Sanity Check for Peasant Mobs

[Indirik]

Title: Sanity Check for Peasant Mobs

Summary: When peasant mobs are formed, the final calculation of mob size should be checked against the enemy forces in the region. If the calculated mob isn't big enough to pose a threat to the enemies, it should be discarded without ever being formed. Or the peasants that would have been in the mob can flee to a different region.

Details: Peasant mobs are a joke. You can fight hundreds, or thousands, of peasant militia, and they can't even scratch your armor. Or you can have a tiny "mob" stand up and try to fight entire armies of 2,000 soldiers.  It's kind of ridiculous. Instead, when the calculations are complete to determine the mob that forms, it needs to be given a sanity check. Compare it to the force of enemy soldiers in the region. If it doesn't reach some minimum fraction of the number of enemy soldiers, the mob should never even form. (Or perhaps they can instead flee the region.) This will reduce many ridiculous situations that form now, such as 20 peasants facing off 1,700 soldiers, or 30 peasants stopping 700 soldiers from looting.

This could be combined with a change to actually put a few teeth into peasant mobs, thus ensuring the lack of pathetically small mobs, and that the mobs that do form are actually a force to be dealt with, and not regarding as "a few more points of cohesion".

Benefits: Less chance of many ridiculous situations from occurring, such as those listed in the Details above.

Possible Exploits: It may be possible to find a way to abuse the system to let the loot counters build up enough to trigger huge mobs all at once. But if we make peasant mobs actually a bit dangerous again, then this may not really be a problem. Also, some people may try to take advantage of this by holding a significant portion of their troops out of the region until the militia pops, and then move troops in to clobber the mobs. But then again, this will help break up blob armies, so maybe it's not really a bad thing after all.

[Anaris]

Definitely needed. Along with reducing their overall frequency and increasing their strength, this should make looting to bring up peasant mobs less of a go-to strategy for completely depopulating a region.

[Velax]

It would also prevent the incident like possibly prompted Indirik to post this here, where a tiny peasant mob prevented two armies from fighting, spoiling a surprise attack and potentially causing the side that should have won to lose, as it allowed the other side an extra turn to bring in troops.

[Indirik]

Well, this wouldn't necessarily prevent that. But it would ensure that the peasant mob was more than 21 starving rogue peasants.

[Buffalkill]

It would also prevent the incident like possibly prompted Indirik to post this here, where a tiny peasant mob prevented two armies from fighting, spoiling a surprise attack and potentially causing the side that should have won to lose, as it allowed the other side an extra turn to bring in troops.

I can understand your frustration in that situation, but I also think it's kind of cool based on your description. Life is unpredictable sometimes. I remember reading about an epic battle from Roman history where the Roman army was clearly dominating and should have easily won, and suddenly their General was killed by his own soldier whose wife he had seduced. It changed the outcome of the battle and the course of history.

[Noldorin]

I dont know if this is already in place, but it might be necessary to reduce the incremental effectiveness of looting when there are too many looters in the region (that arent stopped by militia). Would be a bit overkill if a large army could drive one region rogue per day during a campaign. This could go hand in hand of peasants getting more and more angry by the aggressors for each looting rather than blaming the current government.

[Velax]

I can understand your frustration in that situation, but I also think it's kind of cool based on your description. Life is unpredictable sometimes. I remember reading about an epic battle from Roman history where the Roman army was clearly dominating and should have easily won, and suddenly their General was killed by his own soldier whose wife he had seduced. It changed the outcome of the battle and the course of history.

No. It makes not even the vaguest of sense. If one army has spent a lot of effort in setting up a surprise attack on another, they are, in no way, shape or form, ever going to toss that plan aside, risk losing the battle and get hundreds of their own troops slaughtered just so they can join up with their enemies to kill 21 peasants. No.

[Buffalkill]

No. It makes not even the vaguest of sense. If one army has spent a lot of effort in setting up a surprise attack on another, they are, in no way, shape or form, ever going to toss that plan aside, risk losing the battle and get hundreds of their own troops slaughtered just so they can join up with their enemies to kill 21 peasants. No.

A peasant militia caught in the middle wouldn't make a distinction between Army A and Army B. They'd attack both and you'd have no choice other than to fight back. You might not even know who was attacking you and why, you'd just see someone coming at you with a pitchfork. You certainly didn't know what was happening on the other side of the battlefield. You're pissed off because you got ambushed while trying to ambush somebody else. 

[Indirik]

21 peasants caught on the field between opposing armies, each composed of 800+ soldiers? I doubt the armies would even notice they were there, let alone have any effect on the battle.

It makes no sense whatsoever that it happened. It's merely a quirk of the battlefield that can only account for a certain limited number of circumstances. Edge cases will always produce whacky results.

[Buffalkill]

Ok, I yield.

[Dishman]

I support the idea of retweaking peasant mobs. Peasant growth is so slow that those slaughtered senselessly cause rebuilding to be a pain.

[Penchant]

This is probably the biggest reason looting is so effective, the realm can't repair the region due to its population being destroyed.

[Vita`]

For what its worth, this has been live for a couple weeks now.

[Zakilevo]

For what its worth, this has been live for a couple weeks now.

So 30 peasants can't stop 700 men from looting anymore?

[Vita`]

If 30 peasants show up, they'll probably still stop 700 men from looting. But only 30 men *shouldn't* spawn as a militia anymore. If they do, it should be considered a bug. For 700 men, there should be no less than 350 peasants spawning as militia. Basically, you shouldn't see peasant militia arise with a number less than half of the occupying force's numbers. Militia were also given a slight increase in strength so they shouldn't be cannon fodder anymore, but are still weaker peasants still.