...
Now the peasantry would vary in a large extent from east to west their loyality would depend in the west on the number of nobles and in the east on the taxation mainly...
The heretic movements would interfere in the nobility as in the peasantry and in some occasions would lead to dramatic decrease of the nobles' in question loyality leading to a possible revolt.
For the movement of the armies the border protection would require either standing armies in each border "province", something that very few would afford, or patrolling units of border guards moving acrooss the border the border forts would have significant role in the protection giving a mere stronghold to the patrollers, the patrol option would have some benefiting influence on the whole function of the state (byzantines mainly who used them historically) by giving a power to the peasantry and regular army to outweight the influence of powerful nobles...Now if two armies are moving each army would move one "province" corresponding to the part of the turn that has passed meaning that is a raider company of fast cavalary moved 3 "provinces" if it has met one enemy army on province 1 this battle would take place in the month 1 of the given season (so the 1st month of winter has no snow in the southern europe BUT the second has in some parts) if the enemy army was defeted the remnants of the winners would be given the option to continue and in case that the enemy army won the defeated would withdraw to friendly province or be captured and again if the winner has the speed to continue would be given that option the slow armies would not have that otion and they would have only catch the fast cav army if they were on its way other wise the slow army would arrive in the "province" after the fast has already left... (of course one would have the otion of fast cav delaying the raiders until the main army arrives, and if the raisers are raiding this delays them for 1/3 of a turn)...
For the ships the sea parts would be in proportional number to the land "provines" ships would move again according to their speed and if during the year that army is transported one of the link ships is sank the sinking ship owner would demand ransom from the sank ships owner...

These are some of my ideas feel free to add any observations/corrections as for the funcionality.

Edit: I just had my mouth SHUT after me trying to agitate RTW in a greek warcraft forum... http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/frown.gif
The reason?: "To Medieval eixe plaka se single player, alla ousiastika eixe aniparkto multiplayer giati ka8e "game" i8ele meres na teleiwsei, kai opws kai na to kanoume online fainetai i axia tou RTS. Kai to Rome apo oti fainetai de 8a exei kai polles diafores oson afora to gameplay apo to Medieval, opote.."

Translation: "The Medieval was fun in single player, but virtually had non existing multiplayer because each "game" needed days to be finished, and at all events the value of the RTS is shown online. And Rome as it seems wont have many differences as the gameplay is oncerned to Medieval, so..."
The link: http://www.warcraft.gr/forum.asp?mb=talk&id=900738804.1869.m1157

PS: CA this is the spirit of the MAJORITY of RTS players if you want to milk them instead of Blizzard/Ensemble etcetc MAKE A MP CAMPAIGN

Hellenes

[MizuKokami]

hail to you hellenes. no offence taken as this is an open forum. some of your ideas seem quite sound as well. when it comes down to it, if a mp campaign world gets built, it will likely be something we all build.
you are absolutely correct on the diplomacy factor decreaseing boredom.
i, however, have to disagree with the turn base for several reasons.
first, marching from territory to territory is allways going to be affected by many variables...ie, an early winter, an avalanche in the mountain pass, the movement of enemy armies cut off your march...things like these happen a lot in the real world, and with a turn base, randomness would detract from the feel of the game. what i'm looking for with the idea i'm voicing, is a persistant world that is alive.
second, just crossing over a border into enemy lands is no gaurantee that there is going to be a fight. 1000's upon 1000's of miles in the world, and multiple cities in each provincial area. is my army marching to the city of paris, or is it marching to the city of orleans? if i'm marching to paris, and my enemy thinks i'm marching to orleans, no battle will ensue save for the garrison in paris. in the meantime, upon discovering that i marched on paris, my enemy could move an army between paris and my border, in an attempt to cut off my retreat, then call his army in orleans out to meet me at paris. to get this kind of living game, turn base, again, just can't compare.
third, it has been my experience, when you have a turn base campaign, you aren't just waiting for potential battles, but for everyone to complete their turns. in the end, players are lucky if they get in one turn per night. this leads to players giving up on the campaign before they even get halfway thru. when it comes down to it, even if you got in 3-5 turns per night, how long do you think it would take to complete that campaign? a long time, no? mulitble campaigns are no answer either, because that brings up the possibility of haveing even more battles to fight in a night, or day, with even more waiting. real time with clan mates/campaign partners, people that can run your empire while you aren't there, and fight some of the battles you yourself can't, seems the most logical way to cut back on the waiting game. in other words...the world goes on, with or without you. if you are worried about a click fest, armies don't move by clicking a spot on the campaign map, but by issued commands. march to...patrol borders at....return home... etc...
however, your thoughts on troop building restrictions is food for thought. i agree that certain caps on numbers should exsist. but perhaps it should be based on something like population, as opposed to a province limit. resources would be a big factor as well. perhaps you could build knights, but if you don't have any horses, they would just be foot knights. i think tho, peasants would no longer be built, but drafted. you select a conscription rate, say..5%. you have a town with a population of 10000 abled bodies. you would then have 500 peasant soldiers in your town. if you don't like peasants, you could build a militia, and have them retrained as militia men. same thing with your noble population. i believe, in fuedal times, most nobles were required to be trained as nights. perhaps 90% of your exsisting nobles would be required to serve, and the provincial area has 100 nobles. you would then have 90 knights, but just basic knights. to get feudal nights, you would have to send them to a sword smith. to get lancers, you would send them to a spear maker. the more advanced your spearmaker, the better your lancers. suit them up in armor by sending them to armories. tho it would prolly be better for your knights to have whichever armor is available in their home town. (perhaps room could be made for imported armor, if he can afford it.)
as to taxation, i don't believe it should be separate rates. as king, i expect my nobles to raise x amount of revenue. he get's this revenue by taxing the people. in other words. i don't care if my nobles tax the people, or pay the tax themselves, just so i get what's mine. of course, as various v&v's show up...take for instance the vice...greed. i require 500 florins per year from my noble. but he's collecting 600. 500 for me, 100 for himself. if it's a particularly low profit province, this is going to hurt peasant loyalty to him first. if i do nothing about it, then it begins to hurt the faith of my kingship. after awhile, he has a small rebellion. he crushes it. in responce, he begins to tax more. a larger rebellion can arise, and when it does, he asks me for help in crushing it. i send some troops, after i send in one of my spies to find out what's going on. my spy reports to me just before my troops get to this noles aid. i find out this noble is a greedy, spiteful, son of a....., so i insite a larger yet rebellion, and join the rebels in deposing my greedy noble. after the hanging, or whatever show of justice i put on, the ripples of my actions creep their way across my lands. nobles that sympathised with the noble i deposed would drop in loyalty, while my more just and pious nobles would increase in loyalty. and peasants all around the world would begin to love me. mind you, crushing one of my own nobles like this has a chance of increaseing my dread. of course, all the gold he stockpiled for himself dureing his years of greed would be mine now. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif i'll have to give some of this gold to the peasants in order to increase their loyalty by a larger margin, but not all of it...hehe. as for plagues and sudden drops in population hurting loyalty, yes and no. i agree the potential for rebeliion can arise from these things, but if i'm a good king, and the noble asks for mercey in raiseing taxes, my responce to this affects his loyalty. i can funnel some gold from my treasury to his lands to increase his loyalty, lower taxes so he can pay what he can instead of breaking his back to keep his loyalty the same, or demand he pay me everything i asked for to lower his loyalty. left unchecked, of course he could rebel. but personally, i like a little bit more control over my nobles loyalty rateings then to just have it drop because crap happens. afterall, the overall loyalty raiseing and lowering ultimately rests in my hands. i will of course send a spy there to see if he's telling the truth. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smokin.gif as for bandits, they exsist. the idea that two stacks of catholic bandits are attacking is just ludicrous. bandits happen, and the percentage of gold lost to bandits is a continual thing, based upon the overall loyalty in the area. if two stacks of enemy troops appear, they aren't bandits, but a rebellion. if it's a catholic rebellion, i need to go have a chat with the pope. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif also, it would be wise to keep track of these bandits as much as possible, maybe get a spy in there to find out if these bandits are stealing in response to a noble's action, or maybe it's one of my enemy's spies sent to put a crimp in my economy?
i agree that whichever buildings are built in the provincial area should be destroyable, if you run across them.
speed of units from provincial area to provincial areas...it's not just a matter of going from one province to the next, but terrain and weather effect the speed as well. you can have forced marches, esentially nearly doubleing the speed they go. however, upon getting to the battlefield, they come on the field with increased fatigue, and even more fatigued if you force marched them from farther distances, or over hills...etc... speed of horses are also dependant upon terrain. if you are marching your army through a swamp, your horse will go about the same speed as your inf., as likely you'll be dragging your horses with you. roads would increase your speed, without increaseing fatigue. (roads will be discussed in trade)
(special note on campaign real time. campaigns should be played in time blocks, and score should be kept. let's say, each campaign block is fifty years. after fifty years, you can end campaign and see who won, or play another fifty years.)
trade......

[Dionysus9]

Well, I like the idea of a realtime campaign because it fixes a lot of the timing problems that make a turn-based MP campaign generally unplayable (I think these have been beaten to death, so lets not get into them here)

I dont have time to read and respond to every point, but major issues:

1) Two ladders: Most people will either play campaign or hire themselves out as tactical generals. I would be a general, I dont care about running the country. So you have a "strategic" ladder and a "tactical" ladder. If you create a great empire, you move up the strategic ladder. If you fight great battles you move up the tactical ladder.

2) Ladder rank: depends on performance, NOT review/rating by peers. For the "strategic" ladder, you are ranked based on a Campaign Score (like SP), but for tactical ladder you are ranked based on what your services are costing the campaign players. So, if you want to hire Amp, or Magy, you are going to have to pay a LOT because they get offers from everyon. If you want to hire a newb, you can get them at a mega-discount. But you get what you pay for. If a general falls on hard times and has several big defeats, he may be finding himself accepting lesser paying jobs (slipping in ladder rank). I say let the market (supply/demand) decide how to rank the mercenary generals.

Those are the main points that interest me.

[MizuKokami]

good point bachus http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif the only problem i could see arriseing from a tactical ladder effecting prices, is that piss poor nations likely won't be able to afford good generals, and are disadvantaged right from the start. of course it could be said that if you can't raise the money for good generals, you shouldn't be running a country anyway. i guess you could get loans from allies if need be.
when it comes down to it tho, with any general i hired, i would expect them to follow my wishes. what king in his right mind wants generals that do their own thing? this is the main reason a peer to peer ladder seems good to me. but i think perhaps your idea is still better. back to the drawing board?
perhaps the ladder isn't so much a point system, but the stats of generals...ie, the hired general wants to raise his piety, so he fights in a crusade or two. maybe he wants to raise his dread, so he fights with a king that is famous for slaughtering his prisoners? at the voteing period...on a scale of one to ten, how desirable is this merc? it would then get posted, and an average would be kept.
another thing that could make a performance based ladder hard, is i may not be hiring you to win. a small scenario... i'm playing the argonese. my clanmate and i have two full, top of the line armies. but if we attack head on the spanish with these two armies, the loses might be so devistateing, even if we win, that our back gets broken, and spains counter attack wipes us from the face of the earth. so, as quickly as we can, lifting the conscription level up to 50 percent, we raise a peasant army to send against velentia, hire you to take command of this army, and send you to fight this battle. if you get the provincial area without a fight, you take control of it, but the resulting counter attack will destroy you. giving you a win by default, but a lose by severity when the peasants in your command are broken by their heavy lance counter attack. where would your rateing be then? me, being able to watch your battle would see wether or not you, with a peasant army, managed to delay the spanairds long enough for us to march on castile. we would rate you, not for your victory, but for a good defeat. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif heck, we may even have hired you for the soul purpose of loseing. delongshanks said it the best in the movie braveheart...."arrows cost money, dead men cost nothing."

[hellenes]

Quote[/b] (MizuKokami @ Nov. 11 2003,04:01)]good point bachus http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif the only problem i could see arriseing from a tactical ladder effecting prices, is that piss poor nations likely won't be able to afford good generals, and are disadvantaged right from the start. of course it could be said that if you can't raise the money for good generals, you shouldn't be running a country anyway. i guess you could get loans from allies if need be.
when it comes down to it tho, with any general i hired, i would expect them to follow my wishes. what king in his right mind wants generals that do their own thing? this is the main reason a peer to peer ladder seems good to me. but i think perhaps your idea is still better. back to the drawing board?
perhaps the ladder isn't so much a point system, but the stats of generals...ie, the hired general wants to raise his piety, so he fights in a crusade or two. maybe he wants to raise his dread, so he fights with a king that is famous for slaughtering his prisoners? at the voteing period...on a scale of one to ten, how desirable is this merc? it would then get posted, and an average would be kept.
another thing that could make a performance based ladder hard, is i may not be hiring you to win. a small scenario... i'm playing the argonese. my clanmate and i have two full, top of the line armies. but if we attack head on the spanish with these two armies, the loses might be so devistateing, even if we win, that our back gets broken, and spains counter attack wipes us from the face of the earth. so, as quickly as we can, lifting the conscription level up to 50 percent, we raise a peasant army to send against velentia, hire you to take command of this army, and send you to fight this battle. if you get the provincial area without a fight, you take control of it, but the resulting counter attack will destroy you. giving you a win by default, but a lose by severity when the peasants in your command are broken by their heavy lance counter attack. where would your rateing be then? me, being able to watch your battle would see wether or not you, with a peasant army, managed to delay the spanairds long enough for us to march on castile. we would rate you, not for your victory, but for a good defeat. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/eek.gif heck, we may even have hired you for the soul purpose of loseing. delongshanks said it the best in the movie braveheart...."arrows cost money, dead men cost nothing."
Mizu as i said (and no insult m8) i fear the exploitation of real time (even with orders) the one who will give faster the orther will win etc etc,, this is very dangerous imho cause it can escalate to the pattern of "build horse breeder in khazar make FAAAST steppe cav and start raidin ppillagin none will be able to resist you" and we could find ourselves in the click fiesta pattern place (heh people me exploit NOW the MP with swords ONLY just to see it (iwas more in the turks before) i won a battle yesterday as the italians 4hfk(hospfk) 4 hosk 4cmaa 4 fmaa without even using ANY tactics head on&#33http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/wink.gif...
again no offence man respect

Hellenes

[MizuKokami]

hellenes...again...no offence taken, truely. if you are worried about people building up khazar with a stable, and mass quick raiding cav., don't fear that. it's what happened. where do you think the huns came from...the steppes. however, remember this. this imagined multi play is not mp like it is now, nor is it sp like it is now. in a campaign world with multible participants, building nothing but raider cav will gain you many enemies. allied armies will be able to march thru each other's lands. looters might be able to succeed for a time like that, but eventually, the looters would gain many enemies. the next thing you know, they would be outnumbered and surrounded by every other faction in the game. and, i got to tell you, if i was faced against a heavy looter army, they wouldn't get much, as i would have allready spent every penny buying enemies for those looters, even if i had to trade some of my own lands for these enemies. and bribing them to fight in my armies. now, attilla did quite well with his looter armies, and in time, he well may have succeeded in takeing over the civilized world. but alas, beware the assasin's blade.
as for sword heavy armies, this would be an unwise thing to do. again, i point out, manuevering armies on the strat map will make sword armies weak. it won't allways be a one on one or a two on two situation...etc. sometimes, it'll be a 3 on 1, 2 on 1, any situation could arise. sword heavy armies would do good in turn base, but not real time. in real time, campaign, you build armies, not buy them. valor would work according to the command of the generals. keep this in mind. my scouts have discovered the encampment of the enemy. the reports they have returned with, is that my enemy has around 1000 swordsmen with him. at this point, i would bring up my 5000 strong peasant army, and an army or two of my crack troops. this would force my enemy to take to the hills. i would, for half the day, send peasants to die on your blades, while my elite troops stood watching. by the time my peasants became useless, i mean...completely useless, your men would be near exhausted. and, having been kept busy all day by charging peasants that would rout(on command), i would have moved my heaviest spears, my own swordsmen, and all my shooters around behind you, and just shoot you dead. at this point, i would have to thank you for all the extra swords to equip my next army with. http://www.totalwar.org/forum/non-cgi/emoticons/biggrin.gif
again, let me state this, this campaign mode will be little like mp as it is now, and with real people playing the other factions, there will be no ai primarily fending for itself. there would be cordinated(wish i could spell) attacks, diplomacy, espianage, treachery, and any other thing i leave out. in general, dealing with real people will be a whole lot different. turn base turns the game into a board game. if one would play board games, they should play chess, or risk, stratego...etc.... but if one would be king..... i have waited a long time for a game that has the 'feel' of being a ruler. a game that made it possible to build up my lands, conduct trade, send forth my armies, and rule. when you win a game of chess, you lift up your hands and say, "yay, i won." in a real time game, you can rest upon your throne and say, "i have conquered."

[shingenmitch2]

Hi guys,

Those were some long posts, so I may have missed this somewhere -- but what is the solution to the main problem with MP campaign:

What happens when 2 guys go to battle each other for the other 8 players? Does time stop for them? If not, what happens if they attack one of the other guys already fighting somewhere else on the game board?

If it is turn based and I attack 4 other players at once, do they all have to wait while I fight each in turn? Or can I only control 1 army at a time and leave the rest to some comp General? (hmm... that is a losing proposition against a good player).

[MizuKokami]

mitch...what i am proposeing is that you yourself would only fight the battles that you yourself are in via your king unit. other battles would be fought by merc generals and clan members. it doesn't seem feasable to fight all your battles at once, as well, it doesn't seem realistic that your king could be everywhere at once. in the end, it would be more a matter of teams with a team captain as opposed to a one on one situation.