The purpose of the Castle in Bannerlord.

[Terco_Viejo]

I've known for awhile that the game isn't going to be a shade of what I'd hoped it would be. At this point all I want is a stable game that modders can do something with because Taleworlds is too apathetic to put any more in depth features in this game. Imho it's time for them to fully release this game and move on to the next title that will probably come out in 15 years.

Damn... you reminded me of me... I feel you brother, hug me.

(source)

 

[Julio-Claudian]

and why can anyone recruit from any village at any time or has that been fixed? Would be like Russians recruiting villagers in West Ukraine -S aint happenin

That is intentional. To mitigate the consequences of kingdoms being defeated and conquered.

 

[black_bulldog]

That is intentional. To mitigate the consequences of kingdoms being defeated and conquered.

While I can see some validity to that mechanic, imho there should be some kind of penalty to recruiting outside of your faction especially when done to factions your at war with. Maybe excessive recruitment of enemy villages reduces morale greatly or tanks army cohesion. But to freely allow rival factions to recruit without some kind of deterrent is a bad game play mechanic. This is part of the reason why factions bounce back so quickly, when a faction starts losing ground they need to sue for peace and try to turtle up until they can recover instead they just keep recruiting anyone and everyone to throw into the grind mill. It's so shallow.

 

[Julio-Claudian]

While I can see some validity to that mechanic, imho there should be some kind of penalty to recruiting outside of your faction especially when done to factions your at war with. Maybe excessive recruitment of enemy villages reduces morale greatly or tanks army cohesion. But to freely allow rival factions to recruit without some kind of deterrent is a bad game play mechanic. This is part of the reason why factions bounce back so quickly, when a faction starts losing ground they need to sue for peace and try to turtle up until they can recover instead they just keep recruiting anyone and everyone to throw into the grind mill. It's so shallow.

Yeah, but snowballing.

 

[Mad Vader]

A simple fix to make castles more important would be to make army food consumption go up the further they press into enemy territory. That would simulate having supply lines cut off or harassed and forces enemies to take out castles along the way to a town instead of just bypassing them. It wouldn't make it impossible to have a quick dive into enemy territory but long sieges and campaigns would be punished as they should be.

I really like this, it's simple and effective compared to the alternatives that try to simulate the **** out of supply lines without much gameplay payoff. With the correct balancing and AI behavior to compensate for this, of course.

 

[froggyluv]

Yeah, but snowballing.

They've simplified the world mechanics to idiotic level in the name of "yeah, but Snowballing...". Its their job to figure out new innovative and robust systems to counter the dreaded "snowballing". That Snowballing thread annoyed the everLivin Jesus outta me because it was all quick fix type stuff like this -they need a fine surgeon's scalpel not an idiots sledgehammer.

 

[Life_Erikson]

Another well-worn topic on which a lot of feedback has been provided. My opinion in a nutshell:

• Castles as the only place to recruit noble/elite troops from the hand of a castellar, sarjeant or other form of notable npc.
• Possibility to define patrols in surrounding areas.
• Allied troop sheltering
• Training bonus (quicker leveling up for troops garrisoned there)
• Zone of control*

(*) Repositioning of castles at strategic and bottleneck points in world map needed.

Very good points.

 

[Julio-Claudian]

They've simplified the world mechanics to idiotic level in the name of "yeah, but Snowballing...". Its their job to figure out new innovative and robust systems to counter the dreaded "snowballing". That Snowballing thread annoyed the everLivin Jesus outta me because it was all quick fix type stuff like this -they need a fine surgeon's scalpel not an idiots sledgehammer.

I know lol.
A better solution than allowing everyone to recruit from everywhere would be top make those who can't recruit enough rely on the mercenary companies. Weaker kingdoms do get all the mercenaries but since the mercenaries just recruit from anywhere like everyone else does rather than spawning their unique troops, it doesn't feel any different.

 

[black_bulldog]

Yeah, but snowballing.

Taleworlds often looks for the easiest fixes to complex problems. They could've gone with alliances for example to fix snowballing but they opted for something simpler. They make a simple change and call it a day without thinking about any ramifications and then you get what we have now where battles don't matter, where troops are just a limitless pool like blades of grass on a prairie or where fortifications like castles have zero value to anyone because there's nothing inside or out of them except a place to occasionally do battle or to store some extra gear.

 

[black_bulldog]

I really like this, it's simple and effective compared to the alternatives that try to simulate the **** out of supply lines without much gameplay payoff. With the correct balancing and AI behavior to compensate for this, of course.

I think a smart programer could get the ai to not push too far into enemy territory and it would certainly discourage the player from doing it. But as is there is no purpose or least any reason for the player to hold castles.

 

[Lord Grindelvald]

That is intentional. To mitigate the consequences of kingdoms being defeated and conquered.

It is damn near impossible to defeat or conquer a kingdom right now. Theres always that one pesky, elusive king roaming about with 5 merc clans to loot your ****.

I would love some snowballing. But with different kingdoms on every playthrough. So not always the Khuzait. That keeps it flexible, entertaining and a more dynamic experience. Every playthrough right now is almost a formula. No underdogs. Always in the name of balance. Which almost forces you to be at war, all the time. To hold the ground you took before balance retakes it. Praise be balance.

 

[Danny5]

It is damn near impossible to defeat or conquer a kingdom right now. Theres always that one pesky, elusive king roaming about with 5 merc clans to loot your ****.

I would love some snowballing. But with different kingdoms on every playthrough. So not always the Khuzait. That keeps it flexible, entertaining and a more dynamic experience. Every playthrough right now is almost a formula. No underdogs. Always in the name of balance. Which almost forces you to be at war, all the time. To hold the ground you took before balance retakes it. Praise be balance.

Randomised would be good

 

[Julio-Claudian]

Taleworlds often looks for the easiest fixes to complex problems. They could've gone with alliances for example to fix snowballing but they opted for something simpler. They make a simple change and call it a day without thinking about any ramifications and then you get what we have now where battles don't matter, where troops are just a limitless pool like blades of grass on a prairie or where fortifications like castles have zero value to anyone because there's nothing inside or out of them except a place to occasionally do battle or to store some extra gear.

Yes, actual diplomacy. Treaties, alliances, non-aggression pacts, faction relations etc. would have been a far better way to stop repetitive 'snowballing'. I still don't understand why they decided to have zero diplomacy in the game. I'm guessing it's something to do with consoles.

 

[MostBlunted]

Yes, actual diplomacy. Treaties, alliances, non-aggression pacts, faction relations etc. would have been a far better way to stop repetitive 'snowballing'. I still don't understand why they decided to have zero diplomacy in the game. I'm guessing it's something to do with consoles.

"more streamlined gameplay"
"focus on battles"
"too complex"
"not our vision"
"fast paced"

 

[Blood Gryphon]

Man y'all need to stop rewriting history.

That is intentional. To mitigate the consequences of kingdoms being defeated and conquered.

This change was first made to let player kingdoms actually recruit troops. When this was still a limitation you would start a kingdom and only be able to recruit from your few towns which completely ****ed you over unless you created a kingdom with a massive amount of land. It legit would ruin a playthrough because you also couldn't abdicate your kingdom like you can now and you'd be stuck with like 3 parties trying to recruit from 3 places while fending off 1000 men armies.

While I can see some validity to that mechanic, imho there should be some kind of penalty to recruiting outside of your faction especially when done to factions your at war with. Maybe excessive recruitment of enemy villages reduces morale greatly or tanks army cohesion. But to freely allow rival factions to recruit without some kind of deterrent is a bad game play mechanic. This is part of the reason why factions bounce back so quickly, when a faction starts losing ground they need to sue for peace and try to turtle up until they can recover instead they just keep recruiting anyone and everyone to throw into the grind mill. It's so shallow.

AI can't recruit from enemy villages, i think it was a bug in the past but has been fixed (same as them being able to recruit from raided villages, also fixed).

If you actually look at AI parties you'll see they are like 95%-99% homogenous (just go look at my post about noble troops) until a kingdom expands it territories and lords start to own land that isnt their same culture. I really dont think this is an issue like you are claiming. I'm also almost positive that most foreign troops come from recruiting prisoners to the party.

Taleworlds often looks for the easiest fixes to complex problems. They could've gone with alliances for example to fix snowballing but they opted for something simpler. They make a simple change and call it a day without thinking about any ramifications and then you get what we have now where battles don't matter, where troops are just a limitless pool like blades of grass on a prairie or where fortifications like castles have zero value to anyone because there's nothing inside or out of them except a place to occasionally do battle or to store some extra gear.

My going theory on why people think there is a limitless pool of enemy troops is that player involved kingdoms dont seem to really raid villages and raiding villages is really the only way to stop an enemies force from easily rejuvenating. Can't prove this one yet for when a player is just a vassal in an AI kingdom, but from my experience in a player owned kingdom, the AI vassals are to busy joining armies to actually raid. But the over creation of armies is tied to having high influence which can be tied to using to many influence policies. AI kingdoms dont seem to have this issue and will raid villages like normal.

Also maybe people don't realize that a faction is likely to have 3 to 4 standing armies?

They've simplified the world mechanics to idiotic level in the name of "yeah, but Snowballing...". Its their job to figure out new innovative and robust systems to counter the dreaded "snowballing". That Snowballing thread annoyed the everLivin Jesus outta me because it was all quick fix type stuff like this -they need a fine surgeon's scalpel not an idiots sledgehammer.

KEEP MY THREADS NAME OUT YO MOUTH
That thread was the only reason we got any solution at all. If you read through it you'll see we all suggested the innovative and robust systems like below (even MostBlunted before he was reformed) and our man agreed, took it to the table but it got rejected by the one who has lost his way.

Yes, actual diplomacy. Treaties, alliances, non-aggression pacts, faction relations etc. would have been a far better way to stop repetitive 'snowballing'. I still don't understand why they decided to have zero diplomacy in the game. I'm guessing it's something to do with consoles.

We all need to blame the real problem (like my signature). not that it will do anything

 

[Madijeis]

Castles for now are just a stepping stone to get towns and owning one represents the start of the mid game. Later in the game the only use is due to the building that reduces upkeep of the garrison, so you can make them into strategic reserves to mobilize at need.

I understand people's suggestions to make them quality recruiting centers (everyone here has played Perisno and Pendor), but I think giving that role to the villages attached to the castle is a better solution, if anything because it gives you strategic depth: you can starve a faction out of its best troops by targeting specific villages, instead of having to launch a lengthy siege.

Best would be to extend the zone of control of the castles, and make them impassable to hostile forces. Either directly, by making any movement on them impossible (except sieges), or something more soft where the garrison acts like a village militia, helping Lords in range or intercepting you outright (potentially veeeery exploitable, you'd need the ai to intervene only when it calculates overwhelming odds), making it a true risk to just breeze through enemy castles and cutting you off from desperately needed reinforcements.

 

[froggyluv]

KEEP MY THREADS NAME OUT YO MOUTH
That thread was the only reason we got any solution at all. If you read through it you'll see we all suggested the innovative and robust systems like below (even MostBlunted before he was reformed) and our man agreed, took it to the table but it got rejected by the one who has lost his way.

Negative that thread was garbage and a big part of the problem. By constantly congratulating the developers for successfully castrating any individuality of the game (ie a dominant world faction) as well as encouraging homogenization of all of Caladria into a giant cesspool of "wow, i just dont care-isms". This lets the Devs off the hook as they were "there trying" and yes, do I believe guys like Mexxico and others wanted more? Sure! But id rather have seen the entire community reject such superficial "improvements" and simply demand better from the top floor Office or drop the game in protest.

The game is zero percent more enjoyable unmodded now as it was pre-snowball work. Sorry man, but its true.

 

[MostBlunted]

KEEP MY THREADS NAME OUT YO MOUTH
That thread was the only reason we got any solution at all. If you read through it you'll see we all suggested the innovative and robust systems like below (even MostBlunted before he was reformed) and our man agreed, took it to the table but it got rejected by the one who has lost his way.

The good ol´ days when we thought the game could actually become something awesome, never forget.

But id rather have seen the entire community reject such superficial "improvements" and simply demand better from the top floor Office or drop the game in protest.

The game is zero percent more enjoyable unmodded now as it was pre-snowball work. Sorry man, but its true.

Not really, the community did everything it could, there were several good suggestions but everything was denied and the "solution" was the only thing that fits in the "vision".

And no, the game was better after fixing the "Khuzait problem". It´s not the solution most of the community wanted but it was still better than nothing.

90% of the community (also steam/reddit) demands a "better" diplomancy (alliances...), it was requested and is requested since over a year? Did TW care? I even believe we still would have snowballing Khuzait today if Mexxico wasn´t as dedicated as he was, can´t proof this of course.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

Negative that thread was garbage and a big part of the problem. By constantly congratulating the developers for successfully castrating any individuality of the game (ie a dominant world faction) as well as encouraging homogenization of all of Caladria into a giant cesspool of "wow, i just dont care-isms". This lets the Devs off the hook as they were "there trying" and yes, do I believe guys like Mexxico and others wanted more? Sure! But id rather have seen the entire community reject such superficial "improvements" and simply demand better from the top floor Office or drop the game in protest.

The game is zero percent more enjoyable unmodded now as it was pre-snowball work. Sorry man, but its true.

You're entitled to your opinion. Personally I hated watching Sturgia get taken over by the khuzait in 5 years or less, so those changes made a huge difference for me and made it much more enjoyable for me.

The game dropped like 200,000 concurrent players after like a month and it didn't change anything, the man had made all his cash already. The top floor abandoned us the second EA sold like hot cakes. That's what you should be mad about, I tagged him and called him out, but he hasn't even seen it since he hasn't been on the forum in like 2 years.

Us abandoning the few devs that cared about our input would have left us with an even ****tier version of the game and wouldn't have magically made him care or come back. We can cry about what the game should have been from the start and all the rejected ideas that never got explained due to his absence, but at some point you gotta work with what you got if you wanna make any movement.

The good ol´ days when we thought the game could actually become something awesome, never forget.

So much potential, mods will take it to the finish line unfortunately.

 

[MostBlunted]

but at some point you gotta work with what you got if you wanna make any movement.

Community: Give us control over our parties!
TW: Best we can do is 3, more or less, useless stances which don´t make much difference at all!
Community:

Or more generic:

Community: Please TW we need/want X!
TW: Best we can do is to forward your feedback and to tell you to **** off!
Community: