I am with you on the gold and double agent issue, The most, outside of
the capital that can be stolen is the amount of money produced in the
that turn(Pop Center size times Tax rate+ surplus gold produced)
--- In mepbmlist@y..., "Richard Farrer" <richard@r...> wrote:
Here are my views. Some already suggested in this thread so just
take this as an extra vote for those. Some large, some tweaks just
because I thought of them at the time
1) Troop numbers
All the numbers given for army sizes are human equivalent. An army
reported as 500 humans is really 500 individuals. An army reported as
500 trolls is, say, only 250 trolls but each one fights twice as well
& costs twice as much as a human so it balances out. Ie I think this
works well as it stands
2) Troop types
Fighter without horse, fighter with horse (and tack). Each man (or
man equivalent, see above) has a fixed base fighting strength &
constitution. Better armour & weapons significantly improve fighting
strength. However, the cost of an army depends on the weapons &
armour it has (it's easy & cheap to round up a levy of peasants with
clubs, it's much more expensive to train & maintain archers or a pike
block, it's quite expensive to support ploughboys on carthorses but
it's extremely expensive to arrange a battalion of knights in full
armour).
Possibly morale should be affected by weapons/armour also. I'd
certainly feel happier with a couple of inches of plate mail and
padding between me and a sword coming in my direction.
3) Fighting
Increase the effect of terrain, depending on the tactics used and
the troop types involved. Lightly armoured guerillas can do a lot of
damage in rough terrain.
4) Home ground advantage
Nations fighting in territory that is on their map should get a
bonus as they would presumably know the best places to start battles.
Even more significantly, armies fighting on their own or possibly
friendly pop centres should get a straight addition to the army
strength (or a factor increase - I'm not sure). This should be
significantly larger than the current improvement but, on the other
hand, there should not be a separate battle for the pop centre
afterwards. This reflects the advantage of being behind a high, thick
wall
5) Morale
Low morale should cause desertions & possibly affect movement as
well. High morale should improve movement. A good commander will
affect the limits defining low/high.
Beseiged armies without food should lose morale very quickly.
6) Army movement
Reduce movement during the winter, particularly for armies without food.
7) Army size
A nation should have a maximum supportable army size, depending on
total level of pop centres. After it has reached this size it should
start to lose production (too many people at war, not enough at home).
This probably needs a lot of care to avoid it unbalancing the game.
8) Emissaries
Emissaries should be able to improve/worsen loyalty in any pop
centre (so they can improve the loyalty of allied pop centres,
particularly).
Emissaries should have an enhance/reduce morale skill order
9) Agents
A few ropes cut here, a couple of water barrels poisoned there.
That army's never going to fight at full strength tomorrow.
There should be a limit on the total gold that can be stolen from a
pop centre in one turn (except the capital) so that 16 Cloud Lord
agents can't bankrupt a nation by stealing from a village.
Agent orders against capitals should be more difficult
Double agents should report any other characters in companies they
travel in
There should be nation messages like "xyz was seen talking to nation
N" which expose double agents. Of course the better an agent & the
more stealthy, the less likely to get spotted
