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[Mephansteras]

Looks extremely cool, the type of game I'd love. Are you taking suggestions or just updating us? It looks really cool, I just always love more complexity, thus meaning I take a look, and see how something could become more realistic/advanced, usually at the coder's expense. Which is why I would never be able to make one of these, because I'd never stop making it more complex.

I'll take suggestions, although of course I probably won't use half of what people suggest. Especially since one of my main guidelines for this project is to start reasonably small and slowly add in the more complicated stuff as I get to it. It's quite likely that I'll hit a point where this project, or at least this iteration of it, gets finalized and I stop working on it. I'm kind of expecting it to be a mess, code-wise, and eventually it'll be more effort than it is worth to add new stuff. But I'm trying to design it to be at least halfway extendable as I go so that shouldn't be too soon.


As far as the AI stuff goes, I've updated my notes section with some initial thoughts on it. I think my plans there, especially when we get to the longer-term goals of Reputation and Diplomacy, will really make having different AI levels easier.

I also spoilered the various sections to make it easier to read without getting overwhelmed. Well...a little bit easier, anyway.

[Rolepgeek]

I was thinking of stuff to combat and the like, but a. I forgot what I was gonna say, and b. looks like you already coded combat.

[Mephansteras]

I was thinking of stuff to combat and the like, but a. I forgot what I was gonna say, and b. looks like you already coded combat.

Well, no. Very little is actually coded at this point, if you look at the status list in the OP. My notes are pretty much just that at this point, notes. But I have been planning things out in reasonable detail.

[Rolepgeek]

I was going to suggest that instead of plain dodge and attack hit chances, a logarithmic system, and upgrades to units. So, boosting a units attack from 2 to 3 is a lot, but boosting it from 26 to 27? Not so much. And stuff like giving cavalry big bonuses, and spears just take them away, etc. I like realism.

[Mephansteras]

Well, if you read the combat notes I'll have some of that. Not so much with the logarithmic system for units, but then it's based more on unit type than the skill of the individuals. So swordsmen are simply better trained than militia, which basically covers the basics of that sort of scale.

[Rolepgeek]

Ehh...yeah, but there's also needing to factor in armor and the penetration class of weapons. Crossbows will work equally effectively on medium, light, and no armor, and will be reduced by heavy, while most arrows will work equally on light and no, but reduced by medium and almost useless against heavy. Knights were sometimes called pincushions during the crusades from all the arrows that hit and stuck but didn't hurt.

[Mephansteras]

I've debated putting a system like that in, but decided against it for now in favor of a more abstracted system. It adds a huge amount of variables that are only really relevant if you have a decent tech tree going on.

Functionally, a Swordsman can be assumed to be generally effective at fighting other swordsmen. His blade will be designed to penetrate his opponent's defenses, whatever those may be, and he should be reasonably expected to beat a simple militiaman but be hard pressed to deal with a unit of heavy cavalry. That's about the level that I'm at. Whether he's using bronze-age equipment, dark age equipment, or late period plate mail doesn't matter all that much as long as the units balance each other out and the costs of training up a unit mesh reasonably well with your ability to raise funds.

Same with our archers. A standard hunting bow is unlikely to hurt a Knight in full armor, while a Longbow does reasonably well against them (as the French at Agincourt learned all too well). Functionally, it doesn't really matter if the heavy armor gives the knight a 20% better chance of surviving compared to a lighter armored soldier due to a complex system of comparing bow strength, arrow penetration, and armor types instead of just giving them a 20% higher defense. It does matter, though, in terms of code complexity and the amount of time needed to actually simulate a battle.

I enjoy realism, I really do, but I also want to avoid getting mired down in details that don't ultimately matter all that much for a high level conquest game.

As long as you have units of different strengths and the outcomes of various fights are as you'd expect, I'm happier getting a simple system in place that works well then a really in-depth realistic system that works but adds tons of balance issues and bogs down development.

I may end up adding in more complex interactions like that later when we get different cultures and possibly tech levels, but for now I'm going to just abstract that sort of detail.

[Rolepgeek]

I wasn't thinking of super complex stuff, just something like an armor penetration value and an armor value. Maybe a 'wrestling' phase that a few units would randomly get into, where they would use a different weapon(that is how most fights between knights ended, after all). That, and a formation system; loosely arranged lets you move fast and change direction easily, as well as provide defense against arrow volleys and siege weapons, but a charge from a grouped formation will tear you down. Tightly packed makes shields mor effective(still not something to do against volleys; better when they get into a fire at will scenario), and assists against charges, makes spears more effective, etc. maybe an intermediate stage as well, like a marching formation where each soldier is a yard or less from his closest neighbor, rather than the two to three I envision for loose or the six inches I think of for tight/close.

[Mephansteras]

I'm not planning on going too deeply into the 1-on-1 level combat of soldiers, since we've got thousands of those conflicts happening each round of a large battle. I might add in the level of detail when we get Heroes running around doing stuff, since it makes sense to model out their stuff a bit more. But that's a more distant goal.

Formations might be useful, as well as some sort of discipline system. Militia are more likely to just move as a mob than any actual formation, while elite soldiers should be able to not only maintain a formation but quickly change formations and even change formation in the middle of an engagement. I'll add that into my list of eventual combat ideas.

[Rolepgeek]

Hooray I helped! Oh, and something else formations would do; loose formation lets most of the people in the unit attack, while tight would only let the front guys strike, but they would also have the weight of ranks behind them, pushing forward. Morale should be complex. Not in a bad way, just...if it's only in casualties, than no one will ever fight to the last man, which is untrue, and people won't be 'oh shit they have reinforcements' or get scared at the enemy's super elite troops coming down to kick ass. Likewise, when a huge block of horsemen is charging at you, armored and with lances ready, vs. a mog of angry peasants with pitchforks? Which one will make you want to run even before they reach you?

[Mephansteras]

Yeah, lots to eventually figure into for morale. For now, I'll probably have most battles be simple morale and just add a bonus when defending a city or whatever. But it'll have to be reworked eventually.

In other news, fun with math!

Been calculating out how much units should actually cost, based on a bunch of historic numbers I could dredge up off the internet. It's all fuzzy, of course, since costs varied depending on the region and time period. But it works out pretty well.

So right now we have a base faction income of about 1760 gold per year. That's for a small city-state with about 6,600 in population and no wealth modifiers on anything.

With my new calculations, the unit costs are as follows (In gold):
Swordsmen - 600 to produce, and a yearly upkeep of 720
Pikemen - 500 to produce, and a yearly upkeep of 720
Archers- 300 to produce, and a yearly upkeep of 1080
Horsemen - 1600 to produce, and a yearly upkeep of 2160
Militia - 150 to produce, and a yearly upkeep of 180 (note that is only 50 men, not 100 like the others)

So our basic city-state could afford to have a few decently trained troops, 1 good unit and some militia, or a bunch of militia. Horsemen are out of the range for most small cities unless they are wealthy. Factions with larger cities, or multiple cities, could probably start to utilize them. And, of course, if you go with a smaller military you have more money for other things.

The unit sizes keep the % of the population supported as a standing army for any length of time pretty close to historically accurate, which is about 7% for the medieval period. You can do more for shorter lengths of time, but it's risky if they get slaughtered since your tax income will suffer dramatically.

Overall, I'm pretty happy with it from a realism standpoint. Using a 'Build up a big army, go squash someone, and then disband most of the units' tactic will be pretty common, and that's more or less what was done in period.

I may need to play with my Town/Village tax stuff a bit, though. The raw amounts work well, but seasonally things should matter more. Having your people around for the Spring planting is important for a good harvest, and you need them back in Fall to actually harvest everything. I can't just have Winter and Summer give less income, since then you'd go off on winter campaigns all the time, so seasonality should matter there.

Initially, of course, that's not a big deal.

Ultimately, I think I need to model a few things.

The amount of wealth you can get from a village should be effected by available manpower in spring and fall the most. Spring is potential, and fall is how much you realize that potential. So...the # of people taxed in Spring is your potential amount for Fall. The number of people you have in Fall determines how much of that potential amount you can get. Having extra people doesn't help as much as having good potential and being able to use all of it.

I think I need to do more research on medieval taxes and how that worked.

For winter campaigns, it should be possible but maybe just more expensive. If I have my supply train logic in place, I could simply make the costs go up a lot faster. So a campaign in summer that would cost, say 2000 gold might cost you 3000 gold in winter because of increased costs. I could also model attrition of a sort, with units taking casualties for every turn spent out of a town/village/fort. Most wouldn't' be deaths, but they could be serious enough illnesses and whatnot to keep the soldiers out of battle.

[Rolepgeek]

For the costs, don't forget you have to pay for their equipment, mostly the time, and their training. Having their initial cost higher than their upkeep is a bit strange though, considering that their upkeep should be part of their initial recruitment...

[Mephansteras]

For the costs, don't forget you have to pay for their equipment, mostly the time, and their training. Having their initial cost higher than their upkeep is a bit strange though, considering that their upkeep should be part of their initial recruitment...

The initial costs are an estimate of how much their equipment & training cost. The upkeep is the cost of their wages & supplies. So you can see that's generally much higher over a year. From my reading, medieval armies were expensive to equip, train, and especially to upkeep for a campaign. A fairly short campaign of conquest could cost more than a year's taxes for a King! Of course, loot and randoms would make back most or maybe more than that, if you were successful.

And all of these costs represent the cost to the society to make things easier. If I was modeling a true Feudalistic system, the lords would pay for most/all of the initial costs and the king would only pay wages & supply costs on a campaign. But then you get internal politics going on and lords not showing or or whatnot, and that would be completely different game to play.

One of the advantages of hiring mercenaries in this game, I think, is going to be the fact that their initial cost is going to be much lower than an equivalent unit trained up from scratch. It should be relatively cost-effective to hire expensive mercenaries for a summer campaign and then dismiss them after a few month. As long as there are enough available, of course. But I haven't really touched on that yet, so I'm not sure how that'll work. Maybe have a chance for each unit disbanded by a faction that it'll go mercenary instead of disperse back to the villages and towns. And some could always go bandit, which would suck for whoever they're harassing since most of them would be nastier than your common outlaw group.

[Mephansteras]

Got some more notes out, and I actually had to break my notes post up into two because I hit the 40k word barrier.

[Rolepgeek]

I had thought you meant th turns would be a year each, from the way it was put. Now it makes a bit more sense.