Beta Patch Notes e1.6.0

[Brocephus]

That's supposed to be part of the appeal, they're underdogs. By the time of Warband, their culture is totally wiped out. If anything, they should be weaker.

I'm surprised you found them weak before 1.6, because in field battles they have access to insanely powerful Fian machine gunners, and in terms of faction balance in the 1.5.X patches they were generally tied with Khuzaits for "most powerful faction" in testing, due to a number of factors- primarily closely clustered cities that are easy to defend and high cavalry ratio in parties.

It could be that I gave up on them before I had enough machine gunners. In my recent game, I was carrying about 15 of them and it really didn't matter. I gave up in frustration.

What is the current best strat for playing them? I'm finding a mixed group of troops to be seriously outclassed.

 

[ArturMorhghain]

It could be that I gave up on them before I had enough machine gunners. In my recent game, I was carrying about 15 of them and it really didn't matter. I gave up in frustration.

What is the current best strat for playing them? I'm finding a mixed group of troops to be seriously outclassed.

I’ve played mostly battania - I’ve had a fair amount of success with mixed armies.

For me, I get to mid-game with a 33% archer, 33% infantry, 10% skirmishers, 10% cavalry (generally recruited from prisoners), and 10% heavy infantry mix. Archers generally behind or elevated, infantry acting as meat shields, skirmishers out way front to annoy some shields or archers before running to a flank of my infantry, heavy infantry hanging out on a flank to deter cavalry or reinforce the infantry, and cavalry hanging out to the flank or behind the enemy ready to swoop in on archers/infantry. It does really depend. And it’s not a “no losses” play style, but those feel boring to me. But it’s consistently successful. Although I do wish the oath sworn were a bit stronger.

I generally take what archers I can get early game before making friends, so to speak, with notables in 2-4 castle-bound villages in Battania. After that, the Fians come at a reasonable pace. And being more careful than the AI, the Fians eventually become top heavy as champs since they survive longer.

 

[STcloz]

Removed:

• Fixed a crash that occurred after defeating and attempting to loot "Destroy Raiders" quest parties.

It was incorrectly added to the hotfix notes, sorry about that.

OK. Thank you.

 

[Social-Pariah]

Huh... well, not exactly game breaking but my first bug experience of 1.6.0 is seeing "Recruiting lords to armies costs %20 more influence" instead of 20% under the Vlandians culture description.

 

[Reiksmarshal]

Removed:

• Fixed a crash that occurred after defeating and attempting to loot "Destroy Raiders" quest parties.

It was incorrectly added to the hotfix notes, sorry about that.

Any news on what happened to the main build? After 1.5.10 was rolled to the main build it has done nothing but crash and I have confirmed this with a few others.

 

[Brocephus]

What's going on with shield wall? I command it and it turns into a dance party.

 

[Bannerman Man]

with the exception of wool workshops whom is in the 300+ range at all time for whatever reason.

There's a specific reason for that that's pretty technical. So, the price fluctuations of items in the game are mostly determined by their 'supply' and 'demand' values, with the supply values being derived from the quantity of a particular item in a town's market (i.e. the more of that item in the town, the lower the price). Well, the price of an item is clamped to an upper and lower limit depending on what kind of item it is. For trade goods, it is 0.2x to 10x the "base value" of the item, and for merchandise (which is what garments are) it's 0.8x to 1.3x the base value.

What this means for garments is that even as their quantity grows higher and higher in a town as weaveries pump out more and more of them, their price will never fall below 0.8x their base value (which is about 125g on average). It actually only takes a handful of garments in a town for their price to bottom out, so essentially they are always at their lowest price, but since that price is still relatively high, wool weaveries can still make a steady profit from them. Compare that to a workshop like breweries, where the price of beer will continue to drop off more and more as the market get saturated with them (because trade goods' lower limit is 0.2x the base value), which can cut into profit margins much more significantly.

Last year, I made a post that dove into the price model of workshop items which included some graphs that simulated the price model. If you look at the graph for garments and wool, it's easier to understand why wool weaveries always make a consistently high amount of money (the red line is garments, the blue is wool). Keep in mind, that post is super outdated, but I think rather than updating it, I'll probably instead create a new thread with all of the changes that have occurred since then.

As far as general advice on how to choose the right workshop, a town's prosperity increases the demand value of an item as it grows, which in turn increases the price of the item, and is a huge driver in the profitability of any workshops in a town because the price of the output typically increases at a faster rate than the price of the input. If you alter one of those graphs to use prosperity as the independent variable instead of quantity, you can see how much the expected profit grows due to increasing prosperity (green line).

 

[khuzait haircut]

There's a specific reason for that that's pretty technical. So, the price fluctuations of items in the game are mostly determined by their 'supply' and 'demand' values, with the supply values being derived from the quantity of a particular item in a town's market (i.e. the more of that item in the town, the lower the price). Well, the price of an item is clamped to an upper and lower limit depending on what kind of item it is. For trade goods, it is 0.2x to 10x the "base value" of the item, and for merchandise (which is what garments are) it's 0.8x to 1.3x the base value.

What this means for garments is that even as their quantity grows higher and higher in a town as weaveries pump out more and more of them, their price will never fall below 0.8x their base value (which is about 125g on average). It actually only takes a handful of garments in a town for their price to bottom out, so essentially they are always at their lowest price, but since that price is still relatively high, wool weaveries can still make a steady profit from them. Compare that to a workshop like breweries, where the price of beer will continue to drop off more and more as the market get saturated with them (because trade goods' lower limit is 0.2x the base value), which can cut into profit margins much more significantly.

Why are they doing this kind of modeling for a single player game? It's not needed. Most players will never be exposed to the supply/demand of anything in many of the settlements. There are better ways to simulate this where a siege just increases the price of food and everything, and lots of caravans lower the price. No need to get so detailed in a single player game. What a waste.

 

[Bannerman Man]

Most players will never be exposed to the supply/demand of anything in many of the settlements.

What do you mean, though? Players are exposed to it constantly when they are buying and selling goods while trading. I know it can seem complicated when I'm explaining certain technical details, but it really isn't; it's fairly elegant IMO. Villages produce resources over time, therefore creating the supply of goods in the world, and towns consume them over time, therefore creating the demand for goods. This supply and demand is mostly what drives the price of items in the game. Caravans move goods from towns with low prices to towns with high prices to help even out their distribution in the world. It's designed in a way that makes the economy self-correcting so that prices remain fairly stable.

 

[Apocal]

Why are they doing this kind of modeling for a single player game? It's not needed.

It is tied into the player ability to economically damage factions without being forced to siege holdings.

 

[Mad Vader]

It is tied into the player ability to economically damage factions without being forced to siege holdings.

The same effect of economic damage can be simulated with a simpler and more accessible model. I think simpler and more elegant models are less prone to failures and don't need to be balanced and kludged for months.

 

[khuzait haircut]

The same effect of economic damage can be simulated with a simpler and more accessible model. I think simpler and more elegant models are less prone to failures and don't need to be balanced and kludged for months.

Yes. Starsector, among other games, does exactly that. There's no need to follow every unit of grain around the map to simulate starving out a settlement.

EDIT: Also other than depriving a settlement or castle of food what else does it simulate in Bannerlord? Because we already know the AI doesn't use money.

 

[khuzait haircut]

What do you mean, though? Players are exposed to it constantly when they are buying and selling goods while trading. I know it can seem complicated when I'm explaining certain technical details, but it really isn't; it's fairly elegant IMO. Villages produce resources over time, therefore creating the supply of goods in the world, and towns consume them over time, therefore creating the demand for goods. This supply and demand is mostly what drives the price of items in the game. Caravans move goods from towns with low prices to towns with high prices to help even out their distribution in the world. It's designed in a way that makes the economy self-correcting so that prices remain fairly stable.

Supply/demand can be simulated without following every unit of a commodity around the map. Don't towns magically create coins every day anyway? It's too late for it to get changed but TW I would hope have learned from this and should look into alternatives for future games.

 

[Bannerman Man]

Supply/demand can be simulated without following every unit of a commodity around the map. Don't towns magically create coins every day anyway? It's too late for it to get changed but TW I would hope have learned from this and should look into alternatives for future games.

I mean sure you can abstract away mechanics as much as you would like, and Bannerlord also does that in certain places (orchards and the +6/12/18 food from villages, for instance), but that still doesn't preclude developers from having to work out the kinks and tune the balance of an alternative method as well.

I still think you are overestimating how elaborate the system is. I was able to (mostly) recreate the game's supply and demand model using only a handful of equations in a free online graphing program, after all. I think the fact that the progress of EA has been so slow in general is giving the impression that the issues with the economy have been some massive undertaking that's sucking up all of their time, when in reality all they've had to do is make minor tweaks and routine balance adjustments to it periodically.

 

[khuzait haircut]

I still think you are overestimating how elaborate the system is. I was able to (mostly) recreate the game's supply and demand model using only a handful of equations in a free online graphing program, after all. I think the fact that the progress of EA has been so slow in general is giving the impression that the issues with the economy have been some massive undertaking that's sucking up all of their time, when in reality all they've had to do is make minor tweaks and routine balance adjustments to it periodically.

I agree. I'm not as familiar as you are with the system in Bannerlord and it may just be my perception.

 

[Mad Vader]

I agree. I'm not as familiar as you are with the system in Bannerlord and it may just be my perception.

He just likes complex systems like any engineer and tries to defend it.
Engineering types value figuring out mechanics over playability. For example, if players are confused by some mechanics and its outcomes, an engineering type would "solve" this by explaining the mechanics - a game designer concerned with playability is more likely to change the mechanics to be more intuitive and transparent, so players can figure it out on their own without being supplied by formulas and graphs.

 

[R1919]

Did they fix army wages payment and food consumption moment triggering every time when you load a game like they did again in 1.5.10?
I can't install beta-versions having the game bought in Epic Games store.

 

[11hunter22]

Has menu lag been fixed already?

 

[Brocephus]

Has menu lag been fixed already?

I think some people still have issues with menu lag but I did not in 1.6.0.

However, I still find the game to be pretty wonky in a lot of ways. Lots of quirky behavior, stuff out of balance, features missing. I would say we're just now coming into where it should have been for an EA game. So, we're probably 1-2 years out from a solid, feature complete game that the modders can make great.

 

[Bannerman Man]

He just likes complex systems like any engineer and tries to defend it.
Engineering types value figuring out mechanics over playability. For example, if players are confused by some mechanics and its outcomes, an engineering type would "solve" this by explaining the mechanics - a game designer concerned with playability is more likely to change the mechanics to be more intuitive and transparent, so players can figure it out on their own without being supplied by formulas and graphs.

Lol, hey engineers are creative types as well. Design work is like half the field, and usability is a core tenet of that.

I don't know what makes you think the graphs and formulas are necessary to understand the system anyway. They were just a little project I threw together for my own curiosity (plus to illustrate a bug) and I figured I'd share them with everyone else. I wouldn't exactly call supply and demand an unintuitive concept.

The only reason it took three paragraphs to explain a minor quirk with the system is because I wanted to give a primer on the underlying priciples of it first so that someone who knows none of the details could (hopefully) follow along. If instead I had just said "wool weaveries always make a lot of money because the minimum price factor of garments is clamped to 0.8 instead of 0.2" it would be totally meaningless to someone with no understanding of the implementation. Garments are an exception to the rule and that's all I was expressing. If my explanation causes someone throw their hands up and say, "this is all too complex to hope to understand," then they're reading into it too much..

I absolutely agree that the mechanics lack transparency though. That's why most of the suggestions I throw out revolve around improving the UI, including how it conveys certain mechanics.