Recent content by beanywalrus

Duh_TaleWorlds said:

Isnt that pretty much what they say?

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Its a bit poorly worded I think. It sounds more like they’re simply not willing to join you, regardless of relationship or cash, not that you don’t have enough to barter.

Blood Gryphon said:

@beanywalrus you've got to focus trying to recruit clans that have no fiefs and have a poor wealth status, they will only cost you a few hundred thousand to recruit. If you go after clans that have fiefs then they will want you to pay for them to leave their fiefs, you are essentially convincing them to leave everything behind.

My biggest gripe with recruitment is that we can't offer fiefs to trade instead of cash. I should be able to give one of my fiefs up to lower the cost of recruitment.

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I was able to recruit a lord with a town not too long ago, the price wasn't too bad, and I think his wealth was poor. I'm trying to do the same with other clans now and they don't even give me the option - I'm friends with both clans in question. The priority just seems busted and unreliable right now, which is why I prefer Warband's recruitment. Honorable lords would stick with a king despite having no fiefs until the very end, bad natured lords were never happy unless you were feasting with them 24/7 to where you can give someone else attention without them running away. Friendships mattered a lot. But now having it based on how much money the player can spend on recruitment just seems like the priority is off, like I'm not RP'ing, just min-maxing my income.

Blood Gryphon said:

I haven't made this assumption yet because armies also cooperate in defending sieges as well now. This is why you don't see much happen in the first 5 years.

The biggest anomaly so far in 1.8.0 compared to other versions is the high defection rate. The weirdest part is clans in kingdoms that are winning are defecting as well, which makes me think there is a bug with it. Also I can tell you that defections are the fastest way to snowballing, one of the big reasons snowballing came down in the past is that defections essentially stopped.

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Could very well be. The only time I ever witnessed a defection in 500 hours of playing was when the game first released, and everyone, including ruler clans, would join other kingdoms once it was looking bad. And that playthrough was only a few years long.

Blood Gryphon said:

Ok so here are the results for two 20 year snowball tests for patch 1.8.0. This patch has definitely shook things up and the map is much more spicy now.

Here are the results of Test 1.

Spoiler: 5 years

Spoiler: 10 years

Spoiler: 20 years top

Spoiler: 20 years bottom

Spoiler: Test 1 Snowball Scores

Spoiler: Test 1 Clan Status

Spoiler: Test 1 Wealth Status

Here are the results of Test 2.

Spoiler: 5 years

Spoiler: 10 years

Spoiler: 20 years

Spoiler: Test 2 Snowball Score

Spoiler: Test 2 Clan Status

Spoiler: Test 2 Wealth Status

Here are observations I've made while throwing all the data together for both tests @SadShogun .

• 20 year snowball scores have jumped up to 80 and 71, numbers we haven't seen since 1.5.6 (generally have averaged about 30-40 the past several patches). The map is definitely not stable anymore after 20 years, but we do see a relatively calm early game with 5 year snowball scores only being 13 and 12. We saw different mid games with test one having a snowball score of 41 after 10 years and test two having a score of 19. So even though test two hadn't escalated as fast as test one in 10 years they both end up relatively high by 20 years.
• My guess on why snowballing is much higher now is something to do with defection. If you look at the recruited clans column in the clan status table you'll see we have 19 and 22 clans that have flip kingdoms, in previous patches defections would only happen if the kingdom was losing territory and going broke, but ive noticed even the strong kingdoms are having clans defect. If you compare starting clans with original clans(@20 years) you'll notice every kingdom has had at least 1 clan defect.

Spoiler: Aserai clan joined Southern empire, they are the only ones in SE with territory in the middle of Aserai's kingdom that they brought with them when they defected

Spoiler: Vlandia clan joins Battania, vlandia is the second strongest without a decline in power throughout 20 years

• Wealth is still a mirror of the state of the world, with more clear winners there are a lot of rich clans, but with more losers there are also lots of poor clans. Good to see there are barely any very poor clans as that's normally an indication that clans are too poor to build full armies.
• I noticed there seems to be about a 50% chance that a rebel group that becomes an official clan will get recruited by a kingdom. Most of them join the kingdom that is the same as their culture which is a good sign. The ones who dont get recruited seem to get themselves into wars with everyone in the world leaving them with no one to join.

Spoiler: Rebel Clans @ war with almost everyone

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• There seems to be an issue with marriage, i wasnt seeing many if any at all and there didnt seem to be any young children left by 20 years.

Spoiler: Clans with no newborn children or marriages, lots more than this

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Only two tests so take everything with a grain of salt.

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I imagine the higher snowballing score is due to armies cooperating in sieges. In 1.7.2, besiegers don't have enough to take towns most of the time, and will get torn apart by reinforcing armies at a certain threshold.

Been awhile since I've checked here, there's been quite a few good changes to the game I think. Notably I love how I'm not seeing entire armies of recruits and battles regularly have elites. I like alot of these changes coming too and armor effectiveness has been a gripe since day 1. But there's still some improvements not mentioned here and would suggest some things -
1. Perks. Most are very underwhelming. Some are good ideas but with very small effects, they should be much more meaningful. Compared to Warband's skills, they don't have a huge impact aside from a notable few, such as the ones that allow you to discard gear for XP and trading perks. The RPG elements of this game are not as rewarding as say Warband's, where every skill has a notable impact. It's also odd why some skills have perks that should belong to entirely different skills. Currently it seems like the game is less of an RPG than Warband, with only a few skills worth investing in until abandoning at a certain point. I'd also like to see some troops have perks if possible.
2. Battle AI. A battle larger than your battle size tends to turn into a moshpit, with both sides not using tactics and just carelessly charging. We also need better and more reactive siege defense, with communication between defenders and strategic retreats. I'm not talking about street fights or your good implementation of keep fights, but moving to choke points and other layers of defense. As for communication, having something like notifications for when ladders are docked and certain walls are taken would help alot. I've also noticed that sometimes an idiot will run towards the gate and try to open it, or a defender will rush the ladders to push them off, ignoring enemies around them.
3. Culture. Should not be static and should change over long periods of time, encouraging generational gameplay. The AI also struggles to maintain towns of a different culture. I like the rebellion system, but it seems like the player is the only one capable of preventing a rebellion. And given the current problem of children inheriting the mother's race without any possibility of choosing the culture to adopt, generational gameplay is doomed to chaos. Allow us to choose what culture our children adopt and have the AI make intelligent, lore-friendly decisions based on their culture. Battanians generally should not be marrying Imperials. Adding to that, culture should have more of an impact on the world, with certain factions being ruthless towards others, like Battanians beheading any Imperial they capture if they're merciless, and vice versa.
4. Companions. Frankly I don't like how they're done at all. I don't mind having some random companions, but everyone randomized with no real character to them is just not fun. They don't refund gear when they die and are mostly a bad investment unless you give them a caravan or have them govern. Given everyone is randomized and new companions are not generated as a campaign goes on, you may never see certain types, like "spice vendors." Bring back Warband companions and their personalities, allow us to make them lords, get married to them, etc.
5. Lords recover too quickly from defeat and ransoms should be 10x more, ideally scaling off their wealth and power. Taking them prisoner still doesn't seem worthwhile as they'll either escape quickly or be ransomed for a day's wages.
6. Speaking of days wages, they should be less frequent if at all possible. I've never been a fan of daily wages. I get that the time is accelerated but it should be every 2 days. Nobody in their right mind would pay soldiers a daily wage. Every two days, however, would be a better simulation of the 120 day years (60) payments and scale better with a weekly wage, which would be 52 payments across 365 days.
7. Might be a bit much to suggest but using the appropriate town siege scene for battles between reinforcing armies, besiegers, and defenders. Having the besiegers stuck between two armies with the defenders coming from the walls the reinforcing army coming from behind them would add a ton of risk and immersion to every siege. It'd also be really fun.

I agree, this should really be in a future patch. Right now every castle will eventually lose their worth.

Every time I get into a battle I can't help but be annoyed that the reinforcements spawn in seemingly the middle of the battlefield. The maps are simply too small, attackers will always have the issue of reinforcements coming right behind them from thin air. Not just in field battles - sieges have this issue too. An entire wave of defenders can spawn literally right at the gates, on top of you, while your men have just defeated the initial defenders. How is this acceptable gameplay? Reinforcements should spawn in with large waves, in formation, outside the borders, and come into the map. In sieges, defenders must come from the keep/barracks.

Midnitewolf said:

I will respond to this how I always do to these kind of responses.

This is a single player experience. At the end of the day the only person the game has to please is you. Play however you want. If exploiting the system makes the game more fun for you do it, simple as that.

However, that doesn't change the fact that your exploiting the game to have that mighty elite garrison. Saying that the base game should remain broken just to accommodate your playstyle doesn't improve the overall game because most people would like the base game to work as intended without any exploitable mechanics. That is just the place we should start from.

Also, I will let you in on a little secret. If you want to exploit the game to make money, don't waste your time with Javelins, just use alt + ~ and open the console command menu to give yourself any amount of money you want. Takes like 20 seconds. Did it last night and gave myself 100 million Denar so I could afford to recruit a lord with 3 cities who hated me to my faction. You can also use to to spawn in items and any number of things. Also mods will work wonders for exploiting and cheating. I got my game set to gain skill like 3 times faster than normal and I get 1 focus and 1 attribute per level. I even got tweaks that make it so it is easier to manage town. On and I use a mod that allows me to edit the skills of all my companions and myself and I use it to mod out some sweet, actually qualified, governors for my towns and castles. Also I do various other things with mods to make the game more enjoyable for myself.

Seriously though, it is ok to cheat, exploit or whatever if that makes the game more fun for you, but campaigning to have a broken mechanic to be purposely left in the game to cater to the playstyle you want, isn't the way to go about it. At the end of the day, the base game should be as exploit free as possible, in case in the future you or someone else wants a hardmode experience.

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You're ignoring that I said I want the exploit to be fixed.

Voice acting would go a long way in making the characters alive. And no, not generic garbage either - we have enough generic companions. Every family head should be voice acted with a unique voice, and unique personality. I barely recall any lords names in all my time playing this. They're all bland and generic NPCs with expensive armor that take longer to die than the other NPCs.

Midnitewolf said:

Here is the thing. You shouldn't have a garrison of 200 Elite Cataphracts, 400 Legionaries and 300 Palatine guards. Those units are elite and should only make up a small part of your forces because their cost is so high. Instead your forces should be mostly made up of lower tiered units JUST LIKE THE AI LORDS which is why the income is what it is.

Also you have just pointed out why Javelins are an exploit. They are an exploit BECAUSE they allow you to have that kind of crazy elite force.

Seriously, this game is supposed to be be a simulation of the medieval world with at least a limited basis in historical accuracy. Armies, even from the most wealthy countries were probably 70% levy, basically untrained or lowly trained troops with limited equipment. 20% professional soldier and 10% elite. You get plenty of money in game to support that sort of army and garrisons.

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Counterpoint: This is not real life, its a single player RPG game. It's supposed to be fun. Who wants to play a slugfest where you lose 3/4 of your army in a single battle and have to go to every single village and play town hero until you can recruit peasants with shields? It's not like the AI even plays by this imaginary rule you've come with anyhow - you will never see say Rhagea with an elite retinue of palatine guards and cataphracts - just whatever troops she happened to recruit nearby. The AI never has to buy their own equipment which can currently cost the player millions - that is if you can find it. I agree javelins need to have a reasonable price, but so does literally everything else in the game. As it stands I can buy a cataphract 2 million denars of gear without ever coming close to getting that myself. The best way to make money it seems is buying a wife, taking her stuff, getting her killed, rinse and repeat.

Armor should decrease the chance of dying in battle by its average coverage on top of the base chance. It's great to see lords dying, but it does indeed happen way too frequently - heroes too. Even if you're testing it, how am I supposed to reasonably keep playing when every hero I grab dies the minute they're KO'd. Off topic I gotta say there have been some good changes to the game since I played last in June, knocking riders off horses, better impact, AI snowball is much more reasonable, and factions will strive to make peace. But performance has absolutely tanked and the menu lag is borderline unplayable, good armor and weapons are still way too expensive. Either make them reasonable or reverse caravan/workshop nerfs. Better yet, both.

Yes, you do realize you're fighting trash armies in control of the AI, right? Of course horse archers seem unbalanced when you fight the worst units in the game with them.