Last knights Forum

Idea: resume :until blue or green rank all players got no country.
After reaching green or blue rank player can choice his country.
Tutorial until blue rank.

Result i expect from changes:
Less/no blue ranks and no grey ranks eating space in country in start of age. Better str balance.

Issues expect:

That can be done? program and etc?
Rework rank names is needed?
What you guys think?
We already lack players depending of rank maybe we will slow down start or not.

Solution or workaround:

Maybe test with only grey ranks with no country. If things work nice increase or diminish rank needed to choice country

Hm, actually not a bad idea, but the biggest problem I see is regional units.
You buy those in the barracks, based on the continent your cities are on.
So what units you can buy is decided by your country.

So if you go grey ranks without country, they could only pick general units.
And giving all regional units to all greys from start is even worse, especially if you pick camels or whatnot, and you end in a snow country.

So I like your way of thinking, but I see some core mechanical problems.
Is it possible? Yes, sure, but I dont know, I cant think of a way how to overcome the unit issue.
And for blue ranks you could even say that they normally train with terrain bonus, they wont have that without a country..

That is problem i dont thought when i done topic (regional units).
Alternatives for regional units.
1) after no country status player lose all his units and gain pot of gold to start from there. Just how much gold is hard to think what should be ideal. Most likely gold for full army from most expensive unit.
2) player dont lose units but remaking army is more easy. Actually i find rebuilding in t2 green rank and t3 red rank much easier than before. I saw alot of topic about blue rank being easier,without country bonus surely is harder. I had to dismiss more than mid of my army during Marshall rank and done with merchant gold. Maybe give 12 or 24 hours discount to rebuild army.

New problem we could say is about dead commander.
If no grey can stay in country he have big chance to have problems to return to his country in random ages. But is rare event, and many times people revive and continue grey until end of age.

This an idea worth thinking about. Would solve issues with inactives and multis created for the purpose of spying.

I can think of 2 other options that could overcome the country unit issue.

Option 1. Only have generic T1 units to train with until you join a country. Once you join a country you are able to pick relevant T2 units to promote to or you can stay in the generic unit tree. This would require a bit of rework on the unit tree to achieve.

Option 2. On picking your country, you have a once off offer to retrain your troops to the equivalent country troop type at no cost. Troops would keep xp and total numbers would need to be adjusted due to differences in auth. This would result in minimal work to the existing unit tree, main work would be working out the conversion mechanics.

Dead commanders still would be an issue. Maybe even in random ages they can still be given the choice to remain in their old country. Much like what happens now, but they need to train up before being given the option to choose.