Impressions on Bannerlord 1.7.1 After a 1 year break

[SomeWeirdSins]

Good evening, Calradia.

I'm really impressed with the progress Bannerlord has made since it entered Early Access. I binged banner lord on stream for the last few weeks, and I wanted to share my thoughts on the current state of Bannerlord. I understand that this game is early access, so please don't take what I'm saying as a criticism--I just wanted to pass along my experiences in the hopes that it will help the development process. Thanks for all of your hardwork on this game, and I'm looking forward to what this game will become!

I did notice some issues that made the game feel incomplete-
1. Unit Balance -
A. Battles are still won primarily through ranged dominance. The improved shield wall AI is a great step forward, but ultimately doesn't impact the way that fights are played. The player can auto-win reasonable battles simply by building an army with 40-60% archers/xbows.
B. Simulated fights (and AI party/army decision making) undervalue high-tiered units, causing AI parties to frequently suicide into a high-tier player army. Simulating 'free' battles against militia/bandits is too punishing to the player.
C. Elites are currently far too common. They lose their significance as 'elites' if they are 1/3 of all available recruits. The player also loses agency over his army composition. I know that the elite frequency is based on the number of archers that Battania needs, but something has to change. Elite frequency can be different by culture, or perhaps battania could get a non-noble archer. Khans guards and Fian Champions are still game-breakingly strong. That's fine, as long as they are 5% of army composition. Once they become more common than recruits, the fights get a bit silly.
D. Horse access among elites is too varied--Empire, Aserai, and Khuzait get a free warhorse at the (often recruitable) tier 4, whereas sturgia has to buy a horse at tier 5 and warhorse at tier 6. Does sturgia really need more handicaps?

2. Armor
Armor is too weak. On foot armor is a handicap for the bulk of the game. One of the best ways to make money early game is to strip naked and fight in the arena. Even at zero weapon skills and modest athletics (25-100) the player is able to get 90-95% winrate in the arena, simply by abusing the fact that his armored enemies are helpless sitting ducks. Armor needs to be less encumbering and offer better protection against ranged damage. The armor issue is probably a large part of why battles are still so ranged-dominant. Ranged attacks ignoring 70% of armor feels very unrealistic.


3. Army Behavior
A. Non-player led armies are very inefficient on the map. I attempted a Sturgian Vassal playthrough, joined an army, and the army spent a FULL year walking back and forth between Revyl and Varcheg. Three wars passed and this army that contained over 1/3 of Sturgia's strength never stopped the loop. This behavior is very common in both allied and enemy armies. Non player armies don't have access to the same tools the player uses. Stewardship 275, engineering, scouting, stacked movement speed perks, mounts, etc. They don't stockpile food before going on campaign.
The above means that the late game is far too easy. The player can simply march from enemy town to enemy town with a large army and siege 10 settlements for every 1 siege that the AI can attempt. Enemy armies need a better decision making process before the army is called in the first place. Enemy tier 5/6 clans should have 275 stewardship so that they don't burn through all their food in the first 10 days of the war and then walk in circles for 90 days. Perhaps there should be a leadership perk that causes parties to arrive at an army with X days of food.

4. Clans are too easy to recruit- Once the player has 25 clans, he can just AFK and watch his team win. Clans cost an average of 150k, that means that once the player has around 4 million denars the game is over and they are virtually guaranteed to finish a conquest in the next few years...after watching 20-30 hours of seiges. In my opinion a clan should cost gold AND a fief per party that the clan field.
The player can easily get 25 clans, and the player's clan is worth at least 5. Most enemy factions stay at 15-17 clans, meaning that the player will likely be double the strength of his nearest competitor. The AI needs to have access to more clans so that they can offer the player a challenge as the game progresses.

5. Sieges are still an issue--the AI is very finicky and controlling troops seems like a net-loss due to bugs. Attacker ranged units bunch up into clumps and are unable to shoot. Moving ranged units to have better line of sight seems to cause some odd chain reactions for the attacker. I have had the following results after trying to micromanage my ranged troops: Seige tower gets stuck and does not make it to wall, troops cannot climb up siege tower, friendly siege engines somehow target my troops and kill 100+ of them, my troops jump off the seige wall and take 100+ casualties, etc. Sieges are 90% of the playtime of the 'end game' but they are still cutscenes.
Additionally, sieges are far too attacker-favored. The root cause is the weaknesses of the militia combined with the layout of the siege scenes. The siege towers force fights in choke points, where my attacking t4/t5 units will be forced into 2v2 or 3v3 scenarios with tier 2/3 militia. Of course the high tier units will slaughter the low tier units--the siege scenes do not allow the defenders to 'outnumber' the attackers on the wall.

6. The Tribute system doesn't make much sense--The system is the start of a good mechanic, but it's really not hitting on the core points of what should be exchanged at peace. LAND. Get rid of the gold/day per peace, and make the exchange of border territories the core price of peace. It's way too easy to blitzkrieg 2-3 settlements and then peace-out before the enemy can even form an army. The tribute system is too fundamental to the way the game is played to avoid 'abusing' it.
A diplomacy system seems like it would make the late game a lot more challenging--it really only takes a few hours for the player to move from being the size of 1 kingdom to the size of 3, and then the game offers no more challenges. Conquest felt pretty moot from this point forward.

7. The respawn system--we all know what's going on here and the devs are working on a solution.

8. Levelling System- there are major issues with specific skills
--Riding is the skill used to power level a character. For some reason if I kill a looter with a ranged weapon on horseback I get 450% of the standard exp. Even for characters that will never fight on horseback and never shoot a crossbow, the 'best' way to get a run started is to spend 4 hours killing looters with a xbow to get level 15-20. It feels kind of gamey, but also feels like soloing looters on horseback is the 'only' way to start a run.
--Athletics levels way too slowly overall, but levels a bit too quickly for kills with thrusting weapon. There's no reason for some weird complex skill point formula here. Just give us flat XP for damaging enemies. Maybe melee weapons should have a small bonus when compared to ranged weapons.
-- Scouting- levelling speed <100 is very slow and there are no ways for the player to speed things up. Quests that require scouting skill (missing daughter, scout enemy garrisons) do not reward the player with scouting exp. There need to be a few ways for the player to invest his time to get scouting up to an acceptable level in the early game.
--Roguery - prison breaks level roguery way too fast, and no other reasonable sources give relevant amounts of roguery. Mass-ransoming prisoners after sieges gives good roguery exp, but in the current patch this stage is after the gameplay is already over.
--Charm - Charm levels far too quickly, especially being that it is the most powerful skill in the game. 300 Charm is probably more powerful than 300 in every other skill in banner lord combined.
--Trade - Trade lacks any late-game options. Clan tier 2 is the end of scaling for trade. Of course you can stay in the 1085 loop for a few years until you get 300 trade and then buy the game...but that's not very fun. The player needs to be able to participate in large deals--gather 2,000 units of wood, negotiate with a merchant for better prices on player-owned caravans, etc. Also, the caravan exploit is very fixable. Just don't let caravans trade near town, or only allow the player to trade with a caravan once every X days. The 125 trade perk is far too powerful.
--Medicine and Engineering- With 5 focus and 7 INT these skills will be between 150-175 by the time the player has effectively won the game (strong enough to AFK and watch his kingdom conquer the world) and 175-200 when the player has conquered everything.
Putting 5 focus in medicine still never feels like a waste. 150 medic is still a very powerful effect, but the levelling speed feels bad to the player. Engineering is a moderately powerful effect and there's no reason for it to level so slowly. Perhaps these skills will be tuned correctly if other elements of the game are fixed.

For the most part I'm happy with the progress the game has made. The optimization improvements are huge, most of the bugs are gone, there are more scenes, most of the perks work. Many of the above issues are the same problems the game had a year ago, but there is clear progress on all of them.

 

[anoddhermit]

I agree with most of this except 4 and 6.

4. Clans are too easy to recruit- Once the player has 25 clans, he can just AFK and watch his team win. Clans cost an average of 150k, that means that once the player has around 4 million denars the game is over and they are virtually guaranteed to finish a conquest in the next few years...after watching 20-30 hours of seiges. In my opinion a clan should cost gold AND a fief per party that the clan field.
The player can easily get 25 clans, and the player's clan is worth at least 5. Most enemy factions stay at 15-17 clans, meaning that the player will likely be double the strength of his nearest competitor. The AI needs to have access to more clans so that they can offer the player a challenge as the game progresses.

Clans are too hard and too easy in different ways, but it also heavily depends on certain factors.

If you smith for money, Clans are too easy. If you don't, that 4 million is much harder to achieve. Secondly, it requires the tedious chore of finding NPCs on the map, and certain conditions have to be met. It is much easier to make clans using companions now, too.

I think Clan recruitment should involve additional bonuses and maluses that limit how trivial it is to acquire Clans BUT make it easier to get Clans that: Are led by Noble with shared culture/traits, will benefit from policies you have implemented, have fiefs near your borders, etc. etc.

This limits mindless expansion via gamey "just buy everyone" strategies without making it more of a pain in the early game.

It is hard to balance difficulty early campaign with difficulty late game. In principle I disagree with how you're evaluating this being mostly anchored on how easy things are after a strong kingdom has already been achieved. It has to take into account both. If the issue is limited to the late game it needs to have a fix that doesn't imbalance the early game, and vice versa.

6. The Tribute system doesn't make much sense--The system is the start of a good mechanic, but it's really not hitting on the core points of what should be exchanged at peace. LAND. Get rid of the gold/day per peace, and make the exchange of border territories the core price of peace. It's way too easy to blitzkrieg 2-3 settlements and then peace-out before the enemy can even form an army. The tribute system is too fundamental to the way the game is played to avoid 'abusing' it.
A diplomacy system seems like it would make the late game a lot more challenging--it really only takes a few hours for the player to move from being the size of 1 kingdom to the size of 3, and then the game offers no more challenges. Conquest felt pretty moot from this point forward.

I think what would happen here is a huge advantage for the player, and a warping of AI balance.

The AI takes only one fief much of the time they're at war. Giving border territories would defeat the whole point, and it would promote more steamrolling if they always go for 2+ to not make it pointless. And it gives the defending faction little good diplomatic / economic options.

For the player, what does it do? Well, we just blitzkrieg one extra fief knowing that it's to pay the price of peace. This isn't any less gamey.

For sure, how the AI chooses to make peace or stay at war is currently a bit wonky, but I just don't see this as a fix.

To stop steamrolling factions it would make sense to eventually have alliances between weaker factions against stronger ones, and the alliance would factor into costs or willingness to make peace so that it's harder for a larger faction to get away with creeping across the map with few negative repercussions, which I think would do more to address this.

 

[five bucks]

I did notice some issues that made the game feel incomplete-
1. Unit Balance -
A. Battles are still won primarily through ranged dominance. The improved shield wall AI is a great step forward, but ultimately doesn't impact the way that fights are played. The player can auto-win reasonable battles simply by building an army with 40-60% archers/xbows.

Yes. The three fundamental issues here are that

A - Melee cavalry AI are very inaccurate at hitting infantry, but infantry are superhumanly accurate at hitting melee cavalry.
B - Armour provides terrible protection against ranged attacks.
C - Spearmen and pikemen cannot use their polearms correctly.

B. Simulated fights (and AI party/army decision making) undervalue high-tiered units, causing AI parties to frequently suicide into a high-tier player army. Simulating 'free' battles against militia/bandits is too punishing to the player.
C. Elites are currently far too common. They lose their significance as 'elites' if they are 1/3 of all available recruits. The player also loses agency over his army composition. I know that the elite frequency is based on the number of archers that Battania needs, but something has to change. Elite frequency can be different by culture, or perhaps battania could get a non-noble archer. Khans guards and Fian Champions are still game-breakingly strong. That's fine, as long as they are 5% of army composition. Once they become more common than recruits, the fights get a bit silly.
D. Horse access among elites is too varied--Empire, Aserai, and Khuzait get a free warhorse at the (often recruitable) tier 4, whereas sturgia has to buy a horse at tier 5 and warhorse at tier 6. Does sturgia really need more handicaps?

2. Armor
Armor is too weak. On foot armor is a handicap for the bulk of the game. One of the best ways to make money early game is to strip naked and fight in the arena. Even at zero weapon skills and modest athletics (25-100) the player is able to get 90-95% winrate in the arena, simply by abusing the fact that his armored enemies are helpless sitting ducks. Armor needs to be less encumbering and offer better protection against ranged damage. The armor issue is probably a large part of why battles are still so ranged-dominant. Ranged attacks ignoring 70% of armor feels very unrealistic.


3. Army Behavior
A. Non-player led armies are very inefficient on the map. I attempted a Sturgian Vassal playthrough, joined an army, and the army spent a FULL year walking back and forth between Revyl and Varcheg. Three wars passed and this army that contained over 1/3 of Sturgia's strength never stopped the loop. This behavior is very common in both allied and enemy armies. Non player armies don't have access to the same tools the player uses. Stewardship 275, engineering, scouting, stacked movement speed perks, mounts, etc. They don't stockpile food before going on campaign.
The above means that the late game is far too easy. The player can simply march from enemy town to enemy town with a large army and siege 10 settlements for every 1 siege that the AI can attempt. Enemy armies need a better decision making process before the army is called in the first place. Enemy tier 5/6 clans should have 275 stewardship so that they don't burn through all their food in the first 10 days of the war and then walk in circles for 90 days. Perhaps there should be a leadership perk that causes parties to arrive at an army with X days of food.

All of this I strongly agree with.

4. Clans are too easy to recruit- Once the player has 25 clans, he can just AFK and watch his team win. Clans cost an average of 150k, that means that once the player has around 4 million denars the game is over and they are virtually guaranteed to finish a conquest in the next few years...after watching 20-30 hours of seiges. In my opinion a clan should cost gold AND a fief per party that the clan field.
The player can easily get 25 clans, and the player's clan is worth at least 5. Most enemy factions stay at 15-17 clans, meaning that the player will likely be double the strength of his nearest competitor. The AI needs to have access to more clans so that they can offer the player a challenge as the game progresses.

Here I disagree. Bannerlord is already a very slow, grindy game with a constant merry-go-round of wars. Once the player starts owning a big enough portion of the map, almost every faction and their 15-17 clans will declare war on the player's 25 clans (if they're playing optimally), that means you can potentially have 75 clans ganging up on the player's 25, and you're expected to somehow win in that situation. It doesn't need to be made more difficult.

Additionally, sieges are far too attacker-favored. The root cause is the weaknesses of the militia combined with the layout of the siege scenes. The siege towers force fights in choke points, where my attacking t4/t5 units will be forced into 2v2 or 3v3 scenarios with tier 2/3 militia. Of course the high tier units will slaughter the low tier units--the siege scenes do not allow the defenders to 'outnumber' the attackers on the wall.

Agreed that sieges are too attacker-favoured in real battles (simulated ones are fine though).

I think this could best be addressed by making siege ladders a little worse somehow; for example make them destructible, or make it quicker to push them back, or make AI troops weaker fighters while on ladders, or require them to be carried to the wall first before troops can deploy. Any one of these would be a realistic change that mirrors what makes sieges difficult for attackers in real life.

 

[SomeWeirdSins]

I agree with most of this except 4 and 6.



Clans are too hard and too easy in different ways, but it also heavily depends on certain factors.

If you smith for money, Clans are too easy. If you don't, that 4 million is much harder to achieve. Secondly, it requires the tedious chore of finding NPCs on the map, and certain conditions have to be met. It is much easier to make clans using companions now, too.

I think Clan recruitment should involve additional bonuses and maluses that limit how trivial it is to acquire Clans BUT make it easier to get Clans that: Are led by Noble with shared culture/traits, will benefit from policies you have implemented, have fiefs near your borders, etc. etc.

This limits mindless expansion via gamey "just buy everyone" strategies without making it more of a pain in the early game.

It is hard to balance difficulty early campaign with difficulty late game. In principle I disagree with how you're evaluating this being mostly anchored on how easy things are after a strong kingdom has already been achieved. It has to take into account both. If the issue is limited to the late game it needs to have a fix that doesn't imbalance the early game, and vice versa.

I think that the early game is working pretty well, so I didn't address the kindgdom building phase. Once you understand the core mechanics of Bannerlord the game isn't hard, and that's an issue for replay value. I have no concept of where smithing is now--I flat refuse to use it.

I've kept spreadsheets from runs and tracked our net worth. We are usually hitting 1 million denars (no exploits, no fians, no smithing, no khans guards, hardest settings, ironman, on stream) before winter 1 1086. At that point we start taking fiefs and tracking net worth becomes fuzzy math. 400-500k/year seems about average in 1085 and 1086, and the income only goes up from there. The game mostly feels over by 1092ish once you are the strongest kingdom on the map.

At that point (again, on stream) I just 90% AFKd and my team went from 40 to 66 fiefs in under 2 years while I walked my dog, cleaned my apartment, walked my dog again, etc.

I think what would happen here is a huge advantage for the player, and a warping of AI balance.

The AI takes only one fief much of the time they're at war. Giving border territories would defeat the whole point, and it would promote more steamrolling if they always go for 2+ to not make it pointless. And it gives the defending faction little good diplomatic / economic options.

For the player, what does it do? Well, we just blitzkrieg one extra fief knowing that it's to pay the price of peace. This isn't any less gamey.

For sure, how the AI chooses to make peace or stay at war is currently a bit wonky, but I just don't see this as a fix.

To stop steamrolling factions it would make sense to eventually have alliances between weaker factions against stronger ones, and the alliance would factor into costs or willingness to make peace so that it's harder for a larger faction to get away with creeping across the map with few negative repercussions, which I think would do more to address this.

The faction that wins a war should never lose territory. That doesn't make any sense. The diplomacy tracker includes fiefs exchanged during the war. The losing party should be forced to give up ALL fiefs they conquered, at a minimum. Taking 1 more city in a losing war wouldn't help the player at all--they would still have to give that fief back to peace out. I reread my first post and I wasn't clear about the above.

The AI only takes 1 fief/war because AI armies are non-functional. They only have enough food to take 1 fief and then they spend the rest of the war walking in circles buying food.

The problem now is that as long as you're willing to pay for peace (for 10-20 days) you can blitzkrieg down 3-4 fiefs, create 2 fiefless clans, pay for peace, convert the 2 clans, and then stomp the faction.

I agree with your point on alliances being important to make the late game functional

 

[SomeWeirdSins]

Here I disagree. Bannerlord is already a very slow, grindy game with a constant merry-go-round of wars. Once the player starts owning a big enough portion of the map, almost every faction and their 15-17 clans will declare war on the player's 25 clans (if they're playing optimally), that means you can potentially have 75 clans ganging up on the player's 25, and you're expected to somehow win in that situation. It doesn't need to be made more difficult.

I think we're agreeing in principle but using different language here. The late game is GRINDY, but it is not hard. Once you have 25 clans you can just AFK and watch your team conquer the world. This nightmare scenario of the entire world declaring war on the player only happens if your clan density is low, if you allow your clans to be poor, or if you don't manage your borders.

I'd like the late game to offer me mechanical, strategic, and tactical challenges rather than just being a time sink.

 

[RKStranger]

Some mods can migrate most of your issues: Realistic Battle Mod and De Re Militari

 

[five bucks]

I think we're agreeing in principle but using different language here. The late game is GRINDY, but it is not hard. Once you have 25 clans you can just AFK and watch your team conquer the world. This nightmare scenario of the entire world declaring war on the player only happens if your clan density is low, if you allow your clans to be poor, or if you don't manage your borders.

I'd like the late game to offer me mechanical, strategic, and tactical challenges rather than just being a time sink.

Then decreasing the number of clans is just going to increase the time the player has to spend grinding, but without increasing the challenge.

Challenge comes from a combination of fair, skill-based gameplay and difficulty. Difficulty increase without fair, skill-based gameplay is simply artificial difficulty or grind. And right now Bannerlord lacks fair, skill-based gameplay. Progressing in the game mainly relies on using exploits and luck; the player's actual skill in battle and politics has little impact on how well they do at painting the map, and the AI gets a raft of unfair advantages.

I would support limiting player clans closer to what the AI typically musters only if Taleworlds confirmed they were working on fixing the following AI cheats/imbalances/bugs:

* AI kingdoms that hold no territory apparently getting money out of thin air with which to constantly recruit war parties from the player's lands, and endlessly raid the player's territory and kneecap their economy.

* AI kingdoms that hold no territory being able to keep their clans despite having no fiefs to give them. AI kingdoms should just be forcibly dispersed and their leader clan defect or go into exile 10 days after losing all their territory. After all, if a similar situation happened to the player they would probably quit!

* AI kingdoms not having to pay for mercenary clans when they're out of money, meaning that kingdoms who you have soundly defeated will get almost every mercenary in the kingdom working for them to raid you too.

* AI kingdoms you have defeated in war being able to dictate the terms of tribute to you and demand tribute FROM you rather than the other way around, so you can choose between them raiding you forever or extorting your money, both of which artificially serve to slow the player's progress and drag out the grind to win despite having BEAT THEM.

* AI kingdoms having instantaneous global communication for hiring mercenaries, arranging marriages or recruiting clans, while the player must do all of these things by physically travelling to talk to people who can be very difficult to find.

But as TW has not confirmed they will make the AI play by the player's rules yet, it makes no sense to make the player play by the AI's rules.

On the other hand, I do agree with you the number of elite recruits should decrease, as that is something that does not increase the grindiness of the game and assists in balance and immersion, and Taleworlds has at least confirmed they are working on fixing armour to help balance the change in challenge.

 

[Csatádi]

I agree with most of this except 4 and 6.

My thoughts exactly

 

[anoddhermit]

The faction that wins a war should never lose territory. That doesn't make any sense. The diplomacy tracker includes fiefs exchanged during the war. The losing party should be forced to give up ALL fiefs they conquered, at a minimum. Taking 1 more city in a losing war wouldn't help the player at all--they would still have to give that fief back to peace out. I reread my first post and I wasn't clear about the above.

The AI only takes 1 fief/war because AI armies are non-functional. They only have enough food to take 1 fief and then they spend the rest of the war walking in circles buying food.

The problem now is that as long as you're willing to pay for peace (for 10-20 days) you can blitzkrieg down 3-4 fiefs, create 2 fiefless clans, pay for peace, convert the 2 clans, and then stomp the faction.

I agree with your point on alliances being important to make the late game functional

I don't understand how this would work. What determines which faction is winning/losing a war at the time of peacemaking?

If I cannot take a few fiefs and get peace, am I not basically forced to wipe out a faction every time I go to war if I'm to make any progress?

Or do I have to be "winning" the war first? If I'm a new kingdom though, it's a tall order to be "winning" by statistic categories like Kingdom Strength. Perhaps you could do casualties/prisoners, but this would make it trivial to be counted as "winning" since all you have to do is win one battle ... such as the battle to take the fief... really, and you'll be winning.

 

[SomeWeirdSins]

I don't understand how this would work. What determines which faction is winning/losing a war at the time of peacemaking?

If I cannot take a few fiefs and get peace, am I not basically forced to wipe out a faction every time I go to war if I'm to make any progress?

Or do I have to be "winning" the war first? If I'm a new kingdom though, it's a tall order to be "winning" by statistic categories like Kingdom Strength. Perhaps you could do casualties/prisoners, but this would make it trivial to be counted as "winning" since all you have to do is win one battle ... such as the battle to take the fief... really, and you'll be winning.

The current tribute system is based off 'winning' and 'losing the war. The point system already exists in game, it would just need to be changed to be a fief-exchange instead of a daily payment exchange.

Winning factors (from gameplay experience, not from code): Strength, parties in field, strength per fief, casualties inflicted, territories raided, prisoners, enemy proposed peace

Losing factors: Recently taken fief and have not held it securely for a substantial amount of time, engaged in multiple wars, proposing peace.

As a new kingdom you could still win a war by raiding an enemy, hunting down single parties, and imprisoning their lords, taking a fief, and being able to defend it for a period of time. You could still defeat a larger enemy with clever play.

 

[SomeWeirdSins]

Then decreasing the number of clans is just going to increase the time the player has to spend grinding, but without increasing the challenge.

Challenge comes from a combination of fair, skill-based gameplay and difficulty. Difficulty increase without fair, skill-based gameplay is simply artificial difficulty or grind. And right now Bannerlord lacks fair, skill-based gameplay. Progressing in the game mainly relies on using exploits and luck; the player's actual skill in battle and politics has little impact on how well they do at painting the map, and the AI gets a raft of unfair advantages.

I would support limiting player clans closer to what the AI typically musters only if Taleworlds confirmed they were working on fixing the following AI cheats/imbalances/bugs:

* AI kingdoms that hold no territory apparently getting money out of thin air with which to constantly recruit war parties from the player's lands, and endlessly raid the player's territory and kneecap their economy.

* AI kingdoms that hold no territory being able to keep their clans despite having no fiefs to give them. AI kingdoms should just be forcibly dispersed and their leader clan defect or go into exile 10 days after losing all their territory. After all, if a similar situation happened to the player they would probably quit!

* AI kingdoms not having to pay for mercenary clans when they're out of money, meaning that kingdoms who you have soundly defeated will get almost every mercenary in the kingdom working for them to raid you too.

* AI kingdoms you have defeated in war being able to dictate the terms of tribute to you and demand tribute FROM you rather than the other way around, so you can choose between them raiding you forever or extorting your money, both of which artificially serve to slow the player's progress and drag out the grind to win despite having BEAT THEM.

* AI kingdoms having instantaneous global communication for hiring mercenaries, arranging marriages or recruiting clans, while the player must do all of these things by physically travelling to talk to people who can be very difficult to find.

But as TW has not confirmed they will make the AI play by the player's rules yet, it makes no sense to make the player play by the AI's rules.

On the other hand, I do agree with you the number of elite recruits should decrease, as that is something that does not increase the grindiness of the game and assists in balance and immersion, and Taleworlds has at least confirmed they are working on fixing armour to help balance the change in challenge.

Are the above impressions from 1.7.0 patch?

 

[Bluko88]

1. Unit Balance -
A. Battles are still won primarily through ranged dominance. The improved shield wall AI is a great step forward, but ultimately doesn't impact the way that fights are played. The player can auto-win reasonable battles simply by building an army with 40-60% archers/xbows.

Sadly I don't think this will ever change. Maybe if armor is addressed.

C. Elites are currently far too common. They lose their significance as 'elites' if they are 1/3 of all available recruits. The player also loses agency over his army composition. I know that the elite frequency is based on the number of archers that Battania needs, but something has to change. Elite frequency can be different by culture, or perhaps battania could get a non-noble archer. Khans guards and Fian Champions are still game-breakingly strong. That's fine, as long as they are 5% of army composition. Once they become more common than recruits, the fights get a bit silly.

It should probably be more like 25%. It's not just Battania that needs Archers, the Empire severely lacked cavalry which really gimps the most populous faction.

2. Armor
Armor is too weak. On foot armor is a handicap for the bulk of the game. One of the best ways to make money early game is to strip naked and fight in the arena. Even at zero weapon skills and modest athletics (25-100) the player is able to get 90-95% winrate in the arena, simply by abusing the fact that his armored enemies are helpless sitting ducks. Armor needs to be less encumbering and offer better protection against ranged damage. The armor issue is probably a large part of why battles are still so ranged-dominant. Ranged attacks ignoring 70% of armor feels very unrealistic.

Yes this is a very serious problem. Supposedly TW plans to do something about it, but it seems really late in game development to be addressing armor strength now. Honestly instead of increasing speed, I think Athletics should really lower armor weight (a lot). Doesn't help Athletics is slow to level and no-where near as beneficial as Riding.

3. Army Behavior
A. Non-player led armies are very inefficient on the map. I attempted a Sturgian Vassal playthrough, joined an army, and the army spent a FULL year walking back and forth between Revyl and Varcheg. Three wars passed and this army that contained over 1/3 of Sturgia's strength never stopped the loop. This behavior is very common in both allied and enemy armies. Non player armies don't have access to the same tools the player uses. Stewardship 275, engineering, scouting, stacked movement speed perks, mounts, etc. They don't stockpile food before going on campaign.

I think they've made the A.I. intentionally inept so snowballing is less common. Unfortunately this makes becoming a vassal very frustrating as if you join an army it may be totally idiotic. Armies/Parties need to buy more food, I think they are fixed to only buy 10 days worth of something. Fine for single parties, but does not work for Armies.

The above means that the late game is far too easy. The player can simply march from enemy town to enemy town with a large army and siege 10 settlements for every 1 siege that the AI can attempt. Enemy armies need a better decision making process before the army is called in the first place. Enemy tier 5/6 clans should have 275 stewardship so that they don't burn through all their food in the first 10 days of the war and then walk in circles for 90 days. Perhaps there should be a leadership perk that causes parties to arrive at an army with X days of food.

While it's true that it's easy enough for the player to steamroll with a large army, you still have to contend with holding said territory. A.I. is pretty bad with foreign settlements so even if the enemy doesn't recapture, Rebellions are pretty likely.

I would say the end game is too easy, but the mid to late game is fairly challenging. Especially the story mode version of the game which will lock you into war with an enemy alliance. No idea how you beat that as independent, unless you are able to create a strong solo Kingdom. But you have to know that it's coming. "Sniping" fiefs is doable, but it's very situational and hardly easy in most cases. I don't see it as effective Kingdom building.

Sandbox is strangely a much easier way to play.

4. Clans are too easy to recruit- Once the player has 25 clans, he can just AFK and watch his team win. Clans cost an average of 150k, that means that once the player has around 4 million denars the game is over and they are virtually guaranteed to finish a conquest in the next few years...after watching 20-30 hours of seiges. In my opinion a clan should cost gold AND a fief per party that the clan field.

Eh Clans usually cost 200K+, sometimes as much as 500K for me. They also have to be broke/fiefless or only have a Castle.

Also it used to be normal for Clans to jump ship if you didn't effectively get them a fief right away.

I usually have a couple million by late game, but I can't think of any playthru where I've been so swoll with cash I can just spend spend spend. I would say it's more like 30+ Clans when you go into auto-pilot. 25 Clans are still capable of effing up, especially if you have a wide border. Less of an issue for Khuzait, Aserai, and Vlandian as geography favors them a lot.

5. Sieges are still an issue--the AI is very finicky and controlling troops seems like a net-loss due to bugs. Additionally, sieges are far too attacker-favored.

Yeah, dunno if this will ever get addressed really. Also true about attacker being favored, which makes no sense.

6. The Tribute system doesn't make much sense

Yes Tribute/Diplomacy really needs to be fleshed out more. Also be good if there were Kingdom Relations to help explain wars. I think Tribute is a good idea, but you're right it's way to easy to start a "mini-war" and just grab a fief or two.

If you effectively steal a fief you should have to pay some serious tribute to peace out. There also needs to be actual truce periods. The constant war declarations is a bit silly. Of course problem with this game is it's so easy to rebuild forces. Building up Parties needs to be more significant, because currently the only way to progress a war to is take fiefs.

8. Levelling System- there are major issues with specific skills
--Riding is the skill used to power level a character. For some reason if I kill a looter with a ranged weapon on horseback I get 450% of the standard exp. Even for characters that will never fight on horseback and never shoot a crossbow, the 'best' way to get a run started is to spend 4 hours killing looters with a xbow to get level 15-20. It feels kind of gamey, but also feels like soloing looters on horseback is the 'only' way to start a run.

Given Riding is basically essential to game right now, I think this is fine.

--Athletics levels way too slowly overall, but levels a bit too quickly for kills with thrusting weapon. There's no reason for some weird complex skill point formula here. Just give us flat XP for damaging enemies. Maybe melee weapons should have a small bonus when compared to ranged weapons.

Yep; too slow to level, not as beneficial as it should be.

-- Scouting- levelling speed <100 is very slow and there are no ways for the player to speed things up. Quests that require scouting skill (missing daughter, scout enemy garrisons) do not reward the player with scouting exp. There need to be a few ways for the player to invest his time to get scouting up to an acceptable level in the early game.

I think the Scout XP you gain should be exponentially based on your party size.

i.e. if it's just you running around the map you'll get tons of Scouting XP. However if you have a big army, you won't get much Scouting XP. This would make it more sensible and easier to level up early on where it probably matters most.

--Roguery - prison breaks level roguery way too fast, and no other reasonable sources give relevant amounts of roguery. Mass-ransoming prisoners after sieges gives good roguery exp, but in the current patch this stage is after the gameplay is already over.

Considering no other decent way to level Roguery, Prison Break XP is fine. But yes the player should get a lot more for ransoming, bribing, raiding, fighting gangs, etc.

--Charm - Charm levels far too quickly, especially being that it is the most powerful skill in the game. 300 Charm is probably more powerful than 300 in every other skill in banner lord combined.

Well it's currently broken with Prisoner Donations (you get XP for all prisoners present LOL). Does seem dumb Prisoner Donations is best way to level up. Should really get the most from doing Quests, etc. But TW seems to want you do 10+ Quests before any NPC likes you.

Assisting in battles, handing out money, etc. is where you should really get Charm.

--Trade - Trade lacks any late-game options. Clan tier 2 is the end of scaling for trade. Of course you can stay in the 1085 loop for a few years until you get 300 trade and then buy the game...but that's not very fun. The player needs to be able to participate in large deals--gather 2,000 units of wood, negotiate with a merchant for better prices on player-owned caravans, etc. Also, the caravan exploit is very fixable. Just don't let caravans trade near town, or only allow the player to trade with a caravan once every X days. The 125 trade perk is far too powerful.

Yes very slow and tedious, also don't know why Trade goes to 300. Why not 275 or 250?

Do you mean 150 Perks? They're good money savers, but hardly broken. I don't see Renown gain as difficult.

IDK TW is all over the place with Perks. Some are game changers, some are good, and a lot are mostly useless.

--Medicine and Engineering- With 5 focus and 7 INT these skills will be between 150-175 by the time the player has effectively won the game (strong enough to AFK and watch his kingdom conquer the world) and 175-200 when the player has conquered everything.
Putting 5 focus in medicine still never feels like a waste. 150 medic is still a very powerful effect, but the levelling speed feels bad to the player. Engineering is a moderately powerful effect and there's no reason for it to level so slowly. Perhaps these skills will be tuned correctly if other elements of the game are fixed.

Yes these level terribly slow. Needs to be more ways to gain XP for them. I'd say need to get more Engineering XP for hitting walls and especially destroying them. You really only get XP for building/destroying siege engines.

Medicine is a bit tricky. Probably help if TW introduced diseases and plagues (also would be good to curb some Clans birthrates).

The game also desperately needs some way to train up skills. So tired of Nobles having all these high level Skills as soon as they're 18 years old. Maybe bring back books? Though I think best way to go would be to pay for Trainers/Tutors to level up a Character while in a Town.

Also be nice if Arenas could be used to train Troops.

For the most part I'm happy with the progress the game has made. The optimization improvements are huge, most of the bugs are gone, there are more scenes, most of the perks work. Many of the above issues are the same problems the game had a year ago, but there is clear progress on all of them.

I won't deny there's been some good progress, but I also believe it's a bit lacking for a game that was supposed to be released in 2021. We're a year behind now, with basically no end in sight.

If this was February 2021 I'd be pretty happy with state of game, but it's not - so I'm going to remain pretty critical.

 

[five bucks]

Are the above impressions from 1.7.0 patch?

Unmodded 1.7.1, yep (which is functionally the same as 1.7 in regard to those problems)

 

[anoddhermit]

The current tribute system is based off 'winning' and 'losing the war. The point system already exists in game, it would just need to be changed to be a fief-exchange instead of a daily payment exchange.

Winning factors (from gameplay experience, not from code): Strength, parties in field, strength per fief, casualties inflicted, territories raided, prisoners, enemy proposed peace

Losing factors: Recently taken fief and have not held it securely for a substantial amount of time, engaged in multiple wars, proposing peace.

As a new kingdom you could still win a war by raiding an enemy, hunting down single parties, and imprisoning their lords, taking a fief, and being able to defend it for a period of time. You could still defeat a larger enemy with clever play.

These are almost all easier to game the further along you are in a campaign though. Especially strength and parties. So all it really does is add a huge penalty to starting and defending a kingdom early game(since your strength/parties will be way lower), it doesn't reduce grinding at all except maybe by making things even easier later game.

The only one that might get harder is preventing raids once you have more land, but even that mostly goes away as a problem as you gain more clans and can set defensive mode.

I also don't see it how it stops someone from seizing a fief and proposing peace. If you've done that before the enemy has done anything, you're already "winning" or tied by all measures once you have a strong enough kingdom.

 

[SomeWeirdSins]

These are almost all easier to game the further along you are in a campaign though. Especially strength and parties. So all it really does is add a huge penalty to starting and defending a kingdom early game(since your strength/parties will be way lower), it doesn't reduce grinding at all except maybe by making things even easier later game.

The only one that might get harder is preventing raids once you have more land, but even that mostly goes away as a problem as you gain more clans and can set defensive mode.

I also don't see it how it stops someone from seizing a fief and proposing peace. If you've done that before the enemy has done anything, you're already "winning" or tied by all measures once you have a strong enough kingdom.

See the above comments on tribute calcuations. Taking a fief makes you the loser in the war.

 

[KingEroc1st]

The armor issue is probably a large part of why battles are still so ranged-dominant. Ranged attacks ignoring 70% of armor feels very unrealistic.

truth is, armor was almost exclusively developed for defense against ranged attacks. which is why they were abandoned when gunpowder became wildly used and armor could no longer sufficiently block projectiles. so TW really really messed up here with the logic

Sadly I don't think this will ever change. Maybe if armor is addressed.

i think a main reason there's no unit balance is because there's no unit distinction. every faction has similar troops that does similar things with similar placeholder items that vary mostly in their aesthetics rather than stats or function. and this is compounded by the fact that every lord hires troops from every faction. there's no uniformity so there cannot be different strengths and weakness or different functions or roles or different faction percs in strategy/tactics. because in 1-3 year of game time from the beginning, every army becomes the same random groups of every type of troop from all over the world as if they were distributed from a globalist soldiers union or something. when everyone has the same random mosaic army comp. there's no need for tactics other than f1 f3.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Lots of stuff to go through here. Might need to do this multiple days lol. Couple things that stand out 1 NPCs don't buy horses to upgrade troops 2 IME most clans wanted a lot more then 150k, even when homeless, are you sure 150K is average in 1.7.1? This was true for me in older pre-1.6.5 versions, but now they seem much more greedy.

 

[SomeWeirdSins]

Lots of stuff to go through here. Might need to do this multiple days lol. Couple things that stand out 1 NPCs don't buy horses to upgrade troops 2 IME most clans wanted a lot more then 150k, even when homeless, are you sure 150K is average in 1.7.1? This was true for me in older pre-1.6.5 versions, but now they seem much more greedy.

Depends on relations.
If you have 300+ charm you are likely to have good relations with many lords. Free clans are not uncommon. If relations are bad it might cost 400k.
Did I say that NPCs have to use horses to upgrade troops? Playing in Sturgia feels awful for the player. If you're playing aggressively and are located in Sturgia you will end up with a ton of Varyags in your army that you can't upgrade and looters in disguise of t5 archers. If you're playing in empire or Vlandia you are just swimming in cav and crossbows (the two units you need to snowball hard).

Unmodded 1.7.1, yep (which is functionally the same as 1.7 in regard to those problems)

I have a feeling that you might be missing some core mechanics if you are struggling this patch. 15ish year conquests seem about normal (on hardest difficulty settings). The player can AFK for almost 1/3 of the gameplay hours and still achieve these timings.

 

[SomeWeirdSins]

Sadly I don't think this will ever change. Maybe if armor is addressed.


It should probably be more like 25%. It's not just Battania that needs Archers, the Empire severely lacked cavalry which really gimps the most populous faction.


Yes this is a very serious problem. Supposedly TW plans to do something about it, but it seems really late in game development to be addressing armor strength now. Honestly instead of increasing speed, I think Athletics should really lower armor weight (a lot). Doesn't help Athletics is slow to level and no-where near as beneficial as Riding.


I think they've made the A.I. intentionally inept so snowballing is less common. Unfortunately this makes becoming a vassal very frustrating as if you join an army it may be totally idiotic. Armies/Parties need to buy more food, I think they are fixed to only buy 10 days worth of something. Fine for single parties, but does not work for Armies.


While it's true that it's easy enough for the player to steamroll with a large army, you still have to contend with holding said territory. A.I. is pretty bad with foreign settlements so even if the enemy doesn't recapture, Rebellions are pretty likely.

I would say the end game is too easy, but the mid to late game is fairly challenging. Especially the story mode version of the game which will lock you into war with an enemy alliance. No idea how you beat that as independent, unless you are able to create a strong solo Kingdom. But you have to know that it's coming. "Sniping" fiefs is doable, but it's very situational and hardly easy in most cases. I don't see it as effective Kingdom building.

Sandbox is strangely a much easier way to play.


Eh Clans usually cost 200K+, sometimes as much as 500K for me. They also have to be broke/fiefless or only have a Castle.

Also it used to be normal for Clans to jump ship if you didn't effectively get them a fief right away.

I usually have a couple million by late game, but I can't think of any playthru where I've been so swoll with cash I can just spend spend spend. I would say it's more like 30+ Clans when you go into auto-pilot. 25 Clans are still capable of effing up, especially if you have a wide border. Less of an issue for Khuzait, Aserai, and Vlandian as geography favors them a lot.



Yeah, dunno if this will ever get addressed really. Also true about attacker being favored, which makes no sense.



Yes Tribute/Diplomacy really needs to be fleshed out more. Also be good if there were Kingdom Relations to help explain wars. I think Tribute is a good idea, but you're right it's way to easy to start a "mini-war" and just grab a fief or two.

If you effectively steal a fief you should have to pay some serious tribute to peace out. There also needs to be actual truce periods. The constant war declarations is a bit silly. Of course problem with this game is it's so easy to rebuild forces. Building up Parties needs to be more significant, because currently the only way to progress a war to is take fiefs.


Given Riding is basically essential to game right now, I think this is fine.


Yep; too slow to level, not as beneficial as it should be.


I think the Scout XP you gain should be exponentially based on your party size.

i.e. if it's just you running around the map you'll get tons of Scouting XP. However if you have a big army, you won't get much Scouting XP. This would make it more sensible and easier to level up early on where it probably matters most.


Considering no other decent way to level Roguery, Prison Break XP is fine. But yes the player should get a lot more for ransoming, bribing, raiding, fighting gangs, etc.


Well it's currently broken with Prisoner Donations (you get XP for all prisoners present LOL). Does seem dumb Prisoner Donations is best way to level up. Should really get the most from doing Quests, etc. But TW seems to want you do 10+ Quests before any NPC likes you.

Assisting in battles, handing out money, etc. is where you should really get Charm.


Yes very slow and tedious, also don't know why Trade goes to 300. Why not 275 or 250?

Do you mean 150 Perks? They're good money savers, but hardly broken. I don't see Renown gain as difficult.

IDK TW is all over the place with Perks. Some are game changers, some are good, and a lot are mostly useless.


Yes these level terribly slow. Needs to be more ways to gain XP for them. I'd say need to get more Engineering XP for hitting walls and especially destroying them. You really only get XP for building/destroying siege engines.

Medicine is a bit tricky. Probably help if TW introduced diseases and plagues (also would be good to curb some Clans birthrates).

The game also desperately needs some way to train up skills. So tired of Nobles having all these high level Skills as soon as they're 18 years old. Maybe bring back books? Though I think best way to go would be to pay for Trainers/Tutors to level up a Character while in a Town.

Also be nice if Arenas could be used to train Troops.


I won't deny there's been some good progress, but I also believe it's a bit lacking for a game that was supposed to be released in 2021. We're a year behind now, with basically no end in sight.

If this was February 2021 I'd be pretty happy with state of game, but it's not - so I'm going to remain pretty critical.

Rebellions- can be addressed with Loyalty policies. Also, the AI does not change the 'project' so every time you conquer a city you should be setting the project to Festival before the fief gets assigned. Rebellions will be very rare. I have not had a single rebellion this year.

The AI is competent at defending as long as your party/fief ratio is reasonable. The AI is mostly inept at attacking because of the food issue.

 

[anoddhermit]

See the above comments on tribute calcuations. Taking a fief makes you the loser in the war.

You said it was a losing "factor" without specifying how different factors weigh against eachother.

Am I to understand if I take a Fief, as a losing factor it would outweigh ALL winning factors until some time condition is met?

The time condition aspect would still seem to me harder in the early game, easier in the late game. And it would basically just involve people waiting around on defense to meet the specific time condition to make peace, which I'd consider to be equally gamey as paying for peace is while adding tedium. I just don't see how it fixes late game challenge, it just adds more grind between fief taking.

Take fief, turtle for X time, propose peace vs. take fief, propose peace. The turtling aspect is more to do, but if you're in the late game it's not more difficult in terms of strategic challenge - overall I think it would only accomplish a delay in map painting.