Academies as a paraphernalia source (as requested)

[pcw27]

You are preoccupied with Max skills. Max skills is not supposed to be a common event, its not supposed to be easy to achieve either. If anything getting max skills in things like Bureaucracy and Oratory is too easy.

Think about it as a real life thing. I could practice fencing everyday of my life for years, either in a training format or by dueling, the manner isn't relevant. Chances are, I will NEVER reach the highest level of ability here. This is not a standard CRPG were max skills is a given. So to my mind we have two methods available to achieve a spectrum of skills. The first is to make skill gain reasonably difficult so it takes not just time, but singular focus to maximise skills, which is arguably what we have done with sword fighting. The second would be to randomly generate a series of limits on character creation which represent your characters skills in such things like reactions times, observational skills etc, and use those to limit the maximum level for each skill category for your character.

So to reiterate. IF you want maximum skills in some area's then you need to dedicate time, effort and resources to achieve this at the expense of participating in other area's of the game. That is by design, so to change this you would need to offer a compelling reason.

Yes but the point is why should that time and gold have to be spent in some city? You would still have to sacrifice time, heck it could be made so you still have to sacrifice gold, but you wouldn't also have to sacrifice participating in actual combat by being tied down to some city.

It's unrealistic and it's bad for balance.

[pcw27]

Why?

Because according to the game they're leading from the front getting into the thick of combat whereas normal knights sit in the rear echelons and fight only when they have to. The hero description claims the hero increases the CS of his unit because he/she is personally fighting in that battle.

[De-Legro]

Yes but the point is why should that time and gold have to be spent in some city? You would still have to sacrifice time, heck it could be made so you still have to sacrifice gold, but you wouldn't also have to sacrifice participating in actual combat by being tied down to some city.

It's unrealistic and it's bad for balance.

How is it bad for balance? It is GOOD for balance because it is another restriction to high skills. So we provide paraphernalia for training, what is the result. MORE high level sword fighters. You have yet to prove that this is a desirable thing.The requirement to go to a city to train is what provides part of the singular focus on the activity.

Because according to the game they're leading from the front getting into the thick of combat whereas normal knights sit in the rear echelons and fight only when they have to. The hero description claims the hero increases the CS of his unit because he/she is personally fighting in that battle.

Yet both Hero's and non-heros get wounded in battles, and by watching battles it should be evident that non-hero's  can be wounded when very little damage is done to their unit, suggesting that the idea they sit back and do little is not quite accurate.

Its no so much that other knights DON'T participate, as Hero's throw themselves into the absolute worse situations, the riskiest parts of the combat. While this increases the risk to themselves (which is resolved as a chance to die) it doesn't necessarily mean it would impart a chance at greater skill.

[egamma]

Because according to the game they're leading from the front getting into the thick of combat whereas normal knights sit in the rear echelons and fight only when they have to. The hero description claims the hero increases the CS of his unit because he/she is personally fighting in that battle.

I think they only increase CS (or number of hits, which is what actually counts in battle) for close combat.

[De-Legro]

I think they only increase CS (or number of hits, which is what actually counts in battle) for close combat.

Can anyone confirm where the description on the wiki came from? Since it is so hard to actually test I know of no hard numbers to either confirm or deny that Hero's have any effect on the CS of their units.

[pcw27]

How is it bad for balance? It is GOOD for balance because it is another restriction to high skills. So we provide paraphernalia for training, what is the result. MORE high level sword fighters. You have yet to prove that this is a desirable thing.The requirement to go to a city to train is what provides part of the singular focus on the activity.

That will only be the result if the paraphernalia aren't adjusted properly. They'd need to be expensive, time consuming and limited in effectiveness.

The cities only system creates a situation where a hardened veteran who's been on campaign for months will almost always be worse at sword fighting then someone who's sat in a city training. One of the big complaints on the other thread was that combat doesn't give a high enough skill boost in comparison with the academy.

The real issue I see is that the Academy as it functions now separates two elements of gameplay and medieval society that should be intrinsically linked: military service and prowess in combat.

Frankly I don't care how the issue is addressed but the paraphernalia idea was instantly popular.

[fodder]

you train anyway (without doing anything)... just to maintain your skills (or make sure it doesn't deteriorate too badly) you just go to academies for specialist stuff..

them stuffy masters are not going to wander around the countryside instead of staying in court teaching heirs to the throne, etc..

... or they can remove academy....

[pcw27]

you train anyway (without doing anything)... just to maintain your skills (or make sure it doesn't deteriorate too badly) you just go to academies for specialist stuff..

them stuffy masters are not going to wander around the countryside instead of staying in court teaching heirs to the throne, etc..

... or they can remove academy....

As it stands now theres no way to train your own combat skills in any way without an academy. Heck I think it would be reasonable to have a way to train which only keeps your skills from deteriorating, but right now your options are fight in battles or sit in a city, with is completely unrealistic, not fun, and with the current system gives the person sitting in the city an advantage over the one fighting battles.

[fodder]

eh... the point is.. you don't have to click links to do it. just imagine it's done already. some bloke wandering around with some crap tutor or wave a piece of metal around just isn't going to be doing much good.

... basically.. go fight.

[Tom]

A while back there was talk of changing academies to a source of paraphernalia. From an academy you buy trainers.

There was talk, yes.

It was rejected. I will not change the way academies work. I don't see a reason to repeat the discussion.

[Foundation]

Thank you for your input, everyone.  A decision has been reached, let us move on to more productive topics.