Huge armies galore from Aserai

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I'm well into a campaign with the Vlandians and I keep getting hit with huge armies from Aserai. There seems no end to them. It's wearying because they got that backdoor to Ortesyia(?) and moving eastward into other territories is risky because no matter how many times Vlandia beats down the Aserai previous huge armies they always come back with more and within days of the last beating. It's like they breed like bunnies. I could understand if the armies coming at us frequently were like up to a few hundred but it's always near a thousand or two thousand. And in my campaign they haven't taken anything outside of their original boundaries.
 
You should check diplomacy tab in kingdom. You can see the number of units each kingdom has. Aserai is expected to have many units because they have a large territory and it is pretty safe so they can focus their armies in one exit.

Well also, in my campaign, I am the Sultan of Aserai and we control the whole Aserai, Western Empire, Southern Empire lands consisting of 19 cities and many castles. Everytime we fight against Khuzaits they do the same to us. It is like their source of human does not run out. In diplomacy tab it is clear that we have more units but idk, maybe it is just how it feels to me.
 
they do this in my game too, it's because they are very isolated from everybody else, plus the kingdom AI likes granting them peace in the time frame between their armies being destroyed and before you can siege their lands, so they just reset and rebuild.

you should spend some time filling in the garrisons near Aserai lands so their armies are whittled down by them. garrisons are the great equalizer, aserai can't use their horses
 
The Aserai definitely have some advantages atm in terms of Geography that leaves a lot of their prime territory fairly safe. But also the fact that their neighbours are also typically engaged in warfare with others, in particular their eastern ones (Southern Empire and Kuzaits) So they typically end up having a fairly easy time and i've seen them gobble up the Kuzaits almost whole or give the southern empire a really rough time of it
 
Thanks! They're doing it to me again, the b#stards! lol! I think what would help is if the game like it happened in Warband if it would just give some warning when large armies are approaching. I just defended Ortyesia(?) against a 900 man siege only to see another 1777 Aserai army come into view. Guarantor, you would think they would call or text something, like huge army moving at a crawl towards you! Even a guy on horseback delivering the message would've been nice. But watching what some of you said they don't seem to get into 'it' like everybody else as much.
 
And another beef if you don't mind... some of these cities could really use a few of those YOU ARE HERE signs to help navigate through them. <g>
 
I've come to the conclusion this game has serious flaws. This still pertains to the Aserai breeding issue my topic post is about. I'm still engaged with the Aserai and while we are having a struggle with the Sturgia folks Aserai having a back door into Vlandia is a major problem. Like it's been said they have no major opponents to their other entrance and yet somehow even after clobbering them 2 to 1 in our populations, and almost a three to one clobbering in casualties, I just saw two huge armies of 1600+ and 1700+ waltz past Ortysia. The best I can muster is 1000 man army in the Ortysia area with most of our troops fighting the Sturgians. I am the king btw. We've done well to beat down on the empires and even Sturgia. I'm forever guarding the back door to Vlandia or we'd have some cohesion to beating up the Sturgians like we had until this Aserai crisis begins. I'm a fan of the game but this would take years to resolve this civil war as the back n' forth mostly getting nowhere is endless. I'm quitting this as the game has become an endless monotonous task of trying to compensate for Aserai's unfair advantage of rarely at war with anyone else. And I've beaten up on the Aserai endlessly yet they have the biggest armies just days after getting clobbered. You got to undersand, I just beat them up handily in three separate battles where they lost approximately 3000 men only to see they got that many back in less than a week's time. For me it's over with BannerLord. It needs adjusting badly.
 
This is unfortunately the result of how snowballing problem was handled. AI kingdoms don't tend to have 2 wars ongoing at the same time for a long period and they're always less likely to make peace with the player kingdom. Because of this, it's always the player that gets sandwiched between multiple fronts and especially kingdoms at the edge of the map like azerai or khuzait can mobilize all of their folk against you. I play as an azerai vassal and it's also really frustrating to see how many armies can khuzait muster one after another. Meanwhile if some other kingdom declares war on them, they make peace literally a day after. This has to be fixed, among many many other things.
 
I just beat them up handily in three separate battles where they lost approximately 3000 men only to see they got that many back in less than a week's time. For me it's over with BannerLord. It needs adjusting badly.
I haven't played for some time now but the following still applies:

The AI lords spawn with 10-20 units (out of thin air). The rest of the troops they take them from the garrisons of their cities. Every time you beat them they deplete their garrisons more; to you it appears that their numbers do not diminish, because you are not pushing (I assume) to their territories, but they do.
 
I've come to the conclusion this game has serious flaws. This still pertains to the Aserai breeding issue my topic post is about. I'm still engaged with the Aserai and while we are having a struggle with the Sturgia folks Aserai having a back door into Vlandia is a major problem. Like it's been said they have no major opponents to their other entrance and yet somehow even after clobbering them 2 to 1 in our populations, and almost a three to one clobbering in casualties, I just saw two huge armies of 1600+ and 1700+ waltz past Ortysia. The best I can muster is 1000 man army in the Ortysia area with most of our troops fighting the Sturgians. I am the king btw. We've done well to beat down on the empires and even Sturgia. I'm forever guarding the back door to Vlandia or we'd have some cohesion to beating up the Sturgians like we had until this Aserai crisis begins. I'm a fan of the game but this would take years to resolve this civil war as the back n' forth mostly getting nowhere is endless. I'm quitting this as the game has become an endless monotonous task of trying to compensate for Aserai's unfair advantage of rarely at war with anyone else. And I've beaten up on the Aserai endlessly yet they have the biggest armies just days after getting clobbered. You got to undersand, I just beat them up handily in three separate battles where they lost approximately 3000 men only to see they got that many back in less than a week's time. For me it's over with BannerLord. It needs adjusting badly.
Just in case, I'm tagging @mexxico because it is part of its scope. And maybe he could consider your experience for possible balance.
 
The new map we got with the ea release definitively made the Aserai more isolated when they increased the size of that mediterranean-lite, on the previous map they had many more bordering fiefs with the western empire, direct border with vlandia, khuzait and south empire aswell.

Now they only have a narrow-strip border with western empire and then southern empire and khuzait on the other side of the map.


m1P7WyK.png
 
The new map we got with the ea release definitively made the Aserai more isolated when they increased the size of that mediterranean-lite, on the previous map they had many more bordering fiefs with the western empire, direct border with vlandia, khuzait and south empire aswell.

Now they only have a narrow-strip border with western empire and then southern empire and khuzait on the other side of the map.


m1P7WyK.png
Even if they have more direct borders, they stil lhave an advantage. Especially if you compare with Battania and Empire.
Maybe they could give them a penalty in food, due to desertic climate...
 
Even if they have more direct borders, they stil lhave an advantage. Especially if you compare with Battania and Empire.
Maybe they could give them a penalty in food, due to desertic climate...
don't know if food penalty would solve anything, the Aserai do well when they have one war to concentrate all their armies, when they have more than one war at their borders they have to split on both sides of the map and that's punishing for them already.

Since they changed the AI to try and never get bogged down in multiple wars as part of the snowballing fixes this directly buffed the Aserai.

I think this last tweak needs some fine tuning still, the AI should get bogged down in 2 wars from time to time when things get out of control, right now as soon as someone declares another war on them they with sue for peace ASAP with the enemy of the first war to focus on the new one.

Ideally wars should have set objectives and the attacking faction should fight until achieving it or if they get too beaten by the enemy then they should consider peace (it's not worthy it, let us lick our wounds for now)
 
don't know if food penalty would solve anything, the Aserai do well when they have one war to concentrate all their armies, when they have more than one war at their borders they have to split on both sides of the map and that's punishing for them already.

Since they changed the AI to try and never get bogged down in multiple wars as part of the snowballing fixes this directly buffed the Aserai.

I think this last tweak needs some fine tuning still, the AI should get bogged down in 2 wars from time to time when things get out of control, right now as soon as someone declares another war on them they with sue for peace ASAP with the enemy of the first war to focus on the new one.

Ideally wars should have set objectives and the attacking faction should fight until achieving it or if they get too beaten by the enemy then they should consider peace (it's not worthy it, let us lick our wounds for now)
Yeah food penalty is certainly not a good solution.
As you said, maybe a very strong kingdom should be considered as a serious threat and focused by nearby kingdoms (limited to 2).
Need to define what is a "strong kingdom" though.
Maybe based on owned settlements of same culture, clans wealth + number of members and army strengh.
 
Some very interesting reading and thank you for helping me out with this. As a Warband player things made a little more sense to me. Like, why factions were going to war in the first place. Some hothead would raid a settlement or two and the lord was obliged into hostilities. In Bannerlord the wars seem to be more opportunity based like I'm fighting Sturgia (they started it btw) and soon enough here comes the Aserai hitting my rear.

This last time I was watching Aserai's manpower numbers in the Diplomacy page and as it had reached a high number for them I dashed myself back to Ortysia and sure enough while I was on the way war was declared against us.

Oh, and something else in that too. I mean we clobbered the Aserai at the beginning of this current war. It just happened a couple of 'things' fell my way and the Aserai lost like 3000 men in the first few days. But as the war with the Sturgins was taking its toll I thought peace would be a good idea with the Aserai. But the Diplomacy peace option read like this: for me to propose peace we would have to pay a huge sum daily. But we just clobbered them! The Aserai should be wanting peace with us. Their available manpower was cut in half in just the first week. So I'm obligated to continue the war with a faction that's losing it?

This is the part of Bannerlord where to me it's making no sense. I'm winning and the losing side holds the power. We could say that the Aserai are clever enough to hold out so their Sturgian friends can hurt us more. And that would make sense except this is suppose to be a civil war with all parties against each other. In Warband there was that option where enemies could collude and in that game the concept of allies made sense. I think this is where Bannerlord has issues because I see very little transparency in what's making things happen. Like the one guy said, maybe those extra men are coming from the garrisons, I have thought of that. But I have reasons to think that's not it like for instance why do so many new recruits make up the newer armies? And the other reason I would suggest is the factions east of Vlandia don't behave like that. They get clobbered and they act like they've been clobbered. At least where manpower is concerned. They don't come back with even bigger armies than they had before.

Another issue that I can't figure is do the companions make a difference? I've gotten to where I think they're better off in a castle somewhere than on the battlefield because I don't think they add anything to the army. I was using them for caravans but after a war there are so many looters around my caravans sometimes don't even last a day. And that they don't have the good sense to at least travel to a city near me; I make more money from combat so why even bother? I'm nearly at 2 million now so nothing will bankrupt me not even payroll.

I get Bannerlord is complex, I can't even find my way around through some of the cities. The graphics are awesome, I like the battle component I think they did Warband proud. I saw a critique where someone was pretty harsh about the game where I thought they made a good point that on the surface things works but as you progress into the campaign several things break down and it just doesn't work. I kind of thing that's what I've run into. It's not that I'm not winning but rather it's gotten monotonous to win. It's just the same thing day after day. Competing against greater odds, being surprised that out of the blue an army has appeared, Ortysia is almost trading sides on a weekly basis... it just keeps going on and on.

And I'll admit. I would've complained a whole lot sooner but I've been cheating to win. I confess. Because you never know when these blasted huge armies are coming. There's no warning. I got a high scouting number but that isn't helping. Several times I play out the situation only to see what's going to happen and then I go back to a save knowing what's coming. I don't think it's right but it's the only way I have to kind of speed things up. Because I have other things to do than to just play Bannerlord, the same campaign, for a whole year. I started this campaign some time last winter. We've gotten about half of Caladria at this point. At this rate with all the back n forth with our forces stretched out like this I figure unless I can wipe out a faction shortly this campaign will go on into 2022.

Well, just my opinion folks.
 
Personally I limit my gaming experience until vassalage.
The world is so huge that conquering everything seems quite a unnecessary challenge at this level of development. I will consider it after full release.
I'm also enjoying a different gaming experience using Freelancer mod.

Regarding the truce proposal system.
The thing is that AI is taking decisions based on different factors and ratios, and the player is only considering the last won battles.
Mexxico somehow tried to give some examples here.
Maybe in your case, your kingdom is ready to pay tribute because the war with Aserai is not interesting for them, and on Aserai side, calculation results in some opportunities to expand their territories.
As you said, the player lacks of visiblity and it easily leads to misunderstanding. In the coming updates, they will improve the information to the player by giving more details about the reasons of war and peace.

Companions are usefull because you can create extra parties as well. And your clan does not have a party cap (3 for AI).
Some players will use this system to create an army with only the companions parties, for even more rewards (renown, etc.).
You can assign them as governors too, really usefull to avoid rebellions for example.
And of course, you may use companions in your party to get benefit from their skills (surgeons, engineering,...)
The only negative thing is that they tend to die quite quickly on the battlefield (but now we have an option to reduce the death % for companions).
 
If you ask me, and nobody has thankfully, what the problem with the aserai is that I'm complaining about is way simpler than setting adjustments. The problem is in the location of the back door I keep complaining about. In the Warband version they had the same thing only it wasn't so close to major cities like Ortysia. They're through the back door and on top of Ortysia in no time. For the castle Guarantor it's a long haul from it to Sargot where any movement from it leaves Ortysia open to siege. Things can happen very fast in this section and without any notification of large army movements it's hard to do anything without relying on saving often to see the future so I can react to it via a previous save. I can't imagine how any one else plays Vlandia who doesn't find themselves having to stay put in the Ortysia location.

Right, the use of companions for governors and such but I didn't know they still contribute to the army's skill if they're in one. Is that through where you select a duty for the companion via one of the tab pages like the Clan page or is their skills added to the army leader's skill like in Warband game?

I haven't tried any of the mods yet. I've had Bannerlord since it first was release but have only tried twice. The first time I was having all sorts of issues with all sorts of things and decided to wait til later to see if things got better. And they have by a lot. My main beef started happening when suddenly I got appointed king and didn't know that could happen. Being king isn't bad. It's just this one area around Ortysia that has me in a tizz. I don't know how the AI determines what its suppose to do next in the form of conquest and most of the time I don't have any complaints though one army conquered a city a bit beyond our borders that I didn't think was too smart. And we lost it quickly enough. But only because I'm stuck in the Ortysia area being mostly the only one dealing with the Aserai problem. If it's just the Aserai we're at war with the nobles will make an effort to invade Aserai. However if we're ganged up on the nobles go east for their pound of flesh.
 
It'd help if you kept a strong garrison in the town, though I am not sure if it's yours. You can of course let it fall and conquer it back if it isn't. In my playthrough, Danustica kept being conquered and lost for a long time as we (Aserai) kept fighting against either Khuzaits or Southern Empire either in turn or at the same time. Funny enough there has been no wars at all on western front, we always fight at the east. Then eventually Unqiq decided to grant it to me. I gave up on all campaign stuff like joining to armies, sieges, etc and entirely focused on preventing enemy lords from raiding my villages. It's really the main life purpose of some of them. After a lot of grinding, capturing enemy lords, etc and thanks to empire prosperity bonus, the town started to prosper and I could put more and more men in the garrison. Now there's almost 1000 defenders in town, half of them militia and no enemy army even bothers considering it a target. Even if they eventually do, the sieges progress in defender's favor so their army would be much easier to handle until you build your own or you can even pick it up yourself if you interrupt the siege near the completion. Your garrison's kill ratio is like 1 to 3 according to my experience. Garrisoning a settlement can be quite fast as well if you send your companions to create their own parties, call them back to you when they gather enough men and dissolve them near your settlement. This way you can eventually bring the war to them, take Quyaz for example and then it'd be the same grinding feast all over but at least for their town, not yours. :grin:
 
The only plausible way to win a war and expand your territory is executing all the prisioneiers lords, if you don't they will come again, and again with all AI bonuses.
 
I tend to agree with you, uh, Gandamula. I don't do that though battling the Aserai over and over again has made me consider it.

And Murtega you raise an important point with your suggestion. Everything seems linked to something else and I find garrisoning a castle or town to be somewhat perplexing. As far as troops go I usually put in a healthy dose of top tier troops. I mean like 35 empire infantry, top tier stuff, 45 archers, Vlandian Sharpshooters and Empire (their top tier stuff... starts with a P) to about max. But then the castle upgrading starts to fail with no prosperity, no taxes collected and hardly any militia raised, usually about a hundred or so (at the most and if I'm lucky). But I have places too where everything about the castle's ratings are very good. I've watched some youtube videos on the subject and they say, need more troops, add militia by clicking the militia circle. Doesn't work. I have found it's best to manage a castle with a governor from that region to increase the Culture setting. But that's crazy because before I can set up the castle I need to take it first and to do that I have caravans and I usually get companions more set up for that from wherever I can. I don't pick them based on what castle I might inherit or take. And I like job security so I'm not about to fire a companion just because the castle occupants don't like the guy. Talk about racism! :wink: (said tongue in cheek). Anyway I remember a suggestion in Warband was to put as many soldiers in a castle but make them lower tier to decrease pay and increase size because the AI would look at the number of occupants and avoid the place. I haven't tried that in Bannerlord yet. Never tried it in Warband either. Stuff like that, just to win, takes the fun out of playing the game if I have to continually find work arounds to beat the AI. In summary I do agree with you on your suggestions but is there a really good tutorial out there that explains castle management better than the stuff I'm finding on Youtube? What I'm afraid this might come down to is finding out how to balance the equation to winning.

Like let me give you this for instance. Two takes on the same castle siege. I tried it two different ways where I was the defender at Guarantor and an army of 2200+ came for a siege. I didn't have the numbers to defeat that but I did have top tier level troops in large numbers like I explained above. So get this. The first time around I positioned my troops and even though outnumbered almost 4 to 1 I thought I had a good chance of winning this battle since I was guessing that the 2200+ army had a lot of recruits in it. Like I said in a previous post I don't think the armies pull their troops out of garrisons I think they breed them like rabbits. So I had about 600+ for castle defense; my army and a healthy garrison. I lost. Mostly because I couldn't get my troops to go where I needed them to go being in one place all the time in the castle. But I didn't lose by much. The second time I chose to let the AI fight it out for itself and those poor b#stards got clobbered. I probably lost only a hundred men and they lost the whole army. Now I believe if I had the positioning of troops figured out I would have clobbered them in the first scenario too. I probably should've yelled charge or something but my soldiers have a habit of falling off the towers even though its not our tower. I don't want them charging the battlefield and I stay business enough during a siege I can't just stand there and watch them all the time either.

And that brings up another issue. After a siege like that there are tons and tons of prisoners that are showing as locked up in the dungeon. But there aren't any there. I have this problem in at least two castles. Hundreds of prisoners are listed in the main map window in the overlays (when you slide the mouse over a castle or something) but there's no prisoners in the dungeon. Is that a glitch?
 
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