SuperCaffeineDude

[SuperCaffeineDude]

I think on a hex map 3 tiles might work well for large monsters, since 4 hexes will put the creature at a slant, for bears I think the devs could get away with 1 tile.

But generally would love both to have large monsters, and to have more beast slaying quests, like the direwolf mission, since hunting large non-sentient beasts for profit seems like a very medieval thing to do for a small mercenary company.

I also like the honey bee setup, that’s funny. I’d love some beginner quests for chump change, maybe a free barrel of mead.

[SuperCaffeineDude]

The banners are really nice, the old banners work really well, especially in context, and the brass(?) ones are beautiful.
I kind of wonder for the undead if a bare naked pole might work well too

Look forward to seeing how the celtish zombies are implemented, as guardians of forgotten treasure far west/east maybe?

[SuperCaffeineDude]

I’ll stop now

[SuperCaffeineDude]

I think nutrition was the wrong word on my part I was more thinking of a broad combination of energy and nutritional properties adding to the score, so grain as a cheap high sustenance food, meat as a better tasting more expensive alternative, with roots and berries as low sustenance, etc. With some sort of multiplier for variety, and paired each foods longevity and price, it could lead to an interesting meta. Something like this maybe…

I was also thinking if there was an overhead to the emotional state of a company, how well they are provisioned, the losses they’ve suffered, etc, it might be easier to summarize this information from fewer variables.

[SuperCaffeineDude]

The 11 level cap, I’m kind of in both camps with, losing your level 15 might be a tragedy, but I think most of the time it will conflict with how fallible and human your men are meant to be if your veterans are too elevated from your recruits, and lead to great frustration (likely save scumming) as you lose what might be an irrecoverable loss as the game progresses in difficulty on the presumption you have super-soldiers.

I love and hate leveling up my brothers, I half think perhaps its not all that authentic due to the fact the glass ceiling is set only when they run into you.
By which I mean to say training a boy from scratch leads to less improvements than training an established mercenary. Like we’re taking a bodybuilder on and expecting him to double in strength.

It seems a little silly allowing tradesmen to be blank canvases, and I wonder if they started with randomised(by trade) perks, would retaining old hands be rendered more optimal. For instance a level two poacher has his points pre-invested into range, stamina and initiative, and has 2 archer perks selected.
To balance for that their recruitment costs could be lowered, idk though just spitballing.

Definitely the level cap could vary by difficulty, if not set separately by the player as an option.

[SuperCaffeineDude]

I think every good should have be marked on by
Taste: The happiness it provides your men |&| Nutrition: A stamina buff
So alcohol is negative nutrition, but is worth the mood boost, whilst grain alone provides negative enjoyment but adds nutrition

And maybe some means of dictating which goods are for eating would also help for trading perishables, and swearing off ork bush-tucker.
I would also love for food longevity of alcohol and dried foods to keep a bit longer, with more perishable foods offering both better enjoyment and nutrition than say; grog and gruel

[SuperCaffeineDude]

I like the idea of a mobile interaction site, like a settlement, but depicting a caravan or a marching military force.

So when you are within engagement range, you receive a prompt asking how you wish to proceed…
1.Inquire (go to “settlement” screen) where they’ll be
-Old Wife / Surgeon : A Healer
-Hands / Troops : General rumors |or| Who they’ve run across
-Caravan / Quartermaster: Tiny market based on unit type
-Small Quests: i.e. we’re heading to X for a tiny sum please travel with us, etc.
2.Demand Surrender: Demand they hand over goods (refusal based on comparative unit strength)
3.Slay Them: Attack (With chance your black deeds harm relations.)

Perhaps all hostiles could offer similar prompts as well…
1.Attack
2.Demand surrender (refusal based on comparative unit strength)
-Caravan/Town: Seeing their odds they… hand over their goods / defy you
-Bandits/Troops: Seeing their odds they… hand themselves over / make themselves scarce / defy you
-Goblins: Not able to understand they… launch themselves preemptively / sneak away
-Orks: Your gibberish pleas… ; are to no avail / cause their largest ork to gesture for 1 to 1.
-Undead: A stoney silence greets you, what did you expect?
-Beasts: Clanging together steel and shouting, the foul beasts… ; flee / attack regardless. (More effective on Ghouls)

3. Bargain
-Bandits/Troops: Offering gold instead of violence, the men…; take your bribe (-Gold) / sneer and charge (More effective on Bandits)
-Goblins: Seeing no fight in you, they…; gesture you leave your supplies / gleefully engage (More effective on a Shaman)
-Orks: Your gibberish pleas… ; are to no avail / cause their largest ork to gesture for 1 to 1. (Less effective on Young Orks)
-Undead: A stoney silence greets you, what did you expect?
-Beasts: Abandoning food to sate these monsters, the beasts… ; gauge themselves distracted (-Food) / ignore your offering. (More effective on direwolves)

So on and so forth, but yeah definitely it would be good to have the option to play amorally, outside of the contracts.

[SuperCaffeineDude]

Cheers icemelon, I don’t get a reason to draw in retail, and I nerd-out on whatever I’m playing lol.

PsenBattle stated there won’t be any new races before it releases, but I think many people would support post-release content and mods, so I would instead put that suggestion towards fleshing out the game with more of the tolkien-esk (the cthulian would also be pretty sweet) come release.

Again though I’d love to see the Beast faction expanded, currently we have Ghouls and Direwolves, but both are pretty swarm-like and I think there’s room for (to borrow from dwarf-fortress) lone megabeasts that roam around being dicks and requiring a full early/mid/late game squad to take down. Miles Cameron’s The Red Knight book depicts a universe where mercenaries and knights roam around slaying beasts of the forest, and I think there’s something very medieval about going on a quest to slay a large beast, like a nordic or arthurian tale.

There’s a manticlaw…

I also think a nice Wyvern type dragon would be pretty sweet, i.e; A scaled beast resting on hind-legs and the forearms of its leathery wings. Its amassed treasure bait to lure tasty morsels in to be roasted and gnawed.

[SuperCaffeineDude]

In terms of what I writ here, I more considered them as a plot device, but they also are a hybrid of the big 3 races you make comparisons to.

For the Fay I was thinking of a glass rapid fire support as the core army, that come with high dodge, melee and range base stats.
With the sprites distracting and disrupting, by tying up archers and such by gnawing at them whilst evading harm with their high dodge chance, and/or ability to bypass an engagement hex.
The ents would be less swarm like and of one life unlike the undead, but with swing attacks and extreme durability.
The piper would be more of a target and would be buffed with spells to stun and ensnare enemies, something like;
-captivating tune: halts nearby foes
-sharp note: Hurts surrounding (axe swing)
-ensnaring music: Vines ensnare foe
-rousing melody: Enables ents to act
A unit I didn’t draw was the Siren that would be a beautiful elder that can control minds with song xcom style.

With Burrow-Men, they’re essentially bandits with a stronger core, great range resistance (cba to draw shields), and a bonus for night time combat, high stamina and poor speed + daytime disadvantages.
The sling would have a stun chance, and i’d was thinking they’d need a long-range caster unit to force the enemy towards them, like a little roman catapult to fling loose shingle at you, or a slowly winding ballister (goblin-esk I know lol)

In terms of bringing something simple but unique, I’ve thought it might be cool to have a large enemy that is it’s own army, requiring many battle-brothers to take down as part of the beast faction the werewolves are a part of, and maybe adding a little bit of a monster hunter flavor to your missions, i.e. slay the dragon. I’ll probably post them as a separate suggestion once I’ve farted around enough with my manticore and dragon, but something like this…

…

And some simple quirks might be…
Manticore: Can sting from 2 tiles with poison dmg, can charge, weak range defence
Dragon(maybe a different name): Can vomit fire onto nearby hexes, can charge/glide
Cockatrice: slow with high armor-dmg, can charge/glide
Wyrm: High ambush chance, hidden on invisible on “campaign map” residing in the marsh, can burrow in bog water
.. on and so fourth idk

[SuperCaffeineDude]

This would be a nice simple touch, I’ve burned a lot of daylight forgetting to pause on an exit, something minor but simple to solve I imagine.

[SuperCaffeineDude]

I honestly would rather have the bespoke stuff’s stats be relatively tame so a really nice nasal-helmet isn’t better protection than (for example) a great-helm, but the values seem to vary from being of little to fantastical benefit.

Do we know if the coin value correlates to the effectiveness? And if the values are procedurally generated? Haven’t had a lot of time to play these past weeks :(

I’d suggest it might be more flavorful if these war-relics/antiques (named items) gave “physiological” buffs, like the wolf-pelt armour does with Resolve (Like accuracy, dodge, stamina), in addition to less varied stats.

Regardless it’s nice to have them in-game

[SuperCaffeineDude]

Nice, love the mercenary, the other two are pretty lush too, look forward to seeing the images in context

[SuperCaffeineDude]

Idk, currently the perk & xp system is the reward for getting out alive, maybe you could get bonus xp for the hard lesson.
I like the idea of terrifying facial scars, though I don’t know it translates well to a pitched battle, where scars will be hidden from sight by armor, or is so obvious as to make you look like easy pickings.

Prosthetic limbs, could be used to negate the scar effects, maybe also inflict terrifying effects (like a pirate hook), though that seems like a lot of work for what we can presume is already occurring.

Regardless of whether an augment system were to be implemented though, it would add nice a bit of flare to be able to customize way the injury displayed, similar to the Barber, with glass/brass eyes, eye-patches and such.

Post-infliction maybe having Doctors/Priests/Barbers in your squad (or as support) and the amount of medical supplies could play a role in scar chance?
Maybe post battle a dialog option could come up…
“If I work fast and use some of our medical supplies I might be able to save Jon Johnson’s leg”
1.”Absolutely, take what you need…” -20 Medicine 75% Chance
2.”Don’t overdo it…” -10 Medicine 50% Chance
3.”We can’t spare it…” 10% Chance
4.”Put them out of their misery” -Party Moral -Jon Johnson

Also a defence stat on the weapon parry system might help people not get hit, a chance to parry steel with steel rather than move away from it or intercept with shield/armor. Ideally based on weapon with Pole-arms offering less parry and swords greater parry. Ideally leading into a situation where skilled warriors are even less likely to take damage.

Lastly reduced recruitment costs might allow for players to burn through troops rather than retain their more diminishingly effective men.

Honestly though I haven’t had a good long chance to play it yet, but that’s what springs to mind

[SuperCaffeineDude]

I think in order to do something like that it’d be great to restructure how aiding someone in battle works

i.e.
“In the distance you see a group of men struggling against beasts, with no time for introductions, you lend your aid!”
-Battle with allied forces as per usual-

But then a conversation box comes up whilst you’re still on the map…
The battle over, the leader of the group approaches you warily
“Thanks, lads’ve had enough adventure for one day, we’ll be heading off now if it please you”
1.”No you won’t…” Attack them
2.”Forgetting something…” Ask for coin
3.”Fair thee well…” Bid farwell

Or perhaps if you’re outnumbered…
The battle over, the leader of the group gives you a greasy smile
“Your men look tired, allow me to relieve you of your valuables, see that you get back safe”
1.”Come get them…” Attack them
2.”Ah…” Pay them gold
3.”Werewolf! Behind you…” Try to run away

And that sort of setup could then apply to a few scenarios like a rival mercenary party, graverobbers facing the undead, peasants you might want to rob, corrupt army staff, etc. It’d be nice if, like in FTL, you could have special dialog choices based on who/what is in your party.

[SuperCaffeineDude]

No edit button but that’s kind of what I was thinking for a variant…

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