Garrison race switching

[Perun]

How about allowing friendly garrison to switch race, but losing all men of previous race.

This way some of the (strategically) unusable citadels/keeps will again become strategically significant. Of course, players would have to carefully consider repercussions of such action (especially if there's 2000 garrisoned riders there ;D).

[Freiegeister]

Or if the garrison is already reduced to 0 you can re-garrison with another race?

[Matija]

I think that is already possible. So, if you wanted to regarrison a citedel, you'd have to bring a lord of the original race, that would clear it empty and a lord of the new race, to change garrison's race and leave a seed for troops.

[Perun]

Matija said:

I think that is already possible. So, if you wanted to regarrison a citedel, you'd have to bring a lord of the original race, that would clear it empty and a lord of the new race, to change garrison's race and leave a seed for troops.

I think this method works only for neutral or enemy keeps/citadels, but will check it out.

[sparrowhawk]

Perun said:

I think this method works only for neutral or enemy keeps/citadels, but will check it out.

Correct, but it would be very easy to change this (just a modification to two "if" statements I think.

The idea makes good sense and I will imeplement it. Igor's idea of disbanding a lord's army or a stronghold's garrison is also a good idea (eg when retreating with only a few men left, better to disband and hide the lord than to run and the enemy seeing your banners, and also as he said when you want to put a strong force of another race in the garrison). I will add this Disband option too (with a confirmation prompt of course!)

[sparrowhawk]

For next release, you can now change a garrison's ownership (and hence race) when it is down to 0R/0W.

Actually, in the new game, if keeps (not citadels) drop to 0R/0W, the garrison record is deleted, so rather than switching, strictly spekaing you are creating a new garrison.

[Freiegeister]

TheCreator said:

For next release, you can now change a garrison's ownership (and hence race) when it is down to 0R/0W.

Actually, in the new game, if keeps (not citadels) drop to 0R/0W, the garrison record is deleted, so rather than switching, strictly spekaing you are creating a new garrison.

Much better idea, stops you being attacked by the invisible garrison commander.

[sparrowhawk]

Actually the "invisible commander" bug is also fixed, but I did it first. Now the check will never be needed, but I'll leave it in now that it's done. best not to touch it now that's it's working!!!

[celebaglar]

TheCreator said:

For next release, you can now change a garrison's ownership (and hence race) when it is down to 0R/0W.

Actually, in the new game, if keeps (not citadels) drop to 0R/0W, the garrison record is deleted, so rather than switching, strictly spekaing you are creating a new garrison.

Does that also mean that a garrison which has been defeated cannot report on the forces that beat it? I certainly hope so.

In fact, even in the case of killed lords, I'd like to see only a report that Lord X has been killed, without further details, partcularly in locations where Lord X is isolated from his allies. It's quite hard to try and strike switly and silently if some lord's shade or a beaten garrison commander can make one final report on the forces which ousted him.

[sparrowhawk]

That's a really interesting point, and certainly would add to the game IMO. What do others think? Shall I disable the battle history for Shades?

Incidentally, the battle history has been rewritten as a tabular format for the next release, though I have kept the old code in case you lot don't like it

[Natmus]

TheCreator said:

That's a really interesting point, and certainly would add to the game IMO. What do others think? Shall I disable the battle history for Shades?

Not for my sake. I am very fond of looking at the histories of my dead lords to figure out what happened. And I think it is fair too, especially if they have been jumped and have no clue as to what or who happened to them.

Also the stronghold list, where you get notification that a stronghold is under attack, even if the garrison is gone. This a a feature I appreciate highly, and would be sad to see gone.

[Ringthane]

I stand between both schools. Reality enforcement is the best we can get in strategy gaming, but on the other hand word-of-mouth might come to a king of his armies' fate...

[celebaglar]

Ringthane said:

I stand between both schools. Reality enforcement is the best we can get in strategy gaming, but on the other hand word-of-mouth might come to a king of his armies' fate...

Yes, but not immediately, and that's the point.

In fact, Natmus' reasons for wanting the features to stay are precisely the ones for which I'd like to see them gone. If I ambush someone or make a swift decisive strike at an outpost, I don't want exact details of my forces reaching my opponent immediately.

One way around this - a sort of compromise - would be to generate the report, but not have it available until n turns after the event or when a friendly lord reaches that location, whichever comes sooner. Other tweaks are possible, depending on how complex one wants to make the code.

I realise these little perks of the original design may have become an integral part of people's strategy, but since the game is still in beta this is the time to consider any changes that significantly affect gameplay.

Personally, I feel that the gain in tactical possibilities in the latter parts of the game offered by this suggestion would outweigh the loss of the benefits gained from being able to react instantly to any move of your opponent's.

Anyway, that's just my opinion.