Could somebody explain Looters & Bandits?

[Melnerag]

Hey!

I tried googling it, and checking the wiki, but I couldn't find any information that looks entirely reliable, so I thought I would ask here!

Where do looters come from, and what determines their number?
I noticed that areas with high security have smaller looter packs, but even areas with 100 security can have many stacks (albeit small ones). And I noticed that killing looters seems to raise security in the nearby settlement. Is it all there is to it, or am I missing something? Even at 100 security I saw my villager parties get overwhelmed and picked apart by looter swarms, but with this being early access I am not sure whether that's intended (ie: I should be doing something extra to remove looters, or looters are just a fact of life that cannot be removed beyond a certain point) or just not well balanced yet.

How are bandit hideouts created?
From what I could find, and confirm in-game (but it could be a coincidence), bandit packs can create new hideouts; which in turn spawn new bandit packs. After combing Vlandia for bandits and hideouts I seem to have exterminated them for now. Can new hideouts spawn randomly without a bandit pack founding them? If so, then what determines where it will be placed?

How does the AI cope with Bandit Hideouts?
I noticed a hide-out while heading out to war. I forgot all about it for years. When I came back, the small peninsula was overwhelmed by bandits and now there were two hideouts even though the clan owning the area travelled through there regularly to recruit soldiers. I have a feeling that the AI does NOT in fact handle hide-outs, and the player is the only one able to clear them out. If so, is that just an early access thing or an actual design choice?

No Auto-resolve for Hideouts
This one's fairly straightforward. Is it just something that is early access, or is that an actual design choice? After clearing out 10+ hideouts to clean up Vlandia I got rather tired of them, despite actually enjoying doing them once in a while.

Plans for more hideout maps?
Just in case somebody is more in tune with dev communications, are there any plans for more hideout maps to make them feel less samey?

 

[Noschkov]

No Auto-resolve for Hideouts
This one's fairly straightforward. Is it just something that is early access, or is that an actual design choice? After clearing out 10+ hideouts to clean up Vlandia I got rather tired of them, despite actually enjoying doing them once in a while.

Plans for more hideout maps?
Just in case somebody is more in tune with dev communications, are there any plans for more hideout maps to make them feel less samey?

I am not sure but going after Warband there will be no autoresolve(even if the conditions in this game are others with their whole Economy systems.) I also haven't seen anything about this in Devblogs. Another Problem could be that the Hideouts are pretty hard to win in Autoresolve when you only use the few units you could usualy use when you do it manualy. So they would have to allow larger groups to attack and the it could loose its uniqueness.
To point 2: As far as i know they are still working on this(read something about new maps but I don't know where anymore)

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Where do looters come from, and what determines their number?
I noticed that areas with high security have smaller looter packs, but even areas with 100 security can have many stacks (albeit small ones). And I noticed that killing looters seems to raise security in the nearby settlement. Is it all there is to it, or am I missing something? Even at 100 security I saw my villager parties get overwhelmed and picked apart by looter swarms, but with this being early access I am not sure whether that's intended (ie: I should be doing something extra to remove looters, or looters are just a fact of life that cannot be removed beyond a certain point) or just not well balanced yet.

How are bandit hideouts created?
From what I could find, and confirm in-game (but it could be a coincidence), bandit packs can create new hideouts; which in turn spawn new bandit packs. After combing Vlandia for bandits and hideouts I seem to have exterminated them for now. Can new hideouts spawn randomly without a bandit pack founding them? If so, then what determines where it will be placed?

These are kinda the same thing to the game so I'll try to answer. The game spawns an amount of hide outs, which spawn both looter and a bandit type. Every daily tick (or something) the game checks how many hideouts and bandit parties thier are and makes more. It makes more the less there are and less the more they are so it stay close to certain amount (which is MANY) but will still increase. SO, AFAIK the game just keeps making bandits/looter and hideouts regardless of things like security of towns or looted villages or such stuff. It's not as manageable as in warband (in which wiping out a hideout temporarily halted bandit spawning) and ti doesn't seem like TW intends for us to be cleaning up all the bandits or such.

The size of bandit and looter parties increases as the character main level increases, however they will sometimes take on or free prisoners and become very large even when player is still low level.

Things I don't: How the game initially spawns everything and why there's sometime outrageous amount of some bandits/looter or some oversized parties at the very start of the game?

Hideouts appear at specific spot only, but does a bandit also have to walk up and "activate" it? I agree it sometimes looks like bandits "Make" a new hideout, but supposedly this isn't actually the case.

How does the AI cope with Bandit Hideouts?
I noticed a hide-out while heading out to war. I forgot all about it for years. When I came back, the small peninsula was overwhelmed by bandits and now there were two hideouts even though the clan owning the area travelled through there regularly to recruit soldiers. I have a feeling that the AI does NOT in fact handle hide-outs, and the player is the only one able to clear them out. If so, is that just an early access thing or an actual design choice?

AFAIK the AI only will clear them if they are part of a quest issue, which a NPC has chance of clearing when it visits the fief that has the issue. I don't think they ever directly attack hideouts. This means many hide outs will never be cleared by a NPC and in fact you will see many hideout remain very deep into the game.

No Auto-resolve for Hideouts
This one's fairly straightforward. Is it just something that is early access, or is that an actual design choice? After clearing out 10+ hideouts to clean up Vlandia I got rather tired of them, despite actually enjoying doing them once in a while.

Your 10 guys would ****ing die horribly if you sent them in auto-resolve to most bandit camps. I don't think it's something planned.

Plans for more hideout maps?
Just in case somebody is more in tune with dev communications, are there any plans for more hideout maps to make them feel less samey?

Not that I know of.

What I'd like is to be able to send a Clan party to patrol and area and clear hideouts and such, but TW seems stubborn about letting us MAKE npcs do anything.

 

[RandyOglestein]

These are kinda the same thing to the game so I'll try to answer. The game spawns an amount of hide outs, which spawn both looter and a bandit type. Every daily tick (or something) the game checks how many hideouts and bandit parties thier are and makes more. It makes more the less there are and less the more they are so it stay close to certain amount (which is MANY) but will still increase. SO, AFAIK the game just keeps making bandits/looter and hideouts regardless of things like security of towns or looted villages or such stuff. It's not as manageable as in warband (in which wiping out a hideout temporarily halted bandit spawning) and ti doesn't seem like TW intends for us to be cleaning up all the bandits or such.

The size of bandit and looter parties increases as the character main level increases, however they will sometimes take on or free prisoners and become very large even when player is still low level.

Things I don't: How the game initially spawns everything and why there's sometime outrageous amount of some bandits/looter or some oversized parties at the very start of the game?

Hideouts appear at specific spot only, but does a bandit also have to walk up and "activate" it? I agree it sometimes looks like bandits "Make" a new hideout, but supposedly this isn't actually the case.


AFAIK the AI only will clear them if they are part of a quest issue, which a NPC has chance of clearing when it visits the fief that has the issue. I don't think they ever directly attack hideouts. This means many hide outs will never be cleared by a NPC and in fact you will see many hideout remain very deep into the game.


Your 10 guys would ****ing die horribly if you sent them in auto-resolve to most bandit camps. I don't think it's something planned.


Not that I know of.

What I'd like is to be able to send a Clan party to patrol and area and clear hideouts and such, but TW seems stubborn about letting us MAKE npcs do anything.

I'd love to see:

1. Return of deserter and manhunter parties
2. At least 3 different maps for each hideout type
3. Some variation in looter parties (maybe at least regional looter gear? why do desert looters look exactly the same as tundra looters?)
4. Ability to create manhunter/patrol parties from each fief (party would patrol in a certain area around the originating fief)
5. Ability to delegate clan members to manhunter/patrol parties, or set their parties to focus on "policing" around fiefs
6. Ability to designate a target hideout/party for your manhunter/patrol party to take out
7. Some controls/caps on the scaling size of looter/bandit parties. It really sucks mid to late game if your party gets wiped, then when you're traveling back to civilization you get caught by a 50-man looter/bandit party lol
8. Spawning of looters/bandits and their hideouts tied to environmental factors (prosperity, security, raiding/looting, etc.)

 

[Dabos37]

Bandits getting bigger and out of control when player has higher level is a really bad design. There are zones that get completely infested by bandits if I do not visit them too often, for example, when I do not visit Vlandian land during some time (I usually buy workshops in Vlandia to avoid losing them when I am fighting as mercenary in the east), it gets totally infested by bandits and it is really tiresome to have to deal with this during all the campaign. The last thing I want to do as higher levels when I am king, is having to deal with looters.

Bandits should be tied to security, lords presence, some especial events, etc, and not to player’s level at all.

@RandyOglestein I would love to see your suggestions implemented, but after seeing how new features are being made, I really doubt we will see something similar in the game. The clan directives feature was a great opportunity for getting nice things like you are suggesting, but TW decided to do it pretty simple and soulless as always (same for breaking out prisoners...).

 

[Melnerag]

Thanks for the responses. Turns out I understand the system even less than I thought I did! I did not know that player level had a role in it.

I do wish there was a way to make my lands safe, and for them to become unsafe again when the armies are all off to war, and for NPCs to be able to keep theirs safe as well. Autoresolve...yeah, hideouts don't lend themselves well to it using the current autoresolve system. And I do like the suggestions for 'automation' via manhunting/patrol parties.

 

[Agroplode]

I remember reading last year that when you kill Bandits in on spot of Calradia they spawn at another spot, so if your factions lands are clear of looters, it means they have moved elsewhere. On some parts of the map looters have a hard time and other parts they thrive.

The mod Improved Garrisons, which I tried yesterday got some nice patrol settings for keeping my lands clear. I am in the Town Onira and got the Castle Corenia. They are easy to keep clean and hideouts are never to far of the beaten track to destroy.

There was a mod once that allowed to bring all troops to the hideout. Just popping in with 100s of soldiers to a late night party with the mountain bandits was fun.

I made a hobby of clearing hideouts and leading bandit armies and I wrote down some of the stuff as kind of info-guide of test and what not from bandit fights and hideouts. They are good and cheap soldiers and in some cases better than their military counterparts.

 

[Barbellz]

too complicated to explain, maybe someone'll have an awnser soon™

 

[Antaeus]

I've found the best way to deal with infinite looters locally is to set up a party near one of your cities that is small enough to not be included in an army, limit it's wages, and just forget about it. It will constantly hunt looters, and give you 100 security, but even then as noted - their looter hunting will never end. If you're lucky they might even do hideout quests for you.

I'd like there to be a relationship between town loyalty or prosperity and looter numbers. As one would assume that happier people are less likely to turn to crime. That would make looters a meaningful contribution/consequence in the game, rather than just something that is there for no reason other than as a levelling up mechanic.

 

[Medivhtratos]

Just 300. 300 looter parties are the maximum, who can exist on the map at the same time. I'm referring to a variable in the code