Captains

[Julio229]

Hi, everyone!

I'd like to share an idea I had yesterday, and it is having Captains for each faction. Not in the sense of Rohan Captains, but in this way.

I thought, maybe, with the siege overhaul coming next, it would be fitting to have a new special unit for helping both attack and defense. This is what I came up with:

Captains would be an singular unit, like the Dragonslayer. They would cost around 400 and give units small leadership boosts. Heroes give them too, but maybe you are using a strategy where you have units away from your Heroes, or you are resisting an attack on your Castle and your Heroes have died. These units could be used to represent someone, the captain of the army, who gives them encouragement to defend themselves in a siege, or the strength needed to win a battle.

Their leaderships would not be as useful as the Heroes are, but they could give a minimum boost, like 5% attack, or defense, having to give them an specialty instead of having them giving all at the same time, and not being able to switch between specialties once they have one.

These units could also be used to represent named characters that don't have enough relevance to be full-fledged heroes, while adding to the overall atmosphere of the Mod with characters from the books and films. For example, Mablung, Damrod or the Fiefdom Leaders for Gondor, or for an Evil Faction, Narzug from Misty Mountains (he was in the films, the one that Thranduil killed in DOS), just to give an example. They wouldn't have an Hero Icon to avoid cluttering up the screen.

Heralds in Rohan work this way, and are great because they are limited to three and offer Theoden's leadership for units that are far from him, in a weakened version, of course. We could have Captains limited to 5 (because their leadership would be even weaker), and have them be locked to Barracks level 2, for example.

I'd like to know your opinions on this, I always like to listen to feedback and give it, of course!

Thanks for your time!

[DrHouse93]

It's not a bad idea, to me, but only if they don't require actual command points, and they can be limited to 3/5. This way they wouldn't be too relevant to the game and won't suck precious command points, which can rather be used to recruit more important things

[Hamanathnath]

I don't really think this is a good idea.  With the existence of both heroes and banner carriers, captains would seem rather redundant.  A Leadership shouldn't be something that too many units have on a faction.  That is one of the problem I had with BFME2, especially for MotW, where Aragorn, Gandalf, Eomer, Theoden, Boromir, and Faramir all have leaderships, not to mention the other buffs you can get such as the banners on your fortress and statues. 

Also, banner carriers pretty much do the same thing that your proposing captains do.  Leading a battalion and giving them higher stats.  And many factions have unique supporting units, such as Mordor's Overseers and Lothlorien's Minstrels.  So I don't exactly see the propose of adding such captains.

[Julio229]

It's not a bad idea, to me, but only if they don't require actual command points, and they can be limited to 3/5. This way they wouldn't be too relevant to the game and won't suck precious command points, which can rather be used to recruit more important things

I thought about making them limited, and I agree about command points, making them cost command points would kill the point of them in my opinion, because they need troops to work, and the limit will indeed make them not too relevant.

I don't really think this is a good idea.  With the existence of both heroes and banner carriers, captains would seem rather redundant.  A Leadership shouldn't be something that too many units have on a faction.  That is one of the problem I had with BFME2, especially for MotW, where Aragorn, Gandalf, Eomer, Theoden, Boromir, and Faramir all have leaderships, not to mention the other buffs you can get such as the banners on your fortress and statues. 

Also, banner carriers pretty much do the same thing that your proposing captains do.  Leading a battalion and giving them higher stats.  And many factions have unique supporting units, such as Mordor's Overseers and Lothlorien's Minstrels.  So I don't exactly see the propose of adding such captains.

I thought about it because some factions aren't really that strong on leadership. I know that Banner Carriers kind of fill that role, but these Captains would be useful to give leadership in factions that don't excel at bonuses, so to speak. For example, Gondor isn't in my opinion that strong at leadership. You have Faramir, who is quite great, Imrahil, who only affects fiefdom units, and Aragorn, whose leadership isn't that great, except for the fear resistance. I understand your point, though. Banner Carriers do that, improving the stats, but there can be units that haven't achieved the experience to have them, or maybe you haven't researched Banner Carriers yet. These would be an alternative because they would give a really weak leadership but would affect more than one battalion, so they are that, a weaker alternative if you can't get heroes or don't want to use Fortress spaces for Statues (I, for example, never use them).

Edit: Boromir has leadership too, I forgot!

[Hamanathnath]

I thought about it because some factions aren't really that strong on leadership. I know that Banner Carriers kind of fill that role, but these Captains would be useful to give leadership in factions that don't excel at bonuses, so to speak. For example, Gondor isn't in my opinion that strong at leadership. You have Faramir, who is quite great, Imrahil, who only affects fiefdom units, and Aragorn, whose leadership isn't that great, except for the fear resistance. I understand your point, though. Banner Carriers do that, improving the stats, but there can be units that haven't achieved the experience to have them, or maybe you haven't researched Banner Carriers yet. These would be an alternative because they would give a really weak leadership but would affect more than one battalion, so they are that, a weaker alternative if you can't get heroes or don't want to use Fortress spaces for Statues (I, for example, never use them).

Edit: Boromir has leadership too, I forgot!

Banner Carriers are incredibly easy to purchase as every single faction besides Imladris and argueably Dwarves.  So in my opinion, if you want your units to preform slightly better, just go for Banner Carriers.

Also, if the Captains you are proposing have weak leaderships, and every single faction gets them, then what do they change in the grand scheme of things?  If 1 faction is supported by a captain with a 5% damage and armor leadership, and so does the other faction, then they don't really change the outcome of a battle.  Also, if their leadership is too weak, nobody would go for them, and if their leadership is as strong as a hero leadership or stronger, then they would be way too overpowered.    I'm sorry but they just don't really seem like a good idea, and would hurt balance instead of help. 

Lastly, I know this doesnt really on topic, and I don't mean any offense when I say this, but picking Gondor was a bad choice for a faction that is not strong with leaderships.  All those you mentioned, plus Beregond's Hero and Building leashership, and the fountain guard captain Denethor can summon at level 10, make Gondor argueably one of the strongest faction for leaderships.  Angmar is a good example, because they do not have even 1 hero with a standard passive leadership, but this is made up for the amount of debuffs and crowd control abilities they have.

[Julio229]

I thought about it because some factions aren't really that strong on leadership. I know that Banner Carriers kind of fill that role, but these Captains would be useful to give leadership in factions that don't excel at bonuses, so to speak. For example, Gondor isn't in my opinion that strong at leadership. You have Faramir, who is quite great, Imrahil, who only affects fiefdom units, and Aragorn, whose leadership isn't that great, except for the fear resistance. I understand your point, though. Banner Carriers do that, improving the stats, but there can be units that haven't achieved the experience to have them, or maybe you haven't researched Banner Carriers yet. These would be an alternative because they would give a really weak leadership but would affect more than one battalion, so they are that, a weaker alternative if you can't get heroes or don't want to use Fortress spaces for Statues (I, for example, never use them).

Edit: Boromir has leadership too, I forgot!

Banner Carriers are incredibly easy to purchase as every single faction besides Imladris and argueably Dwarves.  So in my opinion, if you want your units to preform slightly better, just go for Banner Carriers.

Also, if the Captains you are proposing have weak leaderships, and every single faction gets them, then what do they change in the grand scheme of things?  If 1 faction is supported by a captain with a 5% damage and armor leadership, and so does the other faction, then they don't really change the outcome of a battle.  Also, if their leadership is too weak, nobody would go for them, and if their leadership is as strong as a hero leadership or stronger, then they would be way too overpowered.    I'm sorry but they just don't really seem like a good idea, and would hurt balance instead of help. 

Lastly, I know this doesnt really on topic, and I don't mean any offense when I say this, but picking Gondor was a bad choice for a faction that is not strong with leaderships.  All those you mentioned, plus Beregond's Hero and Building leashership, and the fountain guard captain Denethor can summon at level 10, make Gondor argueably one of the strongest faction for leaderships.  Angmar is a good example, because they do not have even 1 hero with a standard passive leadership, but this is made up for the amount of debuffs and crowd control abilities they have.

I guess you're right. I'd like to propose one of the aspects of the proposal though (I don't know if that makes sense), the characters that haven't got relevance could be implemented as banner carriers that you can get at random, like the Morgul Orc ones, that are based in minor orcs from the movies. Representing minor characters is something that I'd like to see outside of my proposal.

No offense taken, no worries

[Walküre]

Remember that you ought to use the spoiler feature for long quotations, Julio; it makes the whole topic easier to consult. I already edited your comment myself.

Just a statement from the Moderator. May your discussion go on still and be of proper usage for the forum