(Note: for concise sake, only the first sentence is needed. Elaborations and the part 2. Brainstorming can be skipped completely)
Some problems I feel inconvenient now (and what I hope to improve):
1.1. Tower garrison soldiers may be accidently selected while group selecting civilians during battle. Then they leave posts and are disrupted with their attacks as well as lost tactic advantages.
Suggestion: make them unselectable by mouse square, only when choose the tower and click the person can you select them.
1.2. Also selection problem. I do not want children to fight, but I cannot see very well in the crowded people.
Suggestion: I hope to have some ways to choose from soldiers (may include hunters), adult male civilians, women/children/old civilians, and everyone.
1.3. AI logic problem. If I command civilian to attack, then they just flee again after the target is perished.
Suggestion: like some strategic games, you can give them a number (Ctrl+1, 2, 3) and let them temporarily from a group. Then you may give some simple orders like attack/move/defend or so. Using shift to let them attack one enemy by another should also help (or already in-game?).
Also, formation can be introduced: if you toggle defense mode, and put the formation (and facing direction) at the destination. When this group of people reached the destination, they go to a defensive formation to defend the ground, like circular/ rectangular/ line/ V-shaped formation (and gain some defense buffs); or, when toggle offense mode, they first form an offensive formations then attack, like line/ V-shaped/ triangle (and gain some offense buffs like charging). If no specific formation been given, they may have some moving speed buffs. Also, attack-at-will, which letting them to search for enemies and attack.
Well… if this is “unrealistic” to civilians, formation orders may be given to soldiers (also hope grouping is not given to the whole unit, sometimes I need three soldier to here and 5 to there, they cannot just work as a whole.
1.4. Soldiers’ arrows are quite low. Maximum of ten arrows, each arrow would cause about 20-30 damage, not very effective in combat. May increase to at least 20.
1.5 We should profit from the looters. May gain some resources (may just convert to gold/ iron/ fur instead of real goods like weapons/ cloths, etc.) from salvaging the looters. Otherwise players have nothing to gain (except for game challenge) from loots. (I have points that link to this on next section)
1.6 Quickly locate the broken buildings after the looting. It is very difficult to eye-balling piece by piece!
Other system brainstorming
2.1. Prosperity and intimidation system.
This system scales your risk of looting. Prosperity indicates how much your enemies are motivated to attack you. It links to the total population/ total wealth/ annual income (not net income, just the total income)/ (and perhaps) total goods storage. Intimidation indicates how strong your defense is to make enemies think twice before launching an attack (that is, how long your peace time could be). High intimidation will have less chance of being attacked, on the flip side, you may face a stronger army once they really attack you. Intimidation is linked to the total guards and soldiers/ wall protections (percentage of wall area compared to total construction area/ annual expenditure on defense as basic parameters. Intimidation can also be affected by events. First is accepting a ransom (I think for now only higher difficulties have this) will lower your intimidation. Second is the outcome of the previous loot, with more looters killed/ less casualty sustained/ less building destroyed/ less goods or gold lost, the intimidation increase; and vice versa. Third is the time, with time elapsing, people “forget” how intimidating you are, so it is always a negative factor. As said, the scale of an attack is affected by the intimidation, so sometimes it is good to control that not going too high so that not facing strong enemies and potentially crushing defeat.
2.2. After the loot, player can choose from two decisions, salvage the looters or intimidate the enemies. Salvage the looters is like what I mentioned in point 1.5 that you can get some gold/ iron/ fur. And intimidate is to give up salvaging but “make an example” of your enemies that dare to raid you so that you further increase the intimidation level (and longer peace time).
2.3. Knight system. I like the game “Settler 6 Rise of the Empire”, I hope to see a similar knight (agent) system in Farthest Frontier too. They may have expertise on production as well as on battle. Here are some thoughts (brainstorming):
Knight:
Passive: Decrease the barracks’ maintenance (e.g. 10% x town center tier)
Battle: Charge: charge X grids towards a chosen direction, causing enemy damage on the charging route. Cooldown 30 days.
Archer
Passive: Decrease the watch tower’s maintenance (e.g. 20% x town center tier), hunters have +50% gain of meat, fur, and fat.
Battle: Hailstorm: choose a 3*3 grid and rain arrow onto enemies, causing heavy damage. Cooldown 30 days.
Trader:
Passive: Increase the market income 10% x town center tier.
Battle: Corruption: select 3x3 grid and spend 20 gold, making enemies inside stop attacking (and vulnerable to attack from our side). Effect for 10 days, cooldown 30 days.
Monk:
Passive: Keep all villagers 100% happy at family, beer, entertainment, and luxury.
Battle: Preach: persuade enemies within a selected area (e.g. 3x3 girds), making some (e.g. 3x town center tier) of the enemies to leave the town (cooldown 30 days).
Others potentially be like blacksmith, healer, mason, strategist and so on.
Well, brainstorming is bizarre, but I hope something can be done to improve the difficulties that I mentioned in 1.1-1.5.