Different way to nerf militias

[Zakky]

Instead of nerfing archers, we can also just buff other unit types.

Making multiple archer hits on the same target can be addressed.

Like the first hit will be 100% but the second will be only 65% and all other hits after that will only do 30% to that target.

[Chenier]

Cavalry never really seemed worthwhile to me. Making them more resilient to archers, or some other buff, might work in increasing their appeal.

[Zakky]

Wouldn't mind people being able to recruit more of them too...

[Ketchum]

How about drastically reducing the recruit production speed while a region has too many militias?

If many people(Population) sent out as guards, then they not farming or mining. So the production will suffer.

Sound fine to me.

Though I hope we fix that Population issue first. As many peasants(Population) unable recover for quite sometime. Example, look at Alebad city, the site of battles by many fallen realms resided there: Alebad realm, Minas Thalion and now Halcyon. I see their Production level not recover fast.

[Daniel Coffey]

Hey guys, I'm not overly clued up on all the mechanics of BM since I haven't been here so long, but I've noticed a few things certainly.

- Militia inflate low population kingdoms with CS, allowing them to survive way past their usual life expectancy. Whilst lower player kingdoms shouldn't be discouraged, it does give the impression that they aren't actually achieving anything. Just, existing.
- Archers are overused, and if it's not archers, it's SF with ranged attacks + abilities. This might not be because they're BETTER at dealing with Monsters/Undead, but it might be because they don't get killed when dealing with them. (Although I think they are perhaps a tad too effective). Which leads me to.
- Recruitment is a bitch. As a new player, I can't understand why recruitment is cantered around the capital. And is fairly gold intensive. You basically have to get hand outs to recruit even passable infantry/archers without weeks of sitting around gathering gold. As a feudal lord, you should be levying troops from your local estate, practically for nothing unless they're trained retinues. Having said that, this is a game so, I can understand why people wouldn't necessarily want to use their 30/50/15 MI with Range 2 :P

I would propose a new way of handing militia and recruitment all in one.

1) You can recruit units from any Ducal capital, or if that's not possible to code, from literally any region. Having to travel 2-3 days of real life to go to and from campaigns is not fun. Time is easily the most valuable currency in BM, and reducing red tape and paperwork on players time will help people get more stuff done. What's more, is it allows realms to expand more capably but not reducing the threat of 'too little nobles to regions', as presumably more rogues would attack.

2) The barracks that house the troops you recruit from become the militia forces of the region. In doing so, make the militia static, not depleting, and when people hire from that group, it reduces the militia amount. Have the regions pay half the usual upkeep it would cost to have those many troops deployed in mobile armies. This stops people from stacking hordes of militia in provinces that would not feasibly upkeep them, as well as putting emphasis on having trained units or SF/Cav in high gold provinces, and less trained Inf/Arc in the rural regions. More flavour friendly too.

3) Repairing equipment should be allowed in all provinces with a barracks. They can repair equipment to 100%, but reduce/improve the quality of your troops equipment based on the highest level equipment available in that province. Costs increase/decrease dependant on the skills of those local smiths. This keeps campaigns on the move, and whilst it means your regiment may come home with shoddier gear, it can allow armies to keep pushing forward against the tide of attrition.
In tandem with the above, a system that allows you to upgrade your companies gear should be a thing. I know the wiki makes out that it's because the troops aren't trained in that style of fighting, but historically speaking medieval armies used all sorts of different weapons/armour in the same regiment. Standardization was a huge problem for them that wasn't introduced until pike and shot regiments, and even then it wasn't universal. What's more, is that a character can role play their regiment as wielding 'pikes' or 'swords' even though they come from the same region. Why? Because there's nothing denoting what infantry/archers/cavalry use as weapons. Surely then upgrading their equipment is really just getting better quality versions of their current weaponry?

Hope my 2 pence doesn't sound like ranting or such, I really love the game so far, and I want to see it do better and get even more players. Thanks for reading.

[Zakky]

1) Capital recruitment is to balance the game.

There are only 2 ways to do it for BM's system I think. Either you centralize it or de-centralize it.

Centralize was the path this game has chosen to go down. Decentralizing it will make it more miserable probably. If you make all RCs local, you actually need to travel there to recruit. It will make new players even more confusing plus capitals will become less important.

2) Militias.

I think maybe allowing people to recruit them locally is fine but as long as there are militias, RCs you used to get them should remain empty until you disband them. So if you have 4 RCs with 200 men each, you can have up to 800 militias but your RCs will remain empty until you disband or lower them. This will make people choose between using them as militias or active troops. At the moment, you get endless recruits constantly.

All the problems that have surfaced recently are caused by having only 400 players. The game was never designed for so few players and it just can't adapt. It will take a very long time to fix all the issues since many don't see it as problems or they have different views on the matter. I'd recommend learning more about the game and just living with it. Do what you can with what you have. That is how you play BM.

[Chenier]

9300 CS of militia sprang up just for MOVING into a starved out townsland.

Man war has gotten incredibly lame since I last led a human war. Random free auto-defense force that can outpower most realms' entire mobile armies. Heck, many realms' combined mobile armies.

This used to be a PvP game, where mobile armies clashed with mobile armies. Now... urgh. It's like wrestling in a minefield: the best move is not to move at all. And that's incredibly lame.

[Zakky]

It ain't a pvp game anymore. More like pve at this point.

[Chenier]

Yea, I think I'll focus on Westgard. I'd rather have 30k of rogues ambush us, but know they came from a neighboring region I should have scouted, then have 10k militia ambush out, which spring out of absolutely nowhere.

[Zakky]

Literally feels like Yu-Gi-Oh. You've activated my trap card!

[Daniel Coffey]

Thanks for the reply Zakky, I have realised that the small playerbase is cause for a number of problems, which is a shame. But that doesn't mean we should just work with what we've got, after all, this is a suggestion for dev direction :) Also, sucks to be you Chenier, I wouldn't dream of facing 2k CS at the moment, let alone 10k :P

Firstly, what I meant when I said making RCs Ducal/Region, I meant that you can just recruit from any Ducal capital or if not possible, any region, full stop. You get the full recruitment list that you're currently allowed in the capital and just allow it everywhere. Perhaps restricting it to any city could work? But currently I feel too much emphasis is on the capital, which restricts nation growth, which restricts player vs player interactions.

I understand about making them all local though, that would be even worse :P

Secondly, in what scenario would you have 4 RCs in any one territory for the militia with the system I suggested? That would equal to around 200+ gold upkeep per week, at half upkeep costs. I can't see that being economical at all. However, I do see what you mean, and I think it's another good suggestion. Having a slider/cap for RCs so you pick between militia/troops could work... I see one problem though.

Everyone will just put max militia in every province that isn't really efficient archers/SF at the current rate. Maybe 1 or 2 RCs for INF just to use tactically but no more.

I had another idea, if you'd hear me out. Why not detach militia from noble management altogether? Create a new building named 'Guardhouse' or 'Muster Field' or something, very cheap to start off but more expensive as you upgrade it. It creates a small group of 'peasant militia', much like the peasant mobs that attack you if you raid regions and such. That way, in a large group the militia could beat 10-20 monsters/undead, but would be hopeless against real soldiers. Exactly what a militia would be.

I would suggest an upgrade path like 10/25/50/100 militia. I doubt 100 will do much against any mobile army, but it will deter small raiding and rogue groups, which is what a militia should do. Upkeep wise for the buildings? I'm unsure what would be considered balanced.

Again, just another 2 pence, I hope the suggestions get taken in. Going back and forth about perceived problems with no suggestions won't get anyone anywhere, but I feel this community as a whole cares about the game and therefore these suggestion threads are for the better more often than not.

[Chenier]

I don't like militia at all. Used to be only about preventing random raiding parties from targeting key regions like cities, thanks to the high walls to back the up and the large income to sustain a lot.

Now? Random regions spawn them on their own for free. Free militia that auto-spawns with more CS than many realms' mobile armies combined.

It's not PvP anymore when most of the CS lies upon auto-generated armies.