How much customization do people want in the game? I personally would find it cool if at least two aspects of the game could be customized:

1. The Lord. C'mon, he's you! He should be who you want him to be, not simply a clone like any other. Some ideas include traits that you could choose, like Ruthless (% bonus on production, but lower approval and weaker troops, because everyone knows that evil is weaker) and Veteran Fighter (duh), as well as being able to customize the weapons and armor he uses (like two-hander for strong blows or shield and sword for maximum defense). You could only choose a couple traits, obviously, and some of them might be exclusives (like no being nice and evil at the same time).

2. Troops. How awesome would it be to customize your army? It deals with the different "factions" problem (who needs 'em when you can decide what your army fights with) as well as allowing people to decide how they want to fight. Want to swarm your enemy with hundreds of crappy shield-carrying spearmen cannon fodder backed by mace-wielding strongmen wearing plate? You can! Want an elite force of pikemen with crossbowmen backup? You can do that too!

You could choose the armor that they wore (depending on deep Firefly was willing to go, you could either choose between plate and leather or even between different helmet types and body armor types), the weapon they wield, and even how much training they have (though obviously this would be very simple if put in at all).

Any other ideas for customization and/or reasons why it would be bad for the game? Obviously Firefly is not rolling in cash right now so I'm not demanding that it be done, but it's something I'd really like to see added.

I want to customize my castle much further. Like changing how your keep looks, similar to The Settlers 7 Castle editor. Also I really would like to change the height of Towers and Walls, from low to very high! Let us even increase these in the editor, to build cool looking fantasy castles (No fantasy monsters, of course) like in the lord of the rings. Next I want to build my siege weapons not only on towers, I want to build them on my walls too. Yes, they can't fire that far if you do that, but you can build more (But maybe they're weaker).

I also prefer the customizable troop idea. Every weapon and armour should have positive and negative effects. Plater armour -> Very strong, but slows down and is very hard to craft. Leather armour -> not that strong, but won't slow you down that much and is easier to craft.

Different looks and more options for towers/walls/and related buildings would be a big plus for me. A large part of the fun is building a cool looking castle.

the more options the better

Customizing your castle type could be cool too. Allowing the player to choose between different styles of wall architecture(European, of course) would make it easy to tell who was controlling a certain area (especially if vassal estates used the same scheme) and also let the player feel more in control. I'm guesing stat bonuses for different types would be a little too in-depth, though .

Oh, and being able to choose your keep would be awesome. Tall and narrow, or wide and defensible.

BTW, do walls give a defensive bonus besides height bonus to the men on them? I know that crenallations used to do that in Stronghold Crusader, but they were taken out of the later ones (probably due to the cheese that people did with them).

I would absolutly love customization of castle walls and towers! Also maybe have an option to make your own castle crest!

If its one thing i couldnt stand with multi play, which is why i rarely play. Its every castle being the same 20 thick X the property line lengths. Its lame, boreing and slows the systems.

Id love FULL custom building.

Or atleast the ability to use 3 levels of walls.

I would think that this would partly be due to the building mechanics. I'm not sure of the reason why, but there was a reason that thick walls were not common among castles of the period - maybe Firefly should see if they can try to institute something to make castle creation more realistic and/or creative as opposed to simply making massive walls.

Anyways, back to customization. I had an idea that was really cool and something that I thought would be fairly easy for the devs to implement - have pieces of music be specific to certain traits. For example, Darktimes in SH1 would only play for lords will high evil ratings, while Happytimes would only play for good two-shoes... er, I mean good lords. Similarly Darktimes could play for Ruthless (or whatever evil trait they want to go with) Lords while Happytimes could play for benevolant ones. Veteran fighters could get some sort of military theme, leaders could get something inspirational, etc. Obviously it'd need some refinement and probably some new tracks (especially since there would need to be generic ones as well) but it'd be a cool touch.

Of course, actual customization options should come first. If it's a choice between music or being able to customize helmet types and body armor types rather than simply equipping generic iron or leather armor for your troops and/or lord, then definitely choose the latter.

I am deffinately in favour of all the things that have been said above. The ability to really customise will make the game great, imagine how different you could get different armies to look without having to radically change or creat new types of troops. Making your castle look unique etc etc - all good stuff.

Insurance Salesman wrote:

QUOTE:


1. The Lord. C'mon, he's you! He should be who you want him to be, not simply a clone like any other. Some ideas include traits that you could choose, like Ruthless (% bonus on production, but lower approval and weaker troops, because everyone knows that evil is weaker) and Veteran Fighter (duh), as well as being able to customize the weapons and armor he uses (like two-hander for strong blows or shield and sword for maximum defense). You could only choose a couple traits, obviously, and some of them might be exclusives (like no being nice and evil at the same time).

What do you think about the idea to have also a female castellan?

Regards,
silverblade