Better/More detailed Marshals?

[Poliorketes]

I'm not a very veteran gamer (only a year) but one thing arise my curiosity... All people wants to fight "blobbing", one of the best way IMHO would be having more effective Marshals.

For years I played a lot of wargames, and one thing in common in  most of them was the big importance of a good Marshal, and the disaster who can make an incompetent one!

If It's not a design choice, it could be good to make Marshals more 'decisive' on battles... to put a bonus in the army with better Marshals or something like this... I think... maybe make another ability for this, or user the 'leadership'... Maybe I'm wrong, but right now is not very useful?  :P

[Zakilevo]

leadership unlocks more formation choices. Usually marshals are underlings of generals. If you have a bad general, you will lose even with a superior force like Ibldeash.

[De-Legro]

I'm not a very veteran gamer (only a year) but one thing arise my curiosity... All people wants to fight "blobbing", one of the best way IMHO would be having more effective Marshals.

For years I played a lot of wargames, and one thing in common in  most of them was the big importance of a good Marshal, and the disaster who can make an incompetent one!

If It's not a design choice, it could be good to make Marshals more 'decisive' on battles... to put a bonus in the army with better Marshals or something like this... I think... maybe make another ability for this, or user the 'leadership'... Maybe I'm wrong, but right now is not very useful?  :P

How does that affect blobs? Blobs are just as likely to be lead by good Marshals as smaller armies are.

[vonGenf]

How does that affect blobs? Blobs are just as likely to be lead by good Marshals as smaller armies are.

But blobs lead by bad marshals still win the day. Usually.

[Poliorketes]

How does that affect blobs? Blobs are just as likely to be lead by good Marshals as smaller armies are.

Well... It could be done in some ways. The obvious, a good, (or fantastic) general would win a battle against superior forces, something I never had see (at least for now)

Other way: Usually, a big army is much harder to command in battle than a smaller one. Make the bonus for Good Leadership less effective as the size of the army grows. (a General can't be in two places at the same time, etc...  :P)

IMHO it could be good for the game to have some Marshals famous for his ability in the battleground... Some kind of: "Oh, be careful! Maybe their army is not very big, but I had heard the famous general XX is commanding the army!" 

[Peri]

The obvious, a good, (or fantastic) general would win a battle against superior forces, something I never had see (at least for now)

It's not so unusual in truth and I do not see it as a huge problem, frankly. Clearly if one engages 20k cs with 10k cs there is no way to win, and anyway I do not think this would be something Tom is aiming to. On the other hand when differences in cs are slimmer there are plenty of ways to make sure your side doesn't have the worse in a campaign, even when losing a battle. And this is when good generals (good not because the game mechanics say so, but good because they are good players) make a difference.

[Poliorketes]

The thing is a good general with 10k CS would be perfectly capable of destroy an army of 20k CS with a very poor leadership!  8) Right now, a difference of 20-25% is almost for sure, decisive... Generals win or loss battles! not only are managers of victories and defeats... and if we have something called leadership, why not to use it?... It's only a game mechanism? well... all Battles are pure game mechanism, right now!

about aiming... of course I can't know what are Tom is aiming, but I can tell what I'm aiming... to try to help to make BM more 'realistic'... and more enjoyable, funny and alive!  ;D

[BardicNerd]

The thing is a good general with 10k CS would be perfectly capable of destroy an army of 20k CS with a very poor leadership!

Not without a combat system that is vastly more complex than the current one.  Maybe if you used leadership as a multiplier for combat strength, but doing that to a large degree seems like a bad idea, as makes things just boil down to game stats even more than it already does.

[Penchant]

Not without a combat system that is vastly more complex than the current one.  Maybe if you used leadership as a multiplier for combat strength, but doing that to a large degree seems like a bad idea, as makes things just boil down to game stats even more than it already does.

It also encourages to not let new people into  marshal position.

[Indirik]

That's why you have Vice Marshals.

Anyway, I don't think this will stop blobbing. It will get the realms to split the nobles into multiple armies, that will all travel together in one big blob. And since it's ridiculously hard to find good marshals, the general will give all the orders, or the one good marshal will do it for all armies.

[Poliorketes]

Well, It has some logic to don't give a green-marshal the command of your forces.  ;D
If you want to be an infiltrator, you must train hard, but if you want to command your realm army you have to do nothing!?  ::)

I was thinking something like a 'malus' to units moral if your Marshal is bad, (or worse than the enemy). Others things probably would be a nightmare to code.

I think something like this would be good... of course, it don't STOP blobbing, but it lesser the importance of simply blob men, and strengthen the importance of WHO is leading the men.
Honestly, I don't want to stop blobbing. It's logical! The 'evil' is if the ONLY thing that matters is blobbing!

[Indirik]

This does have some applicability to an idea I had regarding using the general in battle. You could use a two-step system:

1) A Marshal's ability to command an army in battle is related to his Leadership skill. Put too many nobles under his command, and he is less effective. The higher the skill, the more nobles he can command before getting a penalty. This could help keep army sizes down. Realms will want to have multiple, smaller armies.

2) In order for multiple armies to work together effectively, you need a good General, with appropriately high leadership skills. So if you have 4 or 5 armies trying to work together in the same battle, you would have to have your General there to coordinate them all. If the general isn't there, the armies suffer some sort of penalty. But if the's there, and he's good, then you get a bonus.

The idea here being that you need characters with actual experience leading your armies. This could help curb some of the situations where a new character played by an experienced player immediately gets appointed as Marshal/General because the realm knows the player is good.

It should be a combination of penalty/bonus. So as your leadership goes from low > medium > high, it goes from penalty > neutral > bonus.

As to what exactly the penalty/bonus should be, I'm not exactly sure. Morale doesn't seem to cut it. Maybe some modifier to effective CS. Trying to put 40 nobles under a Marshal with 10% Leadership should make the whole army less effective. Maybe a 10% penalty to CS? Dunno... just batting around ideas.

[Penchant]

I had a big long reply debating the idea but I think its not important for me to say since I thinks its agreeable to go with Indirik's idea.

[Zakilevo]

Rob's idea sounds pretty good.

It is relatively easy to get leadership if you command archers so reaching high level of leadership shouldn't be a problem.

Marshals with 10 or 20% leadership should only be able to command maybe 5-10 nobles. More than that, they should suffer up to 25% CS penalty?

[Poliorketes]

Rob's idea sounds pretty good.

It is relatively easy to get leadership if you command archers so reaching high level of leadership shouldn't be a problem.

Marshals with 10 or 20% leadership should only be able to command maybe 5-10 nobles. More than that, they should suffer up to 25% CS penalty?

Yes, I like it too! I don't know about the kind of bonus-malus, probably both morale or CS would do the work, maybe the easier to code?  ;D

To 'get' Leadership you can battle... or train it in your academy! I know, an exotic concept!  8)

This is only a rough idea:

A Marshal with 5% Leadership could command 1 unit (basically, his own!) for each 5% he would command 1 unit more... with a 50% Leadership a Marshal could command an army of 10 units. Bonus/Malus, for every unit over the max. it will take a -5%, for every 2 units below, it would get a +5%?

A High Marshal will command 1 army from 0% to 25%, 2 armies from 26% to 50%, 3 from 51% to 70%, 4 from 71% to 80% and 5 from 81% to 100%... bonus and malus?... maybe for every army over his limit a -5%, and every army below, a +5%? ... if there is no High Marshal the limit would be zero.