National Units and Summoned Units

[NTJedi]

Great news it appears some new national spells now exist... making each nation more unique during the game. I'm pulling this topic which evolved from another topic which Illwinter can use as a quick reference. A new thought which springs to mind is if national troops could be valuable in ways other than just the battlefield thus gamers would see them for the majority of the game. I will update this original post at least once a week.


Most summoned units have multiple advantages over national troops. Some of these include:
Never flee in battle
Never needs food
No gold upkeep
More powerful

Ways national troops can be improved:
1) Allow most nations to have their national troops increase population for whatever province they reside. suggested by NTJedi
2) Allow national troops to be upgraded making their gold/food upkeep more acceptable. suggested by: DominionsFAN
3) Allow some method for national troops to be upgraded with gems. suggested by NTJedi
4) Allow national troops to provide increased morale, defense and attack for province defense... seems logical their presence within the province would have this effect. Perhaps for this bonus to work the national troops would have to be equal to the province defense, thus 10 PD needs 10 national troops for the bonus. suggested by NTJedi
5) Providing national troops with increased statistics by receiving faster experience upgrades and the ability to receive higher experience thus 10 stars instead of 5 stars. suggested by Sandman
6) Providing more summoned troops with a gem, gold and/or food upkeep making national troops more feasible. suggested by VedalkenBear and Oversway
7) Add additional national troops which can be summoned from spells specific for each nation. suggested by: DominionsFAN
8) Remove gold/food upkeep and raise morale for SOME national units which helps balance the summoned and national units. suggested by VedalkenBear and Oversway
9) Provide improved/unique bonuses for national troops such as 25% resistances or other traits. suggested by Nerfix
10) Allow new research path which improves statistics of national troops. suggested by Cainehill
11) Allow new buildings such as an Armory, Forge, etc. where national troops can be made stronger. suggested by Cainehill
12) New national spells (like global) which are casted to improve existing national troops. suggested by Cainehill

[Sandman]

I don't like number one. It's gamey and illogical.

[NTJedi]

Sandman said:
I don't like number one. It's gamey and illogical.

During wars in history soldiers are known to socialize with local females... only for nations like Ermor would this not be the scenario.
Currently the game has no method for restoring a population which has been almost dropped to zero, because the few events and one global spell only effect a percentage. Since the game has many spells, effects(pillaging), and events which lower population I felt this was an effective and needed method for increasing population.

[Argitoth]

NTJedi said:Currently the game has no method for restoring a population which has been almost dropped to zero

Why didn't anyone suggest population to naturally increase?

[Sandman]

Just give a 'colonize' ability to a few units - Man's Forester, Ulm's Engineer, for example. They can add 200 (say) people to a province with a population of less than 4000 every turn.

[Kristoffer O]

Marignon gets the Don Juan hero, who seduces 100 women each month. Population increases by 1d10*10 after 9 months

[NTJedi]

Argitoth said:

Why didn't anyone suggest population to naturally increase?

Well that's the intention of the growth scale however it only does a percentage thus even farmlands with 20 population can never recover.
A natural flat increase across the board might upset those playing Ermor which matches their theme.

Since nations like Mictlan can't have troops to match the quality/power/upkeep of summoned troops some benefit(s) outside the battlefield can be setup to make them needed for the majority of the game.

Kristoffer O said:
Marignon gets the Don Juan hero, who seduces 100 women each month. Population increases by 1d10*10 after 9 months

That's interesting... I'm eager to see what the other heroes can do.

[Arralen]

NTJedi said:

Well that's the intention of the growth scale however it only does a percentage thus even farmlands with 20 population can never recover.

I have suggested it repeated times:

Code:

---

P: current pop number of the province

B: 'theorectical' pop number the terrain starts with

S: number of growth scales

G: growth-%tage

T: new taxpayers you get per turn



Between 0 and 2*B and in positive or 0 growth dominion,

pop would grow as follows (death scale works as before):



    |2*B    |

T = |--- - 1| * G * (S+1) * P

    | P     |

---

Still not perfect, but would go a long way to make populated provinces something to actually protect and keep under your growth scale. And give some incentive to choose one, which no-one does with the current scales values and growth (die-off?) model:
It gives 1x growth at starting pop, cuts off the growth at 2x the starting pop and even results in declining pop if the province gets overcrowded for some reason.
But it gives reasonable growth if there's a big empty province, eg. 2000 pop in a big grassland which could accommodate 22000 pop without problem.