RECRUIT/IMPRESS
I very much like the changes that Rich has proposed to these two commands. One
thing that has bugged me in past is that men just sort of appear out of the
woodwork, w/out any effect on the local population. The 5% idea is good,
except that I'd like to see this also come out of the local population. The
way I had envisioned this was having each town with an 'ideal' population, a
'birth rate', and a % of local population that was willing to hire on to
various factions. Perhaps a lid on population size... hmmm... any reason that
this couldn't be considered just another resource, ie there's a certain amount
there, a rate at which it replenishes, and a max amount it will go to ?
SKILLS
I would prefer to see a system with one main skill that allows you to research
other skills in that group; ie the same as the Magic system. Knowing Equestrian
lets me find out about misc Equestrian skills and study them; also (as someone
mentioned before) a higher general Equestrian skill would give better results
on an ASSIST command for a specific Equestrian skill.
TOWER/SHIP UNITS
Yes, yes, yes! Towers and ships as individual units would be most excellent,
getting rid of another anomaly in the Olympia system. Having the orders
queued, and then picked up where you left off if you regain control of a unit,
I like very much also. Not only does this apply towards towers & ships, but
being able to queue orders for characters you don't yet control would remove
some headaches ("Okay, I'll trade you this character for that character, but
don't do it until the end of the month, and oh btw can you queue this orders
for him during the month while I'm waiting?")
Greg S.
scheidel@sumter.cso.uiuc.edu