What would you change about MTW?

[caravel]

Hmm, it does get me thinking... What if Armourer line buildings were just a requirement for units that are armoured... Would make things more sensible, really. As it is, Desert Archers or Genoese Sailors can have more armour than the Halberdier and still move fast compared to their slow...

That's how it worked in the Pocket Mod. I basically made armourers as pre-requisite buildings, like the spearmaker, bowyer and swordsmith. The only thing that I left intact was the valour bonus for the Master level building. I then simply used it as a dependency for armoured units.

Metalsmith line always seemed a bit awkward to me to begin with (firstly if you don't have metal then where is your units's stuff coming from, secondly if your metal is low-quality or something, then why can't you still just import better?). Maybe it should make production of units, particularly heavily armoured ones, cheaper instead, probably also should be way more evenly spread out across the map. Maybe there could be some otherwise ridiculously expensive units that would become affordable with Metalsmith.

I renamed the metalsmith as the blacksmith and made it the pre-requisite building for all cavalry, peasant type units and axe units.

Oh, reminds me of another thing. Loyalty of the province should depend on the quality of the garrison, not just the quantity. Doesn't seem quite right to me that putting a horde of completely incapable soldiers on patrol frightens the population. On the contrary, the presence of a huge useless army would further disgruntle people, if anything. This would further tone down emergence of huge empires as well.

Oh but it does... the lowest quality peasant thug militia are the best for this type of work... On the whole I'd say that this works better than it does in RTW, where garrison size is proportional to the population size and once the population gets to a certain level large garrisons don't help much.

Re armour, does upgrading armour make the unit tire faster? I realise that there are fatigue penalties in the desert, but say you have a unit in central europe - will it fatigue more quickly with gold armour than bronze? Or are the upgrades simply makign the armour better (and thus probably lighter).

My memory fails me on this. I think it's only in the sand desert and rock desert terrain types that the armour penalty comes into play though.

[Tony Furze]

After a brief disappointing foray into RTW I'd change very little. This is one great game.

[Knight of the Rose]

A very good question, that has already recieved a lot of intelligent answers.

I find, that some of the things marked as "want to change" is a result of gaming style. Take navies: They travel unrealistically, they fight unrealistically, and the results are (almost?) random. This could call for a revision of the concept, yet the very simplicity of naval affairs gives you time to think about other stuff, and even finish a game now and then. Yet the micromanager would want some more information, options and hands on-decisions. Many of the requests are "more options" like these (upgrade button, more unit stats ect.)

My gaming time is quite limited. So when I play, I want things to proceed a little faster. I want a challange, so there should be things that I need to choose between. Should I build those knights, or will a horde of slav warriors be better suited for the job? Should I build that castle, or hire those mercenaries? What I don't want is a lot of information and a lot of choices. It is striking a balance between simple and complex, yet bringing fun to the user.

Yes, granted, there are many things that work a little... funny... in MTW, yet I find that for a somewhat simple it is quite well buildt. UI can always be improved, I think that is true for almost any game. Some things can be modded, and have been - thank you guys. Yet, my list of things to change would be quite limited.

/KotR

[Vantek]

I find, that some of the things marked as "want to change" is a result of gaming style.

I definitely see that. I personally was careful to only list things that don't actually change the game at all and don't add any new qualities but just improve the existing ones, it's mostly interface improvements, really.

It is really slippery ice to start actually changing the game itself. You may think you want a change, but if the change actually was made, you can now see unexpected effects that you possibly like even less than the original situation. For an example, I used to wish that Arbalesters and Crossbowmen could have a (seamlessly working, of course) system where the first rank would run behind the last after shooting to reload and the second would run forth. But then I realised that this would suck out such a large portion of the tactical challenge of positioning your units, and it would probably actually make the game more boring. As mentioned before, it's extremely difficult to come up with a good design without trying it out constantly.

Variety is always good though. This is why modding is such an important part of the value of MTW. I have only tried one mod so far (XL), and I was really blown away by the effect modding can have. I was pretty much sick of MTW, thinking that I would once again leave it in the cupboard for several months until it feels new again. I thought I'd just try a mod for the heck of it before I uninstall. Well, it's as if several months have passed and it feels new again!

The perfect strategy game wouldn't even be so much one game, but an open-source project with tens if not hundreds of fan versions and mods.

[drone]

For an example, I used to wish that Arbalesters and Crossbowmen could have a (seamlessly working, of course) system where the first rank would run behind the last after shooting to reload and the second would run forth. But then I realised that this would suck out such a large portion of the tactical challenge of positioning your units, and it would probably actually make the game more boring. As mentioned before, it's extremely difficult to come up with a good design without trying it out constantly.

It might be possible to mod the game for this. Gunners already do this, the key would be to see if this mechanism could be borrowed for non-gunpowder units. There is a bit of flexibility in the missile reloading cycle mechanics.

[Lokiss]

This place is educational as ever. I never knew about the M button merging units, though I always wished I could.

[caravel]

Personally I never use "M" and I always turn off the "tidy up units after battle" option. This means that I can manage the combining of like or similar valour units instead of the game just merging the lot and diluting the average unit valour.

[Karl08]

I renamed the metalsmith as the blacksmith and made it the pre-requisite building for all cavalry, peasant type units and axe units.

I take it, then, that you also made the blacksmith as readily available as the inn, requiring not even a level 1 castle? Otherwise it seems odd to make it a prerequisite for so many things, especially considering that the blacksmith was absolutely essential to medieval life, as without him you essentially have a stone age society. In fact, it would be difficult to build even the first level castle without metal, too.

Oh but it does... the lowest quality peasant thug militia are the best for this type of work... On the whole I'd say that this works better than it does in RTW, where garrison size is proportional to the population size and once the population gets to a certain level large garrisons don't help much.

Inexperienced soldiers tend to be brutal and downright cruel soldiers, as history shows, and while they can efficiently cow (and decimate) a camp population, they would certainly only have a detrimental effect on the loyalty if tasked with overseeing the population at large.

[Biggus Diccus]

There are a few small changes I would do, mostly buffing the AI:

- give AI loyalty bonus for all unit leaders to prevent too many rebellions
- give AI loyalty bonus for provinces, same reason as above
- make sure AI has easier time teching up and building more advanced units (I already mod out peasants in my games)
- change the behaviour of AI generals suicide attacking my lines

All the points above should be fairly easy to implement, too bad we can't mod them in.