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yes but tier 3? we are talking about Tier 6... yes vikings with garbage stats.
I too would like to see more distinction between factions. your idea of "balance" by making every faction similar is lazy.
You guys are picking and choosing Lore and balance when you see fit. So which one is it; lore or balance?
Troops don't make sense.I would think half the player base is playing for the 'variety of troops'. Ex. if Stugians didn't use horses why not give them a boost to athletics .... Instead of giving every infantry the same "130" stats. why not change it to "135" for the appropriate faction. Giving Tier 6 infantry just makes sense or just boost athletics. its not like lords are going to be running around with all of one type troop. In fact it would take a couple of years in game to attain 200+ of the same tier 6 unit. And if you worked so hard to achieve that... well then screw it enjoy your hard work.
if you want the best archer visit Battania. cool
if you want the best crossbow men go to Vlandia. roger
if you want the best horse archer stop by Khuzait. nice
if you want the best cavalry travel to Empire. got it
best infantry, best throwing??!?!? etc etc....
these types of rare distinctions make the game more interesting/ more satisfying and a heck 'of' alot more fun.
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I'm aware you can easily change the troop balancing. There are at least a half dozen troop overhaul mods up on Nexus right now.
However when I look at Total War (a series with probably like 80% crossover appeal with Mount and Blade), almost all major factions have a full deck of mounted, armored and ranged units. The broad strokes are covered, even if there is differences between them. Maybe they don't get top-tier cavalry, but they get some cavalry, for example. Maybe Warhammer has a true mono-faction with no access to cav, ranged or infantry, I don't play that one. But a brief glance at the biggest troop overhaul mods (BSI, CTO and Bannerlord Overhaul) is more of the same; their troop trees get more fleshed out, and everyone gets a little of something, rather than having factions that are missing parts of the combined arms toolkit.
Yes, I am discussing Bannerlord, the game we have right now and all have played. That's because it is a common point of reference for everyone in this thread. I have used various troop overhaul mods, I have used mods to "fix" horses, I have played Total War and played Warband mods/knockoffs with "ambush" mechanics in them. I don't know what mods you are currently using and you never brought them up. At
I already talked about troop overhaul mods (more of everything, rather than focusing on less) but the horse fixes do very little to make hit-and-run more viable since armored horses or charges (or both) are improved. There are no mods to improve the individual unit AI that does stupid things that get itself killed while skirmishing. At least that I've seen, I might have missed one or two.
The only working ambush mechanic I've seen is from Viking Conquest/VC-based mods and it wouldn't work for making Battanians actually good if they were a foot-based hit-and-run faction, since you start off close and horses (any kind of horses) can still ride them down. It worked in VC because cavalry was uncommon, squishy and not especially lethal.
And foot skirmisher units in Bannerlord are not high-risk/high-reward. Most of their projectiles are going to miss unless stationary. Those that don't miss are going to hit shielded infantry and do essentially nothing (all projectiles do 1/10th damage to shields except for pilas). Mounted skirmishers do reasonably well if you micro them but foot skirmishers are a stepping stone. Or just arrow-fodder.
Their armor was absolutely the problem. The previous tier of unit did everything Ulfhednars did better. It was literally a downgrade to upgrade them.
Did you read the rest of the sentence? I wrote "it just occurred to me that you call Khuzaits OP when they are only OP on tactical battles if you skimp on your own cavalry." Why are you bringing up autocalc when talking about tactical battles? I went into Sturgian Druzh because they counter horse archers and can usually out-brawl the Khuzait melee cav while outnumbered. They are a great unit for the Sturgians if you want actually win when you fight the Khuzaits.
Vlandians don't have the best crossbowmen, Khuzaits don't have the best horse archer and Empire doesn't have the best cavalry. These distinctions are mostly in people's heads, which is why they don't change when the unit and equipment does. It is just lore.
They don't have garbage stats. Varyag Veteran is equivalent of t4-t5 unit.
I newer said every faction should be similar. I said your idea of restricting every faction to one troop type is unplayable.
You guys are picking and choosing Lore and balance when you see fit. So which one is it; lore or balance?
Show me where in the Strugian lore is said that Sturgia should not have cavalry or that their t6 noble troop should be fighting on foot. It just isn't there.
Sturgia have 3 top tier infantry units in the main line alone, not counting their noble line, while most other factions get 1 or 2. Their "infantry strength" is in the flexibility they get. No other faction have it. You want t5 1H/javelin? You get one. You want 2H? You get it too. You want polearm? Suit yourself.
Adding another top tier infantry in to Sturgian roster would add nothing that Sturgia don't already get while severally restricting them overall. That would be disastrous design decision.
Your arguments are not consistent. You require that Sturgia needs t6 infantry but you are fine with Vlandia not having t6 crossbowmen.
Besides, Empire doesn't have the best cavalry, Vlandia have. Simplistic logic of 1 unit per faction doesn't work on other factions either, not just on Sturgia. There are other ways to make every faction distinctive other then giving each different t6 unit type. There's too few unit types and too many factions for that anyway so it wouldn't be possible to begin with.
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T6, T7, T2000, infantry will eat an arrow in the **** and die before it kills anything.
Need some T6 AI for using shields tbh.
The best Infantry is a Khan's Guard who out of arrows and lost his horse!
Best thrower... I forget thier name but one of the minor faction has a really strong mounted skirmisher... royal bin somethings. They're really good even though only t4,..... but that means you can recruit them from prisoners! The sturgeon mounted skirmishers are all good too.
Need some T6 AI for using shields tbh.
You're right on paper but in game play it's much harder to get the special recruits to make the noble Cav for both those factions. If you wanna ammase a Cav fore the Khuzaits Heavy lancers are the best bet over the basic recruit horsemen of other factions. Probably doesn't matter to AI though. Vlandia will pull Banner knight out it's whatever somehow.
Hah hah, good luck finding enough Battanian noble recruits! If you want good archers just grab Imperial recruits, they're really good and can be good HA (maybe better then heavy Khuzait?) too if you have the warhorses!
The best Infantry is a Khan's Guard who out of arrows and lost his horse!
Best thrower... I forget thier name but one of the minor faction has a really strong mounted skirmisher... royal bin somethings. They're really good even though only t4,..... but that means you can recruit them from prisoners! The sturgeon mounted skirmishers are all good too.
"Warrior son", "Varyag" and "Varyag Veteran" aren't exactly amazing even vs troops in their own tier. That's why I was thinking they should do what they did in Warband's Huscarl and give Strugia's noble line an extra tier (tier 7) compared to others to really make Sturgia's infantry stand out. Those who played Warband knows that Huscarls were the one of, if not, the best infantry in that game and I don't see why they can't do that here.
And it's not that I can't live without a copy of the Veteran Warrior, but there is just nothing special about the Druzhiniks using them dismounted would be pointless because of the warhorse cost and low athletic skill. But I agree that they are already infantry heavy, so maybe give a shield back to the shock troop but remove the Veteran Warrior and put the Druzhiniks in their place as a common cavalry unit. Then make their noble unit an infantry which goes to T7 to mitigate the cavalry/range advantage that other noble lines have.
Huscarls are Nord, Sturgians are Vaegirs. It was one of the biggest complains of players before release that Sturgia will be too much similar to Nords. I think devs struck right balance at the end with the current Sturgian troop tree and regardless if you are Nord fan or Vaegir fan, you can raise Sturgian army that suits your play stile.
There's nothing special about most troops in the Bannerlord. Not every troop type can be special. Point of Druzhiniks is to give Sturgia good heavy cavalry, not the best heavy cavalry in the game.
Besides with the exception of Fian Champions, there is very little practical difference between top tier units in the class. You may set up test battles of 500 X against 500 Y and draw nice ladders and xml tables, but 500X will newer face 500Y in the game and difference between having X over Y in your army in real game battles is close to zero. Druzhiniks will do just as fine as Banner Knights or Cataphracts.
Turning Druzhiniks in to T6 infantry would make no difference to the effectiveness of Sturgian infantry and would penalize Sturgia in the cavalry department. Not to mention that it would make no sense lore vise.
My point in bringing Warband into the conversation was not to compare similarities between Kingdoms but to state that in Warband the Nord Huscarl were the only T6 troop in the game and that Taleworlds could perhaps do something similar here.
Noble line troops should be something special and there should be a slight difference, take the Fians and Khan's Guard for example, that's the point I'm trying to get at in the first place. I didn't say to remove Druzhiniks, but to remove the Veteran Warrior in place for Druzhiniks being in the normal troop line. Therefore no penalization for Sturgia because in this case they would have an easier time getting melee cavalry. And in this personal idea, removing the Vet Warriors to give way to the Noble Infantry that would be T7 and would have a slight advantage with their higher skill levels in real battles.
Anyhow, I honestly don't see vassals holding many druzhiniks being used in my play-throughs at all apart from the one or two here and there.
If you remove Veteran Warrior, replace it with Druzhinik and then make noble line in to replacement of the Veteran Warrior, then you would effectively strip Strugia it's main infantry. Because you are newer going to raise enough noble infantry to replace standard unit. Noble troops are hard to get and meant to be few in numbers. Fians are point in case. Battanian nobles are the best archers in the game but Battanian armies are not archer armies.
You can't remove remove heavy 1H infantry infantry from Sturgian main tree.
And that is also why I have also said before, to give shock troops back their shields. They currently still have 1H-weapon and their polesword and right now the AI's usage of weapons seems to be situational so giving them back their shield would be fine.
So if shock troops get their shield back, this will be ok. Vlandia only have access to one 1h+shield infantry also with two of their infantry with no shield. And with druzhinik being upgraded to easier for AI lords and yourself because they've been moved to the common line, the lack of infantry will be made up for.
Noble troops are hard to get early everywhere but in mid/late game, if you have been doing village quests in the respective regions, they are easy to come by.
Doing quests for the headman/landlord increases their influence, and when playing on realistic recruitment difficulty, you are bound to have done enough quests so you can get +40 relation with them to unlock all the recruitment slots and in-turn increase their influence. Therefore AI can reap the benefit of higher influence landowners too as they can recruit those noble troops being spawned.
This mechanic is unfair because if you don't do quests in other regions, those village's influence doesn't grow and therefore the other kingdom don't have access to as many noble troops and that's why you don't see many Fians if you aren't doing quests in Battanian villages.
Sturgian shock troops can't replace Veteran Warrior, even if you give them shield back. War Razor they are using is 2H polearm and they automatically switch to it when in melee range. Which is probably why devs removed their shield. Moreover they don't have any ranged weapons, which is one of the things that makes Veteran Warriors so good.
That being said, they do have a decent proximity to a siberianesque steppe up north-east, if it weren't constantly snowing I'd say they would surely be able to raise horses, or at least purchase them from the Khuzait folk. Sturgia are sort of meant to represent the Kievan Rus', the precursor state that was established in modern day western Russia by Scandinavian Varangians(as they were called). As far as I'm aware, the people's living in the region certainly had access to horses and not too far away a number of nomadic people's lived in near proximity(much like the Khuzaits).
Before the shield removal, I noticed that they only used the warrazor when fighting cavalry and when they was on the initial charge but after they would use their shield and sword because the long polearm wasn't appropriate for up-close fighting because it was getting caught on walls or friendlies. I believe I read somewhere that they removed their shield to make our choice in upgrading the spearman more meaningful.
And that my friend is where the noble infantry line I been thinking about comes in.. Obviously need to buff their stats and armor/weapon outload alittle bit more than the current Vet Warriors to make it worth them being a noble line and then also give them the T7 upgrade for further skill difference to other melee infantry.
The Kievan Rus did make bigger use of horsemen, yes, considering the sort of neighbors they lived next to.
There isn't a technical reason. Just that all the faction's noble trees are five units in a single chain.
You have to look at the factions to see why the elite troops are mostly cavalry.
Aserai - like their predecessors, the sarranids, they are not well known for infantry
Battania - the 'forest rangers', their whole thing is ambushing from the trees, keeping out of melee when they can
Empire - specialization in armored cataphracts and skilled archers
Khuzait - horse archers is their entire thing
Sturgia - This is where there should be improved infantry units, i think most people were let down by how weak their infantry is
Vlandia - main tactics involve crossbows & heavy cavalry charge
So as you can see most factions tactics aren't really focused too much on infantry
Aserai - like their predecessors, the sarranids, they are not well known for infantry
Battania - the 'forest rangers', their whole thing is ambushing from the trees, keeping out of melee when they can
Empire - specialization in armored cataphracts and skilled archers
Khuzait - horse archers is their entire thing
Sturgia - This is where there should be improved infantry units, i think most people were let down by how weak their infantry is
Vlandia - main tactics involve crossbows & heavy cavalry charge
So as you can see most factions tactics aren't really focused too much on infantry
Maximum997
Squire
I guess it is too hard to give them 2 t6 options.
When you have a whole game to design ...yes, it just might be. Noble line is already something that was not in Warband at all and main tree was expanded from 2-3 to 5 top tier units. When you design something as complex as Bannerlord, you have to put some limits on what you try to acomplish.
No reason, but I feel like if the trees starts to branch off it will start over-complicate the units and that kind of things really puts someone like me off. For example Warband's floris mod, I didn't play it because even the simplified version troop trees were to much to memorize. A longer troop tree would be less confusing than a branched tree.
I feel the Empire's infantry troops, especially the Legionary would be see as a specialization more than their archers
Maximum997
Squire
I still think they should just rip off system from Rus13.
It was like that:
You can hire pesants from vilages who can became ok warriors
You can hire militia warriors from castles or cities if owner is your friend
You can hire elites only from your own castle.
Any type has his own troop tree.
It was really cool and immersive.
