Suggestions for the second patch

[Gallifrey]

Ultimately what I'd like to see is something done that makes the game more interesting and fun to play after one's kingdom has reached a "considerable" size. I find that the process of building up your kingdom is a lot of fun, but the game always reaches a point where further expansion isn't really necessary and managing your empire via diplomacy is the way to go. But at that point, the AI really fails. I can have the largest, most powerful, nation, and small kingdoms wil l say I'm not amongst the most important kingdoms, or can't take care of myself and so forth when asking for, say, a Royal Marriage. It's absurd.

I'm not sure if something that improves AI diplomacy can be done in a patch or not. But it's something I'd very much like to see. Expansion is fun for a while, but it's in diplomacy and proper managing of one's kingdom that makes for lasting fun.

[kiri_hacker]

I want to add that they should make the Catherdral to have more bonuses such as books and stuff like that you do pay a lot of money for it anyway:biggrin:

[iceman22]

One thing i would love to see would be a multiplayer couquest, where two or more people actually control a kingdom and can play togethor, i dont see this happening over the internet through gamespy or anything but maybe on a lan even if just limited to 2 people, or over direct tcp/ip direct connection or modem connection or something, although i think this big of a change would be on an expansion or sequel game but i really think that if they had this they would increase the number of players dramatically and would make a lot of people happy campers i know i would be. if they had multiplayer like this im afraid i would never stop playing. anyways just a thought

[qorda]

Some ideas: :angel:
1- The province governor should automatically come out with his local army to fight the rebels and invaders with out orders from the Capitol unless enemy are very strong.
Province governor should be able to lead the army in his own province even if he is not a marshal but should have inferior commanding capabilities. However, he should not be able to lead army outside his province.
2- In the startup screen there should be a provision for adjusting the number of courtiers from 7 to 11 or whatever number the patchers see fit.
3- Province features fixed permanantly for each region according to real geographical facts rather than variable generation by the game e.g. fish for Scotland, sheep for Wales, silver for Ireland.
4- Historically correct images, where available, of the kings put into the game and ensured that they are always represented by the same image in every game?
5- No interfaith marriages; all princes must marry in their own faith as was the case then. No muslim/christian or orthodoc/catholic marriages.
6- Improved role of kings siblings; his brothers should not disappear with kings death but remain and form a source of rebellion if the new king becomes weak/ kindom power or happiness falls.
Also ensure that king's younger brother if any should be automatic heir to the throne until the king has a child? So John should succeed when Richard of England dies childless.
6- Ability to zoom and rotate
7- Improved Vassal behaviour; presently they act as allies and often turn down demands from master state. They should obey all demands unless the master state becomes very weak when vassal should first become disobedient and then declare independence.
8- Ability to add new pictures for buildings by the modders.
9- Also please make it easy for modders to add new troop types with new pictures to the games that should appear mobile in their new appearance on the battle field. If this is made possible, it will add a great new dimension to the game.
10- A map/ battlefield/castle editor.
11- If pope asks a kingdom to lead a crusade, it should be upto that kingdom to decide which marshal and what troop types it wishes to contribute.
12- Age correct pictures; no bearded man icon for a child king please.
13- Please make mathematical parameters available to the modders for them to understand how events are controlled in the game
14 Ability to combine skills of nobles as governors e.g. a cleric governor should also have a minor building bonus or a landlord governor should have a minor gold bonus etc
:go:

[White Knight]

I like alot of these suggestions..

but am not willing to write an entire book about my wishes..

all I would really like to see is a new map to play on because im tired of europe
and some new units..Black & White Knights!! for example.

also, Now that I think of it.. many games come with a *simplistic*
pre made game/map editor that is included.. that might be nice.

Even maybe a pre defined unit editor/creator ??
that's easy enough so that even noobs could figure out.

so players could create their own units without possibly screwing up
the game files or needing pak extractors or trying to figure out what
files need to be edited & backed up ..and all that mess.

cheers.

[kevincompton]

honestly most of those ideas I don't think would be beneficial, map editor and changes to gameplay with the governor don't really do it for me. But different strokes for different folks, I guess...

Personally I want to see whats there to be working before adding more.

[qorda]

Personally I want to see whats there to be working before adding more.

It is going to be the last patch if it comes so ask for all you can now, there will be no "adding more" later! :nono:

[cursingdirk]

IF they meet all of our desire.
Who will buy KOH2?
It's just a dream.
prepare for far MODing after the second patch.
all of my friends.

[Lord_Nick]

Some patch ideas/suggestions:

Add ability to record the game in the Strategic View, similar to Civ 2 or 3. You can share the recording with others and watch the various kingdoms expand and contract. Replay speed should be above Game Speed 10 for this.
Ability to produce a genealogy or at least a Line of Kings ... so and so ruled from time x to y, etc. Include a pic of the King
Ability to capture or produce a screenshot of the entire Strategic view without the distortion.
Add the ability to show kingdom stats over time. In addition to ranking the kingdoms and listing their Overall Power, produce line graphs showing how each kingdom's Overall Power has fared over time. Make graphs available for all the current in-game Stats.
Show locations of Mercenary Camps in Strategic View .. similar to how Rebels are shown, (but different symbol).
Be able to queue construction of buildings if gold is available. For example, if you want to build a Palisade, Stone Wall, and Bulwark in a village ... you can start construction of the Palisade and put the Stone Wall and Bulwark in a queue assuming you have the 13 K in gold to build them (5 K Stone Wall + 8 K Bulwark).
Similarly, be able to give the instruction to auto-build units in a town until the garrison is full. For example, a town can build Feudal Knights ... you can tell it to automatically create 6 Feudal Knights if the gold and food are available. If the Feudal Knights are removed from the garrison, the town starts to produce them again. This feature does not work while the town is under siege.

[The Red Baron]

Here’s some of my personal observations:

1 Too much gold
2 It appears there are actions that I can take that the AI cannot or does not take
3 My armies cannot be defeated in the open field
4 I can take any castle regardless of the amount of defenders
5 Once I reach a suitable size any challenge is completely gone (MAIN PROBLEM!)

Some of these have impact on each other and so if one is changed others may or may not be answered. While this list is nowhere near exhaustive it does capture the main game breakers that I run into every time I play KOH.

1. For the player there is too much gold. The ability to hire a few merchants from the beginning send them off to Germany and “Byzantium” is just too easy and result in very little of any income problem for the player. I will also observe that the AI just sits there with huge gold reserves and do nothing with them. For the player possibly have the difficulty setting impact the percentage of income received when compared to the AI. So on easy, medium and hard have the player’s income be set at say 100% 50% and 25% of normal respectively. (It would be a great touch to have these settings in a def file that were moddable).
2. I can think of 5 things that I can do that I have not seen the AI do.
a. Importing exotics – therefore getting Kingdom Advantages
b. Using books to remove nostalgia
c. Adapting the tax levels to unrest levels in the AI towns
d. Siege Weapons! (cripples AI for #3 and 4)
e. Quick take over of town authorities
I believe allowing me these options while the AI seemingly never values or utilizes these tools provides an imbalance to the game.
3. My use of ballistae makes any open field fight a waste of time. The computer should have access to them and they should be limited like archers
4. My use of just one catapult allows me to take out one by one any town defense. One well-built defensive city should hold out against armies 2 and 3 times the size of the garrison, town guard or defending army. Tower mounted anti-siege works should have range advantages against anything but trebuchet’s. And like the ballistas the cats and trebs should be limited like archers.
5. I agree with Elvain and others who state that once you get to 10 or so territories the game becomes ridiculously easy. Some other minor balancing ideas to consider:
a. The larger you get the more other distrust and will ultimately band together against you. The common enemy principle.
b. The larger you get the fewer diplomatic offers are made to you and fewer are accepted when you offer.
c. The larger you get the less of a penalty should be incurred by the computer for breaking treaties, etc. Possibly even give KP additions for ganging up against you, as you get larger.
d. The larger you get the greater the penalty you should have for attacking a small 1 or 2 territory kingdom. Force the player to take on the larger kingdoms rather than just gobble up the little ones first.


Some minor thoughts:
1. A readme file or other documentation explaining what the different modable files do. The process of trial and error with modding has some benefits but IMHO it stifles creativity.
2. Some cleanup of the map editor would be nice. Making that truly functional would be a welcome addition.
3. “Turning on” the events.
4. Making the voting process a deeper and tenser process would heighten the political aspect. Making voting more frequent and less likely that the AI will abstain. Just the possibility that an AI kingdom could be voted in and therefore the player lose would force more attention to be paid to who is friendly with who.


I have tons of other minor ideas but I have dragged this out to long.


TRB

[Lighthope]

Some ideas: :angel:
1- The province governor should automatically come out with his local army to fight the rebels and invaders with out orders from the Capitol unless enemy are very strong.

This is a good idea. As of right now, having an installed governor offers little benefit. But having additional troops available in the event of attack (almost like additional town guards) would be great.

2- In the startup screen there should be a provision for adjusting the number of courtiers from 7 to 11 or whatever number the patchers see fit.

Okay, I'm dumb. I don't know what you mean.

3- Province features fixed permanantly for each region according to real geographical facts rather than variable generation by the game e.g. fish for Scotland, sheep for Wales, silver for Ireland.

Boring. Accurate, but boring. I'm willing to sacrifice some accuracy for more variety. It's not fun if, say, Soctland is always the same.

4- Historically correct images, where available, of the kings put into the game and ensured that they are always represented by the same image in every game?

Why? Since there is no "timeline" then it is impossible to say who the correct king is.

5- No interfaith marriages; all princes must marry in their own faith as was the case then. No muslim/christian or orthodoc/catholic marriages.

Believable, but again too limiting.

6- Improved role of kings siblings; his brothers should not disappear with kings death but remain and form a source of rebellion if the new king becomes weak/ kindom power or happiness falls.

Interesting idea, but I'd rather they fix the princesses first. Right now, they offer no real advantage and several huge disadvantages if you marry them off.

Also ensure that king's younger brother if any should be automatic heir to the throne until the king has a child? So John should succeed when Richard of England dies childless.

Do you think that might be a bit much for a patch. Family history might be something better left for KOH2

6- Ability to zoom and rotate

Dream on.

7- Improved Vassal behaviour; presently they act as allies and often turn down demands from master state. They should obey all demands unless the master state becomes very weak when vassal should first become disobedient and then declare independence.

Agreed. Except for sending you money, vassels don't act like vassels. Also, there should be some obligation on the master state when it comes to protecting vassels from attacking kingdoms.

8- Ability to add new pictures for buildings by the modders.

Why?

9- Also please make it easy for modders to add new troop types with new pictures to the games that should appear mobile in their new appearance on the battle field. If this is made possible, it will add a great new dimension to the game.

That would be a nice improvment.

10- A map/ battlefield/castle editor.

Oh, yes! I would love to see different castles!

11- If pope asks a kingdom to lead a crusade, it should be upto that kingdom to decide which marshal and what troop types it wishes to contribute.

I agree with that. But there has to be a limiting factor. No choosing the weakest marshal without some kind of penalty.

12- Age correct pictures; no bearded man icon for a child king please.

Children can grow beards quite young you know.

13- Please make mathematical parameters available to the modders for them to understand how events are controlled in the game

I think that would be a nice thing for them to provide.

14 Ability to combine skills of nobles as governors e.g. a cleric governor should also have a minor building bonus or a landlord governor should have a minor gold bonus etc

Why? If you want a building bonus, install a landlord. It's all about choices.

One of my major quibbles is that there is currently no point in seiging a town. You always end up losing more men than if you just stormed the castle. The other side is true also. Why stock up on huge food supplies when the attacking army will just storm the castle?

Sieges need to be fixed badly.

The whole point of stocking food was for the town to hold out until help could arrive. So how about no attacking a fortified town until the food runs out unless attacking army has siege engines? Or, unrealistic but a bit more offsetting, the food will run down faster the better the siege engine the attacking army has. Thus a town can hold out for help longer against an army with ladders as opposed to catapults. Anything which makes sieging a stragedy to employ.

Lighthope

Pearls of Wisdom - Children in backseats cause accidents. Accidents in backseats cause children.

--== TIGERS' QUEST - http://www.tigersquest.com
--== THE DOCTOR WHO AUDIO DRAMAS - http://www.dwad.net

[Sir Sean]

all i ask is that AI could actually put up a fight and win ie make hard HARD not EASY oh and Elvain your mod wont work with the patch would it?

[Doux]

Some ideas: :angel:
(...)
8- Ability to add new pictures for buildings by the modders.
(...)This is already possible.
--
(...)
One of my major quibbles is that there is currently no point in seiging a town. You always end up losing more men than if you just stormed the castle. The other side is true also. Why stock up on huge food supplies when the attacking army will just storm the castle?
(...)I actually prefer sieges in the end-stage of the game. Losses and sige times can be reduced with marshall skills. I do agree that it could use some changes e.g. in advantages (a besieged town takes less time to take in control?).

[Elvain]

oh and Elvain your mod wont work with the patch would it?
it works (correctly) only WITH the patch

[Angryminer]

He is talking about the second patch and weather the second patch would brake compatibility. That's rather propable, but the changes should be minor and should be fixable within a few days.

Angryminer

[qorda]

White knight put this idea in the Mod section. It is worth having a place here in the chamber of desires:"Also we need mace soldier units with the spike ball & chain".
Good idea; may be some farmers weilding clubs too.
More thrill in the game with few new units. :cheers:
Also thanks Lighthope for your feedback to my suggestions. I'll try to elaborate what is unclear when I get some time later this week.

[Angryminer]

That "spike ball & chain" is propably the morning star. To my knowledge the morning star was a typical secondary weapon of mounted knights who could use the momentum of the spiked head very well from their high position (similar to heavy axes, which were used by frankish knights, if I remember correctly).
Actually there are leftovers of several types of peasants in the game. As I understand it the plan of the developers was to have a single squad of peasants consist of several types of fighters. Some peasants would be equipped with a fork, others with axes and others with wooden shields and a club, if I remember correctly. I wonder wether KoH is still capable of this feature.

Angryminer

[Elvain]

maybe we could merge this thread with KoH2 wishlist, don't we?

to have all suggestions together in one thread

[Angryminer]

In theory this should be for suggestions for the patch and the KoH2 thread for suggestions for a sequel. We should try to keep those seperated.

Angryminer

[Elvain]

in theory yes, but in reality most of people write their ideas in the thread that is actually more up-to-date...

and don't care if the ideas are more for a sequel or the patch... but let's leave it as you wish :wink: