RTW Build time applied to MTW? [Archive]

EatYerGreens

10-11-2005, 03:40

The nearest equivalent, already in MTW, is the hiring of mercenaries but that has to be a hard coded item which can't be made applicable to ordinary units, unfortunately.

Availablility of units at Inns seems to relate to whether a state of war applies at the border of the province it is in. However, while browsing the files, I'm sure I encountered a 'merc attraction factor' somewhere which might influence how busy these places get. There's no obvious way to get around the maintainance costs increase for mercs though. :(

I've yet to start modding but am in the mood to generally experiment with things and might give this 0 turns idea a go, at the very least to see if it crashes the game. Odd things might happen if a 3-turn ship was part-built when a 0-turn troop type was added to the queue and so on.

I'd be particularly interested to find out whether it causes the AI to muck up badly (goes broke building too many units at once, leaving no cash for buildings) or if it is even capable of being able to match a 'special ability' gifted to the player in this manner. (I consider it an 'exploit' and the AI might be programmed to only add one unit to the queue per year anyway. If the AI can't hope to match what the player is able to do do then it is hugely disadvantaged and the whole thing becomes cheese, IMHO).

On the issue of training time in general, I encountered one recent TV show where they mentioned that Longbowmen learnt their skills beginning at the age of 5! Also, one (or more?) of the skeletons found when the Mary Rose (flagship of Henry VIII, who witnessed its sinking) was dug up from Southampton harbour was reckoned to have been a longbowman thanks to some distortion of the spine and signs of heavy musculature on the arms and shoulder blades (tendon attachments leave visible marks on the bone and these were enlarged). Years of strenuous training and beginning before they've finished growing causes these kinds of physical changes. That's an extreme example but I imagine sword skills take quite some time to master as well. Drill, discipline and physical fitness probably took just as long then as it does for raw recruits now and I agree that would be only a month or so.

Then again, history suggests that armies were often thrown together at very short notice, fighting had to be over with in time for the harvest, standing armies were rare, small, or both and systematic troop training (other than daily archery/sword practice) was probably non-existant, limited to a hasty few days' worth of drill before embarking on the expedition.

The '1 year to train' thing is something of a contrivance in the game, to stop high income factions from flattening the less well-off ones in the first few yuears and generally balance things out. There's a necessary trade-off between "realism" and "game playability" and one unit per province per turn for all factions seems as fair as anything else I can think of.

If I had to rationalise it at all, I would say that the year is not literally the time taken to train the unit. Instead, it represents the number of men with a particular fighting skill up to battlefield standard who have come of age in that region, in that year. The population is only so big, so 60/100/200 of a type is as much as you are able to recruit, as opposed to 'train' in a year - one 'generation', if you like.

You then have to make the executive decision whether it's archers you want this year, or swords, cavalry, or whatever.

Being able to have multiple units trained all at once removes the need to make those kind of tough compromises/decisions and, in the eyes of some players, makes life too easy for the player, especially when rolling in dough - they're in it for the strategic challenge and this would cancel it out.

Enough opinion from me. If I get around to it and it works, I'll let you know.