Post by wolfsteel on Jul 2, 2018 12:44:40 GMT
Idea: Letting players decide on how to control their levies composition in certain flavors, regardless of culture. Only their own levies, not that of their vassals. In the same light, certain castle styles could be drawn into 'specialized' castles based on the ruling lord's desire when creating a new one, as well as putting in a more solid use for the Fort.
Often enough, I find my stacks being composed of primarily light foot soldiers and perhaps a small smattering of archers and a fairly sized heavy infantry count, but very minor in the cavalry and pikes and special units unless I hire mercenaries or I'm in a cultural appropriate area that presents these, which is rare for the majority of Westorsi playthroughs. Perhaps a building that once built would reduce X amount of light or heavy infantry for X amount of something else, with additional morale benefits to accommodate their training as you further upgrade this building. This would help augment certain desired play styles to a degree, and perhaps events could be associated with these buildings to help increase the chance of getting the light foot leader, heavy infantry, cavalry leader, ect traits so their stack benefits more-so.
For castles, I think a choice of buildings to designate what kind of castle it is would be a clever shift. A castle design with luxury in mind more-so over the sake of strategical positioning and defensive strength. A seat of 'power' that is more suited to a pampered fool than a warlord, meant to hold lavish feasts and extravagant parties and only house a loyal personal guard and a skeleton garrison. In the same light, a means to focus on having a strong garrison and a weaker levy force or a stronger levy force and a poorly garrisoned defense, each offering their pros and cons. A drained garrison would have a reduced Fort Level, and would be much easier to siege and drain their morale to zero since they lack the proper manpower to defend the castle properly, in exchange for a larger levy force and a higher supply count since you drained your castle of its supplies for the march upon the road, leaving barely any back home. A higher garrison would naturally deplete the levies you would muster, raise the Fort Level up, but make it much harder to effectively wage war and would depend on your vassals and/or allies to defeat your enemies while they try to contest your holdings and stave off perhaps a stronger martial force from taking your capital holding while you play a longer strategical game and a defensive tactical play.
Forts are a blank thing and right now their only effective use in the game is to confuse Dragon Rider AI leaders to spend their dragon siege on the Fort instead of your capital holding, or delay an attacking force from taking your capital holding while you retreat back to contest that army. Cheaper than building a new castle or upgrading the castles defenses or number sizes, but less effective over-all at mobilized armies. An investment choice for richer lords/ladies that want to protect critical areas that prove to be easily taken, but perhaps don't want to create a new title or spend too much money on upgrading a title that isn't in their inheritance.
On a side-note, the positive opinion bonus for building/upgrading the fief of someone else should last a bit longer. I argue it in the same logic of if you had a lord that invested into making your walls impregnable, you'd remember and be grateful for that for the majority of your life. Probably your kids and wife, too.
