What would you change about MTW?

[Roark]

Axalon to design M:TW3 plz, k thx.

[Fagar]

the failure rate of assassins.
get so sick of slowly building up an assassins valour to 4-5 stars setting him on a valour 0 emmissary in your own provinces with a 93% success rate and then failing.
I would prefer realistic success percentages.
In reality it never seems more than 25%
With a good assassin, you attempt 4 low level targets in four consecutive years and the odds are very good you will fail at least one of these times.

[caravel]

the failure rate of assassins.
get so sick of slowly building up an assassins valour to 4-5 stars setting him on a valour 0 emmissary in your own provinces with a 93% success rate and then failing.
I would prefer realistic success percentages.
In reality it never seems more than 25%
With a good assassin, you attempt 4 low level targets in four consecutive years and the odds are very good you will fail at least one of these times.

You may be confusing your assassin failing an assassination attempt with your assassin getting caught by counterspies before he can even attempt the assassination. Beware of border forts and also be aware that a rival faction assassin or spy could be counterspying in the province.

[cori]

good points, vantec but:
"Actually, armour and weapon upgrades should be counted individually like valour. It's a little silly how 1soldier that has golden shield and sword can give the same upgrade to 99 more men if you're lucky, and how 99 men who have golden shield and sword can lose their prescious just for happening to land into the same army with a lone lunatic"

actualliy they are individual, just armur stats displaed for unit lider,not for whol unit and it is really
deceptive:after merging units seemse like all unit is armured,but actually it may be only lider ...
dont be surprise with high casualties..

[Fagar]

You may be confusing your assassin failing an assassination attempt with your assassin getting caught by counterspies before he can even attempt the assassination. Beware of border forts and also be aware that a rival faction assassin or spy could be counterspying in the province.

Unfortunately I wish I was. I may have worded it poorly but I actually said:
'I get so sick of slowly building up an assassins valour to 4-5 stars setting him on a valour 0 emmissary in your own provinces with a 93% success rate and then failing'

It's not really all that big a deal but just a frustration I would change if I could.
As a matter of interest it is my understanding that border forts act as 4 valour counterspies and I have always been led to believe that any valour 5 or more assassins can get through undetected unless there is a border fort and an enemy agent there as well to stack the valour bonus?

[Knight of the Rose]

Let me get this right - the game says it's 93 %, but in reality it seems to be 75 %. So what you would change is the game information. Or is it that you believe the game sometimes "cheat", and let your assasin die even though he shouldn't. And it is the "cheating" you would change?

7 % is a slim change, but not impossible. And sometimes you get unlucky. I've played many civ games where combat odds are given in %, and lost more than once even though I had 99 % change of succes. (Tanks vs. Knights actually, though I find the actual battle situation hard to imagine...)

But I don't know if you've done some serious testing on the matter. I for one would not be overly surprised if the AI actually cheated a little.

/KotR

[Fagar]

You have it right on both accounts KotR.

I would change the game information to represent a more realistic percentage because I feel that in displaying the current percentages the game is cheating.

I have done a fair bit of testing on this and you would expect failure from time to time that is what the percentage of failure is for but a good assassin 5 Valour on a 0 valour emmissary seems to fail at least once in every 5 hits or so.

With the listed % success rate of 93% you would expect to fail only once every 10 attempts not every 5 at the most.

[Bregil the Bowman]

I'm sure I've said this before, but I would like to be able to bankroll allied or neutral states to shore them up against rival powers. Not that the AI would necessarily make good use of it... Also, to have a better chance of making alliances or marriages by offering a cash or territorial incentive. And maybe the ability to cede territory without war, to avoid falling out with useful trade allies.

[Fagar]

Nice Bregil.
That would definately add to the game IMO

[Brandy Blue]

I edited this to get rid of things that are just preferences, and only leave ideas that I think are genuine improvements.

1: I wish that an assassin could attack a general who is not the leader of his stack. I might want to take out an heir, or a really great governor of Constantinople who is making the enemy much money, rather than the top dog, especially if my assassin has a 0% chance against numero uno.

2: It might be fun if your spy in your own province would have the option of feeding misleading information to an AI spy, or trying to turn him, instead of killing him off. Perhaps you could choose to give him information encouraging his faction to invade your province or to not invade. (Make a strong province sound weak, or a weak one strong.) Or how about making him expect another AI province to invade his homeland?

3: I think that the Mongol invasion should be randomized a bit. The main force could arrive a bit further north or south than its current range, and not necessarily on the year it is expected. The Mongols should come as a nasty surprise. That can't really be arranged, but at least it could be less predictible. It should be possible to turn this feature off, though. It could spoil the balance if you are playing the Russians.

4: I would like to be able to pick my side for the historical battles and campaigns.

5: better diplomacy rules

6: I think some "fog of war" random events at the tactical level would shake things up and give the AI a slightly better chance.
A: Sometimes one or two of your units just don't show up. Maybe captain dummy couldn't read the map.
B: orders can be misunderstood. Occaisionally a unit doesn't follow your orders but does something else. How likely this is and how long it takes to regain control depends on how far away your general is. A bit like impetuous units but can affect any non-general unit and the unit's action might not be an attack.
C: Now and then, some jerk just switches sides right before the battle begins, or maybe even part way through a battle. Could really throw a wrench in your plans and force an immediate change of tactics.
7: The issue of movement at a strategic level has been raised before. This is my suggestion. You can move a unit one or two provinces. However, troops that move two provinces have a chance of suffering losses (stragglers) and also a chance of not making it to the second province. The lower the troops' morale, the higher their chance of not getting where they wanted to go and/or losing troops. You don't get to know the results of attempted forced marches until next turn, unless you find out when the tactical map opens, and it turns out that your enemy managed to force march extra troops to the battlefield intact, while some of your guys never even showed up! This idea is based on the forced marches in an old board game called "War and Peace."

All ideas under #6 and 7 should have three levels:
A:off
b: on
c: on, but the player is more likely to suffer bad effects.

[Brandy Blue]

I forgot. I wish that assassins would not follow their targets into enemy territories where there are towers or boarder forts, unless you specifically tell them to risk it.