Beta 1.4.3 Peace and Diplomacy in Bannerlord

Users who are viewing this thread

NLCRich

Squire
There is none.


Well, that is the short of it. Here is the long version.

First, all kingdoms seem to be particularly aggressive toward the player, while having general non-aggression with one another. In one 20 sec period of game time, 5 kingdoms declared war on me. ding, ding, ding, ding, ding. I am barely able to survive at all despite winning 100% of my battles against enemies. But this isn't a one time thing, it goes on and on like this forever. Any peace you buy is short lived. There is no variance. It seems like the kingdoms wait the same period of time regardless and always declare war on you again after the short period of time is up.

Second, I am great friends with the majority of clans in some of the factions but it doesn't have any impact at all. They come at me and say, "My dear friend, it is so good to see you. I wish it was under better circumstances..." So then why do you declare war on me over and over? That is what I want to respond. Unfortunately, it is not an option. Meanwhile, hours and hours of game time go by,but there are few other wars going on between factions. Most of the factions only declare war on me, and just keep doing that even after buying peace several times.

To add to that, It feels like the factions were made to have less wars with each other so factions don't get wiped out as fast. However, the way that this was implemented just makes it impossible for the player to survive instead. Instead of other factions getting wiped out, it's everyone gang up on the player and try to wipe them out. Jeez... I'm sorry I said anything. Change it back to where the A.I. kingdoms would get wiped out instead pls! That was better... less barters for peace.

Kingdoms are coming all the way to the opposite side of the map just to fight me while having no problems with the factions that actually border them. In WB it felt like typically factions would only declare war on neighbors. I felt like that was better...

Second, what you think would be the best bartering chips (fiefs, prisoners) are not useful even a small amount. In earlier versions of BL the prisoners used to count for something. In 1.4.3 all the prisoners count for 0 in every situation. I have tested this several times and there are absolutely 0 value for prisoners in any barters. So... why are they even there? I had 15 prisoners from one kingdom including the ruler. All of them together gave me 0 value. 1 gold piece was worth more in the barter. Fiefs are just not able to be bartered, ever. The option is always grayed out. They can't be used to bring vassal clans, they can't be used to get peace. Nothing, no value at all in 1.4.3 for fiefs and prisoners in any barters.

Previously, I would often get a faction joining me after successful convincing, but I haven't seen that a single time in this playthrough. You'd think they'd be rushing to join me with their own kingdoms giving more value to a gold piece than their lives. Even those factions with very high relations that are part of kingdoms that have been reduced to less fiefs than me, they still want some 300k worth of value to join me. Like I can afford that when I have to make enough money to buy peace every 20 minutes of game time due to the constant wars, and that's just to keep it down to 4-5 kingdoms I'm at war with! Otherwise it would be all factions. Is there any use at all to having high relations with a lord? As far as I can tell this doesn't seem to have an impact on anything other than that initial dialogue greeting.

To summarize, what should be one of the most fun experiences in the game (ruling your own faction) is just such an impossible grind for the player. You never get a break to do anything else the game offers. It is just defense battle after defense battle trying to keep your fiefs, and there is no such thing as friendly diplomatic relations... or even peaceful relations... The balance here needs a lot more work TW.

P.S.
Aaaand for the record, I am posting this because I think it needs to be discussed. I support TW and Bannerlord 100% and have high hopes for the future of the game. Thanks for reading.
 
Last edited:
Just curious what has your kingdom strength been for most the time? I'm my most recent 1.4.3 play through I had 3 wars at once at most, but i made my kingdom after being a vassal and owning 3 towns. I found the higher my kingdom strength the more respect I got from other kingdoms so they declared war less often. I did find that an enemy will never ask for peace from you and you are always the one who has to initiate which I think is wrong. It essentially lets you decide to destroy a faction without input from your vassals on if they want to be paid for peace.
 
The AI does not target the player, so it is something related to amount of fiefs you have, strength, vassals, etc. I can provide you a save game where you can start as King of Vlandia since day 1 and you will realize that you won’t be targeted for the AI (well, Vlandia or other kingdoms).
 
Proposing peace with any faction mostly has like 4% support no matter what. If possible, I try making peace with barter, but then after a moment my vassals want another war with someone else, since I'm then in less than 3 wars at once. It's mostly impossible to override their decision, so I can just accept it. Even if I managed, after a while there's another voting like that and eventually war starts and then there's basically a blitzkrieg when it comes to taking fiefs.
It will propably change, but after more things are implemented.

The AI does not target the player, so it is something related to amount of fiefs you have, strength, vassals, etc. I can provide you a save game where you can start as King of Vlandia since day 1 and you will realize that you won’t be targeted for the AI (well, Vlandia or whatever kingdom).

Quite sure it's related to those, Battania kept declaring war on me after a while, each time i loaded game. It was enough to convince one of their clans to join me and suddenly it stopped.
 
It has been confirmed by devs many times, the AI does not focus the player. I have confirmed it if starting campaigns as king, I do not get any war declaration if I start playing as Vlandia and everything looks as usual. The problem is when you create a new kingdom and get fiefs too fast without having enough vassals.
 
It reaches a threshold where you have so much 'on paper' power level and so many vassals that the war is non-stop on all fronts. You can make peace but your vassals will constantly be trying to pass war again. Even with all relevant policies and massive daily INF gain, too many vassals will still run you out. I say on paper power, because despite having lots of garrisons and vassals, you can't actually use them in any useful way. I agree the AI doesn't pick on you per say, but sometimes you're too juicy for one faction and eventually you're just too big and everyone wants some.
 
My solution for some sanity: buy Crusader Kings 3 in a couple of weeks time... and forget this game for a good while.... until its been properly improved. (I expect half of the people here on this forum are going to do this !)
 
Proposing peace with any faction mostly has like 4% support no matter what. If possible, I try making peace with barter, but then after a moment my vassals want another war with someone else, since I'm then in less than 3 wars at once. It's mostly impossible to override their decision, so I can just accept it. Even if I managed, after a while there's another voting like that and eventually war starts and then there's basically a blitzkrieg when it comes to taking fiefs.
It will propably change, but after more things are implemented.



Quite sure it's related to those, Battania kept declaring war on me after a while, each time i loaded game. It was enough to convince one of their clans to join me and suddenly it stopped.
Id have to disagree with your first point, if you do well enough in a war you can get peace through proposals (as I said above only the player faction can initiate not the AI faction, which is wrong) and even get paid by the enemy faction. Take a look PIC, due to my kingdom strength I have the northern empire and Vlandia paying me for peace (majority of AI vassals wanted peace, i didnt spend any influence). My kingdom just declared war on southern empire and you can see even they are willing to pay for peace without us even fighting once. My biggest issue is you can see how many wars the southern empire is in, they should be making peace with a few of those and paying them so they aren't wiped out.
 
Last edited:
It has been confirmed by devs many times, the AI does not focus the player. I have confirmed it if starting campaigns as king, I do not get any war declaration if I start playing as Vlandia and everything looks as usual. The problem is when you create a new kingdom and get fiefs too fast without having enough vassals.
Interesting... was that tested in 1.4.3? I mean, ultimately starting as king from day one is an exploit and not the normal progression a player would take. So all though it may not happen in that situation, it doesn't have so much bearing on the regular situation with the player. My thought was the increased aggression toward me might be a product of some balancing specific to this version. I played all the way through to my own kingdom on 1.4.1 as well, but didn't have nearly the same issue. I was only at war with a couple kingdoms at a time. I took the same series of steps in both games, starting my kingdom after having at least one major city and a couple castles. There is no way to get vassals to your side until you start your own kingdom. So perhaps they might not bother you if you are a kingdom with 10 vassal clans, 6 major cities and a dozen castles. However, in actual play, the player has to start somewhere. That somewhere is always with 0 vassals at the very beginning. So if not having vassals makes you weak enough to have all the kingdoms attack you, then wouldn't this pretty much happen every time to most players? The A.I. doesn't have to be specifically coded to attack the player. It can be an output of other designed mechanics that require better balance.
 
Interesting... was that tested in 1.4.3? I mean, ultimately starting as king from day one is an exploit and not the normal progression a player would take. So all though it may not happen in that situation, it doesn't have so much bearing on the regular situation with the player. My thought was the increased aggression toward me might be a product of some balancing specific to this version. I played all the way through to my own kingdom on 1.4.1 as well, but didn't have nearly the same issue. I was only at war with a couple kingdoms at a time. I took the same series of steps in both games, starting my kingdom after having at least one major city and a couple castles. There is no way to get vassals to your side until you start your own kingdom. So perhaps they might not bother you if you are a kingdom with 10 vassal clans, 6 major cities and a dozen castles. However, in actual play, the player has to start somewhere. That somewhere is always with 0 vassals at the very beginning. So if not having vassals makes you weak enough to have all the kingdoms attack you, then wouldn't this pretty much happen every time to most players? The A.I. doesn't have to be specifically coded to attack the player. It can be an output of other designed mechanics that require better balance.

Yes, tested in 1.4.3. To start as king since day one you just have to enable cheats, give your clan a lot of renown (I got 6150 to tier 6), joins a factions, get a huge army (something like 5000 Vlandian Banner Knights and disband them later), then kill the current King using the dev console and you will be elected as new King (plus I also get the king fiefs using console and kill all former ruler members). This way you can be king as day 1 without using mods or anything else and you can test the AI behavior in deep.

Concerning becoming king without cheats, not sure how hard it is to achieve to be honest and if the game is correctly balanced according to this. I just can confirm that the AI does not target the player specifically.
 
Just curious what has your kingdom strength been for most the time? I'm my most recent 1.4.3 play through I had 3 wars at once at most, but i made my kingdom after being a vassal and owning 3 towns. I found the higher my kingdom strength the more respect I got from other kingdoms so they declared war less often. I did find that an enemy will never ask for peace from you and you are always the one who has to initiate which I think is wrong. It essentially lets you decide to destroy a faction without input from your vassals on if they want to be paid for peace.

My Kingdom strength is lower than most kingdoms, but not by a ton except for Khuzaits and Southern Empire. I'm pretty evenly matched against Sturgia and Northern Empire factions, and am much stronger than the western empire, but they don't have any fiefs. Interestingly, they are also only at war with the other empire factions so I occasionally still see western empire with a 2-300 man army, but they are never able to do anything with it. I've been trying to increase my strength and get vassals. I have successfully convinced a dozen clan leaders, but all of them want some 300k value that I am never able to amass. I really wish the game would let me offer them fiefs. :/
 
My Kingdom strength is lower than most kingdoms, but not by a ton except for Khuzaits and Southern Empire. I'm pretty evenly matched against Sturgia and Northern Empire factions, and am much stronger than the western empire, but they don't have any fiefs. Interestingly, they are also only at war with the other empire factions so I occasionally still see western empire with a 2-300 man army, but they are never able to do anything with it. I've been trying to increase my strength and get vassals. I have successfully convinced a dozen clan leaders, but all of them want some 300k value that I am never able to amass. I really wish the game would let me offer them fiefs. :/
The best clan leaders to recruit are ones with no lands currently. It sounds like you are going after lords who have fiefs. Most the landless lords i recruited cost me below 150k. Recruiting lords with fiefs will also bring over their fiefs so thats why you are paying extra. But I agree and have previously made a post suggesting that they allow us to include fiefs as part of the initial offer.
 
It reaches a threshold where you have so much 'on paper' power level and so many vassals that the war is non-stop on all fronts. You can make peace but your vassals will constantly be trying to pass war again. Even with all relevant policies and massive daily INF gain, too many vassals will still run you out. I say on paper power, because despite having lots of garrisons and vassals, you can't actually use them in any useful way. I agree the AI doesn't pick on you per say, but sometimes you're too juicy for one faction and eventually you're just too big and everyone wants some.
Honestly it's one of the things that I feel is just stupid. I can see vassals wanting war, but ultimately it should come down to the king/queen to make the final decision. I also feel like vassals should call for war less and less depending on how many wars you're in atm.
 
Honestly it's one of the things that I feel is just stupid. I can see vassals wanting war, but ultimately it should come down to the king/queen to make the final decision. I also feel like vassals should call for war less and less depending on how many wars you're in atm.
Yeah, for me making a kingdom is the "**** it" stage of the game when I'm burnt out on that character and anticipating starting over on a new version.
If I could control the vassals, even in such an impotent ****y way exactly like warband "hey bud you think you might patrol your own ***ing fiefs, if you're not busy "I HAVE OTHER BUSINESS TO ATTEND TO", oh okay then...." I could make use of a kingdom. If they would just patrol it would be fine, I don't need their help for sieges or army take downs.

For now I just play as my clan, fight who I want when I want, take what I want, do all the quests, collect all kinds of troops, then when I'm bored I press that button and recruit a few vassals and watch it all go to ****.
 
My solution for some sanity: buy Crusader Kings 3 in a couple of weeks time... and forget this game for a good while.... until its been properly improved. (I expect half of the people here on this forum are going to do this !)

No way I'm buying a CK game at release. I loved CK2 and love their games, but everyone already knows it will be so much better with all the DLC they'll want you to pay again for. No offense to them or their profit strategy, but I will wait until a couple years after release and get CK3 when I can buy it on sale along with a bunch of its DLC for close to the original purchase price. That's the smart way. :wink:
 
No way I'm buying a CK game at release. I loved CK2 and love their games, but everyone already knows it will be so much better with all the DLC they'll want you to pay again for. No offense to them or their profit strategy, but I will wait until a couple years after release and get CK3 when I can buy it on sale along with a bunch of its DLC for close to the original purchase price. That's the smart way. :wink:

I agree with this, I have seen this plays out.
 
No way I'm buying a CK game at release. I loved CK2 and love their games, but everyone already knows it will be so much better with all the DLC they'll want you to pay again for. No offense to them or their profit strategy, but I will wait until a couple years after release and get CK3 when I can buy it on sale along with a bunch of its DLC for close to the original purchase price. That's the smart way. :wink:
My philosophy too. But that bronze age mod porting to ck3 is nudging me early. I was loving that mod on imperator but they are abandoning that game
 
Back
Top Bottom