Recent content by thermocline

Thank you for your work, Vetrogor, and thanks to the PoP development team and community--SD, MM, and everyone else for creating this amazing mod which I am still playing even though Bannerlord is out.

@Gorvex, @Ralyks--feel free to upload Vetrogor's code to the tweaks section of the wiki.

I just started playing 3.9, and wanted to offer a few of my observations. I've started two new playthroughs, and the following castles are very easy to attack as a first fief. I took them all at 2:1 numbers disadvantage or worse, mostly using troops gathered from companion Right to Rule missions between Day 60 and Day 150.

Easy to attack castles:

Castle Alden (Ravenstern)
Valorshield Castle (Sarleon)
Maras Castle (Empire)

Are you talking about D'Shar Bandits? They're the only mass horse archer forces you meet in the early game. I just avoid them, unless I have several strong companions recruited.

Gorvex said:

1) Yes

2) Yes

3) -1000 and then -900

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Given 3), then the "prestige being finite" thing really comes from renown decay. If your renown ever gets really high, and you spend all your prestige, then the main issue with getting more is the passive renown decay putting you further and further in the hole.

In that case, reducing the passive renown decay by like 100x should basically fix the problem, right?

Yeah, MV sent me all of the autocalc values for 3.7.

Gorvex said:

alster52 said:

As i was playing through in the current update the empire feels very weak they went from having all of there normal territory to only owning one castle. So is the empire weak or are the d'shar just super strong?

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All factions are balanced to be able to deal with a healthy amount of invaders in their territory and still hold the status quo. If something goes off, that's either due to the overabundance of these invaders (i.e. spawns), unlucky war declarations (e.g. multiple), or one faction getting much stronger than the other due to more lords defecting to it and such. The Empire has to deal with both the Snake Cult and Noldors in their territory. As such they have one of the highest autocalc strength overall. The rest is up to rng.

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Where can I find the 3.9 autocalc values?

@alster52 - they are not better or worse. They are different.

The young nobles can train into two paths--rogue kingdom knights or hero adventurers. Comparing the two, Sarleon for example, a Rogue Sarleon Knight is cheaper and faster to train than a Sarleon Knight, but is also weaker. A hero adventurer is more powerful than a Sarleon Knight (and is a horse archer), but is also much more expensive to maintain. So it depends on what you want--if you want a decent melee knight quickly, go for rogue knights. If you are willing to spend more time and money training, go for a kingdom knight or a Hero Adventurer. And sometimes, you may not have a choice--you just have to use the units you find in a tavern or in a prisoner train.

And not all of the rogue knights and kingdom knights are the same. An Empire Knight is much easier to find and train than a Sarleon Knight, but is weaker.

If you want a general ranking, ignoring price and training difficulty, it's this:

Hero Adventurer > Sarleon Knight > everything else is pretty similar. HAs and Sarleon Knights are both top-tier units, I'd call all of the remaining kingdom knights (except Pendor Black Archers and Pendor Foot Knights, which are specialized troops) and all of the rogue kingdom knights roughly similar. Rogue Blackheart Knights are also not as powerful as the used to be after the nerf to the Runed Bastard Sword.

As your army size gets smaller, the amount of renown you gain from a victory goes up. Also remember that you can win tournaments, etc to gain renown.

I find this quest is easiest when your faction is at war. Lord battles give 20-30 renown, and once you take too many losses for that, you can move on to merchant caravans and then random stuff like Heretic parties.

Anyone tried using the arquebus on siege offense? I found a bunch of extra bullets after defeating Vicente Villaviciosa or whatever his name is. Wondering if a PC with 3x stacks of bullets is a good loadout--how many kills could I potentially get with 150 shots?

Also, is there a way to get more arquebus?

Gorvex, you are God's gift to Pendor.

As an aside, that Pendor Testing Grounds is one of my favorite threads on this forum. Love it. Any tests you know of comparing the 1h blunt options?

I think Ebony Knight Sword is the best non-unique melee weapon for regular troops now, after the RBS nerf. Actually the RBS nerf was probably overdone, it's a pretty unspectacular weapon now.

Are you sure the back protection works for AI? I thought the back shield absorption effect works only on the player, not on NPC units.

I'm more concerned with the early game. What do you do with the 4th slot on lancer companions? "Keep current" and put a siege crossbow in there? I told Alistair to equip a throwing weapon and he chose to pick up a bag of balanced rocks.

Also, what's the best blunt weapon before doom mace nowadays? It looks like there are a lot of options now--I'm loving the battle hammer (36b, 1h/2h, crush through blocks, so about ~30 damage if used 1h) on my main character. Wondering what people's experiences are like with the military hammer (31b), steel hammer (26b), warhammer (28b), and cavalry mace (27b), especially in the hands of companions. They're all swing-only so the AI should use them pretty well.

Also any thoughts on which throwing weapons work well for Boadice/Alyssa/Kaverra?