RNG stuff that should be made more interactive.

[Apocal]

1. Supporters.
Supporters are such a huge mechanic for generating piles of free influence (if you don't want to fight a million battles or take half the continent as your personal fiefdom) and it is not only semi-hidden behind a tooltip but also also completely unexplained how you acquire them. The gist is: have high relations and wait. A long time. Like a really, really long time. Ten to fifteen years or more.

2. Policy votes.
Nobles choose which policy to put to a vote at nearly complete random. The easiest way to test this is to watch a policy vote called, then load the game again. Odds are there won't be another one (unlike wardecs) and if there is, it will be for something totally different (also unlike wardecs). The AI doesn't know or understand what it needs. It has no interaction with what is happening in the game world. Things like their clan wallet, conquered fiefs, distribution between towns and villages, etc. should have a big impact on which policies they support and which ones they don't want.

3. Having children.
You wait in a settlement. And wait. And wait some more. Eventually, your wife is pregnant. Maybe. I understand that for rating purposes that TW might not be able to put in an obvious "let's try for a baby" button and that is fine. But can there at least be some indication of the relative chance, with a way to push the needle in your favor. Relations, gifts, playing board games, whatever.

What else can you guys think of?

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Getting married, at least for MC some kind of quest or set of events would be nice. War declaration would be better with some reasons displayed and a way to interact such as sending gift to foreign faction or even proposing a longer peace or a alliance against another faction. Same with your own vassals, you should have way to interact and appease them other then just veto votes. And of course these second 2 need to be remote, if it requires the player to waste time running all over to talk to npcs, it becomes worthless as campaign time is the true currency, with gold and infleunce coming endlessly from any useful activity on the game.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

I understand that for rating purposes that TW might not be able to put in an obvious "let's try for a baby" button and that is fine.

Pretty sure Bannerlord is already 16+ (in the UK at least), but "let's have a baby" without any other elaboration isn't subject to rating as far as I know.

I think having kids is always going to have a strong element of RNG since you can't exactly integrate it into gameplay well (unless...????). However if the pacing actually made the generational system relevant, they might do something like in CK 2 where the game suspends RNG just to make sure you have at least one heir per generation so that a dice roll doesn't ruin your playthrough. I definitely think they should just give you a pregnancy fairly soon after you get married, then leave the rest up to RNG.

 

[JunKeteer]

I think having kids is always going to have a strong element of RNG since you can't exactly integrate it into gameplay well (unless...????). However if the pacing actually made the generational system relevant, they might do something like in CK 2 where the game suspends RNG just to make sure you have at least one heir per generation so that a dice roll doesn't ruin your playthrough. I definitely think they should just give you a pregnancy fairly soon after you get married, then leave the rest up to RNG.

Pretty sure an oversight by the devs that wasn't fully considered with the rest of the mechanics. It immediately gives the player a timer (afaik, from 20 to ~35?); yes, if you play as a male, less so TBD on the wife's age. They 'dismissed' this issue by saying one can just turn death&age off but that's lazy.
Why not, besides only your partner or children, add an option to take over one of your companions (since they are in your clan) as well to buffer potentially scuffed playthroughs. Each playthrough in this game is a lot more commitment than, say, Kenshi where death makes it practically almost rogue-like in some cases (but they also allow you to take over any member to the end).

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Each playthrough in this game is a lot more commitment than, say, Kenshi where death makes it practically almost rogue-like in some cases (but they also allow you to take over any member to the end)

I disagree, Kenshi playthroughs can easily last 100+ hours, much longer than a Bannerlord campaign. It's a fairly forgiving game despite what redditors keep saying, and after the earlygame there is almost no chance of losing.

It's for this reason that I don't think it matters that the player doesn't always have an heir. Currently everyone in BL is railroaded into a full world conquest. The equivalent of that in Kenshi is taking out all the endgame bosses, which is about 100 hours if you play it casually. But if they gave Bannerlord more earlygame options and allowed people to "finish" a campaign without conquering the map, it would make the generational mechanics even more redundant than they already are.

 

[JunKeteer]

I disagree, Kenshi playthroughs can easily last 100+ hours, much longer than a Bannerlord campaign. It's a fairly forgiving game despite what redditors keep saying, and after the earlygame there is almost no chance of losing.

It's for this reason that I don't think it matters that the player doesn't always have an heir. Currently everyone in BL is railroaded into a full world conquest. The equivalent of that in Kenshi is taking out all the endgame bosses, which is about 100 hours if you play it casually. But if they gave Bannerlord more earlygame options and allowed people to "finish" a campaign without conquering the map, it would make the generational mechanics even more redundant than they already are.

Yes, but the success in that genre/game too is the fact a 1hour playthrough (die to bonedog) could be just as 'complete' as a 400+ hour playthrough; player 'story-wise'. And similarly with companions, if your 'main char' dies, you have the potential 31+ recruits to take over so it doesn't really matter if your 'main' dies anyways. To get to that point in BL, even if you speedrun marriage/kid, will take quite some time.
In BL (with death enabled), if you want to make a worthwhile playthrough, even with your own imposed handicaps to slow the game down/avoid late-game, you pretty much have to get married/kid to continue that playthrough or it's 'wasted' after a certain point (particularly if you play as a female). There's no 'chance' to redeem that playthrough after a certain point - if you're single and childless by the time you're 40, might as well delete that playthrough and start a new one. Not like the other features in the game, besides said 'railroaded world conquest' make it worth watching your char age and die to 'complete' the playthrough.

 

[Ichon]

Why not allow adoptions? Was fairly common in history and if the person adopted was from a noble lineage with no openly known heirs the legitimacy was very sound.

50% of legitimacy issues came from the children of the eldest female line when their eldest was male (nephews) or and about a quarter of the rest was uncles challenging when their elder brother died without a solid heir (no male child or children as infants)

 

[Apocal]

Why not allow adoptions? Was fairly common in history and if the person adopted was from a noble lineage with no openly known heirs the legitimacy was very sound.

50% of legitimacy issues came from the children of the eldest female line when their eldest was male (nephews) or and about a quarter of the rest was uncles challenging when their elder brother died without a solid heir (no male child or children as infants)

For game purposes, all of your companions are already treated as if they were family members for the purpose of inheritance. You can just pick them if you die.

 

[Ichon]

For game purposes, all of your companions are already treated as if they were family members for the purpose of inheritance. You can just pick them if you die.

Most of my companions are the same age though and I was guessing they are all going to start dying quickly around the same time. I don't know what random wanderers will be around if I need to add new companions quickly but I guess that is close enough- I was thinking more to adopt from the noble clans just to start with a heir with higher stats.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

For game purposes, all of your companions are already treated as if they were family members for the purpose of inheritance. You can just pick them if you die.

Have you done this recently? I thought people were saying you couldn't continue as wanderers anymore. I've still never seen any of it because I've never died

 

[Apocal]

Have you done this recently? I thought people were saying you couldn't continue as wanderers anymore. I've still never seen any of it because I've never died

I haven't done it recently.

 

[AJAJP_Juan]

Have you done this recently? I thought people were saying you couldn't continue as wanderers anymore. I've still never seen any of it because I've never died

I haven't done it recently.

Back in 1.8 and 1.7 I couldn't choose a companion as heir, only wife and daughter.

 

[Amerlain]

Kind of a small thing, but it would be nice if you could choose the color of the main character's horse. Not sure what the current factors are that determine it ...is it the breed or is it random?

 

[VVL99]

3.
• Dear, you and I are not yet so close for children.
• Dear, we have so much more to do, there is no time for children.
• Honey, I love you so much that I want children.

2.
• There are poor clans in our faction, we need laws to improve the economy.
• Now the political situation is difficult, we need laws to strengthen our faction.
• Some clans have more privileges than others, we need equal rights laws.

1.
• We have good relations with various influential people, but in every issue you have to take into account your own benefits, you need to think about it.

 

[Koka_Kohga]

Kind of a small thing, but it would be nice if you could choose the color of the main character's horse. Not sure what the current factors are that determine it ...is it the breed or is it random?

I'm into this. It doesn't even matter but I want a cute horsey, darn it!

 

[GeminiTiger]

I disagree, Kenshi playthroughs can easily last 100+ hours, much longer than a Bannerlord campaign. It's a fairly forgiving game despite what redditors keep saying, and after the earlygame there is almost no chance of losing.

I think you missed some context. In Kenshi should you lose a character it's simply a point of your story that will not change the ultimate outcome, it's a roleplayable moment and that's it at worst a setback, but that's it. Contrary to BNRLD where people have it in their mind specifically to build a dynasty and a bloodline, when you play BNRLD for 10 years you have put in a lot of hours and if you have 3 daughters to show for it your done or setback so far that you can only think about grandchildren, but due to the limits of the system it's basically the end of your game you might as well start over. In campaign mode you won't have an issue likely with 2 brothers you will get enough to not worry about it, but in sandbox mode where I think MANY people are hoping that as the first batch of kids become competent adults, you will want to take over the world. Random shouldn't be such a factor in the outcome of a ten's of hours campaign.

I think the limit of 10 kids max in a clan and perhaps 8 kids max per couple with a max of 50% daughters is reasonable. (The last bit means that if female kids > male kids, the next kid is male kid) Anything though would be better than what we have now.