POLL: The Empire.... DO we NEED three of them?

Does the Empire need a rework/rethink?

  • No. the Empire is fine as it is.

  • Adding different troop trees to the Empire is enough.

  • An Ancient Greek style/inspired faction would be perfect!

  • Get rid of one of the Empire factions in favour for something else

  • Get rid of two of the empire factions in favour for something else

  • Get rid of Empire completely?.... lol?


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Less than that. Wasn't Neretzes Folly in 1077? The game starts at 1084, and we have the whole reign of Arenicos in between that.

(which is weird, because the dev blogs implied Arenicos had reigned for 20 years, but I guess they changed that).
If that's the case, the split literally happened less than 10 years ago. How would the imperial armies even have diverged to any noticeable degree at that point ?
 
@Niomedes People are getting so confused about how the empire would have had time to end up with varing troops clearly dont understand the point. (see below)

The split isnt the ONLY cause for these differences people are suggesting. the differences would be based on geographical and regional differences in the parts of the empire. such as how close the western empire is to battania, vlandia and sturgia. how close the southern empire is to aserai and khuzait. different types of terrains and different military strategies used by their neighbouring border factions would result in those parts having different styles than the complete other side of the empire. Even before the empire split these differences would still have been there regionally even if they were still all part of 1 empire. a split where each corner of the empire goes their seperate ways would emphasize this variation, not start it (more about this below)

@Princeps Senatus i dont understand your point. the way recruiting is done in bannerlord IS regionaly based. anyone advocating different troop trees whether large or small are of course talking about originally southern/northern/western empire territory having those variant troops. ofc if the southern empire take over the northern empire they can now also recruit northern empire variant troops, the same as if they had taken over aserai they would recruit aserai troops. As i mentioned above, the variant troops wouldnt be caused by the split but rather accentuated by it. the varying troops are mainly a result of the vastly different regional differences between the extremes of the empire. resulting in the northern empire no longer being able to recruit southern empire style troops as they are now hostile with them. (pre empire split you wouldnt really notice these differences as much, as anyone in the empire before the split would be able to recruit troops from all over the empire and combine them into one big army. after the split they cannot do this anymore so lose the ability to recruit troops from now hostile regions, limiting the troop types of each empire faction to the territory they control) If you unite the empire the result will be you being able to recruit all these types of troops and would give a idea of how the empire before the split would have looked without any restrictions on the kind of troops they can recruit due to no hostilities with the empires various cardinal directions within the empire.

in reference to if you create your own empire faction you would recruit the troops of wherever your first settlement is, the same as any other place, this is a non issue(just because you conquer battania doesnt mean you can recruit your player faction troops, you recruit battanians)
Furthermore if one of the empires manages to defeat the other two, now they have(or you have) united the empire back to its former glory and you can field an army of a mixture of all three empire variants which is possible as you are friendly and own all that territory.(just like how the empire would have worked pre imperial split)

I hope this clears up any confusion people are having with this.
 
Recruitment is culturally based, not regionally based, I thought? Based on the settlement cultures. Are we suggesting splitting the Empire culture into three entirely separate cultures, too? That is a huge step too far for an empire that was united 1-5 years before the game starts.

People are making way, way too much about a short term civil war to decide who should be in charge of the previously unified Empire. The only reason that there's a civil war to begin with is so the Empire isn't some big giant unstoppable blob in the middle of the map -- but the whole idea of the Calradians is that they created a uniform Empire.

You want regionally influenced troops? Go conquer a neighboring town and go get some. :p
 
Recruitment is culturally based, not regionally based, I thought? Based on the settlement cultures. Are we suggesting splitting the Empire culture into three entirely separate cultures, too? That is a huge step too far for an empire that was united 1-5 years before the game starts.

People are making way, way too much about a short term civil war to decide who should be in charge of the previously unified Empire. The only reason that there's a civil war to begin with is so the Empire isn't some big giant unstoppable blob in the middle of the map -- but the whole idea of the Calradians is that they created a uniform Empire.

You want regionally influenced troops? Go conquer a neighboring town and go get some. :p

in respect to bannerlord. regional and cultural recruitment is the same thing my dude. at the start of the game every faction owns their own culture the region of battania gives battanian units etc. and the differences the majority want for the empire are small, namely a single extra unit with a upgrade path different to the other empires. so the rest of their basic structure is the same. every empire unit will still be there, but there will be an extra unit tree in each empire. nobody said anything about changing the empire culture so i dont know where you got that idea from. adding an extra unit to each empire faction doesnt change that they are empire, it just defines which cardinal direction of the empire they are. culturally they are still empire. think of it like the special units in each faction(the ones that go to tier 6) they arent available in every village, use that same idea for these extra units and its easy

EDIT: Even if say battania conquers vlandia. the region of battania is still only the area they started at. only the kingdom of battania has expanded. When Rome conquered gaul, gaul didnt become italy. you get the idea. it doesnt change the same way the culture doesnt change. in this instance i use culture and region interchangably.
Also is it true that the emprie was only united 1-5 years ago? if so that makes it a hell of alot more plausible for the different empires to have completely different cultures if they were only united as the empire for 1-5 years. that would mean in essence its only a recent thing that combined these once different cultures into one and highly likely that the original cultures are still predominant
 
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Also is it true that the emprie was only united 1-5 years ago? if so that makes it a hell of alot more plausible for the different empires to have completely different cultures if they were only united as the empire for 1-5 years. that would mean in essence its only a recent thing that combined these once different cultures into one and highly likely that the original cultures are still predominant

No no no, it is a one thousand year old empire. The three separate factions are 1-5 years old. Before that, it was one united Empire.

The game takes place in the year 1084. We know that the battle of Neretzes Folly / Pendraic occured in 1077. After that, Arenicos took the throne and ruled for a certain number of years, before being killed and starting a civil war. We don't know the exact date he died; so my 1-5 year figure puts him as dying somewhere between 1083-1079, since he ruled for at least two years (and probably longer).

The Calradic Empire is very, very old -- and we know from Arzagos that it replaced the cultures of the places it conquered with a unified Imperial Calradic culture, to the point that the original peoples of the various regions of the empire barely remember their old languages and don't even have a word for what they called themselves before the Calradoi showed up.

culturally they are still empire. think of it like the special units in each faction(the ones that go to tier 6) they arent available in every village, use that same idea for these extra units and its easy

Hm. Okay. If it's possible to add a unique flavor unit or something to only certain settlements but keep it to a single Empire culture for the three parts, then fine.
 
A nation can be united by a government and still have vast cultural differences in different areas especially when those areas are geographically separated by distance or mountains. And vast, sweeping military changes can absolutely be made in the time since the empire's split. The Marian reforms to the Roman military were a pretty sudden shift in the organization and culture of the Roman military. They didn't take decades to implement. And like I said, it's not unreasonable for prexisting cultural differences to have spurred even more drastic changes.
 
The "Marian reforms" did in fact take decades, because the changes often ascribed to Marius actually occurred over a period of time and weren't all the doing of Marius.

You don't need to go to Marius for your example anyway: Bannerlord lore has Arenicos shifting the Calradic Empire over from a citizen standing army to cataphract-centric retinues of archons. That occurred no more than 7 years before the game started -- that's probably your go-to example of military changes. (My counterargument, though, is that it makes little sense for factions in a civil war to change their military to reflect external threats when their main goal is to take the imperial throne).

As far as culture goes, every kingdom in this game has a monolithic culture. There's Vlandian and Aserai culture, there isn't coastal Vlandia and mountain Vlandia. The Empire is one of those cultures too -- and it's used for things like city gfx, item availability, and loyalty. That's what I mean about the whole Empire being one culture.

And, again, it's right in the game lore that the Empire assimilated local cultures and made everybody into Imperials. Is this overstated? Probably -- the real life Roman Empire was multicultural, and Roman culture was an administrative/prestige culture (along with Greek) atop existing cultures and languages, which continued to be spoken.

But that's not the case with Bannerlord. Arzagos talks about how the Palaic language is dwindling -- given how long ago the Empire conquered them, this suggests to me that younger Palaic people don't bother learning their old language anymore (to parallel endangered languages in the modern world), but who knows?

In any case, what regional differences that surely must exist are abstracted under a single Empire culture because that's how culture works in the game. It's not that discrete.
 
@Niomedes People are getting so confused about how the empire would have had time to end up with varing troops clearly dont understand the point. (see below)

The split isnt the ONLY cause for these differences people are suggesting. the differences would be based on geographical and regional differences in the parts of the empire. such as how close the western empire is to battania, vlandia and sturgia. how close the southern empire is to aserai and khuzait. different types of terrains and different military strategies used by their neighbouring border factions would result in those parts having different styles than the complete other side of the empire. Even before the empire split these differences would still have been there regionally even if they were still all part of 1 empire. a split where each corner of the empire goes their seperate ways would emphasize this variation, not start it (more about this below)

While that is a nice theory, things like this don't tend to really happen in empires. No matter where a roman legion fought, it would always be organised and equipped like every other roman legion everywhere else, with the differences -if there were any- being made up by foederatii and the auxilia. And the same goes for almost every single empire that ever existed.

Geographical and regional differences don't matter at all for the strategies employed by a large empire in different parts of its own area, as confusing as it may sound. The main objective actually is to develope a military strategy that works somewhat well everywhere instead of working perfectly on one front.

The reason for that is that a large empire must be able to react to threats on all of its borders rapidly. As such, it isn't feasable to specialize each of its armies for the area it is supposed to operate in, since said army could be needed on the complete other side of the empire just a few weeks later, not to mention that recruits currently being trained in one form of combat won't be able to be rapidly retrained for another if they're suddenly needed elsewhere.

Can't also stress it enough that homogenity in the armies of an empire helps soldiers to swiftly get used to whatever front they're starioned on since the army there will work in the same way it did where they came from, and that uniformity helps to establish monolithic power.

Your thinking of high specialization being prevalent is, in essence, to modern.
 
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While that is a nice theory, things like this don't tend to really happen in empires. No matter where a roman legion fought, it would always be organised and equipped like every other roman legion everywhere else, with the differences -if there were any- being made up by foederatii. And the same goes for almost every single empire that ever existed.

Geographical and regional differences don't matter at all for the strategies employed by a large empire in different parts of its own area, as confusing as it may sound. The main objective actually is to develope a military strategy that works somewhat well everywhere instead of working perfectly on one front.

The reason for that is that a large empire must be able to react to threats on all of its borders rapidly. As such, it isn't feasable to specialize each of its armies for the area it is supposed to operate in, since said army could be needed on the complete other side of the empire just a few weeks later, not to mention that recruits currently being trained in one form of combat won't be able to be rapidly retrained for another if they're suddenly needed elsewhere.

Can't also stress it enough that homogenity in the armies of an empire helps soldiers to swiftly get used to whatever front they're starioned on since the army there will work in the same way it did where they came from, and that uniformity helps to establish monolithic power.

Your thinking of high specialization being prevalent is, in essence, to modern.

Can you provide any links to the standardization of Roman equipment or legions traveling from one side of the empire to the other? I’m not being factious, I’m just struggling to find anything online about it. I did find sources saying the border forces in the late period where almost entirely locally recruited on Wikipedia, but it didn’t mention the specific movement of armies.
 
Can you provide any links to the standardization of Roman equipment or legions traveling from one side of the empire to the other? I’m not being factious, I’m just struggling to find anything online about it. I did find sources saying the border forces in the late period where almost entirely locally recruited on Wikipedia, but it didn’t mention the specific movement of armies.

"The grand strategy of the Roman Empire from the first century A.D. to the third" by Edward Luttwak covers this to some extend, while "Storming the Heavens: Soldiers, Emperors and Civilians in the Roman Empire" by Santosuosso covers most of the microperspective involved with this. These two books should give you a solid foundation on roman military strategy and ideology, as well as how it effected the soldiers on the ground level.
 
Didn't read entire thread, so this has probably already come up.

I think three factions is fine as is. But I like the idea of some variation in their troop trees. Taking the obvious Roman model, the core Roman legion was pretty uniform. So Empire factions (lol however many) should share identical infantry (at least heavy infantry). And maybe some common-tree light cavalry to reflect Roman equites. But, depending on local conditions, the needs of specific conflicts, the types of troops available, etc., Roman armies' regionally-sourced auxilia units could be quite varied. So there could be some variation in ranged/skirm troops,cav, maybe even some form of horse archers.

I'd kinda visualize South being Byzantine-inspired, retaining the current Cataphract noble line. But North or West could be more early-imperial with Praetorians as their T6 elite unit, and the third faction Republic-inspired, bringing Triarii out of that minor faction right now to be their noble unit (all with appropriate tweaking/balancing as necessary, of course).

(edit: lol, now looking just at the few posts above, seems I innocently stepped right in the middle of a spirited discussion this very topic. That'll teach me not to cross a busy street without looking both ways.)
 
Lore / History aside, the big problem I have with the Empire is just how bland and uninspired they are. Calling them The Empire is like something a 13 year old writer would do, and having 3 factions named Northern Empire, Southern Empire etc just adds to the booming blandness. And what's more the game seems to treat them like any other faction, i.e. there is no special case made for imperial factions dealing with other factions. They neither manage to capture the feel of an empire collapsing from invasion nor of a looming civil war.

The way I would have handled this would have been to have the Calradian Empire start off as one faction, but with groups of lords who don't like each other, and then have systems for allowing them to break away and form new states named after the settlement. They wouldn't immediately start off at war with the Calradian Empire, since this breaking off would only symbolise them testing the authority of the ruler. The Calradian Empire could then theoretically make it to the end of the game with a bunch of satellite states who are still allied, but it would much more likely devolve into more and more states leaving and then forming an alliance against the main faction.

The writing in this series has never been good, but the worldbuilding here has bugged me for ages and I'm shocked that it's still in the game.

Taking the obvious Roman model, the core Roman legion was pretty uniform. So Empire factions (lol however many) should share identical infantry (at least heavy infantry).

Why?
 
No no no, it is a one thousand year old empire. The three separate factions are 1-5 years old. Before that, it was one united Empire.

The Calradic Empire is very, very old -- and we know from Arzagos that it replaced the cultures of the places it conquered with a unified Imperial Calradic culture, to the point that the original peoples of the various regions of the empire barely remember their old languages and don't even have a word for what they called themselves before the Calradoi showed up.



Hm. Okay. If it's possible to add a unique flavor unit or something to only certain settlements but keep it to a single Empire culture for the three parts, then fine.

ah right i misunderstood then.

the adding of one extra unit to each empire seems to be the most common choice out of everyone. i know this would certainly help how "samey" the three empires feel to me, which has started to bother me in game.
 
No, I mean why do they have to be like the Roman Empire?

On a slightly related note, this is why the worldbuilding bothers me so much. It's this uncanny valley of vague stereotypes of history. I shouldn't be constantly reminded of the real roman empire when playing a game which clearly isn't set in reality. It hurts the overall experience when it lets history dictate how things should be in the game, and it makes me wish I was playing a game set in real history rather than this weird facsimile.

It's the equivalent of playing a game called "Space Wars" where there are knights with laserkatanas and a big beam-firing cube called the Killer Moon. I'd much rather they made more of an effort to do their own thing.
 
Can you provide any links to the standardization of Roman equipment or legions traveling from one side of the empire to the other? I’m not being factious, I’m just struggling to find anything online about it. I did find sources saying the border forces in the late period where almost entirely locally recruited on Wikipedia, but it didn’t mention the specific movement of armies.

You can look into the Notitia Dignitatum, a military document from the late 400s giving an overview of Roman military units or rather specific regiments, referred to as legions, palatinae and vexillationes. It comprises both Western and Eastern troops.
The documents lists the specific units by name, displays their shield pattern, manner of fighting, what military command (magister militum) they were usually attached to and in some cases even a brief history of the regiment.

Regarding the travelling: When it became more and more difficult to defend the border using the conventional legionary armies of the early imperial era, the Roman army was reorganized into rather stationary border troops and mobile intervention or campaign forces. These mobile forces would often be moved around as needed, e.g. from the Balkans to the Persian frontier or to the Armenian mountains.
The legions, especially of the late empire, were not stationary enough to be influenced heavily by local cultures. Some auxiliary forces did have some cultural distinction hailing from their tribal origin, but often enough new recruits from elsewhere would have to replenish the ranks.
 
No, I mean why do they have to be like the Roman Empire?

On a slightly related note, this is why the worldbuilding bothers me so much. It's this uncanny valley of vague stereotypes of history. I shouldn't be constantly reminded of the real roman empire when playing a game which clearly isn't set in reality. It hurts the overall experience when it lets history dictate how things should be in the game, and it makes me wish I was playing a game set in real history rather than this weird facsimile.

I mean, the Calradians have always been based on Romans. They were the Roman Empire analogue way back in Warband. That's why people were interested in seeing the Empire in the predecessor game. The reason they pull from real cultures is so they can get the associations and fighting styles of real cultures without necessarily being bogged down in real history.

So, for the Empire, a lot of their traits are modeled on the Romans. But they freely mix and match time periods, grabbing from the late republic to get the personality of the northern and western factions, grabbing from classical greece to get some titles, grabbing from the Byzantines to get the overall aesthetic, etc.
 
Lore / History aside, the big problem I have with the Empire is just how bland and uninspired they are. Calling them The Empire is like something a 13 year old writer would do, and having 3 factions named Northern Empire, Southern Empire etc just adds to the booming blandness. And what's more the game seems to treat them like any other faction, i.e. there is no special case made for imperial factions dealing with other factions. They neither manage to capture the feel of an empire collapsing from invasion nor of a looming civil war.

The way I would have handled this would have been to have the Calradian Empire start off as one faction, but with groups of lords who don't like each other, and then have systems for allowing them to break away and form new states named after the settlement. They wouldn't immediately start off at war with the Calradian Empire, since this breaking off would only symbolise them testing the authority of the ruler. The Calradian Empire could then theoretically make it to the end of the game with a bunch of satellite states who are still allied, but it would much more likely devolve into more and more states leaving and then forming an alliance against the main faction.

The writing in this series has never been good, but the worldbuilding here has bugged me for ages and I'm shocked that it's still in the game.



Why?
I dont think that would work with a sandbox game. You would have to create scripted events for the break aways otherwise the whole civil war narrative wouldnt work with random events. I imagine there would be many independent states in some people's games and for some there would be none, let alone the randomness of the time that would happen, for some it could happen right away depending on the situation and for some it could happen 10 years later. So its better with starting 3 - already - independent states that are in civil war for the gameplay reasons.
 
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