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Soldier recruitment - an idea


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Okay, so you obviously are trying to avoid the hire/fire cycle that dominated some games of X-COM, where people were hiring massive amounts of soldiers only keeping those who fit certain requirements while getting rid of everyone else, or just using them as cannon fodder.

Soldier Hire: When you hire a soldier, you can now pick from a pool of 12 possible soldiers which is refreshed as you hire troops. This allows you to pick a soldier that suits the role you are hiring them for - though fired troops go back in the soldier pool to prevent mass hire / fire soldier cherry picking.

Providing a pool of soldiers is one way of avoid this behavior, but it is far from perfect. There is however a better solution. Allow the player to specify target attribute scores for recruitment. And vary time/cost of recruitment based on how broad or specific the target is. The player will end up with the soldiers he deems worthy of combat sooner or later anyway, so you might as well allow him to be more specific about it, thus giving him more control over what he gets for his money. You can compensate this by increasing the time and cost of finding premium soldier material.

As said above, recruitment time and cost as such should vary depending on how specific / high the target attribute range is. If you want everyone who can hold a gun, that ain't gonna cost a lot and it can be done substantially faster than looking for the few people out there who can blow up an alien's ship with two hair pins and a spent battery, while still able to hit the fly sitting on the head of the alien in question from a mile away.

Just an idea.

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What do you mean by "vary time/cost of recruitment" "increasing the time ... of finding premium soldier material" ?

Also I don't understand how this prevents the cherry picking problem? It just seems to mainstream and encourage it?

What exactly is it with the pool solution that you are not satisfied with?

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The trade-off is that you might have to wait a while to get a fitting resume. You won't get emergency meatshields right when you need them. (Of course, you could always just keep the meatshields on hand, and then use all your free time to recruit demigods.)

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Gorlum has anger issues everywhere u go lol but the skull boy is right, the idea is too mainstream. Maybe thats realistic or american film does lol, but this is a game and you need balance like this

Soldier Hire: When you hire a soldier, you can now pick from a pool of 12 possible soldiers which is refreshed as you hire troops. This allows you to pick a soldier that suits the role you are hiring them for - though fired troops go back in the soldier pool to prevent mass hire / fire soldier cherry picking.

I like this idea better. Who are you quoting?? I rather see this, instead of XCOM way!! Why not???

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Gorlum has anger issues everywhere u go lol but the skull boy is right, the idea is too mainstream. Maybe thats realistic or american film does lol, but this is a game and you need balance like this
Anger issues? Did I come off as angry in this thread? If so I do apologize.... I have to use more smilies i guess.. :( (Is it the word "exactly" in the last sentence that seems hostile?:confused:)

I believe that you misunderstood what I said though. I didn't say the idea was mainstream. I was trying to say that the idea makes it simpler and encourages what the pool system is trying to prevent or dissuade.

I like this idea better. Who are you quoting?? I rather see this, instead of XCOM way!! Why not???

That would be from Chris in the Version 12 release announcement I believe. :)

Edited by Gorlom
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I actually see less need to cherry-pick in Xenonauts because their stat scores don't vary as wildly as X-Com scores (at least that I've seen).

The major issue which led me into the firing / hiring cherry picking cycles in X-Com were extremely low bravery scores (and later on the low mind control scores). Those had a huge range from 10-60, and guys at 10 and 20 were really bad in combat and prone to going berserk and killing your other, better troops. Those losses hurt bad, and often sent the whole squad into a downward spiral, so you couldn't afford to have them on the team.

I don't see soldiers much in this game that have extremely low bravery (like 10), so that's not as much of an issue. Furthermore, soldiers don't appear to go berserk, so when the lower-bravery guys do panic, they aren't actively endangering my own troops, and thus I don't regard them as a huge liability. Plus, as I recall X-Com soldiers could hardly ever increase their bravery, whereas I know Xenonaut troops do, so if I just stick with a soldier he'll get better over time, which I love.

As such, I think cherry picking can certainly be done, but the game mechanics are already set up to alleviate some of the reasons why it happened in X-Com.

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I think it would be interesting to been able to hire mercenaries, soldiers with more experience but at much much greater cost. I am new here, had a quick look on the forums but northing pops out so not sure if this has been suggest at all.

Maybe they could be hire like normal soldiers and paid per month but much larger expense or hire per ground operation they are sent on.

On a paid per monthly system they could be used to back more inexperience troops until they can hold their own. So one would get one or two mercenaries to put in with their troops.

On per operation system they could be called in to supplement overextend troops if there too many ground operations for your standard experienced troops to handle. This would mean hiring mercenaries organisations maybe??

I think mercenaries would be helpful on harder settings of the game and bring more to balancing your budget versus dealing with threats.

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I think it would be interesting to been able to hire mercenaries, soldiers with more experience but at much much greater cost. I am new here, had a quick look on the forums but northing pops out so not sure if this has been suggest at all.

It's been suggested before. Chris expressed a dislike to hire better or more experienced soldiers.

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Technically xenonaughts are the mercenaries and countries pay them for protection. I don't see any other organisation being effective against the aliens. That said, having soldier cost based on skill level on the hiring panel would be a nice feature and not that complex to implement. Something to consider when hiring soldiers, cheap fodder who will eventually get stronger or take a money hit and get a head start.

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It's been suggested before. Chris expressed a dislike to hire better or more experienced soldiers.

Ah well that is a bit of pity. Maybe something I could add as a modd at a later stage.

Technically xenonaughts are the mercenaries and countries pay them for protection.

Hmmm... suppose that is true then again doesn't mean one can't subcontract other groups :)

I don't see any other organisation being effective against the aliens.

I suppose it depends how it is implemented. If you start hiring other organisations you would have spend money on training their troops and equiping them with the new tech. Pay them per operation for the troops they send. This could have a consequence of countries been uncorformable with idea of training and arming other groups and which might cause reduced funding. By doing this you have some backup when thing start go pear shape at later stages of the game... sort off trade really, do you invest in mercenaries groups saving long term on base and personal expensives at the risk of annoying countries that are funding you?

Anywho just thought, not really in the spirt of XCOM but maybe something for a modd? :)

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