Recent content by Marbles20

I've grumbled repeatedly about the diplomacy/tribute system being the wrong way to go about ensuring balance between the kingdoms. The problem is they are designing the game around simulations of the game playing out without player interactions. When they do their 10 or 20 year simulations they appear to come out as they intend, but when we play the game and have direct impacts on kingdoms/wars/fiefs the tools they are using to balance the simulations just play terribly. Perpetual wars get boring and they have no intention of making peace time activities. They are basically designing an AI simulator, not a game for people to enjoy.

Ni said:

I don't think I completely understand how the tribute works for this game either. I've been in wars were we were over 2k stronger than the opponent, killed many more of them than they killed of us, had a dozen prisoners compared to their 1 or 2 ( I let mine go for the skill and relationship gains), have successfully taken a castle or town or both without losing any, and someone wants to make peace and pay them 2k a day! Or maybe that's what the enemy wants from us, either way it doesn't make much sense to me.

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Sadly the Raid stat in the war breakdown has far more weight on tribute and willingness for peace than successful sieges or lords currently captured. Its one of the reasons khuzait were always steamrolling others before their kingdom bonus nerf. They could raid and replenish far faster than anyone without getting caught, making peace always come on their terms. So if you are really looking for peace you or the other lords have to raid like hell, which ironically will severely deteriorate your relations with the other kingdom's lords.

I haven't booted up the game in a while so my assessment may be off by this point, but at least when it came to a player led army clans wouldn't drop a member from the army to have them secure newly acquired fiefs. So if I had all of the active members of a clan in my army and we took a fief that their clan was granted they wouldn't actually be able to secure it unless I manually dropped one of them (and even then there didn't seem to be anything stopping them from simply joining another army unless their % was too low.)

So the issues on the player side at least were:
1. AI wouldn't flag a lord as 'securing fief', which would drop them from a current army, make them unable to join an army, and prioritize security/fief defense.
2. Even if they were flagged in that way we have no means of seeing it.

There should be a sliding variable of a percentage of lords in a clan that are securing their fiefs (or the king's fiefs if they lack a fief) based on if the kingdom is at peace (high percent), at war (roughly equal), or in multiple wars (low percent). This would affect army compositions during these three game 'phases', with few lords available to join an army in peace, a fair amount able to join in a war, and basically all able to join armies in multiple wars (ie all hands on deck).

That may also help a little with the peace time economics as well since security/loyalty/hearths can rebound with more lords actively improving them. Even having lords rest in their low loyalty settlements with their troops would help.

+1
I agree with this especially since wars are constant with little to no peace time. The ability to rest in towns for any extended period is greatly inhibited as the game plays now.

Really the only thing I could see them changing is the dialogue to make sure they are using the proper titles and fixing the bug regarding which culture the children from 2 cultures acquires.

I think the fix for the bug would be a basic check that factors in a) the parents' culture and b) the current culture of the kingdom they are born into. So very basic pseudocode example:
If kingdom_culture = parent_A_culture
Then child_culture = parent_A_culture
Elseif kingdom_culture = parent_B_culture
Then child_culture = parent_B_culture
Else randomized parent_culture = child_culture

Thats just the basic logic, obviously that is garbage as far as code, but it lays out the essential checks that would play into a child's culture.

As far as nobles changing their armor to conform to the kingdom they are in I honestly don't see that as game/immersion breaking. If I had amazing custom armor made for me, but I moved to another land I wouldn't willingly abandon that armor unless I got better armor. That would be unlikely since my reason for leaving the kingdom I was from was likely due to financial reasons and custom armor costs a lot of money. If anything they might wear a tabard or sash with their new kingdom's colors/crest/coat of arms/etc. I just don't see them bothering to redo the code for that.

Yeah that's kind of what I meant by the direction of Bannerlord diminishing the other play-styles/sandbox appeal in order to try and make conquering everything challenging. They've shot down the peace time activities ideas like feasting, boar hunts, etc. outside of arena fighting. Arena fights even took a hit in usefulness since there isn't a boost to relations with other lords or courtship with a win. We'll have to wait until after release for the sandbox portion to get fleshed out.

I don't know that the ultimate goal of a sandbox is/should be to conquer all. It has more to do with letting the player decide how they'd like to play/approach the game world. Some may view conquering all as their one and only goal, but others might view roleplaying as a merchant, gladiator, wandering sword for hire, etc as their primary goal. Bannerlord has been tailored for those people who want to conquer the map with more of a challenge than what Warband gave, which has diminished some of its sandbox appeal. You are right that their isn't really a reward for having a strong faction itself, unless you plan on conquering everything as quickly as possible.

Currently the game is in that paradoxical state; in order to stop player snowballs the AI mechanics have been tailored in such a way that it encourages AI snowballing to counter the ultra-aggressive players. This in turn forces the player's hand to play ultra-aggressively (or at least forcing the player to actively participate in every war their faction is in) or fall to the snowballing AI. There really isn't a middle ground or relaxed setting when it comes to AI diplomacy.

Simulated Combat:

*I’m not sure if this was already implemented, but I’ll check the snowballing thread at some point.* Cavalry should get no bonus during sieges. There really isn’t anywhere for them to maneuver and they don’t go into sieges on their mount anyway so they should just count as their respective tier infantry or archer.

Siege (Campaign Map):

Attacker should be able to build all siege engines without placing them immediately. Having to immediately pull a trebuchet off its mark after its been built, and letting the enemy get a full hit on it regardless of how fast it was done is just bad. Ranged siege engines are useless to build because of this. Even when you do build them all and place them at once it is just a race on who can rebuild their engines the fastest. Trebuchets should be completely out of the range of catapult and ballista anyway. Though they should fire slower to compensate.

Siege Combat:

Siege towers are still completely broken. Players are better off using ladders, even though the computer barely knows how to use those any better.

Needs better pathfinding or ‘objective points’ to keep everyone from derping to the same location. Example West wall infantry should make their first objectives 2-3 points at the top of the west wall right above the ladder positions (might help them utilize all of the ladders), once secure next objective are the west towers, once secure then move to point just behind main gate.

Sound:

Some basic bug smashing for horses that sound like they are dancing on the wooden docks when they are sprinting through fields at an enemy.

Some more guttural grunts and yells that sound like they are coming from desperate men in a battle for their lives. (Do not actually put anyone in danger to get them though. Lol)

I know there was talk of bland sword chamber sounds but I haven’t really listened that closely.

More music is welcome.

Basic Combat:

No unit to unit control makes the battles very Mount & Babysitter in nature. Example: If I have a shield wall of infantry that I want to have intercept/stay engaged with the enemy infantry I cannot just order them to advance on Infantry. I must babysit their movement toward the infantry and make sure they remain engaged with them up to the enemy spawn point. If I ordered them to charge and there is a lone horse archer riding by, they will turn their backs on the enemy infantry and chase the cavalry until the enemy infantry have gotten closer to the infantry than the retreating cavalry archer.

No pre-battle formation orders. I understand the placement of troops pre-battle was scrapped but it would have been nice to have pre-battle formation orders as a replacement. Letting the player choose in having infantry start in shieldwall, or archers in loose, or cavalry in wedge, before the battle starts would make for less hectic nonsense at the beginning of battle. Instead we have to memorize the formation keys and scramble to find the best ground to fight on and move to it making sure its not too far off from our spawn, or just cheese it with HA or archer meta which is boring.

Armor values and penetration seem off. Others have more insight into this admittedly, but its odd when a basic slashing weapon is still doing a fair amount of damage on a piece of armor, example chainmail, designed to negate slashing.

Static spawns severely limit the battlefield maneuvers of the player, or computer for that matter. The only way to battle is really forward and backward. Flanking the initial enemy force leaves the players flank exposed to enemy reinforcements, especially if it is on the opposing end of the battlefield near their spawn. This makes many scenes that could have decent choke points or barriers to protect a certain flank through maneuvering rather useless.

*Would have to further playtest this one* spears bracing or attacks against a mounted unit who has high velocity should dismount the rider. Giving infantry, notably spear infantry, a worthy counter.

Companion/Lord deaths needs scaled back and refactored, and simulated battles should allow lord deaths at a slightly lower rate than live battle. Would start at 2.5%/1.5% to test.

Clans:

The fact that any family member that is not a governor/party leader/party member, will randomly go to various settlements to improve relations is ineffective/undesired. This ties back into the Family members cannot directly improve relations with a particular clan point. They cannot be kept in an owned settlement to help their chances of conceiving children with spouses or improve relations within the owned settlement along with the governor. Forcing them back to a settlement by temporarily making them governor only keeps them there for a day or two.

Courtship needs a slight workover to make it feel meaningful and take a little more time (1-1.5 months). Clan status/level should play a role in which people you can court/marry (example: cannot marry someone in a rank 5 clan if your clan is below 3) Your kids will likely have more available choices if you have moved up through society.

Some spouses should view their equipment as their own and not part with it. (more of an exploit fix to keep people from just ganking the best gear within a week of starting gameplay, longer courtship would also minimize that problem.)

Flavor text and diplomatic options/rewards needs added for in-laws. Some example diplomatic rewards/options for being in-laws: lower influence needed to pull into army, will vote with you on kingdom decisions unless relations are poor, and option to get them to stay out of a fight if on opposing sides, unless it is their fiefs they are fighting for. Rewards and options are nullified if their daughter/son with whom you were married to dies (to prevent exploit).

General flavor text and options added for spouse. Spouse should have court intrigue or interesting things happening in the kingdom to talk about with the player.

Relations being individual + clan instead of just clan would have allowed some relationship building within the clan. Now spouse, kids, other family, and companions are stuck indefinitely at neutral and destroyed any real story building.

UI:

There should have been 2 UI options: robust and cinematic. The current UI is more cinematic keeping information minimal while allowing the player to enjoy the scenes (which seems to be the primary theme of this game’s development). It however really could use a robust UI that offered more of the information right in front of the player for those that like/need to keep track of things without having to constantly consult the encyclopedia. Having to open a book in the middle of an interaction with a lord is more emersion-breaking than giving me a toggle or directly showing me things while I’m interacting with them.

The encyclopedia gets too laggy loading in the unique portraits of all of the lords. A possible solution might be to have it just take a life-stage screenshot of each lord and load that in each time. We do not really care if they are smiling or frowning or what they are wearing. The point of the encyclopedia should be about getting us information fast if we are to be expected to rely on it as our primary source of information.

The encyclopedia really needs a button on the player’s main HUD. Its okay if its optional and can be removed later but new players are going to have a hard time finding necessary information without it. Yes, I know the hotkey is quicker, but the button is more user friendly to start with.

Settlement food stocks in the Manage Town, Manage Castle, Clan Fiefs, and Settlement screens should be under the following format: <Current Food> / <Maximum Possible Food> [food icon] (<+/- Daily Food>)

Garrison numbers on the Clan Fiefs and Settlement screens should be under the following format: <Current Troops> / <Maximum Possible Troops>

A Kingdom Diplomacy Sheet is sorely needed. Preferably one that shows what the diplomacy between each kingdom is similar to Warbands. If at war it should show that they are at war, who started it possibly using an icon to denote it, and how long the war has gone on. If at peace it should show for how long the peace has stood and if one kingdom is giving tribute to the other.

A Kingdom Diplomacy Graph would be useful as well similar to Age of Empire II’s power graph shown at the end of the game, though not as pressing I think as the spreadsheet.

If an item is locked in the trade screen do not let it be sellable until manually unlocked.

1. There were a couple (or more by now) threads that we made detailing how courtship could be improved but they didn't seem to get the views/replies necessary to grab any dev's attention. I honestly doubt any of them have any interest in messing with the marriage system until after release.

2. The lifeless lord thing is a little hard to solve now that all interactions with a lord are based primarily on your relation with their clan rather than them as a lord. Which leads into 3.

3. They screwed up by taking away the individual lord relations (which they initially had in BL) and just making it strictly clan v player. Interactions now make little to no sense. ie. Lord A of Clan A raids your village = automatic -relation with all of Clan A. There can't be real rivalries or friendships with this system. It also #*&s over the execution system since most everyone is round about friends with everyone else. Want to execute that rival enemy lord whose done nothing but horrible things to you/your clan/your kingdom for years? Prepare to take a good relations hit with a huge swath of clan that can include those in your own kingdom. (You'd think you had gone through and butchered their wives and children with the way every other clan reacts). It should have been a 2 relation system where you built/destroyed relations with individuals quickly, and slowly with the clans excepting some extreme actions. They probably felt it was too complicated (which is what relations always are).

4. Since I usually played with a mod like Diplomacy I don't recall how many base requests/actions you could have with lords. I've never really had any serious negative relations with clans in my kingdoms so I'm curious if you are too low in relations (ie rivals) will they not be summon-able to an army you are putting together? or if they are friends do you get an influence discount?

5. Yeah you definitely lose that climbing up the ladder of society feeling with this game. I don't know if its because I played WB for years but the beginning period of BL games feels short/rushed. Even if not speedrunning I have an army/wife/fief incredibly quickly by comparison.

At this point its just a waiting game to see what they add or keep out. So long as its fully/easily moddable it should end up okay.

Doktor Barber said:

it makes me so damn angry when the AI takes control of my surgeon/scout or whatever, who often dont even have gear cause they arent supposed to fight ever, and just runs them right at the enemy and gets them killed...

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Im pretty sure the death algorithm doesn't take into account what they were wearing considering someone could fall to a 10 damage hit and die and another person could fall to a 300+ damage hit and just get injured. Still I understand your frustration with the way the AI handles troops/companions. I make my surgeon an archer and gear him like he's infantry/cavalry + bow/crossbow. It doesn't guarantee survival, especially in sieges, but gives them better odds of not falling.

intrepid70 said:

What I've noticed multiple times in my game is that around a 300 vs 300 battle I could be ahead with about 200 kills vs 100 for the AI. Then suddenly the right side fills with red and the kill total is about 225 vs 180. I get these huge surges in losses every battle.

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The losses primarily your infantry? I think it could be the fact that the front line infantry takes the brunt of the damage. Unlike organized battles where lines of infantry would switch out with each other for breaks the frontmost line deals with line after line of enemies. So they eventually get their HP chipped away until you get a wave of your troops that are defeated. Then your next line takes over to finish the battle.

If you've ever seen the HBO series Rome they have a good example of line switches in the first season I believe.