patch wishlist

[Kraxis]

The game is a definitive step up from RTW... But I have my own list of things.

I have to say that most of what I want has been mentioned already, if not all. But I have to say it anyway.

- Fix the ladder lag (+ indecisiveness). It is terribly annoying and I have lost two cities to this (after waiting a couple hours I couldn't stand it any more and Esc'ed out). Seems the AI's best tactic to win my cities is to do this.

- Fix the deployment of troops in cities/castles. I know streets are confined and all, but it is terribly annoying to find that the order you just gave your troops is ignored because you can stretch the pink lines too far. Well, it should be simple enough as in RTW. Do not allow the player to stretch the phantom unit further than it is allowed.
Also in this department, a single line of archer/xbows is important on walls for accuracy, but at times when you relocate them they bunch up and refuse to spread out... several times until you move them. Takes a lot of time, and can be highly infuriating.

- Inquisitors less powerful or aggressive, or less numbers. One of these is enough, a little of each is enough. Please don't do all and nerf them too much. I like them, but at the same time I fear them killing my entire family in a swift blow. And I can't really do anything about them (can't kill them and can't get higher piety fast enough, which is with the good inquisitors not even enough).

- Remove the Elite training. PLEASE!!!! I feared the return of this as much as any other of the less stellar RTW features, yet it still arrived. I'm running around with a huge load of Golden units. How? Well, it is after all extremely easy to get it with knights if you get the enemy to rout. Even better if you have decimated them in the battle, then they will level up even faster. Then when you get them to a place of training, just retrain them... Voila! You have a three golden chevron knights unit.
For heaven's sake make every single replacement in the units be at the level of a fresh unit. Meaning a unit of two bronze at half size beign retrained in a province of no experience will end up with a SINGLE bronze chevron.
I'm surprised nobody else has noticed this.

- Diplomacy:
"Get off our lands!"
"Thank you for that kind ceasefire, we heartily accept. And no, we won't backstab you right away, we do care about our international relations." (I hope that was clear enough)
Relations to be more easily obtained. I'm pretty tried of being the HRE and nobody likes me at all. Even my 'best' friend England with Reasonable relations (cost me a load of money to get) ended up pulling a 'Blockade War Declaration'. And my only ally the Byzantines hates my guts, and have hated me ever since we became allies.

- Merchants to get a bit more income in trading, and get less from driving other merchats out of business. Say, level 1 Merchant gets 20 florins from trading a low comodity ware like lumber, and 'killing' other merchants gets you at best 500. Right now my merchants are hunting other merchants with a greater profit than actually trading. That should only really be for getting access to a particularly good ware (with 20 for lumber, silk and amber would be somewhere around 150 for a nicely experienced merchant).

- Diplomats to engage more targets each year... Including Merchants (for Trade Rights, in case of war no talk) and Priests (get out of here!).
And they should be able to bribe besieged garrisons... Hopefully more easily if the siege has lasted a while. Perhaps only to open the gates and surrender (not buying the units) for a lesser price.

- Be able to assassinate Spies. It is rather hard to get AI spies killed. You can't really use assassins, and pumping a city full of your own spies doesn't always work if he is experienced (which the AI spies tend to be since it moves them in and out all the time). Spies should be terribly vulnerable if they are visible. The easiest targets on the map.

-Be able to assassinate own characters, not captains of course. That lousy no-good Diplomat that has failed everything and is now -3 experience should suffer his lord's wrath for his bad work (he is after all expensive to keep going). Perhaps doing this will get the Faction Leader a Trait with Dread and penalty to agent recruitingcosts and morale for the troops. The same for generals...
Either this or some option to dismiss the worst agents (those who fail all the time... who would after all keep them on the payroll?), though the assassination would be best in my mind.

- I like the more complicated cavalrycharges. It makes you more attentive towards the cavalry. However like many others it is just not terribly great to see the perfectly formed unit of Teutonic Knights halt and do a little dance while two-three knights carry on with little effect until the main unit arrives and get half butchered in the process. Please make heavy cavalry lancers carry through with their charges if the bugle has sounded. If they arrive helterskelter and in a bad formation then the bonus will be diminished. And make it so that single-click charges are PERFECT if the unit has the distance and time to set it up. Also heavy cavalry should still use their lances if the enemy unit turns tail and tries to move away (like skirmishers). It is ok to use swords mainly for routers.
Otherwise I'm happy to see the removal of the 1 meter charges of RTW. So for me it is a step in the right direction, just a bit too far.

- Skirmishing to be improved. It seems like crossbowmen and archers just have to shoot one last time.
"Time to go lads... those knights are getting awfully close."
"Yes SIR! Just a moment, I'm almost finished loading my crossbow."
"Dammit, I said NOW!"
"Yes... In a moment, I'm aiming."
"Just let loose with it!!!!"
"Holy cow! They are really close! We better leg it..."
*choppity chop chop* *squish smash gurgle*
"Urghh... I told you to run... arrrrghhh....."
"But I had a perfect shot... had to take it.... gurrr......"

- I have also noted that something seem to be wrong with certain units in melee. Dismounted Feudal Knights (DFK) have a really hard time clearing walls of defenders. Their stats says they should rip any Spear Militia to shreds, yet both my own and the AI's Spear Militia have managed to get 2:1 lossrates against them, while both were fully on the walls.
As it is it seems that defenders get some kind of hidden bonus on walls so that the attackers don't use their entire strength. At least what I noticed was a general lethargy by the knights, in that they acted like they were 'Fighting to the Death' as in RTW. They would just stand there and get mobbed one at a time. The same with Armoured Seargeants against Flemish Pikemen on the same walls.
On the ground they dish out the proper amount of damage.

- On the topic of Dismounted knights... Do keep the Dismounted Knights as units, but also let us dismount knights just prior to battles. This is not only historical it also lets us use knights better. And the AI too. If I saw five units of dismounted knights coming at me after my walls had been knocked down, backed up by countless spearunits. GAH! And that is just the possibility the AI would have had many times.

- Make Morale visible in the unit cards. Since the descr files aren't terribly accessable we should be able to see how much punishment our units going to be able to stand.

- Fix the redeployment disruption.
Once I marched out of a city to face a single unit of Spear Militia and two units of Ballista. Well, my own three Spear Militia kept going and standing in 10-11 rows, and I suffered huge losses to the Ballistas as they knocked 7-8 guys out with each hit (I kept waiting for them to spread out into formation). I had dragged nice lines for my units, but somehow they refused the formation but kept the positions... Since there was but the gate as an obstacle I can't figure out when this happens.

- Make the buildingbrowser more intuitive. When the AI quickly popped up with DFKs at Bologna, I was surprised (kudos to the AI training and building priorities). I wanted my own DFKs, and since I had noticed that knights in general were dismountable and that the Sicilian DFKs were 90 strong as opposed to the 60 mounted knights, I was convinced they were trained as infantry. So I looked at the buildingbrowser. However, I couldn't find them. It was only when I built a Fortress that I noticed. There I could have directed my effort to building a Fortress right away had I known, but I thought I couldn't train them (this of course also comes from a lack of a techtree in paper).

- Make rebels less elite. I don't think facing Imperial/Chivalric Knights with Town Militia and Peasant Archers is terribly fun. Especially when they come in the particularly large rebel armies. Make rebels slaved to the local tech, with a minimum above Peasants (Peasant Archers, Town Militia ect).

- Make towers and gates change control as per troops on the walls. Who is on the walls near them. Not who is near them on the ground or walls. Capturing the gate because you are standing under the arch is rather less impressive gameplay.

- AI should not try to knock down the entire wall around the city/castle with artillery, it is long, tedious and not fun. One, two, three holes should be more than enough with no siege equipment. With it, a single hole is enough.

- Give generals less bodyguards. 20 is enough for the Large setting. And it is 20 for all save the leader who gets more according to his command/whatever determiens that. Generals are themselves far too powerful right now. They shouldn't be the prime shockunit since they replenish and are tougher than any other cavalryunit (but let those traits stay with them). They should be there to save the general in a tight situation, or add that little weight that tips the scales. Currently they are the best frontline unit.

- Make a return of the moneylending for ransoms. Yes, I know that it can be exploited but the player in a bad financial spot, but that is hardly gamebreaking, while it allows the AI (and the player) to buy back troops AFTER all other actions are taken (which is normally also the time for making the battledecisions). Often you earn enough money the next turn to recover the lost money for ransoms, the AI must be presumed to do the same (with the armies I'm continually facing they must).

- It can't be said enough... TITLES!!!! And as has been mentioned before by others, I don't care if it just for show. Handed out as in MTW or 'earned' as in BI... well I would prefer the first but the latter is fine as well (stay 3/5/7/whatever turns in settlement to get local title) for instance.

- Pope to allow you to take offensive action on own soil when engaged in a defensive war (one the enemy started). On enemy soil it is ok he gets tipsy.

- A new wish. Make devastating the enemy lands give you a cashback, lowering of upkeep or similar for the army doing it. Devastation is after all the abstraction of the army foraging for food and other things (loot and equipment is also counted in). So at least some of the troubles with paying the army would be solved (getting them food and perishable equipment/supplies) if only to an extent. Of course only enemy lands would be subject to this, and location would be important. Good farmland would give better results than wilderness (if at all).

- Of course I have join in on the unit cohesion. It is just terrible. While I can handle cavalry most of the time, it is a tough job for infantry.

- Be able to lock castle gates. At times enemies can chase routers all the way to the square (routers open the gates and enemies follow through, capturing said gates), thus negating the advantage of several walls. However if the wish about being on the gates and walls to capture gates and towers was implemented, then this could actually be fun, capturing enemy units on the inside.

Phiew.... *wipes forehead* That was a lot of stuff.