Tale of Two Ideas *CA Please Look*
This is a really long post. I expected it to be a couple paragraphs, but I couldn't stop writing when I felt a good idea brewing. Make a bacon-sandwich, get a beer, and read on:
Recently, there have been some rather good ideas being thrown around. In this post I'll attempt to combine a number of good ones into some plausible features to be added to the Total War Genre. Perhaps the Expansion Pack will not explore these, but it's all the community can do to put forth ideas and hope for the best. Please feel free to add to any ideas - or to create new facets or change something which seems flawed.
inspiration comes mainly from these threads:
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=46723
https://forums.totalwar.org/vb/showthread.php?t=46424
1. Food
Each province has a certain amount of food which it can produce, depending on variables explained below. This would create actual need to keep enemy soldiers out of your territories and would create a need for armies to rely on the food produced in the region they occupy especially when supply lines are cut, or they are too far away to logistically transport food for an entire army 2,000 miles. This would make it possible to actually make ravaging the landscape of your enemy worthwhile. The starving populace of a country won't hold to their leader's banner long if they are abandoned to invading armies; they might even revolt and join the invader's cause. Food would diversify the facets which your armies are upheld by resources - one would be the food where they reside, two is the population available for recuitment and three would be the arms and equipment which your treasury invests in their use.
Food would be linked to Loyalty, which would need to be incorporated somehow and have more than simply Food to dictate it's course. To stay on track: A High-Loyalty region would be much more difficult for an invading force to reside in for very long, as Attrition would increase with the lack of apathetic civilians. If a safe haven could be found, perhaps a province with lower population/food-production ratio, or a rebellious city, then that would reduce possibilities for Attrition. Obviously, this paragraph is just seedlings, and hasn't been fully thought out.
1.b Watchtowers
To remove the possibility of enemy armies marching into your lands to feast, watchtowers would need to be embellished upon. At the moment, watchtowers are somewhat impotent to their actual reason for being built in the first place. An army could easily march right past a watchtower with no need to destroy it because it serves no purpose beside an impassive watchpost over enemy lands. An enemy could travel to your borders, wait there - and then at any time just march into your lands unhindered. Your watchtower would watch this over the months of it transpiring and report back at the end of the turn that the enemy has invaded; probably a large amount of time has past. To halt such occurances, the moment that an army enters your domain you would get a pop-up screen asking for your guidance. It would resemble watchmen hastening back to your throneroom, reporting on what they have seen, and the nobles of the land gathering around to ask what is to be done about this intrusion. Choices would be something along the lines of:
a. Intercept (would open a screen indicating the units which could be combined to resist invasion)
b. Strategic Move (custom move, to move whatever forces are in range to move to various places to hinder the invaders)
c. Diplomacy (ask the reason for invasion, and perhaps offer gifts to subdue their agressiveness and make them retreat). Of course this option would be expanded upon only if the Diplomacy in the game was improved.
Watchtowers would begin to create a dominion for your people which could be more readily defended and looked after. Towers would begin just by being a Lookout, upgradable to Sentry Tower to get the choices; and both could be burned to the ground or likewise, if you cannot repulse the invaders, they could remove your influence from the watchtower and gain possesion of it (though when an enemy Watchtower is captured you can only have the Lookout option until you conquer the province outright. Watchtowers would be different for coastal borders which would be able to view the ships, but would alert you if a landing party invades when upgraded to Sentry Tower.
2. Income Variables
Since I don't enjoy dealing with Math, and this idea uses some basic Math theory to impliment, forgive me if I get some terms or even concepts incorrect. Perhaps it's all wrong. Let me know what you think.
Income, at the moment, is through Trade, Mining, Farming, Spoils of War and Taxes. To increase any of these you have to invest some funds into static upgrades such as "Mines" and "Roads" and so on. This should, actually, be more of a fluid upgrade and not have as much to do with assigning certain simple things to have upgraded, but to have funds invested in such endeavors to create possible income at the end of it. Almost any investment of funds would not be without profit; though Trade and War are more risky, they bring more income. Likewise Farming depends on a good harvest, so famines and floods would be a bane to a leader who depends mostly on fertile soil to increase revenues. More detail below:
All aspects of income should have a number of underlying variables which cannot be overly affected by meddling by the player. Such values would be composed of, but not limited to:
Population: you can't have a lot of trade, a lot of war, a lot of farming and a lot of mining all at the same time. Manpower is needed to be invested in each aspect. This would only be possible once your faction becomes highly populated; and even then the growing populace requires sustinance to be Loyal to your cause. A simple way to impliment this would be somewhat of a Slide-Scale where you can apply certain amounts of your populace to certain tasks. This would create certain strategies such as Farming one year with 2/3 of your populace while keeping your borders undefended and then the next year mining the hills for valuable ore with which to recruit soldiers. This would also make a province which just sent their men to their doom at the hands of the enemy become poverty stricken and in need of Aid from other provinces.
Limits on Income: In every venue there is a limit to the amount of profit which can be obtained by the investment of funds therein. The most simple way to put it is that income can increase production exponentially for a time when they are invested heavily in, but eventually it will taper off depending on contributing factors discussed below.
Developement: There may be lots of people and lots of resources in a given area, but technology is needed to yoke the two together to produce profit for your treasury. Developement is able to be increased in larger steps if you capture an enemy town which has artisans, tradespeople and others flourishing in their courtyards. This would allow you to move such specialists back to your lands to begin educating your people - but simply having these specialists in your domain would slowly filter the ability to develope certain resources into tangible results isntead of simply trading it away. Such as: chopping trees down for lumber and trading it; or with increased Developement, utilize the lumber and a theoretical carpenter to improve the defense of your walls.
Now, the actual aspects of income broken down:
Trade
i - Roads Roads should begin to be built outwards from your settlements which have developing engineers in them. If you invest more money into developing your cities the roads would be built more quickly, linking your provinces. Roads would be better closer to technologically advanced cities, and less so as they extend outwards. Of course if you invest in building better roads, it would be a fluid investment over the course of the construction. At any time resources could be pulled from the construction and the build-time would be put on hold and the road would be partially built until you invest again.
ii - Merchants Whereas roads increase the speed of travellers on them, there needs to be merchants travelling on them to make them worthwhile. Merchants aren't something which can really be built - but would begin to populate a city when developement increases to a point where there are goods worthy of being sold outside of the borders of their Province. The merchant caste of a city would grow without much ability for the player to improve their growth besides investing in Roads and Developement to improve their chances at successful Trading. Goods would have various prices in various regions - as the Germans aren't going to be ordering expensive Lumber from the Gauls when their lands are full of it.
iii - Trade resources When there's nothing to trade, there won't be anyone buying or selling goods. Merchants will only inhabit areas which have developed resources which are craved in other provinces. You can trade amongst your own Provinces in the beginning simply utilizing the raw goods, and the Merchants expand outwards as the demand for raw and developed goods increases (usually attributed to growing populations and, likewise, developing cultures).
Farming
The most basic of income. Cultivating land to bring in grain to sustain the hunger of a populace. The more people, the more food needed. Farming is the heart of a growing kingdom. Farming has a number of limiting factors which mainly are those Population and Income Limits. Farmlands can be improved, and technology improved on a static level - but eventually the production of a fertile valley will plateau, and even decline if over-exploited or ravaged by an invading force. Famines and Droughts becoming more prevalent and fearsome as revolt and crime increases in a starving populace. Developement would increase the efficiency of farmland, and would allow for Storehouses to be built for excess grain and food for the winter. Storehouses would be able to be captured by enemy armies. You would be able to choose a place to put the Storehouses/Granaries and would likewise be able to, with an investment of time and manpower, shift the location to a more readily defendable area during invasion. Population would depend highly on the amount of Food which would be available to them; both through Farming and importing it from surrounding provinces.
Mining
Similar to Farming in the primitive aspects of it and the ability to produce a more efficient income by increases to the development of an area. Waste would be a contributing factor to the efficiency, and improvements in the mines would be linked to the Developement of a Province. There would be certain tiers to consider. The first being simply picking it off the ground and minor excavations. Increases up the tiers would bring more efficient usage of the material extracted and would allow extraction to continue at a certain rate for longer. If a region has a large store of Silver and you begin mining it without much development it would produce substantial income for the first few years but it would taper off and begin to decline as the easy to reach veins become exhausted. Also, the amount of time which a certain store of resources would take to become exhausted would depend both on the efficiency of the extraction, amount of people working the mine, and especially the actual amount of resources which were pre-determined to be in such an area. You could have mining operations in a lot of places gaining small sums, but those large deposits of minerals would be able to continue on for longer periods of time. Of course, for each area which has the ability to be mined for resources, there would be a limit to the amount of manpower which could be directed at the extraction. This limit would simply related to the inability for a small vein being mined by hundreds of people simply because it's too small and only a certain amount of people can work the mine at a time.
Taxes
Taxes are something which the Loyalty of the populace dictates to the amount which you can extract from them in resources. If there's a famine in a region, there's little chance that your taxes would be given to you as the citizens are more worried about their own mortality than contributing to the tax collectors. If your Tax Regime is Harsh, your tax collectors are likely to get the amount you ask for regardless of the pleas of your people; reducing Loyalty. If the harvest is good, and the people have surplus, they would not balk at handing over your asking tax. Therefore there would be a number of variables:
i - Tax Resource Scale Taxes come in many forms - food stores (grain/cattle), valuable ore (mining), trade profit (tariffs) - etc. There should be slide-scales dictating which Value is taxed in a certain region. In some areas Mining would be taxed heavily and Farming not taxed at all because of the lack of surplus food. Of course the development of the entire Kingdom depends on how you channel resources from province to province, what you invest in, and what is the most beneficial to your and your people's needs at a given time.
ii - Asking Amount The amount you ask for, in percentage of the income of the region. This would be calculated each year but the percent would remain the same value which you set. The income would depend on the quality of the crop, trade, mining - and others. If you ask for more, the Loyalty would reduce dependant on if the population can survive in relative comfort with what you leave them with.
iii - Tax Regime A slide scale from Benevolent, Lenient, Firm, Harsh and Brutal. If the Asking Amount is low, then the Harsh and Brutal Regimes do not affect Loyalty at all, as the Tax Collectors will go to the settlements with armed soldiers, but will not find it necessary to punish anyone when all Amounts are accounted for in easy fashion.
- Benevolent: Your Asking Amount is of little bearing on the people. They will give what they can, but keep surplus for themselves without threats from the tax collectors. Increases Loyalty. Increases Development.
- Lenient: Your Asking Amount will be recieved if the Loyalty of the populace is enough. They will give what they can, but if times are bad they will retain what they can just to get by and will not be threatened by the tax collectors. Increases Loyalty somewhat. Increases Development slightly.
- Firm: Your Asking Amount will be extracted from the populace dependant on the need for your demands. If the treasury is suffering, or the kingdom is under attack which threatens the populace, the Asking Amount will be gained. Mainly dependant on initial Loyalty and will not reduce Loyalty which is above a certain threshhold. Loyal Provinces will give more, less Loyal, less. People given empty threats by tax collectors.
- Harsh: Your Asking Amount is heard and obeyed by your most Loyal subjects. Those who do not pay are punished by public scrourging. If a Province cannot pay without becoming poverty striken and hungry, their Loyalty remains the same for the Season of extraction but will diminish through the next Season if their hunger is not subdued. Affects Loyalty negatively in the following Season if left the same.
- Brutal: Your Asking Amount is extracted with whatever means necessary. Public scrougings, humiliations and displays of brutality will bring all the Provinces' wealth into your coffers. Use sparingly, as the Loyalty of your populace will decline steadily until they no longer heed your call. The only people whom will retain your claim of the throne after many years of this Regime will be your army, and only if they retian their pay. However, Armies and Generals will become more likely to be Bribed in this Regime if their pay is not increased.
Spoils of War
Pretty basic. When you conquer a region you have the ability to plunder it all, or not. Hoever, the Spoils would have a number of titles and the ability to do a number of things with:
i - Treasure. Gold, luxury, PROFIT!? OMGZx!1 - essentially the raw loot which Pirates consider their mistress. Can be given wholly to the armies, which is dispersed into the lands they occupy if it is your land. You have an option to give it to your troops, increasing Troop Loyalty, or transport it back to their families and the Homeland which increases everyone's loyalty, though less so for the Troops specifically. Basic loot is only money, not food. Can be Traded.
ii - Food/Cattle/Spices - etc. This can be given to your Troops and deposited into the Baggage Trains or likewise sold to the inhabitants of a surrounding area to gain their Loyalty to your cause, though if their Loyalty is above a certain amount then this is not possible as they understand your subversion and will not be receptive to your clever tricks. It can only be transported a certain distance to your Homelands, as it will eventually spoil or die. There is a limit of a certain amount of time to determine how far it can be transported. This depends on where it is captured and hwo far it has to travel to be delivered.
ii - Slaves and Tradespeople - Reduces the Development in a region if they are transported back to your own domain. It takes a certain amount of time to have these slaves and tradespeople be rooted into a society to start contributing. This timeframe is lengthened if these people come from a populace which is highly Loyal. This option to capture Tradespeople isn't even available when the Loyalty reaches a certain level, though Slaves are always available; though it will decrease Loyalty in the Province they're transported to by a varying degree (depending on the loyalty of the populace of both regions and the amount of slaves/tradespeople who are disposessed). Slaves are also a valuable Trade resource and are only available when a conquered people are dispossessed and sold into slavery. Slaves do not affect Loyalty when a Garrison is neaby and will climatize to their surroundings within a generation (20 years). If they are Soldiers then this is extended to 40 years.
iii - Prestige - Increases the Loyalty to your cause in the region which the Victory was won. It reduces the Loyalty if you plunder the Province and increases the Loyalty of your Citizens in your Homelands if you do (and send the plunder back). If you release all prisoners it will increase the Loyalty to your cause only if the Loyalty to the initial ruler is low enough to do so - otherwise it will just leave a load of hostile soldiers around your invasion force, increasing Attrition.
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Ok, well that's about enough of my ideas for now. I'd like to see what the other incredibly inventive people in this forum have to offer. Feel free to alter my suggestions or add to them at will. All we can hope is that CA sees this and will heed our call for creative elements to be added to their games.
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Originally Posted by Louis VI the Fat
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