Upgrading the Battle Standard

[Mike]

Hello,

I’m completely in love with the new battle standard, it’s very stirring to fight under – and in defence of – your company’s colours. That’s precisely why it pains me so that it’s hard to keep it as a mainstay because its performance in combat quickly becomes sub-par.

I propose that as the company gains fame and opulence (exact amounts irrelevant ATM, but it should be a considerable cost in both) a new ambition can appear, one to upgrade the standard as to reflect success of your men. It would have 2 stages, each considerably more expensive in coin than the previous one:

Glorious Battle Standard
Obtainable after completing your first contract for a noble house
Combat stats equal to a pike
Allies in range gain 15% of bearer’s resolve
At the start of bearer’s turn allies in range have 10% chance to improve their lowered morale 1 stage up towards Steady

Legendary Battle Standard
Obtainable after beating the endgame crisis
Combat stats equal to a named/artifact pike
Allies in range gain 20% of bearer’s resolve
At the start of bearer’s turn allies in range have 20% chance to improve their lowered morale 1 stage up towards Steady

To improve the standards’ utility I would also propose a new skill, exclusive to it:
Pole Bash ( 6AP, 30 Fatigue, 2 tile range)– strike the enemy with reinforced shaft of the standard. Struck enemies will be staggered and possibly stunned (100% to stagger, 50% to stun)

ALSO!
I think it would be both spectacular and reasonable if we could adorn the standard with the trophies gained from enemies, thus bestowing a fraction of the bonus to the brothers around it. When completing a relevant ambition and receiving a trophy player would be presented with an option to mount the trophy on the standard, making in a permanent part of it. An Orc Trophy, for example, would grant brothers in range 20% chance to avoid being stunned.

I believe that the upgrades would be neither OP nor too easy to achieve while letting us keep the standard flying all the time, without concerns about “wasting” potential of the brother carrying it. What are your thoughts? :)

P.S. I know that Paul’s hands are really full as it is so I don’t think it’d be necessary to update the looks of a standard, just the stats.
P.P.S. If I could make ALL my wishes come true, I’d add in an option to choose what kind of weapon (pike/poleaxe/halberd) the colors are mounted on. I don’t really use pikes much.

[le_souriceau]

Yep, same feelings. Standart is cool, but too weak as a weapon (especialy late game), mostly is just dusting in pocket of one of my archers (or even in global inventory). Its too costly to dedicate whole man for just chilling with this banner when morale situation not so critical. And even when it critical banner dont help so much.

[Ioci]

battle standard should do average damage like it does in current version, but it need to have stronger moral effect, an extra skill perhaps.

for now, its like the old yes captain perk, it helps player save one perk point, but cripple one second line roll as well, specially in mid/ late game when you obtained 2 legendary polearm in your inventory, and you have more than 2 sergeants in your row, time for flags get retired.

[Namespace]

It just feels way too weak. Even during early game, since there is no T2 pike weapon (aside from maybe broken ancient pikes and if you count goblin ones).
At the point in time when I get to fulfill this ambition I usually already have pikes from raider battles.

It definitely needs some kind of buff. Maybe change it’s attack to use only 5AP like the goblin pike so we get a little bit extra mobility or add rally as second skill so we can save that perk point.

Rally in general feels weak. I am wondering if they also nerfed the orc warlords roar. Does he still give confident to his minions?

[Wargasm]

Since the battle standard is supposed to be special, I really think it ought to just do more damage from the outset – or at least always stagger on a hit.

Also, it ought to be possible to avoid the ambition to gather 2,500 crowns just so that you can give half of them away immediately for an item you don’t necessarily desire, but you get left in a spot where you’re presented with just one ambition that you have to choose.

[Ioci]

oh, i just come up with an ideal.

how about give the battle standard the ability that those goblin overseers have? “Pia!” and max the moral of one unit! and it could be much better(even more lore friendly) than just a thrust damage ability.

[Mike]

Wargasm wrote:

it ought to be possible to avoid the ambition (…)

I disagree. At the beginning you always have a couple different ambitions to choose from, if you’re left with only the “battle standard” one it means you’re far enough into the game that 2.5k really shouldn’t be a problem. Unless you’re playing on the top difficulty, but then it’s meant to be punishingly hard.

Ioci wrote:

how about give the battle standard the ability that those goblin overseers have?

I don’t think it would really fit – the overseers lash their subordinates, so it’s “inspiring” by pain and fear rather than pride or honor – fitting for the green sneaky gitz or soviet comissars, but not a mercenary band that’s supposed to be connected by ties of friendship and mutual respect.

[Ioci]

Mike wrote:

Wargasm wrote:

it ought to be possible to avoid the ambition (…)

I disagree. At the beginning you always have a couple different ambitions to choose from, if you’re left with only the “battle standard” one it means you’re far enough into the game that 2.5k really shouldn’t be a problem. Unless you’re playing on the top difficulty, but then it’s meant to be punishingly hard.

Ioci wrote:

how about give the battle standard the ability that those goblin overseers have?

I don’t think it would really fit – the overseers lash their subordinates, so it’s “inspiring” by pain and fear rather than pride or honor – fitting for the green sneaky gitz or soviet comissars, but not a mercenary band that’s supposed to be connected by ties of friendship and mutual respect.

well, lash is indeed not necessary, but what about our bannerguy wave the banner then make one of the brother super confidence? making the banner the only via left to rally the brothers’s moral higher than steady would be nice(i think the new version of rally the troop is nerfed that it wont get any of our guy’s moral higher than steady).

[Mike]

Ioci wrote:

what about our bannerguy wave the banner then make one of the brother super confidence?

I just imagined the bannerman pointing to one of our bros and shouting:

Oi, Sven! My lad, don’t you look prettier than a sunshine today! What a handsome face! And those broad shoulders, aren’t you the fancy of any lady from here to Sandheim! Better hurry up and slaughter those arseholes real quick-like if you wanna get to taste them sweet bosoms before the sunset!
…
…
…
<SQUAD MORALE RESTORED!> :D

Ioci wrote:

the new version of rally the troop is nerfed that it wont get any of our guy’s moral higher than steady

indeed it is nerfed like so. all the more reason to buff the standard! :)

[Wargasm]

Mike wrote:

Wargasm wrote:

it ought to be possible to avoid the ambition (…)

I disagree. At the beginning you always have a couple different ambitions to choose from, if you’re left with only the “battle standard” one it means you’re far enough into the game that 2.5k really shouldn’t be a problem. Unless you’re playing on the top difficulty, but then it’s meant to be punishingly hard.

You should never be left with only one (or two) ambition(s) to choose from. If the crowns for a standard shouldn’t be a problem, or if the game’s meant to be punishingly hard, that just means that there’s no reason why some of the subsequent ambition options (i.e. defeat a party of more than 12, or another mercenary company, or “blow it – we don’t need any restrictive ambitions”, etc. etc.) can’t be present. I fail to see how having a standard suddenly takes you beyond a threshold that makes you fit to select some of the ambitions that are only presented afterwards. I also fail to see why there can’t be an ambition to gather crowns to spend on better weapons/equipment (which, like the standard, miraculously appear out of nowhere once you reach the threshold).

[SuperCaffeineDude]

What if the battle-standard unlocked more slots for units in battle? maybe cut it two ways and have initial unit sizes 1-2 units smaller and battle-standard unit sizes 1-2 units bigger? Then you won’t be “losing” a man, you’ll be gaining a morale boost and a couple more men.

[Mike]

Not a bad idea in itself but I think that changing the number of units on the field would shake the carefully-crafted balance too much.

I guess that an “easy way out” of the “losing a man problem” would be to change the banner from a weapon to an accessory to be carried in the slot like the sergeant’s sash… Or maybe strip it of it’s combat stats and make it occupy the shield slot, allowing a bro to use a 1-handed weapon along with it? Might be a solution as well…

Though I’d much rather see the banner buffed to make a valuable mainstay 2H weapon instead.

[SuperCaffeineDude]

Honestly I’d totally have the banner moved to a shield slot to allow the the bannerman a close-quarters weapon just because I like the visual of a sword wielding banner-man. However apparently they considered making it a shield-slot item, but they thought it would render your man more useless than a slightly nerfed two-tile weapon. Which makes sense since you’ll want to keep your banner-man safe, which isn’t within range of most weapons.

Buffing the banners to be equivalent or superior to the pike/bill-hook might work, but it wouldn’t make a whole lot of sense given we’re talking about a pike weighed down with fabric, struts and misc, so I’m not sure I like it. And having mad status effects on troops is a bit too towards the magical side of things for me, a little placebo effect keeps it a little more grounded in the low-fantasy imo.

Personally i think many players would like the option of a slightly bigger party, especially in late game when you face far larger ork warbands. Most of the balance is in you deciding what you can and can’t take on, and if it does effect the balance then adjustments can be made to enemy squad sizes.
To keep it significant, but not overpowering, early game I’d limit fieldable troops to say 10, and with the banner add +3-4 troops, it removes a lot of complaints about the banner’s utility verses having an extra dmg-dealer by offering a man to fight in the bannerman’s stead + extra.

I like your thoughts and these are just my thoughts, having the lack of a banner cap your troop count might not be everyone’s cup of tea, but I think it might be good to have it be useful in a way that doesn’t have it act as an enchanted pike.

[Author]

Posts