Sultan Mubashar

Castles... WoW, Hurrah!!!

Yes dear, my idea is only valid if battle takes place on the global map (not on the battle map) on the fly without the player's intervention. Player doesn't need to command these battles personally. Marshal armies will destroy the outposts the same way they were used to raid the villages in the vanilla game, but with a little difference. If marshal have ranged siege engines in his army, he can attack the outpost from a distance equal to his LOS. He will build a temporary siege camp there and his siege engines will start firing at enemy outposts. This is the process which will takes place around a clock. Building siege camp, firing of siege engines at outpost and gradual destruction of outposts in stages should make visible to player through some appealing animations if battle is relavent to player. If outpost is not at higher level and is wooden made and enemy marshal does not have any ranged siege engine then he can reach near at outpost and will attack outpost with his units (an action similar to village raiding). Higher level outposts made of stone can only be destroyed by army with siege engines. If enemy marshal completes the clock while attacking a outpost, then outposts will be destroyed and will be disappeared from map. If attack is lifted before clock completes, it will be considered damaged and lost hp will not be replensihed upon lifting until repaired. Now there are two approaches DEV can choose how outposts will attack enemy marshals. 1): First approach as I mentioned in the early post, outposts will start launching its missile attack through firing arrows and siege engine as early as enemy marshal enters into radius of action and keep firing as long as marshal is in its range. Animations of outpost firing arrows, siege engine fires etc. at enemy marshals should be shown on global map if this battle is relavent to player ( battle taking place at any outpost which is visible to player on the global map). OR 2): Second approach is that instead of outposts firing at the enemy, a small army will sally out from the outpost when enemy marshal enters into it's radius of action and will engage enemy marshal into battle automatically and armies will keep coming after some regualr intervals as long as marshal is in the range of outpost. This concept is similar to the one already present in vanilla game when jihad was called, and small armies popped up from mosques from time to time and used to engage the nearby enemy marshals into battle. Outposts may engage with more than one enemy marshals within its radius at a time in either of approaches whatever developers chose. I am in the favor of 2nd approach.

Let's make this idea more simple for anyone to understand and easy for developers to implement. What is this idea? The idea is to allow kingdoms to place "Fortified Outposts" on the map within their own territory. What are these outposts and how these will work? Fortified outposts are defensive structures similar to watch towers/keep/bombard towers in Age of Empires series. Each outpost will consist of few archers and a siege engine and will have a radius of action in which it will launch it's missile attack at the encountered enemy armies. What is the main purpose of these outposts? The main purpose of these outposts is to secure a passage by opposing enemy marshals to march further into one's lands through that passage. Can outposts be demolished, damaged and destroyed? Yes, these can be demolished by owner, can be damaged by rebels, enemy marshals and spies and can be destroyed by rebels and enemy marshals. Owner will have to repair the damaged outpost. Will outposts of kingdom (A) be visible to other kingdoms (B, C)? Outpost of kingdom A will not be revealed to kingdom B until: B is allied with A (Both can see each other's outposts as long as they remain allies), OR A is vassal of B (B can see A's outposts as long as A remains vassal of B), OR B's marshal comes across A's outpost (it will remain visible to B as long as outpost is within his marshal's line of sight), OR B's spy has been successful in sneaking into A then A's outposts will be revealed to B one by one as time passes while spy is working in A. Time delay for each reveal will be dependent upon the no. of already revealed outposts and role of spy. Time needed for the next reveal will become shorter after each reveal and marshal spy takes less time to reveal an outpost than merchant spy (it will remain visible to B as long as spy is there), OR Any rebel army supporting B comes across the A's outpost (it will remain visible to B as long as outpost is within rebel's line of sight). Any outpost visible to B will also be revealed to C if: B and C are Allies, OR B and C have signed defensive pact, OR B and C signed an invasion plan, OR B is the vassal of C C has a spy in B. (Optional but very tricky). Any outpost that became visible to C because of B will also become invisible to C if it becomes invisible to B. Will Outposts be upgradeable? Yes, Each level will increase their: RADIUS OF ACTION HIT POINTS ATTACK POWER PUSH FACTOR What is PUSH FACTOR of an outpost? Push factor is the tendency of an outpost to remain resilient against enemy and defend the specific passage effectively by discouraging the encountered enemy marshal to advance further into lands through that passage and forcing him to back off and find another passage. Will outposts require any upkeep? Yes! these structure will be expensive to build and have maintenance cost in gold. Further there will be repairing costs in case of any damage. Will Marshal Army have any line of sight for detecting these posts? Yes, Each marshal will have a line of sight for these outposts. To keep things interesting, a typical marshal with no "EAGLE EYE" skill will have very small line of sight even less than primary level outpost. Line of sight of a outpost is equal to its range of action. What is EAGLE EYE skill of a marshal? It is a supposed name for a marshal skill which will grant a marshal extra line of sight per each level. If LOS of marshal is bigger than the range of an enemy outpost, he can detect outpost without being trapped into its radius of action so he will have an option to avoid the outpost without suffering any casualties and find another way. To keep things interesting, LOS of a marshal with highest level of this skill will be less than range of an highest level outpost. What actions a marshal will have at his disposal when he comes across the enemy outpost? When a marshal has an encounter with enemy post, he can: Continue advancing through the passage without engaging with outpost while suffering a huge amount of casualties, OR Start attacking the outpost for the sake of destroying it first, OR Back off and try to find another passage possible to invade into enemy territory. How can a marshal damage/destroy an enemy outpost without suffering any casualties? A marshal can damge/destroy an enemy outpost without suffering any casualties if he has: Higher LOS than outpost, AND Long-ranged siege engine like Trebuchet at his disposal. How can a spy of one kingdom (B) damage the outposts of other kingdom (A)? When spy of B starts revealing A's outposts, he can be ordered to damage it but beware it will dramatically increase the chances of spy being detected and captured as A will be put on high alert. Hint: If your outposts suddenly start getting damage, this will be a clear sign that you have a traitor in your royal court. It's time to track and hunt him down. Will there be unlimited no. of outposts available for a kingdom to build at a time? No. For a fair gameplay, a kingdom will only be allowed to build one or two outposts for each province it holds. What will be the best spot to build these outposts? To get most out of these outposts, one should look for a narrow passage with the root node.

Yes it will be super cool and add too much fun to the game.

Adding fortifications feature into the game will not make gameplay boring by any means but Challenging and Interesting for both AI and Player as it will add New Strategic Elements into the game which will definitely encourage Longer Gameplay Sessions and will extend the Replay Value of the game. After reading and watching 14 DEV dairies till so far, KoH2 seems only to be the graphically improved version of the vanilla game with few to none new features. Introducing a feature like fortifications as per my suggestion will add great weight to "What's New in KoH2". I hope DEV will read this post and understand the importance of it in bringing the game to next level.

My approach here is little different from that. These fortifications will be very expensive to build and to maintain. Only big/rich kingdoms would be able to afford them. This will also do justice to these kingdoms against the argument that smallest kingdom in the game can have same no. of armies as biggest kingdom can.

In medieval times, there were not only towns/cities, but also castles/forts/fortresses built at the strategic locations inside the kingdom territory, like river crossings, passage through hills, mountains and frontiers, which worked as a defensive barriers against enemy march heading towards kingdom's cities and even protected kingdoms from enemy against crossing its borders. This is very core and critical aspect of medieval warfare which KOH:2 should not leave behind. So, I have basic idea in points how devs can incorporate this feature into the game: - Every Kingdom should be allowed to build castle like fortifications anywhere (at strategic locations) on the map within its border. - Every kingdom can only have a limited no. of fortifications built at a time determined by kingdom size. - Fortifications can be demolished and rebuilt by owners. - Fortifications should have garrison just like cities. Marshal armies can also be stationed inside. - Fortifications should not add any kind of economic benefits to the kingdom. - Fortifications should have upgradeable levels. Leveling up would increase garrison size and siege defense through stronger walls/towers, siege engines, moats etc.... . - Fortifications should have some maintenance costs determined by its level. - Fortifications can store extra food from towns (Max Amount determined by its level) and can supply it back during hard times on king's demand. - Fortifications could have dungeons where captured enemy marshals can be kept imprisoned. It does not make any sense for captured enemy marshals to take slots in royal court. They have nothing to do with this. - Fortification should block specific passage for the enemy army and should be destroyed first by enemy army before marching further into kingdom territory.

Anyhow KOH2 needs the feature of local army commander. What can they do is make it configureable in option settings so that players can enable /disable this feature according to their preferences. I bet Lighthope may be the very first player who will be playing the game with this feature enabled. LoL...

Atleast one army commander per city (if four will cause gameplay balancing issues) should be implemented which will enhance gameplay without any balancing issues. That commander will be responsible to keep the city AREA safe from the wandering and raiding enemies. AREA includes border covered by that city which also includes any mosque, farm and/or coastal village associated with that city. Enemies can be enemy knights and rebels. To answer your issue regarding balancing, my proposal actually enhances the strategic elements of war and deception mechanics of gameplay which relates to actual history too. To weaken the enemy garrison; 1): Send one of your knight to raid the farms, city will send its army commander with some army to help against the raid. Go and siege the town with other knights as army commander is busy in fighting against raids. Can't we relate this to actual medieval warfare tactics??? 2): Ignite rebellion and wait for a rebel to emerge in the targeted city area, go and siege the town while local commander is busy in fighting with rebels. Can't we see some history involved in this too???

No. of armies of a smallest kingdom = No. of armies of a largest kingdom = Unrealistic = LoL = Big PROBLEM

I am proposing a mechanism to solve the issue of marshal counts due to the limited no. of slots in Royal Court. Apart from marshals in royal court, all cities must have up to 4 slots for Army Generals to be hired; One for the defense of City garrison, One for the defending mosque/monastery, One for the defending farm And one for defending coastal village/port in case of raids. Player/AI should recruit separate armies for each generals just like they do for marshals. The difference between marshals and generals is that generals should only be able to defend lands in case of siege/raids while marshals can do both, attack enemy lands as well as defend their own lands along with generals. Player can not control movements of generals army on the map. In case of raids, respective general army will automatically move to the farm/monastery/coastal village being raided where they engage battle with enemy then player can control the army in the battle just like any other marshal army. After battle, if successful, general army automatically moves to the respective city. In case of unsuccessful battle, slot becomes empty in city slot and new general should be hired. This concept share its similarities with the jihad mechanism already present in the old game but with advanced work around. This idea makes sense because the major issue with having limited marshals is to defend against raiding. It becomes difficult to impossible for anyone to defend their lands when kingdom becomes large specially farms/mosques/coastal villages. The idea of non-marshal knights of the royal court leading army makes no sense at all. By the way who have seen diplomats/merchants leading armies to fight enemies in the battles in history? This game is great prospect. Don't spoil it.