v1.1.0 sieges are completely broken now

[Sir Frederic]

In general, I usually besiege cities with 100 militia and 100 (or so) soldiers, and the result tends to be that with at least 500 troops victory is assured with minimal (single digit) casualties if you simply do the Trebuchet trick (I wouldn't want them to be even more effective than they already are--the other weapons need more desirability, or durability specifically, since I've had no real results with them I couldn't have gotten better and faster with Trebuchets). I think it'd be much better if sieges were much harsher for the attacker, so that you'd ideally outnumber them 6-1 to get the kind of easy steamrolling results I'm describing. 100 total troops ought to be roughly equal to 500 and armies ought to regularly be huge 1000+ stacks to topple your average city/castle. I think as long as it remains cost-prohibitive to have more than 1-200 soldiers in a city/castle, this numeric balance could work.

In these conditions I even build something, as soon as the camp is finished I attack. i usually use fians and have good medicine, my brutality has no consequences for my troops.

And unfortunately at least in my game, that's the most common type of siege I have, the one that's not worth building anything, just charging at them. Only in quite late games, in cities super isolated from the war, usually in Aserai or Vlandia, can you get the challenge of using machinery first.

Without a doubt, it would be better, as you say, that the sieges demand a lot. They should consider improving the militia, in equipment and skill, as well as having a strong initial recovery, or the wounded militia cannot be captured, return to the militia. That the garrison improves in experience more strongly, that a city has 200 soldiers, but cat 5, some impact. that the AI capture and take care of the newly conquered and avoid the daily change of hands, that the nobles stop looting villages that do not need to be looted, mainly the city that they are already besieging (it will be yours shortly, stop doing that!) Everything takes a coordinated job of improvement that they should do.

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

In these conditions I even build something, as soon as the camp is finished I attack. i usually use fians and have good medicine, my brutality has no consequences for my troops.

And unfortunately at least in my game, that's the most common type of siege I have, the one that's not worth building anything, just charging at them. Only in quite late games, in cities super isolated from the war, usually in Aserai or Vlandia, can you get the challenge of using machinery first.

Without a doubt, it would be better, as you say, that the sieges demand a lot. They should consider improving the militia, in equipment and skill, as well as having a strong initial recovery, or the wounded militia cannot be captured, return to the militia. That the garrison improves in experience more strongly, that a city has 200 soldiers, but cat 5, some impact. that the AI capture and take care of the newly conquered and avoid the daily change of hands, that the nobles stop looting villages that do not need to be looted, mainly the city that they are already besieging (it will be yours shortly, stop doing that!) Everything takes a coordinated job of improvement that they should do.

Is it the tactic that involves having archers shoot from behind shields, like in Warband? Yeah, I can imagine it being very effective--especially against fiefs lacking sentries. An easy counter to that would be for fiefs to start out with defense weapons immediately so that you're likely to get mortared if you try the tactic without first destroying the city siege weapons.

Yeah, improving the quality of militia is probably what they ought to do. I think in the troop encyclopedia there actually is a troop tree for Militia, going up to 3 tiers, I think, so there's probably already the pieces necessary to make them improve with experience (etc.) there already--it just needs to be configured properly.

I don't think opportunistic raiding of fiefs you're about to conquer is that irrational; 99% of the clans participating in the campaign won't actually be holding the fief afterwards, so that's essentially there way of compensating for themselves. It's obviously counter-productive to grand strategy, but the difficulty is probably supposed to be in corralling the clans into something resembling an actual army group while every individual actor weighs what's good for their country versus their own self-interests and morality.

I do think it'd be interesting if they implemented a system of centralization/modernization that all kingdoms would slowly gravitate towards, with the end result being essentially an early modern state where the nobles are coordinated by higher ranking nobles and royals with a proper governing body to regulate the transition from feudalism into federalism. As far as I know, there's already a hidden mechanic where nobles, based on personality type, have a preference for policies that are either oligarchic, autocratic, or populist in focus while disfavoring one or two others. It may be beyond the scope of Bannerlord presently, but I'd love to play a version of this game where a big part of progression is the changing of the times and evolution of states. In terms of gameplay, this'd mainly be a shifting of powers from nobles being effectively autonomous chieftains with a noble democracy towards either a centralized autocracy where the rights of nobles is largely dependent on the will of the monarch and/or higher nobility; a more advanced oligarchy that essentially resembles a noble parliament where the nobility remain in control but with stricter obligations mutually imposed upon one another; and something that erodes both the powers of noble and monarch while still centralizing the government, perhaps similar to other early modern parliaments that evolved in Europe or some periods of Chinese history. Heck, an outright democracy of some kind (not just the noble democracies we have currently) would be interesting to see implemented though I am not sure how it'd be done without essentially turning the clans involved into "named private citizen families" and fief ownership into elected offices, etc.

 

[Sir Frederic]

Is it the tactic that involves having archers shoot from behind shields, like in Warband? Yeah, I can imagine it being very effective--especially against fiefs lacking sentries

A shield soldier is one less fian in the party, just fians. f1+f3 and they will go up the stairs cleaning everything. If you call some allies to the siege better, just to improve the balance of power and reduce the difference of troop numbers in the battle, most likely 95% of the troops will be your fians, since the AI hardly use tier 6 troops Try one day a hero focused on being a good captain of archers and only uses fians, it's broken, any battle you enter will be doing more than half the damage, very profitable.

Yeah, improving the quality of militia is probably what they ought to do. I think in the troop encyclopedia there actually is a troop tree for Militia, going up to 3 tiers, I think, so there's probably already the pieces necessary to make them improve with experience (etc.) there already--it just needs to be configured properly.

A stronger militia would prevent what I commented above, or me conquering 5 cities with 16 characters. The only slightly decent militia is Vlandia's, because they use crossbows and can do significant damage with them. The militia categories only apply to one of the policies that make them appear, but it is a policy that, as I recall, has many negative points, it is very difficult to apply if you enter a kingdom and it does not significantly improve the militia either. . A strong militia could prevent the cities from falling easily, because even if the city was conquered, the battle would do enough damage for the army instead of going after another conquest, to concentrate on recovering and taking care of what they conquered. Letting the player can enjoy the game, mainly offering exciting sieges.

I don't think opportunistic raiding of fiefs you're about to conquer is that irrational

It seems irrational to me, mainly because apart from generating almost no profit, it makes the newly conquered city have no food, you cannot replenish troops, it becomes a dead zone for days that causes the armies to end up without food. Most of the problems we talk about here stem from that senseless destruction. poor cities that are not a challenge to conquer, poor enemies that are not a challenge on the battlefield, all for a few extra coins.

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

A shield soldier is one less fian in the party, just fians. f1+f3 and they will go up the stairs cleaning everything. If you call some allies to the siege better, just to improve the balance of power and reduce the difference of troop numbers in the battle, most likely 95% of the troops will be your fians, since the AI hardly use tier 6 troops Try one day a hero focused on being a good captain of archers and only uses fians, it's broken, any battle you enter will be doing more than half the damage, very profitable.

Sounds like what I've read of Huscarls in the original Mount and Blade lol. However, I've not had that kind of OP effect with fians on PS4 with the 350 troop limitation so I suspect it only works consistently if you can field all your fians and not have to worry about enemy wave reinforcements. However, having said that, just 16 guys and taking down ~100 militia? Yeah, I can imagine that--unfortunately--lol. They really are that bad after all. Never mind an army of top tier troops (forget fians--ANYBODY can make militia look bad!) lol. I'd hate to try it only to discover it works...

It seems irrational to me, mainly because apart from generating almost no profit, it makes the newly conquered city have no food, you cannot replenish troops, it becomes a dead zone for days that causes the armies to end up without food. Most of the problems we talk about here stem from that senseless destruction. poor cities that are not a challenge to conquer, poor enemies that are not a challenge on the battlefield, all for a few extra coins.

It's irrational from a national and strategic perspective, but perfectly rational from a tribal/clan perspective. Like, to use a hypothetical example, if it's me and 3 other clans (like... dey Folcun, Banu Sarran, and fen Uvain or something) with a single retinue each participating in a siege of Ortysia, who among them will actually acquire the city after the theoretical blood, sweat, and tears? The Khergits, that's who, because they own the nearest castle or city and thus have first dibs on it while the other guys each have large territories of their own (or enough to be disadvantaged next to proximity bonuses) and absolutely no shot at it even if they do all the work. Therefore, to compensate for themselves, it makes sense they steal everything that isn't nailed down and present a big "F U" to whoever actually does get Ortysia since it's not going to be them and they (theoretically) know it lol.

Of course, it's completely irrational to raid a country you'll be ruling/governing yourself in just a few days; but, morality aside, it actually is rational to enrich yourself at the expense of others. There's no federal police or oversight committee or anything resembling "war crimes" control for this behavior, and the lack of national/faction loyalty means there's no reason to be thoughtful like that.

I think a potential way to "fix" this problem would be more Traits to carry more value in morals. As far as I know, Merciful lords do not pillage unless forced to (like as part of an army) so this fix theoretically already exists. And, if more Traits were assigned a diminished probability of raiding, it probably wouldn't change much since the many psychopaths would continue anyway in their place lol. Furthermore, in the absence of some kind of "commoner reputation system" or SOMETHING to give A.I.s reasons to be ethical or brotherly with each other, it's just a thing that will always be. It DOES have some rationality to it though--and a final "justification" is as an insurance against a failed take-over; who's to say they'll take Ortysia? Maybe King Derthert will show up with a huge army that utterly crushes the attackers or quickly retakes the city. Devastating the land spites the new/restored authority and weakens their ability to maintain the land (or otherwise benefit from it) while, again, compensating the people who fought to take it in the first place.

 

[Sir Frederic]

Sounds like what I've read of Huscarls in the original Mount and Blade lol. However, I've not had that kind of OP effect with fians on PS4 with the 350 troop limitation so I suspect it only works consistently if you can field all your fians and not have to worry about enemy wave reinforcements. However, having said that, just 16 guys and taking down ~100 militia? Yeah, I can imagine that--unfortunately--lol. They really are that bad after all. Never mind an army of top tier troops (forget fians--ANYBODY can make militia look bad!) lol. I'd hate to try it only to discover it works...




It's irrational from a national and strategic perspective, but perfectly rational from a tribal/clan perspective. Like, to use a hypothetical example, if it's me and 3 other clans (like... dey Folcun, Banu Sarran, and fen Uvain or something) with a single retinue each participating in a siege of Ortysia, who among them will actually acquire the city after the theoretical blood, sweat, and tears? The Khergits, that's who, because they own the nearest castle or city and thus have first dibs on it while the other guys each have large territories of their own (or enough to be disadvantaged next to proximity bonuses) and absolutely no shot at it even if they do all the work. Therefore, to compensate for themselves, it makes sense they steal everything that isn't nailed down and present a big "F U" to whoever actually does get Ortysia since it's not going to be them and they (theoretically) know it lol.

Of course, it's completely irrational to raid a country you'll be ruling/governing yourself in just a few days; but, morality aside, it actually is rational to enrich yourself at the expense of others. There's no federal police or oversight committee or anything resembling "war crimes" control for this behavior, and the lack of national/faction loyalty means there's no reason to be thoughtful like that.

I think a potential way to "fix" this problem would be more Traits to carry more value in morals. As far as I know, Merciful lords do not pillage unless forced to (like as part of an army) so this fix theoretically already exists. And, if more Traits were assigned a diminished probability of raiding, it probably wouldn't change much since the many psychopaths would continue anyway in their place lol. Furthermore, in the absence of some kind of "commoner reputation system" or SOMETHING to give A.I.s reasons to be ethical or brotherly with each other, it's just a thing that will always be. It DOES have some rationality to it though--and a final "justification" is as an insurance against a failed take-over; who's to say they'll take Ortysia? Maybe King Derthert will show up with a huge army that utterly crushes the attackers or quickly retakes the city. Devastating the land spites the new/restored authority and weakens their ability to maintain the land (or otherwise benefit from it) while, again, compensating the people who fought to take it in the first place.

When you go to war, you are supposed to have a plan of conquest, looting is strategic, because you need to starve your enemies, not yourself. That is why the sites existed, you did not destroy the fields or villages, because instead of looting or destroying, you ate that food. A looting as presented in Bannerlord is the one that is done to destroy a source of resources, fields, houses are destroyed, people are killed. It is the type of looting that you need to destroy the village so that the enemy can not advance, it is a looting that they should do in the enemy zone away from the main conflict zone. Make it difficult for them to get food and troops.

The faction leaders ask you by mission to do just that, it's almost ironic that the AI doesn't do it, it doesn't do it because they don't know how or don't want to correct it.

Finally, traits have no effect on this decision, merciful will loot, hunt villagers or caravans regardless of their trait, I seem to remember that I even saw a merciful army leader devastate a city. There is no behavioral AI. the traits only serve to improve or hinder the interaction with the player. I think that's why it bothers me so much, the looting is indiscriminate, even looting villages of their own nation, or worse, looting the villages that were even theirs initially, like seeing someone from the Dey Arromanc clan, looting the Arromanc village.

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

When you go to war, you are supposed to have a plan of conquest, looting is strategic, because you need to starve your enemies, not yourself. That is why the sites existed, you did not destroy the fields or villages, because instead of looting or destroying, you ate that food. A looting as presented in Bannerlord is the one that is done to destroy a source of resources, fields, houses are destroyed, people are killed. It is the type of looting that you need to destroy the village so that the enemy can not advance, it is a looting that they should do in the enemy zone away from the main conflict zone. Make it difficult for them to get food and troops.

If Bannerlord's Calradia was actually organized enough, then you'd be right, but since it's a highly tribalistic Dark Age society where right and wrong are lofty ideals and the strong determine the order of things, strategic interests are secondary or even tertiary to paranoid self-interest. However, just because I can rationalize it doesn't mean I support it being the way it is in its current state; it could be better, and I'd prefer it if countries could gradually modernize and if ethical values played a greater role in determining A.I. behaviors, peer to peer relations, and their treatment of the player-agent.

The faction leaders ask you by mission to do just that, it's almost ironic that the AI doesn't do it, it doesn't do it because they don't know how or don't want to correct it.

Finally, traits have no effect on this decision, merciful will loot, hunt villagers or caravans regardless of their trait, I seem to remember that I even saw a merciful army leader devastate a city. There is no behavioral AI. the traits only serve to improve or hinder the interaction with the player. I think that's why it bothers me so much, the looting is indiscriminate, even looting villages of their own nation, or worse, looting the villages that were even theirs initially, like seeing someone from the Dey Arromanc clan, looting the Arromanc village.

However, if you're right about the Merciful trait not impacting A.I. behavior, then that's a problem that ought to be fixed. Furthermore, it's a problem for lords to shamelessly terrorize their own (possibly centuries-long) multigenerational holdings that may well have been "their tribe" for all intents and purposes. It's logical if the psychopaths do that, but it's illogical for everybody to be a psychopath with an equally non-existent conscience nor significant peer to peer enforcement of what they consider to be common values. Warband was a simpler game, but I distinctly recall the Honor system existing to both simulate an international value system and reward/punish you for adhering/neglecting to what was considered moral. I think Bannerlord would benefit from greater horizontal enforcement/encouragement of in-setting ethical values.

 

[hiBoB]

It really bothers me that you no longer get to deploy before a siege defense... Why? My party has been in the city for days we should have had time to prepare for battle
I used to spend some time setting up killboxes and funnel the ennemy inside, it felt great and when I did it well I could win sieges with pretty bad odds.
It just baffles me that someone actively took that decision. Why? How does it make the game better? Why take away a good feature that was previously in the game? this is the opposite of a quality of life update...

 

[Shinobi Musashi]

It really bothers me that you no longer get to deploy before a siege defense... Why? My party has been in the city for days we should have had time to prepare for battle
I used to spend some time setting up killboxes and funnel the ennemy inside, it felt great and when I did it well I could win sieges with pretty bad odds.
It just baffles me that someone actively took that decision. Why? How does it make the game better? Why take away a good feature that was previously in the game? this is the opposite of a quality of life update...

First time? This is pretty standard practice for Taleworlds, make the game least enjoyable as possible, honestly I think they are trying to kill it.