Historical Figures

[Quintus.JC]

I'm sure the game will include some historical figures. People such as Wellington and Napoleon... According to Mike Simpson, there's even a possibility to have Napoleon himself in your own ranks around the end of the century when you recruit an artillery unit from Corsica. What Historical characters would you like see in the game.

[aftzengeier]

I'd love to see all the members of the royal houses with all their historical names and so on (@ the beginning at least). This way the Spanish war of succession should be included at least. Having the french revolution in the game btw sounds very stiff and like medieval script to me. If there won't be the right circumstances there should be no revolution - that would be kind of strange...
I mean do not make the revolution a cloned timurid attack...






Greetings

[adembroski]

A the big names from the revolution, of course. Washington, Clinton, Arnold (incidentally, I wonder if a certain fort on the banks of the Hudson will be called Fort Arnold or West Point?), Gates, Lafayette, Greene, Clinton, Howe, Burgoyne, and Gage/

[Rhyfelwyr]

Definetely would like to see historical starting characters.

I would also like to see Bonnie Prince Charlies if these is:

1. a Jacobite rising in Britain in the early-mid 18th C.
2. still a Hanoverian monarch within Britain
3. a war between France and Britain at the time of the rising

[Furious Mental]

Screaming Lord Sutch

[Quintus.JC]

Wonder if they'd let you use Queens, there were some strong queens in the 18th century.

[Ticu]

There weren't really very many "strong queen" fighters though.

[PBI]

That's only a problem if the faction leader is going to appear as a unit on the battlefield; I believe by this point though it was relatively rare for the monarch to lead the army into battle. I seem to recall reading that generals will be recruited, rather than born, suggesting that the royal family will be separate from the generals.

[rajpoot]

This's been discussed before in another thread, I cannot recall which one.
They should try and have a separate system for this, for the European powers and the kingdoms in places like India. For while european sovereigns did not lead their armies, the smaller princely states in India had their leaders fighting at the front with their soldiers.

[PBI]

I don't think there would need to be a separate system for this as long as it is possible to recruit some family members as generals. This could be equivalent to sending them off to a military academy and would get them all sorts of good traits, but on the other hand not every royal would be cut out for it. Maybe when you recruit a general, you could be given a choice of candidates to pick from, including some of the more action-minded younger royals. After all, even today, some members of the royal family (at least in the UK) do join the military, it's just not expected that they all will.

Also, I get the impression that there is going to be more scope for historical figures in this game, I believe they've mentioned that various great scientists, industrialists, reformers etc will make an appearance, so hopefully this will be in a more substantial form than simply as a general's retinue. After all it would be a bit odd for Wellington to be carting around an entourage of political reformers and famous scientists all across Europe. It seems to me there are many interesting ways they could handle the whole royal family/generals/great figures system, I sincerely hope they don't just go for the same old "your family members are all generals leading units of heavy cavalry, daughters are only good for getting more generals, anyone who isn't a general is relegated to being an ancillary" system of previous games.

[Zaleukos]

Ruling European Monarchs very rarely lead armies in the Empire period (Charles XII, Frederick II, and Napoleon are outliers). It wasnt that uncommon for princes and cousins to command armies though, sometimes as part of their education. Bonnie prince Charlie was for instance defeated by the duke of Cumberland, who was a son of the king. The sensible way to go would be to make it possible and optional to make your king a general, but balance it so that it's only worthwhile it if the king is exceptionally gifted or schooled for it since a young age. PBI:s idea of picking from a list of candidates would be one sensible way to do it.

[The_Reckoning]

I like that idea. You have a general recruitment panel, and your appropriate royals are always there.

They've promised a system so spies and assassins aren't represented like stacks on the campaign map, so I imagine they'll have a lot more menu-based systems.

[G^2]

I agree that the player should be able to select what family members become Generals. However, I wonder how the family stucture will work when you change your goverment from a monarchy. For example in America, most of the US's founders were in the military, but they were not (clearly) from the same family. Also, in Britain at the time, there were many strong states men, like William Pit, who were also not part of the royal family.

Historical figure I'd like to see: William Pit, perhaps one of the greatest prim ministers of all time.

[Zaleukos]

The sensible thing would be for the candidate menu to list non-royals too (and no royals at all for countries like the US or Switzerland). I'd rather have the majority of generals and political leaders be non-historical and only use the historical ones to add some historical spice, since our gameplay is very likely to present extremely ahistorical setups at any rate:p