A more historical approach to the game

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leComteArebourg
Posts: 7
Joined: Thu Jan 18, 2018 10:38 pm

A more historical approach to the game

Post by leComteArebourg »

 My suggestions for
STRONGHOLD KINGDOMS
 
Hello to the crew, and congratulations for your work!
Your games, and especially Stronghold 2 and Kingdoms, have a huge potential. They also offer a complete and very realistic content, compared to all the other medieval games you can find on the market. It is a huge asset, making original and smart games. They deserve to be more renowned.
 
However, I noted a few points, which can be improved.
My only point here is to give constructive ideas and useful informations.


-Troops (used to be called « battles »)
During the game, men appear to be cannon fodder you can hire anytime you want, before sending them to smash against a wall.
To be more realistic, I suggest reducing the number of men to improve them thanks to “training” (I will develop this idea later). That way, we need less soldiers, but we take care of them more.

In Stronghold 1 and Crusader, there is interesting concept, we can keep: the more popular you are, the more you troops are happy and fight more fiercely. If you are not popular, you have a malus. Just like Stronghold 2, stronger communities should cost less honor. (At least captains and swordsmen). They would be more valuable.
 
-Training
A new category of researches, buildings or activities in order to improve soldiers, captains, soldiers…
They could gain more power, resistance and be stronger in military tactics, such as training or fighting strategies.
This will provoke almost indirectly a sensitivity towards our population and potentially decreases wars (which will be replaced by something else). At least, they will be useful as an ultimate solution.
Indeed, military units were not so simple to acquire. When we had them, we tried to reduce losses during wars. Besides, there were not so many wars during the Middle Ages, as we might think. Only conflicts between lords, and not so bloodthirsty. (Big wars were quite uncommon). We wanted to avoid losing soldiers because of how expensive that would be, and, it means losing powerful and loyal people. Only the Hundred Years' War is different on this side.
It would be giving more weight to each unite. The base could be the technological tree which for the moment includes only points of life improvements of each unit.

  -Wars and Castles
Wars and robberies will make you lose honour automatically. The weaker the village is, the more honour you will lose. This concept is already a bit established.
To attack and defend a castle, you will need a military technic before everything, in order to avoid troops going straight ahead and breaking walls with their swords.
The military technic might include : choosing troop course, and their reactions on the battlefield.
Catapults are not medieval, by the way. We can find them, of course, in the high middle ages. But they are remains of Roman antiquity. They remain quite obsolete.
Maybe they can be replaced by other machines, which really existed at the time, such as trebuchets, or mangonel. This could be a way to have a more historical side and teach it to the players? They will be more difficult to use, at least it will take much longer to mount a siege engine on the site. And they will need more manpower.
The siege engines required a huge amount of work and men for the plans, the manufacture of the various pieces and finally to assemble of these pieces on the battlefield. The siege engines were not much used and were mostly used to dissuade the adversary.
Following, castles could look better. If there are less siege engines, there will be ore gameplay, so we will need to change our architectural strategy, which is now : towers only !
Actually, the main problem is not catapults and tower but infantryman and ramparts. The best way to rethink defences would be to limit the number of towers. The larger they are, the less you can build. Also, make the destructions a little bit longer and harder, who would destroy a wall with a sword? Ideally, to restore ladder in order to get to the ramparts, just like the games on computer.

I know that wars please the players. I remind that wars will always be active, they will not be removed. But thanks to all of this, player would think twice before going to war.



To settle some conflicts, I suggest:

-Tournaments
Anyone could set up tournaments with the help (or not) of other players, if they have the necessary means. The hosts choose the guests and manage the entry for other people who want to participate.
This is a non-belligerent competition that oppose banners or heroes. It could be fictive : create a team with people from different houses.
This competition between guests is used to compare the effectiveness of training, already mentioned above, and the effectiveness of military strategy, in addition to bring players together for the same purpose, to create temporary alliances and to transform hate into courtesy and "fair play".
In all tournaments, participants receive honour.
Spectators, those who do not participate but who follow and encourage a team, gain popularity automatically. (The popularity or honour rate earned depends on the rank and number of troops sent).
Invited players who don’t show up loose honour.

The counting of points, to know the winner, is done thanks to the training level of the troops, their tactics, their morality ... but also their fans! (the spectators who support them).
That way, you can be very bad, but win the tournaments thanks to the supporters. (But if someone is very bad I do not see how he can have supporters).
The rewards will be decided by the organizers before the event, and everyone will be able to read it. They will be quoted below, according to the tournaments.
 

 
There are different types of tournaments for different purposes and therefore different resources needed.
The objectives and the progress depend on the type of tournament chosen:
- Buhurts : two team of knights (captains?) fight for money or ransom.
- Pas d’arme : two captains, with at stake a passage, a village, a place…
- L’emprise d’arme (it was a courteous fight that sent a knight in foreign lands) : between anyone, to return with money for instance.
- Round tables : between knights, with no rewards. It is linked to the feasts and use to gain honour and improve training.
- Joust : between two captains to win money, a good or a title.
- Planchon races : Knights who race, and supporters will have to bet. Price is money.
-Les Cembels : among all possible troops, in several villages and areas of "recet" = where we are sheltered, over several days at a steady rate, to ransom.
-Gages de batailles : between captains wishing to redeem a fault, a political error or judicial.

Also City Games between Lords :
- La Soule : between several team in several villages. The ball (= the soule) will be given to one of the competitors randomly, the others do not know who has the soule. They will have to move from village to village, using troop transfers, merchants or scouts, from point A to point B. So teams communicate with each other to organize their course, it is crucial to be loyal! The other team try to get the soule back and take her from point A to point B, smashing everything in her way.

-Fields
For rocky and low mountain fields, it would be interesting to have a greater natural protection. At least two sides condemned by the relief of the rocky peak.


Of course, there are many other tournaments, but they were the most common.
  .


I hope this document is interesting!

I am available for any other information.
If possible, I am also interested in your current projects or update.
Thank you for your attention, I wish you good luck. This game is the future!
jared0215
Posts: 15
Joined: Mon Sep 03, 2012 2:34 pm

Re: A more historical approach to the game

Post by jared0215 »

no... just no.
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