Lighthope

Because there has to be a limit. And they chose 2. Could easily have been three. I think M2TW does three. But they chose 2. So 3 units? There is a magic number that makes it interesting but not overly complex. But I think your pendulum swings too far. If it isn't realistic, don't do it at all? There has to be some compromise, and I think they found a good middle ground between too much and too little. I'm comfortable so far. We'll see how it plays out in the beta. If they let us into the beta.

I'm not. Armies constantly called for reinforcements, and sending an untrained army from a nearby fort/city is something that happened all the time. If the AI got stomped by the human calling reinforcements, that's a problem with the AI, not the concept.

I"ve read over your comments. They are very detailed. My issue is that I think you are asking for too much reality in a game. For example: You're right. I also don't really have a problem with that. Because it's fun and reality would require far too much micromanaging. Yes, auto-resolve would be more tactically interesting with flanks, etc. And we're back to micromanaging. I look at KoH2 as something that scratches my itch for a Medieval 3: Total War, since it looks like we'll never get one. A nice balance that isn't so so so in depth that it robs the fun out of the game.

By the time you've got your marshals up and running to sack provinces, I'm already making enough gold through other means. Seriously, they need to change up how sacking works.

tbh, I never really got into sacking provinces (like burning a farm) because I couldn't see any real effect it had. Even if my own province was being sacked, I repelled the invaders as a matter of honour, not because they were doing any real damage. (Except for rebellion.)

I am working on the assumption that our comments on princesses had a direct effect on how they were reworked in KoH2.

Sure they are. Read the developer's notes to the game M.U.L.E.

In all the games I've played, never once has the AI voted to make someone Emperor. I don't think it's that big of a concern. Maybe some people want to play the diplomatic game. Not me. I want to roll stomp Europe. But to each their own. Choices are good.

On the other hand, making it too easy makes the game boring. Which is why options are a great thing. Hardcore rules are a blessing that can be turned on or off as the player wants. This way, everyone gets to play the game they want.

I'm glad that princesses get something to do. Am I misreading and they only get prestige bonus? Or are they getting other bonuses as well? Like the espionage and counter-espionage and other stuff?

On the other hand, don't make it so complicated that I need a spreadsheet to figure out what units I need to use.

Realistically, yes. But in a video game, I am comfortable with their single purpose utility. Makes the player make a choice as to having a fast unit or a slow unit. If they can dismount, it takes that strategic choice away.

Mercenaries in the base game were generally used to build up an army very quickly, especially if you were looking at an invasion. I think they served their purpose well enough as is.

This is a good idea and I support it.

I don't think those are important at all, except maybe a slightly different game when selecting different kingdoms.

I didn't have a problem with rebels crossing borders. It was believable and forced me to not ignore provinces that I had conquered. It also required me to deal with rebels rather than let them spread their chaos. But I am willing to accept the compromise as long as they are an option in higher difficulties.

I could go with that as an option available to toggle on and off. But then are we starting to ask too much from the AI coding necessary for all these different things?

I like that idea. Spain would get the option to gobble up France's kingdom upon death of the king, and France would get a protector. How about another idea: A marriage to a kingdom gets you their resources as long as the marriage holds. Here is the next question: Are the developers even considering doing something with princesses, or are we just blowing into the wind?

That's a good idea. They could increase books written as long as they remain unmarried. I do like the idea of princesses increasing happiness and population growth when sent to a particular town. Once they get married, you would lose the ability to send them to towns. Now we just need to give some positive bonuses for marriage. Right now, it's almost all negatives.

Maybe fighting should destroy a certain percentage of the structures and kill a certain percentage of the population. So not fighting would keep those intact. The attackers get a province with everything built up and the defenders can decide to give up peacefully in the hopes of returning and taking it all back. Very historically accurate. Okay, sieges actually ending up killing a lot of the population through starvation, but hey it's a game. We can let that slide.

tbh I have never sieged as castle. I go just go in and slaughter them. There doesn't seem to be any tactical advantage to siege a castle. All you do is just give the other guy time to call in reinforcements. And if you wait long enough, the other guy will sally forth anyway, so what was the point? I think sieges need to be worked on. The point of a siege is to take a castle/fort/town without damage or loss. So either there needs to be a massive penalty for fighting or a massive bonus for not fighting. That just isn't there in KoH1. Not that I have seen.

Don't we already have this mechanic in the game? Your Marshall can be talented to become a fort, firing off arrows at an approaching army. So this sounds like an end run around the Marshall limit. I could get on board with that, presuming the proper requirements and you can't just spam and forget them. (An artificial limit of one per province doesn't make sense.)

Okay, how about a compromise for fortifications? They are used solely to block a route. Slow down the army. Buy time for reinforcements from allies or your own forces that were elsewhere. The attacking army can hack and slash the fortification the same way they destroy a farm or a village. Just a clock. No actual fighting. (Unless your forces get there.) This way fortifications are an obstacle, not another battle.

In other words: A pest castle. I really do appreciate the theory behind it. Reminds me very much of the fortifications from M2:TW. Let me tell you what is going to happen: I am going to march my army either around it or, if I am marshaling two armies, up to it and destroy it, and destroy it quickly because I am going to massively outnumber you. I probably won't even bother with the map battle. I'll just do the auto-complete and let the computer count the casualties. In that case, your province bought themselves no time to call in help, I probably lost only a few attackers, and it was really boring gameplay. In this kind of game, fortifications aren't going to add any strategic value because they can't add anything that either won't be too easy to kill or too frustrating to fight. I don't think they can find a middle ground. Sure, you can build up your fortifications. Why not build up the main castle instead? You've added the same defense value, but killed off the pest castle. Fortifications add nothing to the game but a method to slow down the attacker and add yet another structure they have to stop and kill. That isn't fun. That's repetitive. With how many provinces we have to conqueror already, do we need yet more battles to fight?

Now we're going back to the pest castles, which I don't want to do.