Making non Magic national commanders more worthwhile

[Mightypeon]

Greetings,

something that kind of bugged me was that there is nearly no reason to ever recruit national commanders that arent mages and that do not have thug potential.
Basically, armies in Dom 3 are commanded by mages, and a splattering of cheap indie commanders that do not compete with valuable mage slots.
I do not have any idea wether the following ideas of improvement are worthwhile, but I would certainly like to hear some feedback:

-Ability Logistican:
--Reduce Supply consumption by a value of X-how many troops he is commanding

-Ability Strategic movement:
--Increase Map Move of commanded units by 1, up to the value of the commander itself. Could perhaps be done by copying and modifiing the effects of the Flying carpet a bit.

-Ability trusted commander:
--Units under his command are more likely to stick to their orders, when doing stuff like attack rear for example

-Ability beloved commander:
--When the commander dies, units under his command go Berserk instead of routing

-Ability Excellent Defense instructor:
--Units under his command get +x defense

-Ability Excellent Offense instructor
--Units under his command get +x offense

-Ability Excellent physical Drillmaster
--Units under his command get +x hitpoints

-Ability Ambusher
--Units under his command get off one shot/Movement+attack prior to the start of the battle, enemies still have to be in range

I am quite doubtfull that this can be implemented (they game does somehow know during a battle who is commanding whom, but I am not sure wether on battle effects can be made in a way to only apply to units under the commanders direct command).

Other ideas:
-Make certain Cap only recruits available outside of the Cap as Commander retinues.
For example, MA Ulm may recruit Black Guards and Black Guard captains at its cap, everywhere else they may recruit a Black Guard captain that comes with a retinue of 5 Black Guards.
This way, in non cap castles, the ability to recruit limited amounts of Cap only units would compete with the ability to recruit mages. This should be done for decent but not game breaking Cap only units, like Guardians, Warriors of the 5 elements etc.

[brxbrx]

Really, now. High leadership, abilities like standard and supply, durability, lower costs, and cool flavor make a pretty good case for recruiting these commanders.
It's not a starets or a magistrate that is going to lead your armies to victory.

[PriestyMan]

Originally Posted by brxbrx

Really, now. High leadership, abilities like standard and supply, durability, lower costs, and cool flavor make a pretty good case for recruiting these commanders.
It's not a starets or a magistrate that is going to lead your armies to victory.

This reply cracks me up. get off SP bro

regardless, I'm pretty sure not a single one of your "ideas" is moddable so........ cool story i guess?

[Squirrelloid]

One, maybe two of them are moddable if you stretch what you intended a bit, but they would not cause people to actually recruit them, and at least one of those would be a real cludgy workaround job.

You'd need to totally rebuild how the combat works to make non-mages have any value as a fort build.

[Dimaz]

Or make commanders recruitable from fort and mages from lab in the same province (so, 2 commanders/turn, or 3 with priests). That's even logical. However, it will affect the balance too much.

[Squirrelloid]

Wishing for things that are impossible to mod is pointless.

[Dimaz]

There's special sub-forum "Scenarios, Maps and Mods" to discuss mods and what's possible/not possible with mods. Actually there's even more special forum with similar name Here I just answered to the TS, how in general it's possible to make non-mages worth buying. I'm perfectly aware that it's not possible with mods. So, sorry, but it's your comment that is pointless in this context.

[TigerBlood]

Logistician-A supply bonus can be modded.

Beloved commander-something approxiating this though the use of one of the shapechange commands that triggers upon death, followed by the Berserkers spell and a kill caster effect. Whether this modding command can trigger #onebattlespell when the unit changes form is something I would have to look into.

Your capital unit being recruited in limited numbers outside the main fort could be modded. Unfortunately, it would make the relevant units appear twice on the capital recruitment screen. Adding a retinue of units to a commander can also be done.

[llamabeast]

Unfortunately #onebattlespell can't be used like that.

[Starbelly Geek]

Originally Posted by llamabeast

Unfortunately #onebattlespell can't be used like that.

You could have a commander that autocast one of the area berserking spells or a modded one with no range to get the units around him (don't put him near your mages!). Call the new spell "That one speech from Henry V."

Could the site effect that lets a commander "enter to gain experience," or the item effect for the Champion's Skull be used somehow to let a commander give extra experience to units around him? Probably not, but that's the closest to the instructor ideas I can think of currently in the game.