Hi,
I would like to suggest an ovehaul of the concept of thugs in the Guild 2. Right now, and since ever, thugs are hired in houses, which means the more houses one got the more thugs he or she can hire. This feature I believe is tremendously ruining the strategy part of the game. I will give you a brief example of today's multiplayer session I had with a friend.
My friend started massively taking over residences in town, which would mean that after a while he could easily take over my family simply by numbers. In turn, I sent all of my capable characters including thieves and robbers (which previously were making coin, but I had to sent them on massacre instead) to take over his main rogue character so as to stop him until he reaches a lot of hirelings, which would give him possibility to take over all of my businesses in due time. I started attacking him with all I had, needless to say I had lost a lot of employees and had to hire more and sent them to the very place of battle again. In the end I managed to kill all his hirelings and left him with no cash, but he still owned most of the buildings in towns. This is the same way people play Age of Empires or Wacraft 3. It is easy to take out families using numbers and real-time-strategy way of playing, but in my opinion the Guild 2 is not about sending armies and atacking over and over again. I strongly believe that other concepts of the game such as pure strategy, intrigues and politics are more interesting gameplay-wise. Anyone can use numbers and not many players are capable of actually creating an interesting strategy against their key competitiors.
Thus, my suggestion is the following:
1. Allow hiring thugs in arsenals only, not in houses.
2. Limit the number of hired thugs to the title, where each title allows you to hire 1 thug.
3. Slightly increase the cost of thugs.
4. Commoners should notbe able to hire thugs, Yeoman is the first title which should be allowed to hire a first thug.
This change [I strongly believe] will massively enhance the gameplay from stategic and economci perspective, instead of turnign the game into the somewhat dull real time stategy, where people take out others by merely numbers. I will briefly describe two stategic examples of how this change may vastly improve gameplay:
Imagine two opponents, each has a limited number of thugs, say 4. They use them for collecting evidence, some sabotages, patrol and spying. However, at some point one decides to use all 4 of them against his rival, and another player notices his plans. What would be my actions in this situation? I would instead try to surround them and send two thugs from one side and two from the other so as to surround this pack and make sure they will die. This is a tactical move, not numbers.
Another example. I have three thugs. In a few years they will have nice stats/levels, and I also bought them some armor and weapons. Thus, I have invested into them and I have the right to actually enjoy this investment by having a strong crew of mercenaries. However, in case my opponent has 5 houses, with 2-3 mercenaries each, there is no way several of my mercs can take out 15 of his, no matter how strong are mine.
Notice how NPC's only use 1 or two thugs to escort them? I am not saying we should take example after the AI, but the guild series are meant to be economic strategy rather than "hire as much thugs as possible and send them out for massacre".
I have managed to make my rival bankrupt by using thieves on some of his building and making him lose his mercs in a warcraft manner but frankly this is not what I believe the Guild 2 should be. I hope some of you will support my position.
As for other combat-based characters such as mercenaries, thieves and robbers, yes, they too can be used as force, however, they are also used to generate coin, so this is risk vs reward, while you sent them on combat, they cannot generate money and while a player loses his 'troops' he is risking of becoming bankrupt, especially in early game where competition is super intensive, especially during the multiplayer sessions with agressive opponents.
Thank you
P.S. On the side note, I was outlawed while being in the the town hall and did not move out until my outlaw status was gone. Perpahs add a feature for the guards to make the outlaws come out of buildings?
