I have been playing this game off and on since it first came to early access, and I wanted to just put out my thoughts on the latest version 1.7.2. I'm going to try and break this up into some sections and cover a lot, but my overall thoughts are the early game is fun especially with the addition of smithing for early game money. I personally hate running from one side of the map to trade goods and this gave me a new option. In the mid to late game comes the absolute frustration and the flaws or design of the game become almost unbearable. These issues I have come across are the reason I am writing this at all. If everything was perfect, I would just be playing the game. Before I get to far into this, these are my opinions if you disagree that is fine, but these are my thoughts and I hope they will at least be heard. I really want this game to be successful
Character, Heroes, and Nobles
-Character- with death enabled I think your character levels just slightly to slowly especially if you try and use the medical skills. If you must cheese a skill by starving troops or whatever example you can think of, that is an issue. Skills should level fast enough without devoting hours in game to level a single skill. This leveling issue also applies to heroes in your party or in their own party. This leads to yourself and companions becoming useful just in time to die of old age or an illness.
-Heroes/Wanderers- As the game progresses your choice of companion or wanderers become very limited as many of them are over 50 years old. This makes getting companions for your children when you die very difficult.
-Nobles- I would say work well, but some offer my 18-year-old son 50-year-old women as brides even when they have young women in their clan. This brings up the issue of breeding. I have had some heirs that literally only have daughters which gives me the option to marry them off or keep them as an old cat lady that governs a town. Maybe make the act of breeding kind of like bartering where you actively try to have a child (dialogue option?). For your heirs I would weight the chance of their bride becoming pregnant with a boy a little more so. Maybe even implement family vacations for the young couples to spend a week on the lake or in the mountains that I can fund for them.
Caravans, Workshops, and Money in General
-Caravans- They feel barely worth the start up cost in the early game and in the late game pointless. This is with only using the better troops. They seemed to make about the same as a shop without the stability.
-Workshops- for me they made anywhere from 200 to 500 depending on the economy of the region. I don’t feel like these are bad and are by far more stable than a caravan that in my experience made almost the same profit (somedays they did make a lot more but rarely) and were captured very quickly.
Money- The transition from becoming a wandering mercenary to lord you will start bleeding money even if you have max caravans and workshops. It becomes slightly troubling if you haven’t saved a good amount of money. You will have to continue running your own trade route while fighting or continue to smith at every stop just to stay out of the red.
Field Battles and Sieges
-Field Battles- AI lords for the most part will set up in the back of the map and camp until you die of boredom. Moving your troops to them is a chore having to inch up your infantry, archers, cavalry, and horse archers all as single units. I still want an option to set up a formation and have them move in marching order at a slow pace until we finally reach the AI camp grounds where I can give them individual orders. The frustration is compounded by the fact that because of having to move to the back of the map to fight the enemy they will now spawn behind you during the battle at random times or sometimes literally on top of you. This is compounded by the fact that your reserve troops spawn a mile away from you and are picked off one by one by enemy horse archers or cavalry.
Sieges- the usual complaints that troops won’t go up the ladders or even through a breached door. This can be frustrating plus enemies can glitch into wall and cause you to have to retreat and restart the siege to kill one militiaman. Your catapults will continue to fire on the castle walls and kill tons of friendly troops even after your troops have taken the walls as well as after the battle is won and we are all cheering.
End Game
Garrisons- They don’t clear out looters, they don’t defend villages, they don’t protect caravans, they do nothing but act as defenders during a siege, as reserves during long wars and eat all of your town’s food, maybe?
Lords- they don’t seem to defend their fiefs or care for them at all. Without passing every policy available to up town loyalty you will have rebellions every few weeks. As a King you feel near useless to stop the loyalty drain on a town you don’t own. During the little peace you have some lords will keep 90% of your nobles in an army roaming around while their fiefs get overrun with looters and issues.
Fiefs- Sometimes your towns will run out of food completely and I see no reason for it, just that they are at -14 food. I get no feedback on what I need to do to fix it. Is the garrison to big, is the militia to big, should I run irrigation or housing to fix it, I have no idea?
Diplomacy- although it has gotten better its still near nonexistent. I can’t make allies; I have no nonaggression pacts. It’s just severely limited in every way. Enemies travel through my lands without even being harassed by my garrisons or militia, I have no border defense at all. They can walk a 1,000 man army to the middle of my lands, declare war and take a town before I know what is happening.
Final thoughts
early to mid-game are very enjoyable and I love the freedom to choose your own way of making money. The big issues become very apparent as the troop numbers increase and your number of towns and castle grow. The end game just becomes endless war without anytime to build up an army or garrison. The large battles with the random spawns and AI that refuse to engage become unbearable to the point of wanting to restart just to go back to having fun in game.
Random
-prebattle duels that give extra moral for your troops or loss of moral if you lose
-let me warn my lords of approaching armies, tell them to patrol areas, tell them to take certain towns or castles. If we had these and many other features in Warband, why are they not in this game.
-why does the Sturgian infantry still suck?
-auto resolve still allows looter to kill top tier troops. Example I lost a Fian Champion to auto resolve of 170 troops to 1 looter
-limit number of troops universally until you can find a fix for the horrible spawn in of reserves or break engagements up into 500v500 chunks with an option to reengage afterwards or flee. Honestly don’t know how you fix this until you can allow full armies to spawn all at once, which might be impossible with the number of troops. I don’t see a 2,000v2,000 battle running very well at all so why allow lord to have such large armies.
- more gore
Thank you for reading and please remember these are just my thoughts and opinions as of 1.7.2’’
Character, Heroes, and Nobles
-Character- with death enabled I think your character levels just slightly to slowly especially if you try and use the medical skills. If you must cheese a skill by starving troops or whatever example you can think of, that is an issue. Skills should level fast enough without devoting hours in game to level a single skill. This leveling issue also applies to heroes in your party or in their own party. This leads to yourself and companions becoming useful just in time to die of old age or an illness.
-Heroes/Wanderers- As the game progresses your choice of companion or wanderers become very limited as many of them are over 50 years old. This makes getting companions for your children when you die very difficult.
-Nobles- I would say work well, but some offer my 18-year-old son 50-year-old women as brides even when they have young women in their clan. This brings up the issue of breeding. I have had some heirs that literally only have daughters which gives me the option to marry them off or keep them as an old cat lady that governs a town. Maybe make the act of breeding kind of like bartering where you actively try to have a child (dialogue option?). For your heirs I would weight the chance of their bride becoming pregnant with a boy a little more so. Maybe even implement family vacations for the young couples to spend a week on the lake or in the mountains that I can fund for them.
Caravans, Workshops, and Money in General
-Caravans- They feel barely worth the start up cost in the early game and in the late game pointless. This is with only using the better troops. They seemed to make about the same as a shop without the stability.
-Workshops- for me they made anywhere from 200 to 500 depending on the economy of the region. I don’t feel like these are bad and are by far more stable than a caravan that in my experience made almost the same profit (somedays they did make a lot more but rarely) and were captured very quickly.
Money- The transition from becoming a wandering mercenary to lord you will start bleeding money even if you have max caravans and workshops. It becomes slightly troubling if you haven’t saved a good amount of money. You will have to continue running your own trade route while fighting or continue to smith at every stop just to stay out of the red.
Field Battles and Sieges
-Field Battles- AI lords for the most part will set up in the back of the map and camp until you die of boredom. Moving your troops to them is a chore having to inch up your infantry, archers, cavalry, and horse archers all as single units. I still want an option to set up a formation and have them move in marching order at a slow pace until we finally reach the AI camp grounds where I can give them individual orders. The frustration is compounded by the fact that because of having to move to the back of the map to fight the enemy they will now spawn behind you during the battle at random times or sometimes literally on top of you. This is compounded by the fact that your reserve troops spawn a mile away from you and are picked off one by one by enemy horse archers or cavalry.
Sieges- the usual complaints that troops won’t go up the ladders or even through a breached door. This can be frustrating plus enemies can glitch into wall and cause you to have to retreat and restart the siege to kill one militiaman. Your catapults will continue to fire on the castle walls and kill tons of friendly troops even after your troops have taken the walls as well as after the battle is won and we are all cheering.
End Game
Garrisons- They don’t clear out looters, they don’t defend villages, they don’t protect caravans, they do nothing but act as defenders during a siege, as reserves during long wars and eat all of your town’s food, maybe?
Lords- they don’t seem to defend their fiefs or care for them at all. Without passing every policy available to up town loyalty you will have rebellions every few weeks. As a King you feel near useless to stop the loyalty drain on a town you don’t own. During the little peace you have some lords will keep 90% of your nobles in an army roaming around while their fiefs get overrun with looters and issues.
Fiefs- Sometimes your towns will run out of food completely and I see no reason for it, just that they are at -14 food. I get no feedback on what I need to do to fix it. Is the garrison to big, is the militia to big, should I run irrigation or housing to fix it, I have no idea?
Diplomacy- although it has gotten better its still near nonexistent. I can’t make allies; I have no nonaggression pacts. It’s just severely limited in every way. Enemies travel through my lands without even being harassed by my garrisons or militia, I have no border defense at all. They can walk a 1,000 man army to the middle of my lands, declare war and take a town before I know what is happening.
Final thoughts
early to mid-game are very enjoyable and I love the freedom to choose your own way of making money. The big issues become very apparent as the troop numbers increase and your number of towns and castle grow. The end game just becomes endless war without anytime to build up an army or garrison. The large battles with the random spawns and AI that refuse to engage become unbearable to the point of wanting to restart just to go back to having fun in game.
Random
-prebattle duels that give extra moral for your troops or loss of moral if you lose
-let me warn my lords of approaching armies, tell them to patrol areas, tell them to take certain towns or castles. If we had these and many other features in Warband, why are they not in this game.
-why does the Sturgian infantry still suck?
-auto resolve still allows looter to kill top tier troops. Example I lost a Fian Champion to auto resolve of 170 troops to 1 looter
-limit number of troops universally until you can find a fix for the horrible spawn in of reserves or break engagements up into 500v500 chunks with an option to reengage afterwards or flee. Honestly don’t know how you fix this until you can allow full armies to spawn all at once, which might be impossible with the number of troops. I don’t see a 2,000v2,000 battle running very well at all so why allow lord to have such large armies.
- more gore
Thank you for reading and please remember these are just my thoughts and opinions as of 1.7.2’’
), has obviously neither been thought nor tested before, and who is completely biasing battles.
