I consider a game letting me skip a boring part an improvement over not being able to skip it.I agree that lategame M&B is not fun or interesting in both Warband and Bannerlord. But my point is that you can't call it an improvement. Having zero need to play the lategame at all because it has zero challenge (and zero want because it's boring) is not *better* than needing to play the lategame but it being a boring, low-challenge experience. If you can AFK the endgame you are not playing it. If you have no desire to play it then you would just not play it in Warband either. So nothing is improved.
But yes, I was being a bit flip there. Allow me to elaborate and say that I consider the AI's ability to actually accomplish things (even with the issues it brings) a net plus compared to Warband's campaign AI barely being able to tie its own shoelaces.
Buying food regularly is hardly some optimal playstyle, it is just common sense. And I didn't miss the part about the enemy attacking one of your settlements -- sieging out doesn't always work. And? That doesn't make it impossible or even difficult. It's just sometimes the enemy can do something to counter it and you have to make a decision.I was listing food as one of multiple things that could go wrong, because yes you can have enough food to manage it, but players aren't always playing perfectly optimally. Did you miss what I said about the enemy sieging another one of your locations while you're busy waiting a season to starve out the settlement? Or the more important point, that starving out a settlement really is just a way of skipping one of the core features of the game? "You get to not fight sieges by sitting and doing literally nothing for long enough"- how is that a glowing endorsement for Bannerlord?
It is an option for a different playstyle. There are upsides and downsides to it and if you really like siege battles there is nothing stopping you from assaulting to your heart's content.
I'm not a speedrunner (that's Ananda). I don't even play optimally, for the most part (that's Ananda). Maybe in individual combat but anyone who knows what the right mouse button is for in SP is playing close to optimally there.That relations bonus would hang around until the next time you talked to them and unless you were playing the game like a speedrunner (which I know is a problem of yours) it wasn't crucial to have right that instant. I never even bothered going and hunting down the individual lords because I knew I'd see them at the next feast and get the relations then.
So, you can't say "Overall, the balance between different types of troop was better in Warband, with infantry, cavalry and ranged all playing a more equal role than Bannerlord" when a player could just use one type and still smash everything. The idea that there was a better combined arms balancing act in Warband is a pure nostalgia trip, and those snaggle-toothed troop trees were the direct cause of it being so ridiculously imbalanced. At least in Bannerlord people sometimes put a line of infantry in front of their archers and Khan's Guards occasionally die.Khergits were a weak point in Warband, Sturgians are a weak point in Bannerlord (both in their underwhelming troop tree and in their map situation). So no, you can't claim Bannerlord as a big upgrade on Warband in the balance department.
And you could also beat the entire game using exclusively Rhodok Sharpshooters/Sergeants, or Nord Huscarls, or Mamluks, or Vaegir Marksmen. So what?
I think most people were excited for the idea of being able to actually starve out a garrison when it was mentioned in the devblog. Whether that translates to caring... well, up to your interpretation.Also if you're talking about whether players care much, do you think that same group care too much about being able to starve out sieges so they don't have to do them, or being able to AFK a lategame they just wouldn't finish in Warband anyway?