Discussion for Native Expansion Developer Snapshot

I've seen it happen - could be just bad luck for Sarranids, or maybe they were involved in more than one war.

I'll be checking for this too I guess when I make some test runs.

A. Some troop tree nitpicks:

1. Khergit master horse archer - 4 copies of the same light saber.
2. Khergit Kharash final upgrade - the horse requires more riding skill than the rider has
3. Sarranid camel rider final upgrade - the camels they use are worse that the ones I loot from desert raiders.

B. A general note. I am not sure if it's the new iron skin mechanic (-1 damage), early cut based weapons may deal literally 0 damage against chainmail and up enemies. I know it's sort of realistic, but with the early weapons at 20-25 cut are literally pointless and troops wielding them need to be avoided like the plague.

C. Bastard swords are now exclusively 2-handed.

not a dev but there is a couple of things i can point out
1 having more than one of the same weapon increases their chance of getting it, so for example if there are 4 light sabers and 1 heavy saber 4/5 of the unit will spawn with the light

c. irl Bastard swords were used two handed almost exclusively and would be very unwieldy to try and fight one handed with a shield i presume Lav is representing that

dooomninja said:

not a dev but there is a couple of things i can point out
1 having more than one of the same weapon increases their chance of getting it, so for example if there are 4 light sabers and 1 heavy saber 4/5 of the unit will spawn with the light

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Most other units do not have multiple copies of identical weapons. They would either have similar weapons (like different sabres with slightly differeing damage), or same weapons but different art (shields most commonly).

On general unit/item balance:

1. Khergit are OP for several reasons.

a. Units. The Lancer and Kharash peasant trees are outrageously well equipped. Tier 3 (Kharash scout/Khergit rider) are already in good chainmail and are guaranteed a full mail horse. Final upgrades have lamellar type armor (+gauntlets) with top armored warhorses. By comparison, a Swadian senior squire (Tier 6 aka final peasant line) has a 50/50 chance to sit on either an armored hunter or a mail warhorse, has heavy mail (not as well armored) and a shield that is far inferior to the Khergit shields.

b. In fact, the current Khergit Lancer/Kharash lines make the Khergit/Sarranid/Swadian nobles almost meanigless since they can match them for less cost and no renown cost. Swadian Knights cry in the corner looking at a charge of 100 "peasants" with equal if not better equipment than them.

c. Equipment. A lot Khergit equipment is much more powerful than any other faction or rather have high quality equipment dispensed to lower tier troops. I mean, conventional 1-hand swords linger below 30 cut until Knightly blade (iirc). Khergit sabres have lots of high damage examples starting from the "basic" Kharash sabre at 35 cut and fast sabres at 30-35 cut. Khergits also have the some of the best shields with 18 resistance "ornate shields" with lots of HP available to their peasant lines.

d. Currently this makes outfitting your character very easy. You just join any faction at war with the Khergits, and help lords in battles you can win. The loot will definitely include some mail/heavy mail/lamellar + gauntlets + leg armor + some Khergit shields and sabres. After a few battles you will have ditched the "battered" and "makeshift" versions and will have a fully armored character + companions as long as he has enough STR.

There is something funky with auto calculated battles. For example Nords do well in autobattles, but are really weak in actual field battle.

Okay, a lot was written during my temporary offline period, so thanks to all involved.

Now, I'll be brief as I'm in a bit of hurry ATM - if you want more details, feel free to ask and I'll respond later.

1. Sabres have stronger cut than swords, but swords have piercing thrust which should be better vs heavy armor. So choice not that obvious.
2. Kharash is probably OP indeed.
3. Kherg shields should not be the best - if they are, it's my mistake. Will check.
4. dooomninja is correct. I tried not to use this statistical trick, but sometimes there weren't enough models to provide a faction with an equipment line to match it's troops line. Sabres are one of examples - there were only a few sabres that passed my quality filters.
5. Nords fall prey to weak game AI most likely, just like they always do. I'm really interested in players' experience running a nord-heavy army though.

The improved troop trees and items are amazing ;D

I think I found a bug in battle though. When troops are out of morale and flee the battle, they no longer disappear when they reach the edge of the map. And as I found out if you fell, their troops are fleeing, but your troops are also fleeing, then you're stuck in a hard place x3

tailis said:

The improved troop trees and items are amazing ;D

I think I found a bug in battle though. When troops are out of morale and flee the battle, they no longer disappear when they reach the edge of the map. And as I found out if you fell, their troops are fleeing, but your troops are also fleeing, then you're stuck in a hard place x3

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Some of them flee completely, others regroup and stay near the map edge. If both sides are fleeing but not completely, you have to retreat (tab). IIRC, as long as no troops are in contact you do not take any extra losses.

5. Nords fall prey to weak game AI most likely, just like they always do. I'm really interested in players' experience running a nord-heavy army though.

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I shall start a game running a Nord-Heavy army then. So far in my first game, Nord and Sarranid got wiped out to their last castle in less than 50 days without me having a hand in it!

Here's what happened at the start.

Nord WAR Vaegir
Sarranid WAR Rhodoks
Swadia WAR Khergit

Around 10-12 days

Swadia PEACE Khergit
Swadia WAR Nord
Khergit WAR Sarranid

Needless to say at this point the Nords are getting their bottoms kicked by Vaegirs, lost Wercheg right away. Sarranids lost Shariz to Rhodoks. In comes the Khergits who swiftly capture the other 3 major towns. Swadia swiftly capture Thir and other castles while Sargoth finally fell to the Vaegirs around day 28. I was still a freelancer at this point 

So now my map is like a Khergits vs Vaegirs with Swadia and Rhodoks occupying 3 towns each. I could only repel the Khergits, but my monarch (Graveth) is too stupid to broker a peace with Swadia...

My current army is Nord Infantry + Rhodok Sharpshooters heavy. Using Catapharacts & Khergit Lancers as my shock troopers. So far I can win against Khergit armies roughly 1.5x my size without much casualties. But late game wise everyone is defecting to everyone, so its getting harder due to mix up.

Side note to Lav: Remember I was saying about the Rhodok nobles not having shields being bad? It appears natural selection has its way. The Rhodok lords have VERY little Horsemans now simply due to the fact that they die too quickly to be sufficiently replaced and now my battles are 'fair'

The "bring wine" quest is a killer in this version. The short time makes the quest impossible to complete, as there is no wine in almost every city and village early in the game. And refusing the quest places a fairly large -5 relations penalty.

Vaegir Druzhinas weapon is slightly too powerful.

Also for some reason towns change ownership more than I have witnessed before.

So regarding nord AI.

Early game. Nords assemble an army vs Rivarcheg. They get there and start sieging. Half a day later, they all leave because a single lord started sieging a nord village. They waste 1.5 days going back and forth, eventually come back to Rivarcheg, which now has a roaming vaegir army. Then a few lords enter battle, andthe rest turn around and go home "because they have not had a feast in a while". The lords who entered battle get slaughtered.

Note on nord units: I cannot seem to find any use for the Berserker line. No shield, average armor, no polearm. Weak vs cavalry and very weak vs archers.

Hate to say it but... Ivory bowmen/archers/marksmen are way overpowered in melee. They beat of Nords very easily if they're attacking a line of ivory archers. Nerfing armor might be a fix

Vaegir Luchnik said:

Hate to say it but... Ivory bowmen/archers/marksmen are way overpowered in melee. They beat of Nords very easily if they're attacking a line of ivory archers. Nerfing armor might be a fix

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Looking at their stats, they are not the powerful, bearing in mind they are noble troops. Surprisingly, nord top peasant archers have the same weapon skill as ivory, and nords archers actually have better weapons. The reason ivory archers do well is due to:

1. Massive arrow damage
2. As I outlined earlier, the berserker tree has no shields so is easy prey for ivory guys.
3. Actully, the berserkers have poor 2h skills. It seems the "primary" weapon is the throwing axe, with obvious effects.

Nerfing armor would be bad. Ivory marksmen only have a few points of armor more that the Skalds, so nerfing them would make them not very good for being nobles.

I kind of like the current noble troops. The only problem is that you get their numbers up too easily so they pretty much replace your peasant troops in mid game. And other leaders field maybe a bit too much of them also.

I noticed a one thing about feasts. Now oil and spices are scant even though you have them in household inventory.

If they cost you reknown points it wouldn't be too much though, did you turn that option off? I find it a brilliant idea.

On Nords: I never ever have any use for Berserkers except holding a castle. They're not as scary as they used to be.

JanekS said:

If they cost you reknown points it wouldn't be too much though, did you turn that option off? I find it a brilliant idea.

On Nords: I never ever have any use for Berserkers except holding a castle. They're not as scary as they used to be.

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I keep the renown cost. It makes nobles actually a small elite force, rather than a massive part of your force.

They're hard to maintain in great numbers though, you'd need good fiefs, and enterprises in most Calradians towns if you want to have a +150 men army of nobles

Vaegir Luchnik said:

They're hard to maintain in great numbers though, you'd need good fiefs, and enterprises in most Calradians towns if you want to have a +150 men army of nobles

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That's idea of the renown cost in the first place. You are not supposed to walk around with armies of 150+ maxed nobles. Well, you can, but it's supposed to be hard to get. It feels more realistic to have only a part of your army being nobles.