A Thought on Recruitment

[Freiegeister]

Just concidering the implementation of recruitment in my own project and had an idea that could be nice as an optional start-up setting in M/MU, for those who would like a game that doesn't start as a mad race to recruit.

What if a Lord's loyalty came at a cost? What if they were unrecruitable? What if their loyalty could be broken?

Picture this...

You ride into the Keep of Blood and approach Lord Blood about joining your cause. He looks you up and down.
"You have one of those I see", spotting your Moon Ring.
"I'll join you if you give me 500 riders."
Easy one. However, if you transferred them off him later on, he may go home. There could also be clauses that should their Keep or Citadel be attacked they go home.

You ride into the Keep of Fadrath and speak to the dwarf.
"I'll join you, but only for 1000 pieces of gold."

Or, what if on approaching Grarg...
"I'll join you if you find and kill Morgalis."

Or Luxor...
"I see Doomdark the Foul is you ally, I will not join you. Leave or prepare to die."

Or the opposite...
"I see my kinsman Dreams, therefore the Fey of Dregrim are yours to command."

You could make it fixed or add some randomness such as the number of men or horses or gold. It could even b as simple as having limits on who could recruit who.

The idea would be to make recruitment more interesting and not simply a race from here to here to here, picking up everyone on your way.

[Ringthane]

David, you are a complicated and troublesome man. The poor JY is loaded in evil stuff, and you come up with a damn good quest definition ;D

[sparrowhawk]

I like your ideas David, and will certainly take a look at how easy they would be to add to MU. However, as with all major functionality changes, this will have to be post 1.0

[SkulkrinBait]

How about a "traditional" LOM scenario where one player starts with all the Free and the other all the Foul and they fight the war of the solstice?

You might need to give a few extra men to one side to balance it out, but should be fun.

A third player could have the Fey too.

[Freiegeister]

SkulkrinBait said:

How about a "traditional" LOM scenario where one player starts with all the Free and the other all the Foul and they fight the war of the solstice?

You might need to give a few extra men to one side to balance it out, but should be fun.

A third player could have the Fey too.

You could trim the numbers at Kor, Korkith, Gorgrath, Grarg and Ushgarak to even it up, and make Doomdark recruit to get his men moving. That way the Free could be at Blood/Shimeril before Doomdark even gets Korkith rolling. A few days later it would get interesting.
The race for Korinel or Dreams would be tough.

[Freiegeister]

Jean-Yves said:

I like your ideas David, and will certainly take a look at how easy they would be to add to MU. However, as with all major functionality changes, this will have to be post 1.0

Wouldn't expect it any earlier than v2.0.
It's one thing to suggest it, and another for you to have to implement the mechanisms for storing conditions and keeping track of when they are met or broken. Though a loyalty system based on who will not be on the same side as another would be fairly straightforward, as would a one off transaction like paying gold.