Castles should have zone of control?

[Gerta]

Right now you can waltz your army past enemy towns and castles and go wherever you like. The enemy armies head for the least defended castles, no matter how many other castles and towns are in the way. Would it makes sense to institute a zone of control around castles and towns during war time, so that enemy armies can't just walk past?

Historically, you couldn't just march a large army around a castle because as soon as you do, the garrison comes out and raids your supply lines. For large armies, the destruction of the supply lines had devastating effects. Implementing supply lines might be asking too much, but implementing a zone of control should be simpler.

Maybe make the size of the zone scale with the size of the garrison+militia.

Or, maybe allow enemy armies to walk past the zone of control, but if they do, they incur a heavy penalty to food consumption so that they run out of food quickly.

Thoughts?

 

[bestmods168]

The problem is, the shortage of food is not affecting the army big enough. Whenever I do troop testing, I start a new game and developer console in hundreds of troops. My food runs out rather quickly yet only a few leave the army.

There should be troops stationed near the borders. Include the option to build fortifications that can be torn down if desired. I remember doing that in total war. A fort at most passes where only one hex was present. Don't worry. We will mod it in.

 

[archaicwarrior]

Good idea, stop plagues of bandits just roaming past a large settlement full of troops.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

But guys that would add player agency and sprinkles of strategy our action pony game.
Can you imagine actually making intelligent choices about what fiefs to take and being able to actually control an area of the map and not just ping pong back and forth for hundreds of years swatting off the same enemies?

 

[black_bulldog]

Sometimes bipassing a castle to get to a town is a viable strategy. That being said it would bring a bit of dept to war strategy.
I guess I would ask the OP do you think we should have supply lines? If so how would TW do that? I'm sure TW could do it, but how hard would it be for TW to actually do properly? The last thing anyone would want is some game mechanic put in slap dash that ends up making the game more frustrating.

 

[Apocal]

If so how would TW do that? I'm sure TW could do it, but how hard would it be for TW to actually do properly?

1. Don't allow armies (player or AI) to carry a six months' worth of food on them. Enough food to last that long should be heavy to the point of being pointlessly burdensome in tat you move so slow you wind up eating all of it before you reach your destination. Something like 3 or 4 days, as long as you have plenty of pack animals along, with some allowance variety.

2. Allow armies or large parties to break away a small fraction of strength (30 men or less) as foragers. Alternatively, allow the army to setup a caravan to go back and forth between a friendly town as a regular food delivery.

3. Garrisons should sally out and try to kill foragers and caravans.

Foraging would allow you to mostly ignore bypassed castles, but you would still have to be wary of nearby castles or towns. Potentially even villages with plenty of militia. Caravans would deliver more food and not require any of your party/army strength to keep yourself fed, but demand that castles along the route either be taken or at least under siege. Players willing to accept a loss in speed can maybe add more pack animals to their party/army in exchange for carrying more food.

This would instantly break the campaign AI we have now but it would give castles something approximating a ZoC without flypaper or stonewall mechanics.

 

[black_bulldog]

1. Don't allow armies (player or AI) to carry a six months' worth of food on them. Enough food to last that long should be heavy to the point of being pointlessly burdensome in tat you move so slow you wind up eating all of it before you reach your destination. Something like 3 or 4 days, as long as you have plenty of pack animals along, with some allowance variety.

2. Allow armies or large parties to break away a small fraction of strength (30 men or less) as foragers. Alternatively, allow the army to setup a caravan to go back and forth between a friendly town as a regular food delivery.

3. Garrisons should sally out and try to kill foragers and caravans.

Foraging would allow you to mostly ignore bypassed castles, but you would still have to be wary of nearby castles or towns. Potentially even villages with plenty of militia. Caravans would deliver more food and not require any of your party/army strength to keep yourself fed, but demand that castles along the route either be taken or at least under siege. Players willing to accept a loss in speed can maybe add more pack animals to their party/army in exchange for carrying more food.

This would instantly break the campaign AI we have now but it would give castles something approximating a ZoC without flypaper or stonewall mechanics.

1. While I could see this being applied to the player, I don't see how this would affect ai. It's been my experience that they run out of food quite often, in fact I've seen cohesion fall apart during a siege because of lack of food. How would you stop a player from bringing mass amounts of food? Would you just make food heavier? Would you put a hard limit on how much can be carried? That would kind of suck in terms of gameplay if your party is constantly getting bogged down by food or if you can only carry a small amount of food.
2. I like the idea of being able to scavenge, it's one idea I thought was a nice addition to some mods in Warband. How would you stop neutral caravans that are bring in/out food? You can't stop trade completely.
3. It seems to me that castles/towns having to send out part of the garrison to harass foragers is getting kind of deep in the strategy idea and maybe too much for what Bannerlord is aiming for. Wouldn't it be better that we have roving patrols who do what you're describing?

I like some of the ideas you have but I seriously doubt TW would want to do this because if it's going to be done then it's going to take a lot of tinkering to get it right and that might take TW forever, I mean look how long it's taking to get perks done.

 

[musashii89]

Right now you can waltz your army past enemy towns and castles and go wherever you like. The enemy armies head for the least defended castles, no matter how many other castles and towns are in the way. Would it makes sense to institute a zone of control around castles and towns during war time, so that enemy armies can't just walk past?

Historically, you couldn't just march a large army around a castle because as soon as you do, the garrison comes out and raids your supply lines. For large armies, the destruction of the supply lines had devastating effects. Implementing supply lines might be asking too much, but implementing a zone of control should be simpler.

Maybe make the size of the zone scale with the size of the garrison+militia.

Or, maybe allow enemy armies to walk past the zone of control, but if they do, they incur a heavy penalty to food consumption so that they run out of food quickly.

Thoughts?

Its a nice idea, but the problem is just the AI is horribly coded. Maybe if a town is attacked the castles garrison rides out to respond?

But I agree with black_bulldog, TW can barely balance the game as is, they arent organized enough to implement something like this without breaking the game more then the fix would help.

 

[Apocal]

1. While I could see this being applied to the player, I don't see how this would affect ai. It's been my experience that they run out of food quite often, in fact I've seen cohesion fall apart during a siege because of lack of food. How would you stop a player from bringing mass amounts of food? Would you just make food heavier? Would you put a hard limit on how much can be carried? That would kind of suck in terms of gameplay if your party is constantly getting bogged down by food or if you can only carry a small amount of food.
2. I like the idea of being able to scavenge, it's one idea I thought was a nice addition to some mods in Warband. How would you stop neutral caravans that are bring in/out food? You can't stop trade completely.
3. It seems to me that castles/towns having to send out part of the garrison to harass foragers is getting kind of deep in the strategy idea and maybe too much for what Bannerlord is aiming for. Wouldn't it be better that we have roving patrols who do what you're describing?

I like some of the ideas you have but I seriously doubt TW would want to do this because if it's going to be done then it's going to take a lot of tinkering to get it right and that might take TW forever, I mean look how long it's taking to get perks done.

1. Heavier food, yes. Yes, it will probably suck to constantly get bogged down by food concerns, but you suggested supply lines and supply lines exist to supply things that are scarce. Without scarcity, there is nothing stopping the biggest doomstack to have ever stacked doom from bypassing every single castle they see and sieging the highest prosperity town of the enemy (that doing the most economic damage possible).

2. The idea was that the caravan would be dedicated to the army itself and owned by the army leader rather than a town notable. In a quick-and-dirty fix, I'd make it so that only the army's caravan(s) can give it food.

3. Well, the idea is that this system has to function in the face of players who basically exist to break game systems in their favor. Leaving roving patrols to the task means that any player will first kill them off and only then begin foraging for food or sending out a supply caravan. Pulling troops from castle garrisons means they are afforded the protection of the castle itself in case they run into the player's main army; in other words, the military purpose of besieging a castle is reinforced. "****ing raiders keep ducking into the castle whenever I get close, **** that ****, build me some trebechets, I'm putting a stop to this nonsense."

Also, I'm leaving out that a number of castles in Bannerlord are very poorly sited for this role.

I seriously doubt TW is going to do any of this, I just say it because giving a 'natural' zone of control to a castle is a solved problem, not difficult or complex, in wargames and it really shouldn't be impossible in Bannerlord. It requires addressing the 'original sin' of parties being able to meet all their supply needs on the backs of sumpter horses and mules, first and foremost, and probably the biggest stumbling block to the whole thing.

 

[musashii89]

1. Heavier food, yes. Yes, it will probably suck to constantly get bogged down by food concerns, but you suggested supply lines and supply lines exist to supply things that are scarce. Without scarcity, there is nothing stopping the biggest doomstack to have ever stacked doom from bypassing every single castle they see and sieging the highest prosperity town of the enemy (that doing the most economic damage possible).

2. The idea was that the caravan would be dedicated to the army itself and owned by the army leader rather than a town notable. In a quick-and-dirty fix, I'd make it so that only the army's caravan(s) can give it food.

3. Well, the idea is that this system has to function in the face of players who basically exist to break game systems in their favor. Leaving roving patrols to the task means that any player will first kill them off and only then begin foraging for food or sending out a supply caravan. Pulling troops from castle garrisons means they are afforded the protection of the castle itself in case they run into the player's main army; in other words, the military purpose of besieging a castle is reinforced. "****ing raiders keep ducking into the castle whenever I get close, **** that ****, build me some trebechets, I'm putting a stop to this nonsense."

Also, I'm leaving out that a number of castles in Bannerlord are very poorly sited for this role.

I seriously doubt TW is going to do any of this, I just say it because giving a 'natural' zone of control to a castle is a solved problem, not difficult or complex, in wargames and it really shouldn't be impossible in Bannerlord. It requires addressing the 'original sin' of parties being able to meet all their supply needs on the backs of sumpter horses and mules, first and foremost, and probably the biggest stumbling block to the whole thing.

broadly this problem is that there is no control once you take on vassals, but avoiding vassals means you have no ability to stop constant raids (with any sizeable force your too slow)

TW has no direction outside balancing combat apparently. honestly Im not even holding my breath for critical bug fixes, let alone balance

 

[black_bulldog]

1. Heavier food, yes. Yes, it will probably suck to constantly get bogged down by food concerns, but you suggested supply lines and supply lines exist to supply things that are scarce. Without scarcity, there is nothing stopping the biggest doomstack to have ever stacked doom from bypassing every single castle they see and sieging the highest prosperity town of the enemy (that doing the most economic damage possible).

2. The idea was that the caravan would be dedicated to the army itself and owned by the army leader rather than a town notable. In a quick-and-dirty fix, I'd make it so that only the army's caravan(s) can give it food.

3. Well, the idea is that this system has to function in the face of players who basically exist to break game systems in their favor. Leaving roving patrols to the task means that any player will first kill them off and only then begin foraging for food or sending out a supply caravan. Pulling troops from castle garrisons means they are afforded the protection of the castle itself in case they run into the player's main army; in other words, the military purpose of besieging a castle is reinforced. "****ing raiders keep ducking into the castle whenever I get close, **** that ****, build me some trebechets, I'm putting a stop to this nonsense."

I seriously doubt TW is going to do any of this, I just say it because giving a 'natural' zone of control to a castle is a solved problem, not difficult or complex, in wargames and it really shouldn't be impossible in Bannerlord.

Also, I'm leaving out that a number of castles in Bannerlord are very poorly sited for this role.

1. I like a lot what you're saying but I find heavy food a bit too gamey for my taste. Warband had a lot of food that would spoil and while annoying imho it's better than heavy food.
2. I get what you mean about caravans you mean supply caravans and that's not a bad idea.
3. Players are always going to look for ways to break the game, hell some people live to find exploits in games just so they can win. It could work, but again I don't see TW doing anything like this, but I do think a modder can and probably will do something like this eventually.

I do agree about castle placements I think TW just threw them in so we have a more or less equal distribution of places which is just stupid imo

 

[musashii89]

I do agree about castle placements I think TW just threw them in so we have a more or less equal distribution of places which is just stupid imo

I feel much of the games content and patches have been developed in this manner

 

[shades_o_grey]

There are perks that give bonuses to food in certain terrains, so why not build off of that? Have castles zone of control give a malus to food, to represent the lack of foraging and supply that having to constantly watch out for a garrison patrol would cause.
The trick will be to make The ai aware of the malus and to prioritize taking castles in their path.

 

[musashii89]

There are perks that give bonuses to food in certain terrains, so why not build off of that? Have castles zone of control give a malus to food, to represent the lack of foraging and supply that having to constantly watch out for a garrison patrol would cause.
The trick will be to make The ai aware of the malus and to prioritize taking castles in their path.

Unsure how much you have played, but you can take all of the food perks and policies and the difference is not noticeable. This is why bannerlord tweaks is basically mandatory for this game atm. Balance is non existent and gets worse with each patch

 

[musashii89]

IMO this could be fixed by making AI actually defend, trying to balance around food is clunky. But then so have all TWs 'balances' so far

 

[Apocal]

1. I like a lot what you're saying but I find heavy food a bit too gamey for my taste. Warband had a lot of food that would spoil and while annoying imho it's better than heavy food.

Food is actually really heavy, when speaking in terms of days or weeks of the stuff. I don't wanna launch into some super-deep medieval military history tangent but three pounds per day is a reasonable rule of thumb, with soldiers not carrying more than a week's worth of the stuff at most. Lightweight food is more of a gamey thing, for playability reasons.

There are perks that give bonuses to food in certain terrains, so why not build off of that? Have castles zone of control give a malus to food, to represent the lack of foraging and supply that having to constantly watch out for a garrison patrol would cause.

Because if you can carry 210 days' worth of food, even if the penalty is a 10x multiplier to consumption, it doesn't matter. You can definitely just go siege that juicy town instead of bothering with the intervening castles -- sieges in Bannerlord don't last that long unless the player deliberately draws them out. Even taking my snail's pace approach to sieges (all walls breached, all enemy siege engines knocked out, garrison starved to under 100), you can almost always finish up in under 21 days (one in-game season). The main exceptions are very low prosperity (1000-1500) towns, because their food requirements are so unbelievably low, but they tend to have tiny militias and garrisons so whatever, just go for the escalade.

And late-game, 210 days of food is totally doable:

IMO this could be fixed by making AI actually defend, trying to balance around food is clunky. But then so have all TWs 'balances' so far

As of 1.4.1, they do try to relieve sieges and assist settlements being assaulted. Did you have something more in mind?

 

[musashii89]

Food is actually really heavy, when speaking in terms of days or weeks of the stuff. I don't wanna launch into some super-deep medieval military history tangent but three pounds per day is a reasonable rule of thumb, with soldiers not carrying more than a week's worth of the stuff at most. Lightweight food is more of a gamey thing, for playability reasons.



Because if you can carry 210 days' worth of food, even if the penalty is a 10x multiplier to consumption, it doesn't matter. You can definitely just go siege that juicy town instead of bothering with the intervening castles -- sieges in Bannerlord don't last that long unless the player deliberately draws them out. Even taking my snail's pace approach to sieges (all walls breached, all enemy siege engines knocked out, garrison starved to under 100), you can almost always finish up in under 21 days (one in-game season). The main exceptions are very low prosperity (1000-1500) towns, because their food requirements are so unbelievably low, but they tend to have tiny militias and garrisons so whatever, just go for the escalade.

And late-game, 210 days of food is totally doable:

As of 1.4.1, they do try to relieve sieges and assist settlements being assaulted. Did you have something more in mind?

Comparing to real life is rather silly as this game is not even remotely trying to simulate.

Food isnt actually that heavy when talking actual rations and real historical armies had numerous other methods of obtaining food from hostile ground.

Regardless this seems an effort in robbing peter to pay paul. Using a food mechanic to balance player aggression and mobility is far more delicate then I feel TW could ever manage smoothly.

Yes they did add that to the AI algorithm, unsure how much you play but 9 times out of 10 AI will still prioritise attack/raids over defence.

 

[Apocal]

Comparing to real life is rather silly as this game is not even remotely trying to simulate.

Food isnt actually that heavy when talking actual rations and real historical armies had numerous other methods of obtaining food from hostile ground.

You can get lighter rations, but they are dehydrated, obviously not really applicable in a medieval context. Actual (wet) rations weigh more than the 3lbs. per day I stated; MREs are 1.8lbs and you're supposed to eat three of them per day. And I mentioned the other method of obtaining food from hostile ground: foraging. Stealing it from the locals, in plainer language.

Regardless this seems an effort in robbing peter to pay paul. Using a food mechanic to balance player aggression and mobility is far more delicate then I feel TW could ever manage smoothly.

Yes they did add that to the AI algorithm, unsure how much you play but 9 times out of 10 AI will still prioritise attack/raids over defence.

Going by the OP, the objective wasn't primarily to curb player aggression, it was creating a border of sorts and limiting the AI's ability to do stupid things. And I already acknowledged the likelihood of this being implemented -- or even castles having zones of control at all -- was pretty low.

Regarding defense, I play a lot and its been my observation that the AI will readily defend as long as the settlement under siege or being raided isn't too far away. Of course, AI armies move slow and so "too far" can be pretty damned near, but they'll do it.

However, the big problem is that independent parties are the primary defense mechanism -- they move faster and make their own choices, not bound to the army leader -- but in the late game (when the important clans have 1000+ influence) more often than not there aren't enough independent parties running around to meaningfully contest a siege. They are mostly already in someone's army or too weak to be in an army and therefore hesitant to engage. They'll flock to an enemy siege camp but won't jump in help with the defense unless they think they can win.

 

[Captain_Octavius]

I like the food caravan idea. My mod Party AI Overhaul and Commands already has a feature that makes the AI highly prioritize besieging settlements closest to their own settlements, so at least they don't wander deep into enemy territory anymore. Food caravans would need quite some work though, it'd be too easy for the player to literally camp the siege camp and chase away their caravans. We'd definitely need the AI to make an effort to protect the supply lines. Parties should break off from the main Army to defend or even escort them. That could actually be a proper job for weakened parties, grouping around food caravans.

 

[StopBanningMePLS]

gngghnghh i cant move there caslte 20 km away nghhghgnghh