So...is bannerlord THE GAME for homicidal maniacs?

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Doofus

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From what I can tell, the only way to truly win the game is to execute all the enemy lords. Its nice to say you can recruit them, but since you are always at war you don't have time to go around and use diplomacy. Since the only time you meet enemy lords is when they are the enemy and they are leading armies so they won't talk to you about it, you can't recruit them. The other time you meet them is when they are in prison and you can't ask them to defect then either (not even as a 'questionably reliable'' defection. Incidentally, you also can't ask them to marry you then either. If you totally defeat their kingdom they don't go away, they just hang around and become a nuisance, so you still have to execute them to be rid of them. That sort of reads homicidal maniac to me.

Do you want special horses? The only way to get them is to marry for them (boy there's a good reason for marriage). Oh. And if you want to collect them, you have to find a good way to put your wife at risk so she's dies quickly and you can get another wife. That sort of reads homicidal maniac to me.

Do you want good weapons and armor? Get married for them and steal them from your wife. Oh. And if you like the weapons of the empire, but the armor of the Sturgians or something...just get your wife killed and remarry. Can you say homicidal maniac? (OK, I'll admit you can find bits and pieces of good armor/weapons for sale here and there, but the best stuff is available from your wives. Plus, since I am always at war I dont have time to go on shopping trips to other kingdoms. I guess you can also craft it, but I look at this as a war game, not a crafting game so I have never crafted anything. If you tell me an old time warlord crafted his own armor in real life, I'll call you a liar.)

Bottom line seems to be if you really want to do well in this game, execute everyone you can and try to get your wives killed as often as possible. (I will say I haven't tried any mods, but I also feel if Taleworld wants the game to succeed they need to make it stand on its own without mods. I prefer the old days when developers came out with a quality product, then came out with expansions afterwards. If your game needs mods to be considered a success, then you have failed.)
 
From what I can tell, the only way to truly win the game is to execute all the enemy lords. Its nice to say you can recruit them, but since you are always at war you don't have time to go around and use diplomacy.
Yes, you can. Players just don't like to do it. And yeah, it turns the end-game into doing pretty much nothing but running around recruiting new clans to your kingdom but since the defection changes they mostly won't leave if you dump 250K denars on them. So you just stack up clans until your faction can beat the entire continent and then takes over.

Even without your input.
 
It's true, killing is and easy a quick path to paint the map. Not killing can be done too but it's very YMMV experiences in how fun or well the game goes.

1 You can be vassal and get voted ruler of existing faction, now you skip having to recruit lots of vassals and can try to just keep expanding you faction.....
Cons: Vassals make war and peace in counter productive ways, might not get enough fiefs for yourself even as ruler

2 You can build up you lone clan and take many fiefs, making piece in-between and/or taking land from rebels, then when you're are rich and powerful (on paper) make a kingdom and have an easier time getting vasslass
Cons: same deal with vassals voting for dum war/peace and not being able to control them in any useful manner

3 Build up your lone clan as above, but just keep on going alone and don't make a kingdom. Use the displaced faction NPCs to you advantage, landless/low land factions become very aggressive and make war all over and raid causing loyalty issues and generally weakening other factions. While you can pay them for peace when you're done taking fiefs form them (causing this problem) other factions can't/won't.

As lone faction it helps to look at war as a acute process with a goal, the opposite of how the AI does.
"This fiefs is the best I will strike down their nearby parties and take this for my first fief, make money defeating their parties and then pay for peace when the price is low enough". Now I want "all of these fiefs, I will amass an amount of low tier troops to quickly garrison them and launch a blitz to take them all in succession". And of course watch for any rebellions that may pop up in-between, every fief is a good fiefs if you can take it easily and fill it full of future troops for future invasions!
 
2 You can build up you lone clan and take many fiefs, making piece in-between and/or taking land from rebels, then when you're are rich and powerful (on paper) make a kingdom and have an easier time getting vasslass
Cons: same deal with vassals voting for dum war/peace and not being able to control them in any useful manner
If you're taking fiefs as a solo clan, not a kingdom, you don't have access to making armies, even with companion parties. So you can only take what a single warband can siege.

Without an army, you can't push up your Leadership so that your warband can become large.
 
If you're taking fiefs as a solo clan, not a kingdom, you don't have access to making armies, even with companion parties. So you can only take what a single warband can siege.
Yeah, but I can take everything on the map, I don't think I've even made a second clan party this game, probably should soon just to get some support skill on clan mates. Speed is the greatest weapon in a prolonged war(considering the entire game a long war against the entire world). 1 strong party can always stop an army, always out race enemies to siege, always get garrisons full before they can recover.


Without an army, you can't push up your Leadership so that your warband can become large.
This is sadly true, I'm very nerfed by it, I only have about 150 khan's guards ?
However using forced recruitment to load up on nobles at the start of the game is a spike in power compared to waiting to mass produce them later! Being is vassal is so easy though you can just blob around with 300+ junk armies anyways though, so tragically you only need good troops as a lone clan.
 
multiple options it seems: chopping heads, charm conquer or even solo. is any of those strategies fun to play? at least not for me. chopping heads feels bad and cheap, charm conquer is annoying because of a hive mind AI who only got one goal, making a win impossible. and solo is also annoying since you can´t be everywhere.
 
From what I can tell, the only way to truly win the game is to execute all the enemy lords. Its nice to say you can recruit them, but since you are always at war you don't have time to go around and use diplomacy. Since the only time you meet enemy lords is when they are the enemy and they are leading armies so they won't talk to you about it, you can't recruit them. The other time you meet them is when they are in prison and you can't ask them to defect then either (not even as a 'questionably reliable'' defection. Incidentally, you also can't ask them to marry you then either. If you totally defeat their kingdom they don't go away, they just hang around and become a nuisance, so you still have to execute them to be rid of them. That sort of reads homicidal maniac to me.

Do you want special horses? The only way to get them is to marry for them (boy there's a good reason for marriage). Oh. And if you want to collect them, you have to find a good way to put your wife at risk so she's dies quickly and you can get another wife. That sort of reads homicidal maniac to me.

Do you want good weapons and armor? Get married for them and steal them from your wife. Oh. And if you like the weapons of the empire, but the armor of the Sturgians or something...just get your wife killed and remarry. Can you say homicidal maniac? (OK, I'll admit you can find bits and pieces of good armor/weapons for sale here and there, but the best stuff is available from your wives. Plus, since I am always at war I dont have time to go on shopping trips to other kingdoms. I guess you can also craft it, but I look at this as a war game, not a crafting game so I have never crafted anything. If you tell me an old time warlord crafted his own armor in real life, I'll call you a liar.)

Bottom line seems to be if you really want to do well in this game, execute everyone you can and try to get your wives killed as often as possible. (I will say I haven't tried any mods, but I also feel if Taleworld wants the game to succeed they need to make it stand on its own without mods. I prefer the old days when developers came out with a quality product, then came out with expansions afterwards. If your game needs mods to be considered a success, then you have failed.)
I have seen playthroughs online where people have managed to amass so much wealth and such skill at trading that they simply buy everything on the map. So there are other ways of dominating Calradia. The game is geared towards combat though, which is a large part of enjoying it.
 
multiple options it seems: chopping heads, charm conquer or even solo. is any of those strategies fun to play? at least not for me. chopping heads feels bad and cheap, charm conquer is annoying because of a hive mind AI who only got one goal, making a win impossible. and solo is also annoying since you can´t be everywhere.
Welcome to M&B, where the endgame is a terrible grind.
 
This is sadly true, I'm very nerfed by it, I only have about 150 khan's guards ?
However using forced recruitment to load up on nobles at the start of the game is a spike in power compared to waiting to mass produce them later!
I get the part about running a warband with only Level 31 troops. Could you please expand the next sentence? I don't understand what you mean by it.
 
I get the part about running a warband with only Level 31 troops. Could you please expand the next sentence? I don't understand what you mean by it.
He uses the forced recruitment mechanic to get lots of Khuzait nobles very early on, so he can take on more difficult parties/armies.

edit: That's the reason he never sees snowballing; his power curve looks like a wall compared to the steady ramping of a typical Bannerlord playthrough or AI clan.
 
I get the part about running a warband with only Level 31 troops. Could you please expand the next sentence? I don't understand what you mean by it.
OK, now I have to ask YOU - what is the "forced recruitment mechanic"? I even googled it and got nothing.
Go to a village and choose "take a hostile action" one of the options if to force notables to give you recruits! You will only get few and you have to fight the militia, however you can do it again before the militia can re-grow or you can save and re-load and it re-sets the option, I do this because I think it's absurd that the notable would "hide" troops and not just give them all to you" DON'T LOOK IN THE BARN! lol
This will start a war, but if you're already in a war you can do it without loosing relations with the notables of the village, this is really important as I will eventually own all these same fiefs and want relations okay. It also has minor attrition effect on the faction as you are removing their recruits, particularly the noble and advanced ones. I take every thing and use unwanted troops as a fodder shield and then just take more. It's still not that hard on the faction though, but it's fun.
 
OK, that's helpful.
I have never looked to forcing recruitment for troops. Didn't realize that they could supply special ones.
I also seldom raid. I have mamby-pamby companions who sulk if I do. And I'd rather be sieging.
 
I have to be honest, I kind of wish it was harder (especially for other kings) to keep their kingdoms united, this way the end goal wouldn’t necessarily to grind through the entire map to paint it in our colours (which I personally find rather boring once you become obviously more powerful than everyone else) , but rather to have a stable kingdom.

That would require well implemented civil wars and more in-depth diplomacy and relationships though :roll:.
Even somewhat scripted events would be welcome, like the split of Vlandia into the swadian and rhodok kingdoms :oops:
 
I have to be honest, I kind of wish it was harder (especially for other kings) to keep their kingdoms united, this way the end goal wouldn’t necessarily to grind through the entire map to paint it in our colours (which I personally find rather boring once you become obviously more powerful than everyone else) , but rather to have a stable kingdom.

That would require well implemented civil wars and more in-depth diplomacy and relationships though :roll:.
Even somewhat scripted events would be welcome, like the split of Vlandia into the swadian and rhodok kingdoms :oops:
Yeah , I like how in warband you have these weaselly shady lords coming to you right away to be your vassals, but then over time you can collect the honorable and martial lords to build up a stable kingdom of dependable lords.
 
If you're taking fiefs as a solo clan, not a kingdom, you don't have access to making armies, even with companion parties. So you can only take what a single warband can siege.

Without an army, you can't push up your Leadership so that your warband can become large.
hire mercenaries. they don't incur any upfront cost, and you can recruit 3-4 armies per faction, 3 in total. which is more than enough.
usually ending up costing me a 50-100k per large campaign, but i make more than that back in loot alone. and the bonus is my clan keeps all holdings.
i basically use mercs to siege enough towns and castles for myself, and then start recruiting lords
 
hire mercenaries. they don't incur any upfront cost, and you can recruit 3-4 armies per faction, 3 in total. which is more than enough.
usually ending up costing me a 50-100k per large campaign, but i make more than that back in loot alone. and the bonus is my clan keeps all holdings.
i basically use mercs to siege enough towns and castles for myself, and then start recruiting lords
"Solo clan, not a kingdom" cannot hire mercenaries. Unless they ninja changed it, then that would be really fun, but I doubt it. I wish I could just by some mercenary factions, like just buy them for life and they always are allied to my personal clan. I guess just permanently retaining them would be fine too.

Related, it was kinda cool when rebel clans didn't de-spawn after 30 days (or whatever) because you could make peace with them and they would just hang out around your fiefs forever and ever like permanent looter patrol. Some would just hand in you keep though. My kind of vassals, no vote, just hang around and fight something when you feel like it.
 
Actually, in the longest game I played I tried hiring mercenaries pretty regularly. Never got a single one to join me. When I could find the mercenary clan leader they always called me untrustworthy. My guess is thats because I defeated them when they were with other clans I was at war with, but not really sure. Could actually be because of my stats being honorable & such. I've never executed anyone in the game.
 
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