Recent content by Bluko88
-
It might be a good time to talk about Sturgian Druzhinnik
Honestly I really don't see why the Sturgians shouldn't be more infantry focused. I mean do we really need 3 (actually 4) cultures whose noble line is effectively just heavy melee cavalry? It would make a lot more sense if Sturgia mirrored Battania more as an infantry centric Kingdom. I've basically turned my back on the vanilla troop trees. Not balanced, not diverse, just a joke. Any other developer of a strategy/battle game will typically make troop balance THE priority. And a small team could easily sort this all out in a month for Bannerlord, but nah.
I've more or less proven to myself over the past year and half that making the Sturgia noble line heavy infantry does not spoil the game. Makes the game a lot more interesting to be honest. If the Khuzait Horse Archer formation is intimidating, shouldn't the Sturgian infantry formation basically be the equivalent?
Ideally Sturgian Trees would be like this:
Honestly I don't even think troop types matter that much in simulated battles (troop tier matters most). You could create a Kingdom of entirely infantry and they'd still probably do fine or no worse on the Campaign map. The actual geography (i.e. fief placement) and random chance plays the biggest role in what Kingdoms prevail. Hence why Battania or Sturgia is usually first to go - because their territory is terrible for the A.I. to defend.
The base game also really suffers from all the Kingdoms having effectively the same troop rosters. Everyone has a T5 Shock Troop, everyone has a T5 Archer, and everyone has (except Battania) a T6 Horseman. The Kingdom you pick has no real bearing on actual battles.
That's why I've also started toying around with somewhat reduced troop trees (trimming the fat), and introducing inherit weaknesses. i.e. Sturgia has weak/limited archers, little cavalry, and a heavy focus on Shock Troops.
You can have mounted shock troops, but they need to be balanced by not having shields and or light armor. Otherwise they steam roll everything much like Khan Guards in melee mode, though to a lesser extent since weapon length is shorter for axes. I believe I toyed around with Druzhniniks being effectively mounted two-handed axemen, but they were too strong in melee combat, but also too vulnerable at same time. Still probably improvement over vanilla since they are generally a waste.
Eh not really. The A.I. is just gonna recruit whatever is available and upgrade 50/50 (think there's a problem with Castle troop upgrades favoring one branch though). So one line ends as lesser infantry? Big deal, if a T5 unit is balanced appropriately still a good unit, also cheaper. Also in my mod I addressed that by NOT giving T5/T6 Varyags spears or throwing weapons. So you would still want Axemen and Spearmen for the weapon diversity.
This game is so ripe with pointless and redundant units anyways.
It's only an issue for those power gaming by recruiting certain troops. But you can't really control what the player chooses to recruit anyways.- Bluko88
- Post #21
- Forum: The Citadel - General Discussion
-
Taleworlds is going to release a post to let us know about their futur plans for the game. What are your expectations ??
Oh that broke me...
Should have just voiced the characters for Neretzes Quest and left it at. Far more reasonable scope for TW. Much rather use my imagination for most characters, especially since so many are "auto-generated" anyways.
I can't even fathom what wack-a-do coding makes it possible for my one character's Imperial Wife voice to just change. Status didn't change (still Lady), culture didn't change - literally just went from one Imperial Clan to another. Wouldn't be surprised if it had something to do with all the placeholder voices they had. Wouldn't want the Console Players to know the game they paid $50 didn't have any voice over! Would have been better to just do it all once. But here we are almost 2024 and Console Players are missing a far more useful feature: Kingdom Destruction, and yet TW seems to have zero urgency getting 1.2 out.- Bluko88
- Post #38
- Forum: The Citadel - General Discussion
-
Beta Patch Notes v1.2.0-v1.2.6
Well my latest progeny are all fairly unique, my two sons look quite different.
I can't speak for non-player Clans though, which is where it tended to be most prevalent. Harder to know with encyclopedia fog of war. I hope it's fixed...
This amount of content shouldn't take 6 months to finalize before release, and I'm assuming there was an alpha, so it's probably been "cooking" for 9 months. 3 months at the most even with consoles and if that's "too much work" hire more people. TW had no qualms taking console players money while offering a decidedly inferior product, that also wasn't finished. (Literally patched in voice over after the fact... rather haphazardly)
It's becoming pretty obvious that Bannerlord is effectively an abandoned product, that or there's very serious staffing/management issues preventing development progress. Really requires a lot of restraint on my part to not fly into expletives here. Unfortunately video games are considered primarily entertainment, so their value is subjective at best. Lord have mercy if TW was releasing some kind of paid for software to perform some needed function. Probably be embroiled in lawsuits.- Bluko88
- Post #1,794
- Forum: The Citadel - General Discussion
-
Major issues that remain unaddressed in 1.2.5
This is intentional I believe to slow down battles somewhat. The A.I. no longer globs around formations, creating mosh-pit battles. Obviously there are pros and cons to this. I prefer it this way, and A.I. can actually raise shields against incoming projectiles at will, so I believe this is fair trade off.
The bigger problem is they don't cycle charge right anymore. They barely get up to full speed before attacking again. Sending Cavalry after archers should be an easy win, but instead they get massacred. I mean if the archers are in a bog/water sure they might have a good advantage. But it's freaking dumb on a wide open field.
Cavalry is useless except for intercepting other cavalry, and chasing down fleeing enemies it seems. Though that is somewhat true to life, Cavalry have always been meant for "shock and awe", they lose most of their advantage when stuck in melee. Still for a medieval game you'd imagine heavily armored cavalry would be a fairly potent force.
Okay TW could... sadly video game A.I. peaked around 2005-2010 in general. This game doesn't have the worst A.I. but it often leaves a LOT to be desired. Really not holding my breath since larger and better funded studios struggle with this.
Really? I'm quite certain they assign Captains, though they do like to Leeroy Jenkins charge still... I guess I can't comment on perks.
This is pretty bad, thought they fixed most of these issues. But I guess they are back, I've seen it some myself.
Still complete planks of wood that don't react to anything. Don't know why people even care about them, only good for use as Captains/Governors. I really don't understand purpose of them moving everywhere.
Yeah I've never liked this at game start. Trade is just not done well in this game. Realistically items should be consumed heavily, and production villages should produce a lot of said resource. Basically any Town that doesn't have Grape Villages, should always need Grapes. Especially if they are like on other side of map. You really can't "Trade" in this game since there's nothing like Trade Routes. Like you should be guaranteed a good profit if you take a ton of Wood to Aserai Lands, but nope.
Well this is problem in general, not just player, and why there needs to be some form of Civil War mechanic. (I'd also like to see Culture shift/change over time too) There are mechanics to stop this, they just aren't good ones. A.K.A. the AI declaring multiple wars they can't really win...
The Diplomacy/Kingdom Management mechanics are quite pathetic for a game that is a battle/war simulator (well maybe it is just a battle simulator - cause everything else is pretty poor). Diplomacy/Kingdom Management should not be this underdeveloped after 3 years of Early Access.
I agree the generational aspect is irrelevant, but then again most folks probably don't want to run a campaign for 200+ hours. I don't dispute full conquest is possible in 10 years... but I also don't know why anyone wants to ram rod through the game that fast? Typically takes more like 20 years in my experience, and I've really only done so once, obviously much easier when you are a vassal.- Bluko88
- Post #6
- Forum: The Citadel - General Discussion
-
My rantings about where the updates are going
Well it's tolerable now, still silly a Looter can block a full speed horseback Lance with an 8 inch hammer and not even get staggered. My biggest issue is Combat Difficulty doesn't seem to have any effect on how well the A.I. attacks/blocks like it used too. The Combat A.I. Difficulty is effectively defunct far as I can tell, maybe it only effects formation use/battlefield tactics now? That's not good IMO
Also if the A.I. is going to block most attacks, players need to get XP for any attack that "hits" or that they block with said weapon. I know you get a small amount of XP for damaging shields, etc. but you guys need to expand upon that if the A.I. is going to fight like this. Otherwise you just encourage players to effectively backstab every enemy combatant for XP. I don't think that's good though as that just creates a further divide between those who play SP vs MP. The player should be encouraged to fight well.
I did a bit of testing, and unless there's something special about Practice Tournament A.I., whether my Combat Skills were 25, 150, or 250 seemed to make no difference on well the A.I. blocked. Any increased combat efficacy seemed to stem mostly from the fact that I could swing weapons faster...- Bluko88
- Post #22
- Forum: The Keep - Singleplayer
-
Standard Bearer does not decrease the garrison wage
Well supposedly it only applies to Towns, and only to Infantry (so probably not Archers and Cavalry)
Pretty sure only way to get good details on parties/garrisons is to inspect them in-person. More detailed tool tips or more info Clan Tab wouldn't be bad idea.
Also if your trying to setup a Companion as Governor, may be worthwhile to respec them with a Tournament Master so you can get the best perks for Governing.- Bluko88
- Post #3
- Forum: The Keep - Singleplayer
-
Devs: "Needs Help with Brigands" quest badly needs rework
It'd probably be better if they didn't have "scaling" quests in general. Like the Bandit one, they obviously don't scale well. Also does nobody test this stuff? Seriously...
Your really not going to be doing much quests past the early game anyways. And if you are, it's probably more so for relation improvement with the Notable(s). There's no need for Quests to scale up IMO - same with 100+ Looter armies. Not necessary, and not as good XP as some think it is.- Bluko88
- Post #10
- Forum: The Keep - Singleplayer
-
Taleworlds is going to release a post to let us know about their futur plans for the game. What are your expectations ??
Couldn't agree more. If TW can't be arsed to add actual Diplomacy features, just make the mod part of the game.
Ideally as soon as you take a fief, you should be able to form a Kingdom. But because there's no form of Diplomacy you're totally screwed if you attempt to do that.
Sadly there's really only two ways to form a Kingdom. 1) Become a vassal and when you have enough fiefs break away 2) Use your elite party to "snipe" fiefs from a Kingdom when they are pre-occupied, then peace out with gold. Rinse and repeat, form a Kingdom when you have enough fiefs. Or take Rebelling Towns.
The problem with Option 2 is that it is sadly probably the best way to conquer Calradia i.e. never form a Kingdom. Use your elite warband, take a fief, peace out, build up your garrison, accumulate more wealth, do it again til you own the map. No stupid non-nonsensical wars, no A.I. voting for multiple wars, no A.I. to lose Parties/Armies. And #1 nobody will declare war on you.
The fact TW doesn't understand that there should be basic messages (at least for Marriages and Mercenaries) shows how out of touch they are. It is extremely impractical to ride all over the map to hire a merc clan or arrange a marriage, especially once your King and you've got a party that likely consumes 1000s of denars a day. I'm surprised they implemented Companion recall...
Yeah there should be some form of peace time activities. Feasts should really be part of the game now due to fog of war hiding all NPC details. There should also be activities you can do in Towns/Villages to earn money/improve relations that don't involve killing people. Maybe you help farm, build a house, etc. something that could also improve the non-combat skills (Smithing, Engineering, Medicine)
Training or drilling your troops would be nice too. You don't build a professional army by fighting bandits, you build one with time and money a.k.a. training.
I don't think we need population per say, technically it's implied high prosperity = high population
What needs to happen is more like this IMO:
1. Way less recruits (and no free troops for Lords) - ideally a Notable should spawn 1 Recruit a day, and only when all slots are filled do the existing troops start to increase veterancy. So if you deplete a village, it would take about 1 week to get a full set of recruits, 2 weeks for basic tier 2 troops, 3 weeks for tier 3 troops, 4 weeks/season to get end up with tier 4 troops. Provided no one recruits from village in that time... This would make battle loses far more meaningful.
2. Battles should be somewhat slower, less frequent (i.e. more consequential), and definitely should not be fought to the death. If your leading a war party/army and you fight to the death you've effed up badly. If your losing a battle retreating should be a viable option in most cases. This whole thing you need "Tactics" to retreat is harebrained. No, just let Parties sacrifice their wounded to escape and give a speed boost so you can live to fight another day. Also there needs to be some surrender options like spare troops, spare you, etc. Also the A.I. should surrender when totally outmatched. Even the most crazed Bushido Samurai would not fight to the death if they could help it, the A.I. should value their lives/troops.
3. Don't need looters and bandits everywhere; looters should spawn from raided villages, bandits should only spawn from hideouts.
Basically make battles have consequences from beginning to end. As is the only battles that truly matter are sieges.
Also be nice if Companions reacted to more events, still planks of wood after 4 years. Seriously why does Warband have more fleshed out companions?
It's definitely Amateur Level, FFS why are some Bandit Bosses voiced but others are not? How can you not be consistent in implementing which dialogue lines are voiced?! I believe there is a small handful of knowledgeable Devs, maybe like a dozen, and then you've either got a bunch of would-be intern "Game Developers", everyone else works like 2-4 hours a day, or most everyone is working on a new game...
I don't think there's any DLC package that TW can put together that will compare with mods. If they do make a DLC, let's be honest, it will simply be to siphon more money from those playing on consoles - who will never have mod access.- Bluko88
- Post #34
- Forum: The Citadel - General Discussion
-
Beta Patch Notes v1.2.0-v1.2.6
Well I am glad this has been fixed, but I'm going to be honest I don't think you should be able to have your troops hack down the outer gate in Castles/Towns. I think the outer gate should only be destructible by siege equipment.
It is bit too easy to cheese sieges by simply focusing on the outer gate, and of course inner gate breaks quickly, and then it's pretty easy to overwhelm the defenders with a single elite party unless they have a truly massive garrison.
Pair this with the fact it's generally much easier to "snipe" Towns/Castles as Non-Kingdom Clan, and this is probably the most effective way to conquer Calradia. If your only option was to use ladders upon siege camp completion, this would put the kabosh on this strategy for the most part, and or limit the player to only poorly defended fiefs.
Course folks probably would never have considered such things if we had functional Kingdom Management & Diplomacy...- Bluko88
- Post #1,768
- Forum: The Citadel - General Discussion
-
Growing The Beard
Correct, anyone under 21 is still basically a child and will be missing facial hair, tattoos, etc.
Facial hair does not grow, Red Dead Redemption 2 this is not.
Example, PC Age 42 has scar:
"Baby" PC Age 20 eye scar becomes invisible:
It's gradual, like waiting for patches to be released
Actually I will give TW credit here, character aging is handled pretty well in-game. Probably even better than say Crusader Kings 3 IMO.
- Bluko88
- Post #9
- Forum: The Citadel - General Discussion
-
A Single System Has Turned Off My Love
You generally don't get that much influence from sieges, or loot really.
Sieges are just meat grinders (at least offensively) and other than having an absurd amount of archers, there isn't much way to cheese them. More often than not you're just going to lose lots of good troops, and spend a lot of time finding replacements. I would avoid sieges unless you are getting the fiefs in question as a vassal. You really don't have much control in sieges anyways, so more troops is generally the best answer.
Have you not joined an A.I. army as a vassal before? Sure it can be a good time when you're winning, but there's nothing quite like witnessing the A.I. make the worst tactical mistakes on the field and you can kiss your elite 100+ party goodbye. I'd say that's infinitely more frustrating that not getting the say 50 or 100 Influence from a siege.
Though I think all this is intentional. It's to encourage you to form a Kingdom yourself (or take over).
It's fairly safe and easy to help grow a Kingdom as a vassal, up until you get to a certain size and the A.I. thinks it can fight multiple wars at once.- Bluko88
- Post #5
- Forum: The Citadel - General Discussion
-
Matrilineal Marriges
Yeah it's problematic if you have like 3 daughters. Your only real option is to retire early so a said daughter can lead the Clan, and have heirs herself.
It's kind of silly the game encourages to grow a Clan, in case you or other members die, but there isn't much Clan management. I feel like if anything it should be simple enough to name a Clan Member your presumptive heir.
Sadly TW seems to have bitten off more than they can chew with the dynastic elements of the game. It's implementation is rather questionable too, since you can conquer Calradia in a single lifetime. Nevermind there's no real way to train up skills that isn't exceptionally tedious. It's a bit annoying all your children will be blank slates, yet other nobles at age 18 have skills in the 100+ range. You should be able to pay gold to train Clan members, then it's just a matter of how much you want to spend. Not like it would hurt to have an optional money sink in the game given the player can accumulate ridiculous amounts of wealth.- Bluko88
- Post #2
- Forum: The Keep - Singleplayer
-
Clans vanishing after I destroyed the Southern Empire? (1.2 Beta)
Yeah it's a bit annoying when you destroy a Kingdom all the Clans are at war with you, but I suppose it makes some sense.
I thought Kingdoms were supposed to be able rise again... but given that they just end up as marauders forever afterward I suppose this is somewhat better. Honestly I feel like if the DIPLOMACY system was overhauled to something comprehensible/usable by players this could be avoided. IMO Kindgom destruction should really only happen when all Clans are gone and the leading Clan has no more members. Should not be this hard... no one's asking to make say Trade Agreements - just War, Peace, Non-Agression Pacts, Tribute, and Alliances.
I feel like executions are kind of under-utilized in-game. As is you either never execute any one ever, or you just go on full psychopath playthrough and murder every single noble since all your relations will tank. There needs to be a happy middle ground where you can perform some executions against your enemies, but at the same time if you start to go the Vlad Impaler route there should be consequences for that too. Which is why the A.I. should use executions themselves! Like if you or a Clan member get captured by someone who is at -100 Relationship with you... there should be a real good chance that results in an execution of said prisoner. (Maybe limit executions to only be possible by Clan Leaders)
Really when you destroy a Kingdom you should either being trying to recruit surviving Clans or kill them off since they are effectively rebels. It doesn't make sense that surviving Clans just yeet out of existence after a few days.
In my 1.2 playthrough when the Southern Empire lost its last fief, pretty sure all the Clans self-destructed (maybe they couldn't live without Rhaghea, IDK). Which seems odd since you'd think NE and WE would want to absorb some of them into their ranks.
Now when I personally destroyed Sturgia; 2 Clans did join other Kingdoms (Khuzait and Aserai) before the rest disappeared. So it does happen. But of course I literally went to talk to one Clan Leader (who I had close to like +100 Relationship) couldn't even ask him to join me! So I wasted a bunch of money to make peace with said Clan, couldn't recruit them, and they effectively join a rival Kingdom to boot! Seems really asinine that if you want to flip Clans you effectively have to do it when they are still officially part of a Kingdom...
And you know what I don't get? I thought for the longest time TW didn't really allow executions because they couldn't account for potential NPC losses through executions. But obiviously if dozens of NPCs can just delete themselves when their Kingdom is gone, I fail to see why executions can't be implemented for use by the A.I.- Bluko88
- Post #6
- Forum: The Keep - Singleplayer
-
So how is version 1.2?
1.2.4.27066
I don't see the message, just presumably when I should be getting offer game was crashing
Yeah I seem to be running into more and more crashes. Obviously I can say that BannerCraft is probably to blame say when I opened Smithing Menu background is black and game CTDs. But there's others I'm sure where there game is just failing to cope with later stages, like starting a siege battle. Just kind of irritating that this whole game is built around the idea that most players will never get much past Clan Rank 2, and see the game for what it truly is.
There is something really messed up with the QA process of this game. I don't know if that's because it's because it's basically one dude locked away in a boiler room, or the Devs completely disregard any feedback that isn't bug/crash related. Like anyone who plays this game for any amount of time and doesn't find being forced to talk to every party absolutely mind-numbing must be mental. Why is a 300 man party stopping to "parley" with a group of 3 Looters? Why do I have to talk to every single Lord when I take them prisoner? Do you know how effing annoying it is to take like 12 Lords prisoner after an Army battle all for them to say "I yield! I yield!" ?
And so because of stuff like this that should be simple text notes or contextual menu for what you want to do, where we had somewhat nice in-game cutscenes, we now have terrible pre-rendered backdrops so people with HDDs don't waste minutes loading this nonsense. All to have something that makes Warband's conversations actually look better.
OOB has never bothered me too much, since I never really liked to mess with formations a great deal. But it's definitely a loss that you can't say assign Recruits or any unit to a particular formation anymore.- Bluko88
- Post #28
- Forum: The Citadel - General Discussion
-
Every time bro
I believe it's based on the fact that Genoese Crossbowmen carried a large portable shield (Pavise) that they would use as cover when reloading.
Fr though the shield on the back is kinda odd. I'll keep your idea in mind for a simple mod once I get a grasp on it better (currently learning)
Obviously not very well represented in-game, since it's treated like any other shield. (LOL I can't imagine even the strongest man trying to hold up a Pavise and swing a Sword at his enemy at the same time, well I suppose it could be done in a pinch like hip firing an LMG.)
You know it's funny Battania was doing well in my latest playthru, they had like 8 Towns. Somehow they effed up and the Western Empire, Vlandia, and Khuzait basically became the dominant super powers at 14,000ish men each. Though somehow the Northern Empire made an amazing comeback from just 1 Town. Simp Empire got wasted. Only reason Vlandia is failing is because they keep picking a fight with me, and I basically wreck them in any scenario with my 1000 man army. Even when they get 2000 man doom stacks I just sneak-in to castle/town and route them. I'm glad the A.I. can at least team up on sieges, but it is hilariously stupid how a 500 man army will go siege the 1st castle they can, even though my larger 1000 man army is within sight, and will just catch up to them soon as they do.
I was trying to keep Sturgia alive as proxy state/independent clan, but I got tired of sniping Castles/Towns, formed a Kingdom, and cannibalized what was left when they attacked me.
That said I did run into one scenario with Vlandia that was unwinnable in a 500 vs. 500 just because of their superior troop composition. That said I am using my troop mod and a cultural assimilation mod which has greatly lowered rebellions (good thing) but I'm a bit iffy at the speed settlements convert. Really wish there was some kind of built-in cultural conversion mechanic, it's pretty silly that you can hold a fief for years or decades and the culture won't change at all. Notables change culture, but it's very slow and random. It's interesting, but also a bit odd to see multiple cultures in one Town.
Fun Fact: High Roguery will make you stupid rich
Yeah Battania is basically a Dark Age Celtic Kingdom, in a Medieval setting. They feel really out of place, though it's kind of implied Battania is very old based on their architecture. Would have been nice if Battania was more like a proper Medieval Celtic Kingdom.
Empire is clearly very Byzantine styled, but then they got all these classic Imperial Rome inspirations which feel a bit silly. It's like blending a bunch of ice cream flavors, the end result is you have no real flavor.
The problem isn't that they are overly strong, they are actually pretty weak in base game live battles, it's that simulated battles (A.I. fought battles) heavily favor them due to their two lines of melee cavalry. Pretty sure it's same with Khuzait and their two horse archer lines.
Only real "easy mode" is recruiting exclusively Fians and Khan's Guards, actually one alone is usually good enough. Making the game harder is irrelevant; you could just use Recruits entire game. Well closest thing to hard mode IMO would be "Mercenaries Only" absolute garbage troops with extra high wages, and spotty recruitment.- Bluko88
- Post #32
- Forum: The Keep - Singleplayer