Cabal of Crazed Commanders

[Terath]

So, recently, I was playing the Napoleonic Wars "expansion module whatever-the-fuck" for Warband. I had noticed an uprising of servers that use the game mode of Commander. What you do in Commander mode is you spawn as the officer of your own regiment, fit with whatever balanced amount of NPC's you get at the beginning of the round. On both teams, there are players, and the players get bots. You use the single-player commands, F1, F2, F3 and onward to command your men to do your willing. I also noticed something else, in this gamemode - there is nearly an over-abundance of teamwork. Instead of dropping your scope at the beginning of each round, because you're an officer, it would be wise to keep it and study where the enemy players are moving. People would often mix regiments together to create a stronger attacking force, or plan out where the team should focus the attack, or even attack at all, staying to defend from the attackers.

I thought this was amazing. A whatever-the-fuck that had players leading an army alongside other players against players leading armies, jam-packed with teamwork? Awesome!

I played for hours and hours on end, enjoying the time I spent with the server, and for some odd reason everybody was having a great time - it didn't matter if they were winning or losing. They played the game like a game, and kept it in the middle where it should be, not too serious to cry over spilt riflemen or to kamikaze useful soldiers into a wall of spiky things, because they simple do not care.

The next day, as per usual, I get on NordInvasion. I played a couple of rounds, hit some things, shot some stuff, the usual. I then thought back to Commander, and what influence it would have in other mods, if it ever were to happen. I thought of cRPG first, for some odd reason, I don't even play the damn thing - but it wouldn't have fit, seeing as how cRPG is not about leading soldiers across a battlefield, cRPG is about building and expanding upon a character, having fun with friends, and most importantly, playing siege a lot and bitching about how the timer for respawn is too long.

Then, I thought about NordInvasion. At first I started to have my doubts, see, but my brain countered every argument I could muster - (P is problem, A is answer to problem.)
P - The servers would not be able to handle the stress of that many bots on the battlefield at once.
A - Shut up brain, you know the entire module and servers are built around literally have a LOT OF BOTS.
P - Who will fight for the Nords? This mod is about killing the Nords, the Swadians KILLING the Nords. Players cannot play as Nords!
A - You're right - players won't play as Nords. Bots will have to fill their place.
P - Bots are way too stupid to play as an actual force against the players. The players would be able to decimate the Nords easily, because the Nords are not fighting in organized lines and ranks like the players are commanding their soldiers to.
A - While this may be true, there is a workaround. In single-player, the AI enemy side that you are fighting against, organize themself and attack with ranged until the player or one of the player's bots are in range. You can snag this code and dump it onto the bots.
P - How will they get the code for this, or the time to make it?!
A - Ask TaleWorlds for the code, or if it's open-source, use it. Make a few edits, done.
P - Nobody will work together!
A - Seeing as how the entire team will wipe in NW if nobody works together, I'm sure the players will realise on NI it is no different. Fight alone and you're a dead man, fight together and you're still probably a dead man, but you lasted longer, right?
P - The developers do not have time to make this!
A - Not true! If everything goes right, this can be done pretty quickly in modding terms, because the code will not be hand-stitched, it will be taken from other areas and implemented with few changes.
P - uhh..
A - Yeah, that's right. Shut up.

I got about this far before I realized that maybe it's not such a bad idea after all.

I mean, what's wrong with a new gamemode that doesn't take that long to complete, still fits the theme of the game (kill Nords.), and requires teamwork, which is what the game is based off of and around? I feel like it would be a fun new addition to the module that, after a long time, will still be loads of fun to play with friends.

Now, some of the problems I did think of would be having to create a Swadian set of NPC's for the Swadians, and a way to make sure people don't pick the best every time, like a money system that is separate of the money players get by playing the normal gamemode. I thought of Faction points to be a great use of this, but mind you, the faction points don't go down. They stay where they are, but you can unlock better and better soldiers by getting a higher faction point score.

Oh, I just solved a problem. Oops.

I guess another issue was finding the balance between how many bots the players should have and how many bots the Nords should have in comparison to the player. I mean, if there's too many Swadians it's too easy, but if there's too many Nords, it becomes kiting but with more Nords, and I'd hate to have that.

The maps would be big, open fields with details strewn about here and there, a couple hills, mountains, foliage, trees, the works. I feel like the maps we currently have in rotation for the standard gamemode are amazingly too small for this gamemode. Then again, making new maps is hard - but not when it's an open field.

Alright, I think that's enough for now. I have to go to bed, it's 4:11 AM and I have boxing practice tomorrow.
-Terath
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