Recent content by LordCnut

+1

I'd take it a step further: Recruiting from the notable pool should only be possible for the lord who owns the bound caste / town or the faction leader which the lord belongs to. These are his/her levies. Nothing makes me more mad than seeing random lords empty all MY villages of recruits.

Hostile / neutral lords still have the option of forcing villages to provide troops, which incurs a relationship penalty. Maybe add a new notable for "adventurer" troops who are volunteers and can be recruited by anyone, including the player as a neutral option. They should upgrade into merc soldiers.

So we'd mainly see faction specific troops + mercs in every army, which is far more immersive, until settlements start changing hands and notables provide troops for their new overlord.

100% agreed. Removing party screen formation assignments was a bold move. Now they need to refine the pre-battle deployment to match the customizability of the old system. Else it's a downgrade.

The devs should start with adding more preferences especially ones that are specific to the unit type. Lance / Spear for Cav, Bow / Crossbow for archers for starters. Imo the preferences need to be more than just a preference but also a hard cap for who is assigned. Because pulling the sliders a little too far already assigns the non-preferenced units to formations too, which is a big no-no.

Another option which i'd warmly welcome would be selecting specific units to allow into formations like we alrady do in custom battle setup or when raiding bandit hideouts. Like this:


or this:

Both of these UI tools already exist and offer far more control over assignments than sliders and preferences.

The preference-system and the weighting of how strictly preferences are enforced is certainly in need of an overhaul. I went over some examples of more preferences in my first post too among some other feedback and suggestions. Including crossbow / bow preferences for ranged groups and spear / lance preferences for mounted groups to further specialise our formations. While i don't believe the party screen assignments will make a comeback, there is options to have similar customisation options within the OoB deployment screen. One example from my mentioned post would be the "Manage Troops" window we know from raiding hideouts. It allows pinpoint accurate assignment of specific numbers and specific types of units. Or another example from one of my later posts would be the "Choose [Unit type]" window where you select what units to bring in the custom battle. Both of these are examples of UI which already exist ingame and could be utilised to fix the deployment phase by giving the player an optional precision control UI.

Oh yes, i would like a minister like this at my court. Chasing down other lords and companions gets old very quickly. Not being able to send messages in vanilla is the main reason why i can't play without the diplomacy mod among all the other diplomacy features it brings with it.

Another feature i'd request would be summoning lords within your realm to join you at your court for a minimum time of 24 ingame hours. So you can personally discuss things from your rightful position of power: "I'm the king, you come to me".

niekdegrijze said:

After this (lower priority):
add a spy master
- inciting rebellions
- assassinate nobles
- replace notables
- give information about garrison strengths and options to sabotage
- fund bandit activity in enemy territory, bigger and more bandit parties to disrupt trade and villager parties

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Love all of this! Scheming like this does remind me of Crusader Kings, which isn't a bad thing. Looking at that game and its plot power mechanic, having friends inside the other empire who are easier to bribe could increase the chances of the plot firing successfully and increase the severity of the plot. Lots of potential in this.

five bucks said:

I would definitely like to see city scenes have more gameplay reason to explore them in person. Right now there is only one reason (the Spy Party quest, which triggers uncommonly).

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I'd like that too. M&B:W had some decent random events like bandit ambushes in villages and nighttime robberies in town aswell as drunkards challenging you to a fight in taverns. The only issue with those often was that they disrupted the game flow for little other than a short random encounter. Personally i'd appreciate random encounters more if i was in the scene already and not visiting a location through the overworld and being dragged into it through rng. There's lots of potential for reasons to visit scenes with thugs in towns and criminal influences which i believe were showcased 6 years ago for the first time and still not particularly functional in BL to this day.

Other than adding more quests, rewards for exploration, meeting notables and random encounters, there's not much on the table from older titles and mods. So i'm not sure what else they could do. Some food for thought is the explorer mod which completely disabled the overworld map and had you travel from place A to B through scenes. Having this as an option for vanilla would be cool, especially since the new battle terrain system will have unique scenes for every area or region in the game which would make travelling through the continent fairly immersive.

Yes but...

From a realism standpoint i don't think it makes sense for lords and nobles to man siege engines. It's more of a job for lower class soldiers and mid-class specialists (so yes to companion preference). I very recently made a suggestion with illustrations for UI feature additions to battles and sieges which would definitely allow you to customise which party member crews your siege weapons to your preference. So if you want your lords, ladies and companions to man them selecting those within the UI should definitely be possible. Personally i'd prefer selecting recruits and companions, the former being the example in the photoshopped picture i included.

There's a mod called RTS Camera on Nexus which i think fits some of what you want to do with the game. The Realistic Battle mod team is maintaining it for recent version of Bannerlord.

I agree that this (or something very similar) should be a vanilla feature as commanding units from the ground is very limiting. Mainly because you need line of sight to the exact position of where you want your soldiers to be which isn't always given with the terrain. The ability to command formations to engage specific enemy formations and archers to target formations or areas also needs to be implemented imo.