[Discuss] Limiting recruitment to centres from the region/duchy (not recruiting within the duchy)

[Robert Croson, Jr]

On 3 Mar 2008 at 12:10, psymann wrote:

> Rob Croson wrote:
> >
> > I have never known any realm that tells people to pick from specific 
> > RCs. Other than general guidance of the "I really like the Kepler 
> > Heavy Swordsmen
> 
> That's pretty much the same thing.

Not at all. "I like Kepler Heavy Swordsmen" is a world of difference from "You 
must recruit Kepler Heavy Swordsmen".

> The general guidance recommends that 
> people all pick the same troops each time.  And that guidance is 
> probably good.  So most people follow it, and recruit the same troops.

That doesn't follow at all. Most people can't recruit the same troops because 
after the third for fourth person does, the center is empty and they have to 
recruit from somewhere else.

>  > People generally don't recruit troops because they are cheap, unless
>  > they are going for TO units. They pick the training/EQ they want,
>  > then hire however many they can.
> 
> Yes, because all troops are very sensibly auto-priced at the moment, so 
> they are all equally good value for money.

Only in a strict mathematical sense. In practical usage they are worlds apart. 
People know this, and recruit accordingly. That's why some RCs supply a heck 
of a lot more troops to the war effort than others.

> If they're all equally good 
> value, people pick the best.

They are not "all equally good value".

> If the prices vary, you have a personal decision, based on where you
> have your estate, as to which is the best value, and you choose that. 
> And it might vary over time.  A choice! 

There already is a choice. You have a perfectly free choice to recruit any type 
and quality of troop that is available in the realm. Lords pricing things 
separately will not, in any way, *increase* the choice that people have when 
recruiting troops. In fact, I predict it will have the exact opposite effect. 

Let's look at it closely. Assume that that there are two RCs that have the same 
rating. One is in your duchy, and one is outside your duchy. Both lords who 
own the RCs have set their troops to be cheaper for people in their duchy, and 
more expensive for people outside their duchy. So the poor simple knight goes 
to recruit troops. Which one does he choose? He chooses the one from inside 
his region. Choosing the one from outside his duchy would be, well, stupid. He'd 
be paying more gold for the same troops. So he really has no choice there.

What happens when the troops from his duchy are gone? He either gets no 
troops, or he has to pay extortionate prices to recruit troops from some other 
duchy. Not much of a chocie there, either, is it?

So where in all of this have you given the poor simple knight a choice that 
actually makes things better for him, and doesn't simply line the pockets of the 
region lord?

Oh, and if the region lord chooses to offer troops at discounted prices, the 
region lord should have to make up the difference out of his own pocket. The 
gold spent on recruiting troops is used to pay those troops, the instructors that 
train them, and the armorers that make their equipment. If the people 
recruiting the troops aren't paying for that, then *someone* has to pay it.

> >>>> -----Involvement for the Simple Knight-----
> But battle is not the core focus of the game for every character. 
> Bureaucrats do not focus on battle.  Traders do not focus on battle. 
> Infiltrators only partly focus on battle.

You are correct. Battle is not the only focus. For people that aren't interested in 
battle there are buro, trader, and infil career choices. But battle remains the 
core focus of the game. What you have done with this particular idea is create 
another robotic button pusher position.

> You just spend a whole post rubbishing anything I write.  Dorian points 
> out her concerns, and helps to develop something better.

Not everything you wrote. Just the second half of what you wrote. Like I said, 
the first part of your idea I thought was a wash. But now that you've made me 
think even more about it, I think it's no good either.

> A third estate option, for drafting, could be an interesting option. 

Possibly. It would require the readjustment of all estate requirements to adjust 
for the fact that yet another estate requirement needs to be filled. We already 
have regions that can barely meet their estate requirements already. Putting in 
a third estate requirement will now mean that every regions has to have at least 
two knights, and that doesn't account for any "back up" knights to cover estates 
if one leaves.

> This would mean that you are still doing the drafting, but it's being 
> done for you, by your estate, without you having to leave the 
> battlefront.

This is a much better idea than the manual idea. Anything repetitive and not 
the core focus of the game should have a way to make it automated. (I still 
think it's a badd idea, but autoamting it is better than making it a manual 
process.)

> And if you have the options of switching between drafting 
> and the other options, and the region would suffer a penalty when you're 
> drafting, then knights have more to do with their estates than just set 
> them up at the beginning and forget about them.  Would be even better, I 
> reckon, if only knights, and not lords, could do the drafting (or 
> possibly just knights do it more effectively) so that there is more of a 
> need for a lord to use his knights to help in his region.  Make them 
> earn their taxes.

Again, you're increasing the drudge work on the knights. Creating make-work 
for the knights will not the game more fun for them.

> > we're doing this all for the sake fo the hypothetical "simple 
> > knight" having more buttons to click? 
> 
> Simple knights are not hypothetical.  There are plenty of them out 
> there.  Just because you don't have any, doesn't mean other people don't.

I didn't say that there weren't any knights who don't have other positions. I 
simply don't believe in your concept of a character who is totally bored with the 
game because he doesn't have some buttons to click.

> > clicking yet
> > more buttons and links in order to have to satisfy some arbitrary 
> > game mechanics function that a trained monkey could do better, 
> > because at least the monkey won't get bored and quit.
> 
> Whereas not-clicking-any-buttons-or-links is such a fascinating pastime.

Yes, actually, it is. It removes the need for people to fulfill game-mechanics 
requirements that exist for no other reason than for people to waste time on 
them. They can spend their time being creative, working themselves into plots 
and things they create on their own. They can concentrate on interacting with 
people, instead of intereating with a game mechanic.

> > And yet the system you have introduced requires no thought at all. 
> > The knights/lords will just go back to their regions and hit the same 
> > links every time.
> 
> The thought it could require is:
> - how early do we need to send knights back to do drafting, so that when 
> the rest of the army arrives, there's something there to recruit?

Two turns early. (Unless the army has been *really* hammered, and then you 
won't be going home early, it will be a simulatneous mass retreat.) It will 
become a standard, not requiring any thought. 

> - who do we send back?  how many do we send back?  do we have volunteers 
> or do we need to find another way to persuade someone to return?

Send back the region lords. Or everyone with less than 10 healthy troops. 
Another standard set of orders that will most likely be agreed upon by the 
marshals/generals/military council, and NOT the knights themselves.

> - should I refuse to go back to draft unless someone pays me to do so?

And get banned/fined for not following orders.

> - should I ask for a bigger oath share if I'm the one always helping out 
> to draft?

You can ask for a bigger oath share for any reason you want. Doesn't mean 
you'll get one.

> - should I offer to go back and draft in order to get in my 
> lord/duke/ruler's good books?
> - should I offer to go back because while all the people with tons of 
> expensive troops are still out fighting, I've only got 4 wounded troops 
> left, so I'm little more than a bystander in the battles anyway, and at 
> least this way I can be useful?

If you only have 4 wqoudned troops you'll fall under the standard "People with 
less than 10 healthy troops". No decision required.

> - will I, a trader, be back in time to do some drafting in my region 
> before heading back out on another trading mission?

No decision required. Either you'll be there are you won't. Most likely you won't, 
so no one will count on it. If you are, it's a bonus.

> - am I, a bureaucrat, better placed to improve regions over here so that 
> the lord can stay away from his region, or to draft at home, so my lord 
> and knights can stay away from theirs?
> - do we have enough knights in Blobville to supply Blobville Infantry to 
> the whole realm, or are we going to need a supply of Splodgeville 
> fighters, because we can't sit waiting here for ever for more Blobville 
> Infantry?

Most of what you have here in this list are not decision, but sets of 
circumstances that are either covered by blanket, pre-arranged standard sets of 
orders, or things over which the player generally will have no control.

> Having said all that, I accept Dorian's point that you could find 
> yourself stranded at home drafting for ever if you weren't careful, and 
> that wouldn't be all fun.

Not fun at all.

>  > People will have to
>  > spend more time sitting around in their regions doing
>  > paperwork/clicking buttons. And all that will lead to less battles.
> 
> If they wanted, people could head home, all recruit in their own home 
> region, and all buy their own home troops.  (Even quicker if you allowed 
> them to recruit their own home troops directly when they're drafting) 
> That would take no time at all.  If you really want everyone to have the 
> one best troop unit in the realm, then yes, you'll have to wait longer 
> for it.  So what?  Choice is good.

Not all choice is good. i.e.: You have the choice of either marching for two days 
to your home region to draft troops and then two days back to the 
capital/duchy capital to actually recruit those troops (hoping that no one gets 
there first to get them while you were walking back and forth) or having to 
recruit overpriced/underequipped troops from another duchy, with the excess 
gold going to line the pockets of some already-rich duke. Not exactly a good 
choice, is it?

It's great that you're trying to come up with more ideas of things to do. But any 
time you introduce something that will introduce a big change in the way the 
game works, it needs to examined in detail. Change simply for the sake of 
change is not always a good thing. Choice simply for the sake of choice is also 
not necessarily a good thing. Especially if you are setting up a situation where 
the choices are between something that is advantageous and some that is 
decidedly disadvantageous. The scenario you have set up is not allowing people 
to choose between two good things.


-- 
Rob

I realized I was a psychic next Wednesday.




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