Impressions, ideas, observations

I played SOD a long, long time ago, even before version 4. Now I tried the V 5.0. Great job so far!
I gathered some of my observations, maybe it could give ideas to further improvements?

1. Badboy has no description. How could I know whether a badboy rating of 13 is acceptable or horrible? It would be nice to have a short text where the badboy rating is displayed, for example "other factions consider you a minor nuisance" to "all factions are planning to unite to destroy you".

2. I have churches, monasteries and chapels everywhere for over a month, I get often messages how they spread my faith, yet my faith is hated in all my villages and my advisor says we have 0 believers. (what does it mean? 0 people of the faith, or just 0 faith troops?) I can't find any report about religion, for example percentage of believers in my villages and towns.

3.  I have trainers in my castles, I turned recruiting off, but soldiers in my castle don't gain XP. In previous versions they did. Maybe they still do, but slower? I'll have to observe it for some more time.

4. Taxes seem to be random. In one month I did not conquer anything new, but I built all buildings, the prosperity improved from very poor to very good, the population increased at least 50%, yet I get less than half the taxes I got a month ago. I checked the reports, I don't have any edicts which lower the tax rate.

5. Bandits seem to be unbalanced. It is great to have large bandit parties, as they provide a lot of XP and income, but after some time they destroy immersion. Having a fairly good sized kingdom with prosperous towns and villages generates less income per week than what I can get from one single average bandit battle (immediate loot + selling loot + ransoming prisoners). This takes away all the other nice features, like economy, quests, etc, and makes SOD a "second job", where the most lucrative thing by far is to battle bandits all the time, doing nothing else. What about keeping the large bandit parties, but drastically reducing their respawn rates?

6. What's the point in Marinian noble troops? They have exactly the same stats and upkeep costs as regulars. Yes, they can be upgraded to faith troops, but they just have higher upkeep and questionably better stats. (a crossbowman with, for example, 300 skill is not that much more effective than one with 250 skill)

Could someone please post how to edit the bandit spawn rates and numbers? A new category, simply called "Bandits" was introduced since vanilla, but it is different from the others as presented here: http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,46290.msg1254290.html#msg1254290.

pt_mountain_bandits Mountain_Bandits 562949953421321 0 42 312 309 20 60 0 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1
pt_sea_raiders Sea_Raiders 562949953421321 0 2 312 311 20 50 0 -1 -1 -1 -1 -1
pt_bandits Bandits 2251799813685257 0 2 312 308 3 7 0 307 3 7 0 305 5 15 0 306 5 15 0 304 10 20 0 303 5 15 0

How to edit them?

Also, the structure for spawn rates is also different from vanilla. (http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,46290.msg1220009.html#msg1220009)

Every time your badboy rating changes you get a message about what the other kingdoms think of you, such as a trustworthy ruler or a dangerous ursurper

in 5.0 there is a report, maybe with the chancelor or a fief report on your religion. Why (if) it is 0, I can't guess why

Training doesn't go very fast no. Give it a few weeks, it still works for me, though I just changed the troop limit to below the size of the garrison.

Taxes are also related to things like villager parties reaching their destination iirc. It's possible the previous week 2 parties made it, while the next week they got intercepted by bandits or enemy lords

I agree, mostly, with your bandit battle analysis. Especially after getting a decent force of slave masters/crushers and having ransom brokers in my castle main halls due to high relations with the commoners and some looting skills, it becomes 5.000 per battle or something. Why not stick to it? Well, because fighting bandits means you're not sieging castles, fighting enemy lords who are sieging your castles, protecting your villages, protecting your caravans and basically not making any progress. On the other hand, when all you have is 2 castles and 2 villages, you desperately need that income because the taxes don't make enough income to pay all your troops. Only once you start collecting cities do you get a notable income from them.

I agree a lot with the marinian question, though I'd make it 'why marinian' in general. They look a lot like toned down rhodok. Toned down? They got great big weapons, armor and skilllz! No shields. Just line up your own crossbows, or even better, archers, and watch them melt away. Do NOT attempt a siege with them. Antarians fall in this category too.