I picked up the game a few weeks ago and am absolutely loving it. I am looking forward to the new DLC.
As I’ve gone through the game, I’ve found myself wondering why none of my soldiers ever bother to salvage the destroyed armor of their enemies for parts/Tools, and that sort of gave me an idea for some things you might be able to add to game that would increase immersion in the world and its flavor. I’m not imagining anything that would ever make the company independent of towns, but more accruing perks as it increases in renown.
I could see a lot of random story potential and alternative rewards in adding camp followers, ie civilians who follow the company around to offer services. Mechanically, they’d affect drop rates, morale, and could open up story vignettes. I guess they could also be pilgrims/travellers who would only stay with your company until you reached a specific location and then pay you a small sum (Independent of contracts). Examples I could think of might be a prostitute who slows morale loss for the party (sorry eunuchs) but might occasionally spread itchy debuffs. Ditto troubadours. A ragpicker could improve the drop rates of Tools/armor attachments. Tanners/trappers who could improve the droprate of items from beasts. A priest might improve the morale of superstitious and religious types and get into fights with cultists. Also, there’s already a Wikipedia entry for Tross, which is apparently what they called camp followers during the Thirty Years War, so there’s your Germanic name for them right there ;)
In addition to the nameless captain, you might also add additional “officer” slots to the company that could be filled with “retired” sellswords. The effect would be company wide buffs. They’d still draw pay (Perhaps at a reduced rate?), but be unavailable for deployment. I’m imagining a quartermaster who could improve equipment repair and stretch supply consumption, a purser who could improve sale prices, a scoutmaster who could improve travel speed and decrease the chance of ambushes, a master-at-arms who could improve rolls on leveling up certain skills or increase experience gains. It’d be an alternative way to deal with favorite sellswords who get a crippling permanent injury, but whom you don’t want to simply hand a sack of money to and never see again. Instead the grim one-eyed purser acquaints himself with town merchants and the limping old sergeant teaches young farmhands how to lift a shield. I suppose certain traits on brothers could have differing effects, ie a Spartan quartermaster really knows how to efficiently allocate supplies but can lower the mood company wide.
Just some thoughts. I’m not a code hexe nor have a concept of how much writing such additions would entail, but they’d be fun. Thanks for reading!
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