Election system still ruins the game. Please delete, let player run own faction, please make strategy game!

[Lazregamesh]

I would like to have the old system (Warband) of influencing the vote. Talking to nobles and asking them for their support. We could bribe dishonorable nobles as a +.
I miss making a feast for the clans to gather and do some simple politics between sieges

 

[Ser Jon]

I support the notion to not get rid of the system but improve upon it.
- logical peace/war declarations
- ways to influence the vote of others
- as a king being able to prospone the vote or to veto it, both with different relationship penalties.

I understand the frustration about the peace declarations. As a merc for NE we where defending against battania. We made peace while we had most of their nobles in prison. We finally had the chance to go on the offensive. But choose to release everyone and declare war on the khuzait?. Short time later battania declared war again with al the recently released nobles happily raiding again.

Ouch!

The AI should understand when peace is a disadvantage not only for them, but for the player, and act more accordingly. AI is just way too stupid.

 

[DrDragonlance]

I would like to have the old system (Warband) of influencing the vote. Talking to nobles and asking them for their support. We could bribe dishonorable nobles as a +.
I miss making a feast for the clans to gather and do some simple politics between sieges

I wish they would announce a plan to add feasts back to the game.

 

[Honved]

The problem is that there's no single thing that's causing the AI issues, it's a combination of factors that add up to collective insanity.

First, in a medieval kingdom, it was difficult for the king to lead the nobles anywhere they didn't want to go, but if the situation demanded it, they agreed to the war and followed him to combat the outside threat. In Bannerlord, the nobles vote for a war for no sensible reason, and then don't let the king prosecute it fully. Peace in this game is nothing more than a brief cease-fire to recover from a few wounds and restock supplies before declaring war again; it's all but pointless in how it's implemented. The AI behaves randomly, not with any sense of strategic consideration: We're at war with two other factions and stretched thin, so let's declare a third war, right? Duh! Now, we're on the verge of actually WINNING one of those wars and getting something out of it, so let's peace out and declare a fresh war with a faction that's still at full strength, right? Again, duh! Pants-on-head stupid, and entirely dependent on the Random Number Generator instead of some kind of logic.

Wars should be declared because you want something that your faction (or several individual nobles) considers important, such as a fief lost in a previous war or strategically important, or else if a rival faction is growing too strong but is now over-committed and at a moment of weakness. Peace should be declared when you're already in too many wars, when your manpower needs to recover, or when you've taken what you want and need to consolidate, NOT because the RNG says so. Until that's fixed, any kind of "strategy" is extremely limited, and frustration will be the norm.

 

[swally0ne]

all the tears wtf. this game is already easy enough. if dumb vassals would be smart, the game wouldnt be challenging anymore. lets be real before i gonna swim in all those tears:

improving vassal ai and decissionmaking: yes
complaining because one is not the untouchable boss in the sandpit: no

maybe you can search yourself a mod where there isnt any struggle at all (no war decissions mod) and play the game on easy or whatsoever.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

if dumb vassals would be smart, the game wouldnt be challenging anymore.

People aren't complaining that it makes the game difficult, but that it makes the game no fun to play. Having the AI make stupid decisions is not a challenge in any game, it just means the entire purpose of the NPC interactions is rendered null and void. It's bad game design.

all the tears wtf.

Ananda the OP has already 100%'d the game multiple times. Calling valid complaints "tears" is always a ridiculous rebuttal, but when it's someone who knows more about the game than some of the developers, it just makes you come across like an obnoxious contrarian who didn't read the thread.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

if dumb vassals would be smart, the game wouldnt be challenging anymore

I can clear the entire map with just my 1 party faster then just taking about 1/6 of the map with a kingdom. What's more I could just go AFK in my current game and eventually my faction would win. What I want is interesting and rewarding gameplay when I make a kingdom. I want to feel that my choices and actions are impactful. If I ever want the game to be more challenging I can just incapacitate myself with drugs and it becomes much more difficult ??? legal drugs from the drug shop ??

I support the notion to not get rid of the system but improve upon it.
- logical peace/war declarations
- ways to influence the vote of others
- as a king being able to prospone the vote or to veto it, both with different relationship penalties.

I understand the frustration about the peace declarations. As a merc for NE we where defending against battania. We made peace while we had most of their nobles in prison. We finally had the chance to go on the offensive. But choose to release everyone and declare war on the khuzait?. Short time later battania declared war again with al the recently released nobles happily raiding again.

I also support improving it too! However it's in same boat as the "Improve the combat AI so wee wouldn't need selected targeting by player". Yes, it Could be improved in any number of ways, but giving the player a NO, DO THIS button circumvents the problem in a direct way! If they made the vassal AI really good I wouldn't want to use the NO because the vassals would mostly be productive and pull thier weight and be properly informed for their voting.

I would like to have the old system (Warband) of influencing the vote. Talking to nobles and asking them for their support. We could bribe dishonorable nobles as a +.
I miss making a feast for the clans to gather and do some simple politics between sieges

I also really like how in interaction with lords of different personality played out. Some you could order around as the king or marshal and some would tell you to **** off. I think stuff like this would be fine and fun in bannerlord. It's reasonable to have some problem vassals who won't fallow an order (that we can't set anyways) or refuse to join armies with certain other lords, or are cowards and so on. One thing I would really like is for unhappy vassals to have active quest type of thing stating thier complaint and what they want so that the player can satisfy them or use a clan mate by proxy during war and such. Of course, vassals are typically happy in bannerlord with high relations and past a certain threshold of power vassals will almost never leave your faction, even if with no fief. This may be partially due to an assumed bug where relations don't change from voting.

The problem is that there's no single thing that's causing the AI issues, it's a combination of factors that add up to collective insanity.

The AI should understand when peace is a disadvantage not only for them, but for the player, and act more accordingly. AI is just way too stupid.

I think the main issue is that the AI only looks at current situation and does not have any notion of tomorrow. They have no notion that if you release 50 prisoners you will have to fight them all again in a week. They also don't understand the map situation, though they have some crude value of proximity: A fief that required multiple days walk from other fiefs isn't just a little less valuable then a close one, in a martial sense it's a complete sink hole that just wastes your vassals campaign time perpetually! Then we have the disparity between the value and effect of thier resources: They look at thier finances and power and calculate the would like tribute payments/peace but the gain for them, going from say 60% power to 80% is far less then the released enemy building from near 0% to 40%, not to mention any financial gain would be much greater trickling out ransoms then making peace for tribute.

All this is because this entire calculation system is made to keep the AI from snowballing without the player in early game. It works for this, but Isn't really appropriate for mid game plus. At this point factions SHOULD be trying to expand in a competent way. Also, some changes to the game such as increase quality of recruit troops has changed the speed of faction recovery and the war/peace mechanic doesn't seem to be updated to reflect this.

I know I come out very negative in the title, but all I really want is some player agency and GAME PLAY in late game! I don't like "Mine is bigger the end" which is how if feels now. I did it, I made a big bad faction, now I gotta click notifications all day, beat the a army every day and nothing else. Oh lucky me.

What I would really like as a compromise is a bounty/reward system where the player/ruler can set a soft target for siege to encourage it's capture so vassal may choose the players desired target over one the AI score favors.

I think a reward/alternative to a strait veto would work too: I counter propose this peace proposal with a war bonus from my treasury to compensate!

People aren't complaining that it makes the game difficult, but that it makes the game no fun to play. Having the AI make stupid decisions is not a challenge in any game, it just means the entire purpose of the NPC interactions is rendered null and void. It's bad game design.



Ananda the OP has already 100%'d the game multiple times. Calling valid complaints "tears" is always a ridiculous rebuttal, but when it's someone who knows more about the game than some of the developers, it just makes you come across like an obnoxious contrarian who didn't read the thread.

Thank you!

 

[Ser Jon]

I think the main issue is that the AI only looks at current situation and does not have any notion of tomorrow. They have no notion that if you release 50 prisoners you will have to fight them all again in a week. They also don't understand the map situation, though they have some crude value of proximity: A fief that required multiple days walk from other fiefs isn't just a little less valuable then a close one, in a martial sense it's a complete sink hole that just wastes your vassals campaign time perpetually! Then we have the disparity between the value and effect of thier resources: They look at thier finances and power and calculate the would like tribute payments/peace but the gain for them, going from say 60% power to 80% is far less then the released enemy building from near 0% to 40%, not to mention any financial gain would be much greater trickling out ransoms then making peace for tribute.

All this is because this entire calculation system is made to keep the AI from snowballing without the player in early game. It works for this, but Isn't really appropriate for mid game plus. At this point factions SHOULD be trying to expand in a competent way. Also, some changes to the game such as increase quality of recruit troops has changed the speed of faction recovery and the war/peace mechanic doesn't seem to be updated to reflect this.

I know I come out very negative in the title, but all I really want is some player agency and GAME PLAY in late game! I don't like "Mine is bigger the end" which is how if feels now. I did it, I made a big bad faction, now I gotta click notifications all day, beat the a army every day and nothing else. Oh lucky me.

What I would really like as a compromise is a bounty/reward system where the player/ruler can set a soft target for siege to encourage it's capture so vassal may choose the players desired target over one the AI score favors.

I think a reward/alternative to a strait veto would work too: I counter propose this peace proposal with a war bonus from my treasury to compensate!

How difficult might that be for them to actually code though? It seems like the max effort they are willing to put into the AI is preventing snowballing, and even that took a ton of arm twisting. I do agree there are other issues with the AI, but I'd simplify it down to "stupid AI" because it's been made so painfully simple that it can't do much to keep its own worth going, and that kind of stupidity in the AI creates problem like not managing or valuing their resources better.

I don't think the title is very negative at all, to be honest, especially since the content of your opening post gives very clear criticism and suggestions.

all the tears wtf. this game is already easy enough. if dumb vassals would be smart, the game wouldnt be challenging anymore. lets be real before i gonna swim in all those tears:

improving vassal ai and decissionmaking: yes
complaining because one is not the untouchable boss in the sandpit: no

maybe you can search yourself a mod where there isnt any struggle at all (no war decissions mod) and play the game on easy or whatsoever.

Dumb AI you have to babysit or constantly dance around doesn't make the game hard, it just makes it a boring chore. You should learn the difference before talking about it...

 

[FizCap]

Have you ever played CK3, this game is absolute correct how to simulate a kingdom.

CK3 is nowhere close to simulating how a kingdom functions. King's always needed backings from nobles if they wanted to remain a king and not on the executioners block.

 

[Emperor1997]

CK3 is nowhere close to simulating how a kingdom functions. King's always needed backings from nobles if they wanted to remain a king and not on the executioners block.

Go play CK3 and take the duchy of Bohemia and you will see, a true king don't need support from his vassals.
It's all about manpower both in CK3 and Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord.
The King who has 100% more troops, has his vassals wins and rule their Kingdom with an Iron Fist.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

How difficult might that be for them to actually code though?

Good AI is not that hard to code in principle. It's not an exact science like coding physics or a rendering system, but there are methodologies like breaking the system into separate chunks or phases or whatever other abstraction you want to use to Divide and Conquer the problem. People commented on how good the AI was in my warband mod and I hadn't even read any papers or anything on how to code, I just did a lot of testing.

The problem is that AI needs to be able to access almost all the data in the game with no restrictions, which is anathema to how almost every coding venture is organised. It requires greedy systems that don't care about office boundaries or whether some piece of code is supposed to be off-limits. This is why some old games that were coded in a year by a handful of students have far better AI than most modern games. Coding good AI almost requires you to use bad coding practices.

I think the solution would be to hierarchically divide AI decisions up between the grand strategic factionwide decisions, the clan decisions and the individual decisions. The factionwide decisions wouldn't actually do anything on their own, but would set the limits for what everyone in that faction can do. It might decide that "some city is too far away, don't even think about conquering it under any circumstances", or "we dont have enough men, try to avoid wars or wrap up current ones quickly". Then you would have clan decisions, for instance "we need to consolidate our own fiefs". Then individuals would make decisions but only within these limited parameters. Any decision by the AI would go up the hierarchy to check if their choice fits the current faction and clan situation. This wouldn't instantly make the AI into Sun Tzu, but it would eliminate all the stupid ass things they do. You could spice things up by allowing clan AI to override faction AI sometimes, but only sometimes.

But if the AI is anything like in warband, then it's mostly done at the individual level on the instant any decision is called for in code. This is probably why it's so inconsistent, because there is no overarching system controlling behaviour, just a bunch of isolated decision chains that get called whenever a button is clicked or a trigger met, and can't account for the myriad of things all at once. This kind of thing is fine for FPS games, but in a simulation like this you need some kind of hierarchical system to prevent the individual madness at the bottom.

 

[R1919]

AI in games usually is not an "intelligence" at all - it's just a bunch of scripts.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

AI in games usually is not an "intelligence" at all - it's just a bunch of scripts.

Obviously, but that's needlessly reductive. The point is to use the scripts to create an illusion of intelligence, or at the very least a kind of coherent will, just like your brain uses chemicals and electricity to create the illusion of consciousness.

Where Bannerlord fails isn't that it's not "intelligent" inherently, it's that it fails to create the illusion.

 

[NPC99]

What I would really like as a compromise is a bounty/reward system where the player/ruler can set a soft target for siege to encourage it's capture so vassal may choose the players desired target over one the AI score favors.

I think a reward/alternative to a strait veto would work too: I counter propose this peace proposal with a war bonus from my treasury to compensate!

Good call. I'd like to see this too.

 

[Woyeyeh]

If you're the king you should be able to go against your vassals' wants and even override a majority vote (unless you are foolish enough to have peerage/senate policy. finally i will have a reason to say "i am the senate" in this game) without having to spend silly amounts of influence, but suffer relations penalty for it depending on how tyrannical your decision was. For example if your decision had 40% support, that shouldn't cause as much discontent as picking something with 0% support. I agree that the diplomacy AI needs to be improved though, or my suggestions will become pointless as the AI lords in this game often vote as hive minds (100% or 0%) when declaring war or peace, and you'll have to suffer overriding 0% support and taking large relation penalties every time just to keep their bloodthirst in check.

Regarding diplomacy and kingdom management in general, I don't really like the idea of influence as a number that builds up over time and you can use it to force people and whole kingdoms to do what you want. Your influence over your kingdom should instead be all your relations with all other clans/lords, built up by the player's hard work and actions like doing favors/quests for them, forging ties and alliances through marriage, defending their settlements, and helping them out in battles. If people like you, they vote with you and join your armies, and if people dislike you, they vote against you and refuse to join your armies or may even decide not to join you in battle against the enemy.

However, every time you ask a favor from a lord, by asking them to join your army or vote with you on some issue, your relations should decrease a little bit, or maybe each lord should have a favor cooldown that gets shorter the friendlier you are with them, so you can ask them of more things in shorter periods of time. Becoming a "puppet master" of sorts, ruling from the shadows and wielding even greater influence than the king, your influence growing out of the support of the royal clans of the realm should be a real achievement, not something you dump influence into. The point is to make alliances and friends valuable without making them abusable. What do you think?

 

[Mad Vader]

Regarding diplomacy and kingdom management in general, I don't really like the idea of influence as a number that builds up over time and you can use it to force people and whole kingdoms to do what you want. Your influence over your kingdom should instead be all your relations with all other clans/lords, built up by the player's hard work and actions like doing favors/quests for them, forging ties and alliances through marriage, defending their settlements, and helping them out in battles. If people like you, they vote with you and join your armies, and if people dislike you, they vote against you and refuse to join your armies or may even decide not to join you in battle against the enemy.

I always thought adding influence as a currency is bad game design (although I worked on the TLD mod that added the same damn thing and might have inspired TW), and that indeed relations and renown should be used instead. The two main flaws of influence is that it doesn't work as a currency in the real world (so it doesn't model very well) and that adding new currencies or manas should be extremely well justified and not something you add whenever you think of something new to model like in Paradox games.

 

[R1919]

Suggestion: add some options for the players after getting their own kingdom so they could be able to permit or forbid to their vassals to declare wars or make peace.

 

[Poddicus]

The monarch should be able to go against the wishes of the council and go through with their decision and suffer relation / loyalty penalties in such a situation, which would play into a civil war / rebellion type system which I think would be the ideal solution here.
Not gonna happen though

 

[Ser Jon]

Good AI is not that hard to code in principle. It's not an exact science like coding physics or a rendering system, but there are methodologies like breaking the system into separate chunks or phases or whatever other abstraction you want to use to Divide and Conquer the problem. People commented on how good the AI was in my warband mod and I hadn't even read any papers or anything on how to code, I just did a lot of testing.

The problem is that AI needs to be able to access almost all the data in the game with no restrictions, which is anathema to how almost every coding venture is organised. It requires greedy systems that don't care about office boundaries or whether some piece of code is supposed to be off-limits. This is why some old games that were coded in a year by a handful of students have far better AI than most modern games. Coding good AI almost requires you to use bad coding practices.

I think the solution would be to hierarchically divide AI decisions up between the grand strategic factionwide decisions, the clan decisions and the individual decisions. The factionwide decisions wouldn't actually do anything on their own, but would set the limits for what everyone in that faction can do. It might decide that "some city is too far away, don't even think about conquering it under any circumstances", or "we dont have enough men, try to avoid wars or wrap up current ones quickly". Then you would have clan decisions, for instance "we need to consolidate our own fiefs". Then individuals would make decisions but only within these limited parameters. Any decision by the AI would go up the hierarchy to check if their choice fits the current faction and clan situation. This wouldn't instantly make the AI into Sun Tzu, but it would eliminate all the stupid ass things they do. You could spice things up by allowing clan AI to override faction AI sometimes, but only sometimes.

But if the AI is anything like in warband, then it's mostly done at the individual level on the instant any decision is called for in code. This is probably why it's so inconsistent, because there is no overarching system controlling behaviour, just a bunch of isolated decision chains that get called whenever a button is clicked or a trigger met, and can't account for the myriad of things all at once. This kind of thing is fine for FPS games, but in a simulation like this you need some kind of hierarchical system to prevent the individual madness at the bottom.

Thank you for the inciteful response. I've only ever dabbled in Ruby language and that was a little over a decade ago, so I'm not versed in coding whatsoever. I'm more into languages and heraldry. ?

You bring up a solution though that I'd like to ask about: how time consuming would going this route be? Would it require a total rewrite you think, or could code be salvaged? Also, do you think something like this could be something a modder might be able to do with available tools, or is this a sort of change only Taleworlds will be able to implement?

 

[Mad Vader]

At one point of Warband's post-release patching (or was it in Warband. as opposed to vanilla M&B), someone at Taleworlds decided they had enough of obvious problems with strategic AI stupidity, and completely rewrote the decision making on lord level, by going through a checklist to decide what to do, slightly depending on what they were doing last (this stopped the lords from changing their minds all the time and running around like headless chickens and they were more prone to continue what they were doing). This worked well enough and at least eliminated the most stupid things the lords were doing..
A similar exercise should be quite possible for Bannerlord and can be done in many ways and to different extents. What is important, as Jacob mentioned, is that they listen to player feedback and act on it - something like mexxico did in his threads. It's not hard to get good feedback from motivated players who are begging to get a dev's ear.
Obviously even the best designed AI (on paper) would make stupid mistakes as there are so many unforeseen situations, and you always need the players to tell you what's wrong.