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Zero001 said:

Hello one question. How lvl up necromancer skill? o chose him in the screen of creation but i don`t see him in any place.
Sorry i don`t speak very well english

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You must have intelligence to level the skill. Every 3 points in intelligence allows 1 more point in necromancy. To use it you need to have a close to full hp bar and then go to camp and use your necromancy skill.

I'm having a bug with my recruiter's sent out by my constable. Anyone else having issues with them? I told 4 different recruiters to go out and get 90 troops of each Khergit, Nord, Dwarven, Magi. The recruiter will walk 5 steps away from the city and just sit there. I've tried rotating his order to some other troop type and he still sits there and does nothing. Every few weeks he'll move some little bit but then just sit idle again. I own Tulga a Khergit city which is where I'm starting this recruitment from.

GS Edit:  "eventually replaced the recruiter with a vastly superior town recruiting mechanic, but for castles I had to remove the diplomacy supplied recruiter,after many tries.  There is a conversation starter that leads to "never mind I'll recruit them myself" to not hang the dialog.  Its there because v155 troop trees needed a marker for letting you adjust troop trees at the constable".

With the new Phantasy 2018 I'm going to attempt to clean up the guide and add the new mechanics for this setup while keeping the most important stuff in tact. I've been on hiatus for a number of reasons, but I'm hoping to at least come back and keep this guide in top shape. Will keep you all posted!

gsanders said:

double companion bodyguards is fixed already by the way.  There's a fix up for it since last week.  I suppose I should re-send you the link, maybe I missed you.

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Sure thing, I'll download and update from there.

I'm currently on a morning full of bug hunting and compiling. I'll be adding to it all weekend as I find more.

Below is a spoiler with link going to the relevant album. The album contains photos when necessary along with descriptions of each and the current version the bug was found in.

I used to be a critic like yourself, but then I took an arrow to the knee.

Since Skyrim was being talked about a page or two ago, I thought this would be a good time to use necromancy.

All this talk about map boundaries brings up the thought of retreating. If the maps were up to such a large size then wouldn't that mean retreat mechanics would need an overhaul? As when the unit goes to the edge of the invisible wall on the map they disappear to "retreat".

To be honest though I assume the majority of how the map generator works is by taking an overall number of battlesize permitted then creating a map between 0 to whatever max map size is to accomadate the number of troops in the battle. I expect while the map size can technically be absolutely massive it will rarely if ever be used in vanilla, since I haven't seen any indication of the need for such a size in battles or sieges.

Instead the upper end of the scene map could be used for large mods, especially multiplayer ones, that include things like PW maybe with a mix of NPC populated towns to even create an MMO like experience.

Exitialis said:

Spoiler

Will you be able to equip different items to your troops? Or refit them at a massive cost?

Would be nice to be able to customize your army. Perhaps not the original armies, but if you made your own you should be able to give them your own unique swords and armor mixes.

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When it comes to my own personal kingdom I could see the use of outfitting troops being an interesting thing. As a king you could dictate the types of armor/weapons your people use. Without requiring too much change to happen you could get options upon how your troop tree would work, or if they wanted to keep it a bit more balanced then have you select a faction for your kingdom to be based off of troop wise.

If they wanted to go full on customization you could designate specific weapon types or shields to certain troop types, but there would be restrictions and costs. Example: A t1 or t2 foot soldier could not have access to any plate mail variant but they could have access to some decent leather and maybe lower tier mail. On top of this weapons would be restricted so that you can't give them all masterwork greatswords at an early level. Only access to maybe an early tier 2hander or medium tier shields/1 handers. Then as they get into the higher tiers more options are available along with the ability to outfit with higher end gear per cost. Their stats would scale as they level up (of course). I could see the stats working two ways: Either you are given a series of base lines to choose from (similar to baselines seen within our factions to help keep balance) or you are given some set number of skill points/stats/proficienies to work with.

In that scenario you could create a t1 footman who specializes in sword/board combat with good proficiencies, but if you wanted him to also have some throwing proficiecny and stats you would have to use up some of the alotted points to do so. This could create drastically different kingdoms from a singleplayer standpoint as someone may want to min/max their infantry to be sword/board tiered units, while maybe having another tree specializing in heavy hitters.

You could then limit the weapon alotment for each unit to be 3 (or 4). I say 3 because that would allow the AI units a reasonable amount of weaponry without making every infantry unit a swiss army knife with sword/board, throwing weapon, and a two hander. This would help archers (bow/arrow/1hander or 2hander), knights could have lance/shield/1hander or 2hander to deal with when they are dehorsed or lance is not effective in close quarters, infantry could either keep sword/board/throwing - 2hander/throwing/throwing, or other similar combinations. The only problem I see with this is if you wanted archers to have a sword and small buckler as backup. Maybe have archers/xbowmen access to 4 items since they need to equip arrows as well?

In terms of balancing I could see people worried about the Min/maxing of certain troop types. Example: If my specialized kingdom infantry have some x alotted point value that I can distribute of my own choosing then how could that be anywhere near balanced to other similar tier units? Well when it comes to proficiencies while other kingdoms may have spread out values over 4-5 weapon proficiencies you could do so over 2 specifically or even 1. While you would have a higher proficiency it most likely would not be game breaking. You see the higher a proficiency goes the more it scales up and as such the more points required for an extra level in it. By this logic you would have someone at T1 or T2 who is adept at one or two weapon types, but is incompetent to the others LIMITING your equipment options and the way they act on the field / can be employed tactic wise. Maybe your units have a lot of their skill points stacked into iron flesh and power strike making them great heavy infantry, but they are exceptionally slow to move around because you did not take athletics. Because of this your infantry can go toe to toe with infantry a tier higher than them, but if they get flanked or your archers get flanked they have serious trouble moving around to assist or better position themselves.

In a similar vein this would apply to archers and knights. An archer that would be slightly higher archery proficiency because you pumped points would still only be moderately better than a similar tier from another faction, but would have serious downsides. After upping their power draw, athletics, and ranged proficiency you are left with weaker archers who, while mobile, if flanked are not even very competent with melee weapons. Or you could make a better rounded archer in case they get attacked, or they need to defend themselves in a siege defense scenario, even assault the walls if neccessary in siege offense.

Of course the numbers of how many alotted points would have to be tweaked and tested, but if given a similar number to other units of the same tier in other factions it could be a fantastic addition that adds serious depth to the kingdom level along with making your own kingdom actually feel unique. Not only this by setting up your units as you like you could reinforce your own battle tactics that you like, or make up for serious mistakes you are known to make. E.G. If I often leave my archers out in the open on accident making them pretty good at melee combat would help make up for my own weakness at handling archers. Then I can make my infantry battalions specialize in the type of battle tactics I like and use the most.

This is all interesting speculation of how we could better kingdom management, specifically of a player created kingdom's army.
For those who think TL;DR

EDIT: After thinking about skill point/stat point distrubition I could see some scaling being put on it to restrict people doing too much of the min/maxing to little cost. Example: Let's take a tier 1 infantry that is being player created. He is alotted about 15 skill point and 15 stat points. We'll say that is similar to all other aggregated points of other similar infantry in that tier in other factions. Now instead of doing a spread like 6 strength, 4 agility, 3 intelligence, 2 charisma like a similar level faction unit I do 15 strength 0 agility 0 intelligence 0 charisma. Then I could do 5 power strike, 5 ironflesh, and 5 power throw. To help keep extremes like this from happening we could take the median or average of all X stat from the other factions, then for every point above said average increase the amount that skill/stat will cost by two. By doing this we can prevent people from having crazy high stats on lower infantry, while also allowing specializations to still be viable.

Instead of 15 strength the person would be more likely inclined to better distribute the stats. By taking away 2 intelligence and 2 charisma he could change the points into increasing beyond the average, but suffer the loss of extra skill points from reducing intelligence. Again this kind of stuff would need testing to balance correctly, but it's an interesting concept that if done right could significantly expand the enjoyment and depth of a player kingdom's army.

When you take a look at your morale report tab is there anything coming up specifically? While it's a long shot if you start there and there is no negative applications to morale it could be a bug to be looked into.

If you can't find anything wrong in the morale report take some screenies of the party tab (which will include current overall morale and troop composition), and then a picture of the moment when you get the message people are leaving the party.

Off the top of my head there is a script for troop wages, but I think that applies to a percentage of troop wages. You might could try Morgh's editor, but it's been awhile since I've used it so I'm not sure if that option is there.

guspav said:

My current to-do list:

Spoiler

- ogres in orc armies
- xanaver story
- Aedan story
- Alithyra story
(FAR FROM DONE!) - turn on clerics (spell scripts) + make some more cleric spells
- lich lair quest
- fix kevtil's pelor to lathander
DONE! - mage master shouldn't apply exam more than once once passed
- skeleton-zombie sources : cursed graveyard, cursed battlefield
- primary, secondary class sign fix (overlapping)
- padubast wrong hometown
- female orc skin colors check
DONE!- sturdy sarranid helmet, wrong mesh (use inv)
- ogres should not be mercs
- unaella home string 2 missing
- make noname musicians invisible
- javelin bag of plenty and bolt case of plenty add to Tardareth list
- add ice storm to mage guilds and wizards spell repertoires
- add paladin spell heal mount
- make dungeon traps
DONE! - moloc shouldn't become magic user
- cleric spells name in tooltip
- re-arrange cleric/paladin tooltips

Once this is cleared I will release it. I have already made you wait 2 years for this! 

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If you're still looking for people to do backstories on some of the characters I can attempt to help with that. I'll come up with some writing this weekend and send it; You can see if you like it or not

The "No, I don't need your help" could also just be a common thing going on. Wait around a day or two and try again. There were some times when I'd go on a streak with everyone denying me quests for some reason. Like the game just wasn't generating any, so try that.

On the second piece: I'm not sure. You could try and give some photos of the battle start screen, a photo of the party composition you're about to fight on the world map, and an after battle report with the error report.

Abdmzn said:

Multiplayer please  : ), it doesn't take much time : /, I mean you already have the scripts you just have to add them to multiplayer
Edit: I just relized that this mod hasn't been updated since 2014, what a shame : (

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It's still currently being worked on The thing is Guspav is really the one working on the project itself, so updates are spaced out. That being said each update has massive amounts of content addition.

Gab-AG. said:

Because it was a pretty valid tactic for archers to aim up and let arrows rain on the enemy, but this thing doesnt exist on M&B. You just aim at the enemy, maybe slightly above him, and boom you hit him even if he's pretty far. In few words, arrows go too much far in M&B, at least from my perspective.

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I think the reality of the problem is thus: The size of the map does not accomadate volley fire tactics. It is a valid tactic for volley fire, and it's often said that with a bow you can have either accuracy or range, not both. At the distances in which the battles happen in Bannerlord (from what we've seen so far) there is little reason for volley fire. Maybe the battle maps are large enough to make sense for it to be applicable on, but so far these sieges all start seemingly within a reasonable range for accuracy shots vs volley fire.

Dest45 said:

Spoiler

MrMundy said:

My wifes going to the GC this year, and I am still trying to get her to kidnapp Cpt. Lust and to then press the release date out of him.
Shes still refusing for some reason...

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Maybe your relation with her isn't high enough. Try reciting poems or dedicating a tournament to her

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That made my day, well played.

landpirate said:

This!  And more about relationships/marriage/deeper, more complex and realistic character to character interaction.  M&B2 already has great graphics and action, improved mod support, the economy system is more realistic now and everything else seems more polished.  All they need now is deeper character interactions for the RPG aspect of it.

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I certainly would love to see more about the RPG and character interactions part. I think this can tie in with diplomacy as well, as your interactions should affect influence and ETC

Brendan13 said:

Nah whats the fun of MP without running noobs through with a lance?

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I'd still run noobs down with a lance in MP. Just because people wear different tiers of armor or weapons doesn't change the person under the armor 

Sheep in wolves clothing makes no difference to a real wolf, that can smell the scent

NOTE: I know the actual phrase is vice versa, but I feel Sheep in Wolves clothing fits the description of noobs wearing knightly armor.

On another non-joking note: We've all talked about things we hope to see at Gamescom, do you think the devs will announce what we will see at the show beforehand? Seems odd to not just give a broad topic like "We'll be talking about diplomacy and maybe a better look at our trade system."

SenorZorros said:

Spoiler

honestly, I personally would like to see battles gain more weight. it's a bit stupid that you personally kill a couple thousand soldiers and bandits per campaign. imo, battles should be a lot rarer and a lot more epic. it should be something you have to prepare for, choose the location and establish positions. have a deployment phase, negotiate conditions, then wait until it is time to strike and finally attack. this however is another topic.

it is a problem that generally the best course of action is to get a couple dozen swadian knights and flatten armies trice the size of yours without breaking a sweat or even losing more than a few troops. clearly, something is wrong. I don't know how to counter it though it might help if the magic shields are removed and replaced by anti-arrow formations which are slow and offer little vision leading to suppressed troops. also, I want my archers placing stakes.

the catch-22 is also known as tactics. I don't really see a problem. if you have an archer-heavy army you should either go sit on a hill/ behind a river/in a swamp and defend. run to one of these places and make a stand there, use them to bait out the enemy while continuously falling back to one of these places or wait for reinforcements. archers aren't the best when it comes to a direct offense and battles were quite rare anyways because sieges tended to be easier for the defenders.

when it comes to stances, I think we agree considerably though I might see more options. for spears I can already think of  overarm stabbing, underarm stabbing, overhead attacks and shortened underarm stabbing (where one grips the spear around the middle of the shaft to enable closer-range fights). I personally think four directional stabs are fine because the hit should be determined based on if the opponent is touched and the matter of deflection should not matter. if there is something pushing it away something is pushing it away. spears should be hard to block without either a shield or a polearm anyways.  all four stabs would do is enable the player to hit more ares without additional frantic mouse movement.

now I think about it. we should also have the option to brace either by pressing a button or pressing the mouse buttons.

to conclude, even axes can have two stances. one which uses wild and strong swings and one which uses more contained weaker chops which pose less risk to your allies.

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Hm, the catch 22 is somewhat tactics, but I feel that BECAUSE of the magnet shields coupled with small battle areas the archers never get the chance to fully shine EXCEPT in the large siege battles where they have enough time to empty the quivers. I mentioned how even when using an archer heavy army on the hill or behind a river it's still not enough against a decently tiered army. Mainly because the decently tiered army has enough magnet shields coupled with heavy cav ON TOP OF the small field. If fields were expanded a bit to help compensate for the larger numbers it would help significantly. I think my experience in this area is slightly warped because I use a massive battle size change of 850 and can effectively handle it in most cases. This means that by the time my troops are able to get setup the enemy has advanced a quarter of the map already. Pre-deployment and larger fields helps this. Sieges offset this imbalance by providing more firing time overall for the archers.

I don't mind the magic shields TOO much so long as they do get toned down a bit. I do hope formations allow for better arrow mitigation. I find it hilarious when my soldiers are marching into a valley, yet instead of facing their shields up to the enemy archers they face down towards the infantry line in the valley they have yet to even meet simply because they are the closest enemy AI. In the same vein I hope the ability to force retreat certain units is now available. If I have start off the battle with a lot of arrows and they empty their quivers, I would tell them to retreat and tell my next group of reinforcements to come in. Not send my archers to their death so the game mechanic of more reinforcements can kick in. The AI should also be conscious of this and do the same if his archers run out and he has reserve forces to take their place.

Interesting take on stances! Still not 100% convinced on a four directional thrust for the spear. The spear already has more reach than a sword, and giving it 4 directional attacks of it's most powerful attack type (pierce) seems like it would just be overall better than a sword if a person can use their footwork effectively. On top of that they could just stance change into side swings if needed. While realistically a spear is hard to block it is hard to block because of speed more than anything. IRL a person wouldn't stab do a right / left stab. He stabs over/upper targeting different areas by using his hands to shift the targeted area. Think about attempting to stab from the 4 main directions. What would a right/left stab look like? You could stab INTO someone's right or left flank, but that would be because your body has shifted into position to do so, not because you bring your arms farther out to your left or right to do so. That would be bad form when dealing with a spear because it weakens your control over the polearm and opens up your other side to be attacked.

EDIT: 100% spot on with the bracing. Needs to be a thing, it was in with fire and sword and it worked great because it serves that exact purpose of breaking charges. In fact, I argue the ineffectiveness of spears with AI is partly due to their inability to understand keeping combat distance and the lack of bracing with a shield to stop charges while also protecting them from arrows. Would go a long way in helping formations.

SenorZorros said:

Spoiler

when it comes to archers, their role should stop the moment the melee-units engage. That is, unless you want to risk your own troops. This is historically correct so I don't see a problem. Normally archers had spend all their arrows before the engagement anyway. While I do admit that this would mean archers become significantly weaker they still play a huge role pre-engagement and this deficit could be balanced against. Your problem is my feature .

I am going to take your word on stances. However, what would your opinion be on alternate attacks? I get that it would be hard to find buttons for them but I'd imagine this could give the best of both worlds. One remark I have to make though is that stances are nor supposed to fix friendly fire but rather to enable different approached in different cases e.g. fighting in a tight formation.

I completely agree with your points on banners and setup so I won't respond further. The battle cries were mostly fluff and I agree a hard way to identify troops. It would also make the battles even more noisy. I think the main reason to have them would be for immersion.  It would be nice to be able to pick your own battle cry though this might be a bit hard.

On that note I would like to have the option to have your orders only affect limited range requiring them to be signalled either by battle cries, signs or music.

When it comes to the mould would say everything is a mould anyway. It is important to have a solid core, but the game should still be a game and not a modding platform. I'd like to see the various options and in depth features in vanilla instead of having to resort to mods.

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I do agree on the role of archers. Their role in an actual realistic setting is to spend all their arrows before the engagement if possible then act as light infantry. The real problem is that seems to only happen in siege battles. In field battles I most often found that if I had the more infantry that meant I had less archers than my enemy. It would be a wise decision to get into the thick of the fight as soon as possible because the enemies ranged power outmatched my own. If I had more ranged units the enemy lord would attempt a flank with Cav and I would constantly be losing archers simply due to their inability to handle mounted units will. Even with good positioning of terrain on top of hills, behind rivers, and with my melee units set to encounter the incoming charge. The incoming charge of infantry/cav would be larger than my infantry/cav force since my army had more archers. It was a balancing act of sorts. If battles were a bit more on the prolonged side, or I had the ability to better pick what my battle terrain would actually look like / deployment phase I wouldn't mind it near as much. A real catch 22: Have enough archers that you want to prolong engagement? Enemy AI has more infantry/cav to spread out when they charge you causing you to lose if they simply have decent tier units with shields. Have too little archers to make a long term archer fire exchange worthwhile? Charge the enemy or they will whittle you down. It's one of the key reasons for not having AI archer friendly fire, but again toggles are best the option.

The stances thing takes into consideration that all weapons would have different attack stances. I could understand SOME weapons have different stances, but that kind of is already taken care of to some extent via the X key. E.G. The two handed axe to polearm setup or javelins from throwing to melee. The case of spears is unique though. If they were one of the few to get an "x" stance change (say between polearm and two handed) I could see that being both viable and still making sense from a blocking standpoint. Example: If in the polearm state while wearing a shield you get 2 stabs an upper and lower. While in the polearm state without a shield you get an upper and lower stab with the side swings. In the two handed state (requires no shield) you would get a low stab, an overhead swing (blunt damage unless the tip strikes which because bannerlord has better weapon location detection on hit is very viable and also allows items like naginatas to be better represented in hit detection), and 2 side swings. In this case you are actually getting only 2 stances similar to the previous game toggled by x (A two handed and polearm state), but each state functions differently for different ranges. The two handed could not be used with a shield, but a polearm stance with shield gives two different directions of attack perfect for formation fighting and support, while not being restrictive without a shield. Furthermore allowing for pike attacks against enemy cav to still be effective with 2 directional stabs, whereas normally you would only have one directional stab (which stab is most effective form of the pike).

So stances for all weapons may not be a good idea, but it is fantastic to be expanded upon for specific weapons that kind of need the help or will not be balanced. A sword does not need different stances to be effective because it's prowess is in the ability for four directional attacks at all times shield or not though it loses out on reach.

I understand your reasoning on the last point I wonder how far the devs can take us? It's always a mystery about where the resources should go!

Sir_Newton said:

Spoiler

I really think that stances are actually a pretty great idea and already kind of implemented, you just use x to switch. For example, in warband throwing axes and some javelins can be switched between being thrown and being used for melee.

Expand this so that in bannerlord, polearms can cycle between being thrown, a stance where 3 attacks are swinging/bludgeoning, and a stance where all 4 attacks are stabs from different directions. This doesn't at all complicate things for the defender as you just have to use the same old 4 directional blocks, it just gives the wielder of the weapon more flexibility; for example, if you want *prisoners, use the bludgeoning swings. The ability to have solid multidrectional stabs might also be the buff that spears so desperately need (so long as AI are programmed to use them better)

*(I say this bit on the assumption that the prisoner system will be fairly unchanged from vanilla warband, but I would really really love if they grafted Viking Conquest's system of how people can be knocked out by blows from sharp weapons too)


Also, friendly fire is **** and if its enabled it MUST be toggleable.

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Stances are fine, so long as not all weapons have them IMO. No reason for swords or axes to have multiple X stances (unless maybe the axe has a sharp point on the other side, same thing applies to many warhammers. I think giving the spear 4 different directional stabbings is a bit much. It gives them reach, the already strong piercing damage, and requires people to block it from 4 different directions. Maybe if you set it up to have 2 directions as lower stabs and 2 as higher stabs that 2 of the attacks can be blocked by a low block and two can be blocked by high blocks. Though at that point what would be the purpose of having 4 "directions" when two could cover the same job just fine? People could argue "Oh it allows for better aiming at specific points of the body", but that is already covered by the work of your camera while swinging.

I think most people are in agreement over friendly fire, make it toggle-based with two different toggles. One for the player and one for the AI. Maybe even expand to AI ranged/melee and player melee/ranged for 4 options in total. That would not be too hard to do option wise (assuming friendly fire is coded in the first place).

SenorZorros said:

Spoiler

I would like to note that friendly fire incidents could be lowered by adding real formations as well as "stances" that focus on fighting in lines. the melee where the armies scatter around and everyone fights one person never happened and for good reason. not only is it a very lethal way of holding battle which makes retreat almost impossible. it also increases the chance you hurt your comrades. when fighting in formation you can be fairly sure the guys facing you are the enemy and the ones who have their back or sides towards you are friends.

on that note I would like to either see stances or alternative attacks. "stances" should be sets of attacks which are used for different purposes. I'm not talking about some weird martial art or forgotten swordsmanship but rather holding the spear under the arm or over the arm or using a sword for stabbing or slashing. this would mean you can adapt to a situation without hampering your options. a sword  "stance" which has four froward stabs for instance would be useful to use in tight battles. alternative attacks could possible do this without stances by pressing keys while attacking. however, I am a complete noob at the fighting part so I would like to invite people who can actually play the game to give their opinions.

I see your comment on how hard it is to see rags in a pitched battle and I agree. this could be the reason your skirmishers decide to take on your own right flank instead of the enemy's. this is also the reason you outfitted your right flank with standard bearers which display your banner, to make sure the skirmishers know who to skirmish.  furthermore, according to this thread soldiers used battle cries to distinguish between the groups
https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/1dh5vp/how_much_friendly_fire_occurred_during_massive/
that would be a cool feature.

when it comes to colourblindness though I would say that's your problem and invite you to turn on floating banners. there is only so much that can be done. especially when trying to be realistic.

in the end if the battles would be made more realistic friendly fire would mostly be a case of misidentification between groups or an annoying wind diverting the course of your arrows.

but I do agree that toggles are the best solution. the main question would be what should be default? as a strategy player I like to see a more deep command system involving formations and friendly fire but I now that there are a lot of people who have their focus on other parts of the game.

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I actually considered this: the formation type fighting being able to heavily reduce the amount of friendly fire (at least in melee combat). It would somewhat help with your archers as they could shoot into the far back ranks of the enemy formation negating the chance to hit your own troops, but as people have mentioned what about when you're cav are specificaly attacking those in the back to disrupt the formation? Then your archers become just as much a boon to your army as a bane.

The real reason I didn't suggestion a heavier emphasis on formation fighting is due to one simple reason: AI programming. Sure it's possible to add in some pretty basic yet strong foundations for the AI to follow. Mods have done it quite effectively, but when the battles start getting intense with the cav charging and getting in the mix, infantry formations clashing on two or three fronts from different lords, it simply becomes a mess. The AI archers, from my personal experience, have in many mods with formations created a constant stream of knocking the arrow then never releasing because something gets in the way of their target before they shoot. Imagine if friendly ranged fire was on. You either A.) have your archers kind of idle providing significantly less support or B.) have them take chances at hitting your own troops and let them keep shooting.

While the different stances is interesting I'm going to be 100% honest. When it comes to multiplayer having different stances could, and would most likely, cause a lot of problems. If someone is using a stance with spears for instance how would it be blocked by someone using a stance with a sword that has 4 directional attack while the spear has 4 different attacks, but all thrusts at different elevations? It could possibly add a whole new level to the gameplay, but more than likely it would just be annoying fluff to constantly switch between in combat. People would attempt to be pressing X (or w/e key) to toggle stances and stance dance while attempting to feint. What about all of the animations that go into this? Would it be possible to correctly animate switching both between the main 4 directional swings and the different swings/thrusts accompanied by the different stances? Would spears have 3 stances, lances have 2 stances, and swords have 4? What would these stances be? How would they function? How do you block them? Should it only be multiplayer? Is this amount of effort in getting stance setup even the best fix scenario for friendly fire in general?

In the end there's a ton of drawbacks to something like this. It would require people to conform to a mold they do not sign up for (E.G. switching from 4 directional attacks to also including various stances functioning differently), a large amount of animation work / smoothing for the developers (which if it did not work out as they wanted would just end up being wasted development time), and the overall amount of questions on how the mechanic itself would function to fit the AI (which will need to be programmed how to use it effectively btw) along with the use in a multiplayer setting.

On the note of rags/cloth yea, it would be difficult to see at some ranges :/ Especially from horseback leading into a charge in which two groups of infantry are fighting. Though your point about banners is spot on, and I hope to see more about that. Speaking of various flanks/divisions I am anticipating the ability to better setup divisions of units. That way on a battlefield you can have 2-3 sets of infantry running around. That way the whole "Friend is almost always behind you" would become a little less prominent (as you're right that happens a ton in the current game). This would also affect tactics heavily as in the real world it was common to have two diversions of light infantry and heavy infantry. In fact when I think of these two seperations I always think of Hannibal's famous battle in which he baited the enemy into attacking his center piece of light infantry (which was uncommon to do), then instead having his heavy infantry encircle the flanks.

Battle cries are interesting, but how would that actually work out in effect? I mean, cool for ambience but how often am I going to be able to hear the battle cries giving orders over the loud clash of steel in game? Would I even want to hear that? Technically other instruments could provide the same feel, but I question as to how useful it would be overall. More than likely though it would end up just being a sound that accompanies when you give some X order. Like, Everyone-Charge would have a specific set of lines. Would be interesting to see how you could actually make that work, though I do not require it in the base game.

I think to sum up everything while a lot of this is interesting talk, I feel most of it requires a lot more time for getting the mechanic right, or just overall would force to much of a specific type of immersion/realism/"gameyness" on the playerbase without their say so. All of this is perfect setup for mods (like you and many others have mentioned). My real want for Bannerlord is for them to focus on hammering on a solid game engine with vast capabilities. Along with this to focus on adding various options and in depth customization so that people can gear more towards the realism (E.G. No floating banners / better formation combat) vs people who are more interested in playing the game itself. As you said toggles are the best solution

NOTE: On the AI bit I should add that my reasoning is the AI hasn't been able to advance to a level I believe it capable of handling some of these things effectively. The siege gameplay shows they still have some problems, and while they may be vastly improved... I still don't feel confident the AI can handle as many things. I'm hoping the ability to setup different divisions will allow for multiple "flank / skirmish" engagements on the sidelines while the main bulk of the armies crush in the center. Especially if AI Lords do different things based on their personalities. A honourable lord will take the front and center piece then hold it to his troops whittle to nothing. An aggressive lord will take the intiative and attempt to overwhelm the target. Slightly more underhanded lords will take flanks and attempt to skirt the battle until the main groups engage. If you have 3-4 different lord types in an army it could cause battles to go differently, while still not being a complete "Random slogfest" as to what the lord decides to do.