Recent content by TheWitchIzalith

  1. Nerfing bows by giving everyone shields was one of the worst changes ever made to this game / share your best battle strategies with me

    Jeffrey_Mckill said:
    If by heat you mean grinding for troops with notables then ill admit im kinda over it. I enjoy the fights well enough but you can't tell me that spending more and more time grinding out troops through notables is fun, engaging, or anything other than boring. Doubly so now that 90% of the t5 troops alone aren't even viable. Imo infantry as a whole is a non viable class, this is based on replacing them with cav units and seeing far better results from it. Then we move on to throwing cav and two handers. Neither of these types of units have any business being used anymore. Throwing cav were already on the edge of non viable but now that everyone has shields their javelins are far less effective. Two handers were always an accessory and now that it takes a lot more to come out of a fight losing minimal men there isn't a good reason to bring them anymore. Then we get to the actual viable classes. In all of these except cav their is pretty much one good option and the rest are extremely sub par. Most cav units are good, the only exception is the battanian horseman is miles lower than all the others. As for archers and horse archers, it is pretty much khan guard and fian champion or you are sandbagging your men. Now you could bring them in anyway, but the problem with that is the battle size of 1000 men. This means that any non optimal unit on the battlefield is taking a slot away from an optimal unit which is going to get more guys killed because they were unable to kill the enemy quick enough because you have 50 two handers where fians or khan guards should be. Alternatively you could just take everything as I stated in the original post, but I feel as though this will make the combat much less entertaining because it would turn your fights in human wave battles, but maybe this is the optimal way to play the game.
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    It doesn't sound like you enjoy fights at all, rather you just tell archers to sit on a hill and AFK for the duration of the fight then come back and pat yourself on the back for the Victory that the Elite AI Archers got on an AI lords recruit army.

    You are complaining about not being able to mow down T1/T2 Units with elites.

    It takes almost no effort, and even less brain cells to have 2 Archer groups and just put them on the flanks once the main lines charge. Thus shooting into the sides, rendering shields wholly useless. It's literally 2-3 commands to achieve the same result that you are too lazy to do yourself. Not to mention the fact you just want to bully the AI recruit armies, rather than fight a proper one by the sounds of it.

    You even call Infantry a "Non-viable" class, but want to further nerf them, so that the already broken Archer Meta gets worse? Where is the logic in that.

    Most medieval combat, and even modern combat was "Human Wave Battles". World war 1 was literally just wave after wave of soldiers, trying to overwhelm and take positions. There are plenty of ancient, and modern history battles where both armies were decimated, and yet more man power was scrounged up. Most of Germany's battles with Russia end this way, either as a sweeping victory for one side, or both sides taking huge losses.

  2. [POLL] When did you last play Bannerlord?

    I played pretty extensively for Patch 1.5.2, but not enough was added in the latest one for me to play. That's not to say it isn't fun its just I burnt myself out on 1.5.2 with about 75+ Hours of a couple new campaigns (And trying out some Khuzait Haircuts).

    The game admittedly, has not progressed as much as I had initially hoped, and defended at launch, but there is still time, and progress has been made, so I can't really complain. Just playing other games while I wait for some interesting new patches to come out.

    I'm mostly anticipating the smithing overhaul, marriage/family and reputation mechanics. Which will presumably be soon.

  3. Do you think that Bannerlord will come out of early access in seven months?

    Bannerman Man said:
    30/80 are programmers, but only 8 of those are campaign related (which means they work on the sandbox aspect). Others work on things like the engine or missions (i.e. battles). Here's the actual quote:
    Click to expand...

    Ahh, I misread it. Still thats a relatively small team when compared to many modern games, and even most Indie games with Tiny teams are pixel side scroller, or things that aren't as resource intensive. As much fun as Stardew Valley, Rimworld, and FTL are, they aren't remotely as detailed or engine intensive.

    Thanks for the correction!



    musashii89 said:
    I think they just made millions of the back of this release and can afford to expand, that they havent shows their (managements) priorities.
    Click to expand...

    And you understand the worst thing a company can do, is rapid, exponential growth, with out any kind of proper stability to back it.
    Plenty of companies have gone belly up, after expanding tremendously after a small pay day (And yes, Millions is small when you consider paying 80+ Salaried staff annually).

    Telltall games did this, and despite having massive success, they went bankrupt and ruined themselves.
    EA Has wasted tons of money on failed games, Hell, The last of Us two, which should have been bullet proof off the back of the first one, was so bad that the company lost money producing the game.

    The worst thing one can do when they come into money, is invest poorly and over spend.

    I can almost guarantee you have zero idea how to actually run a business, and that's not an insult to you, as 80% of businesses will close within the first four years due to bankruptcy. It's one thing to get something to work on paper, it's another entirely logistically to deal with it in reality.

    We also have zero ideas what their books look like. They spent 8 years on this project with zero income except the money they had from Warband and subsequent expansions. They literally could have been running negative money for years, for all we know or out of pocket expenses from the CEOs personal investment etc.

  4. Do you think that Bannerlord will come out of early access in seven months?

    Lord Irontoe said:
    We'll be lucky if all the perks are working by next March.

    Seriously, after all these years of closed development and 5 months of EA, I can't think of one area of the game that feels "done". Pretty much every single game system still needs a ton of work. I think its gonna be a looong slog.
    Click to expand...

    Someone posted the Staff numbers, and only about 8/70 staff are actually programmers. The rest are Admin, Art Design, and other "fluff" positions like community manager.

    I think when people hear "Taleworlds has 70 employees!" they think that its a decently sized company with many programmers. I was shocked to find they have less than 10 (12 at most) which explains why the coding itself can be slow. Not to mention the fact they stopped at some point to build a new engine, then had to redevelop everything for said engine.

    I think people need to reign in their expectations a bit, to more realistic goals. This is not a company like rockstar that has 100+ Programmers, and can just hire on 100+ more for a couple crunch months.

    I'm not at all saying the game shouldn't improve or anything of the sort, just that perhaps people aren't fully aware of the actual team logistics. I certainly wasn't.

  5. How to Horse Archer and Give a Khuzait Haircut

    Is the Long Glaive in the base game or modded in? I assume its a khuzait weapon if so. Now I want to go play some Three kingdoms after Watching you Guan Yu everyone.

  6. winning a siege and ending outside

    haleondk said:
    vhen You Siege, You should be able to tell a Lord or your self to break out a small group to take on a enemy lord waiting outside the siege army
    and let the siege prep. go on

    brw: when U get attacked during a siege, why is the battle field on a different map, and not around the castle ?
    Click to expand...

    That would be a neat feature, as its exceptionally weird no one seems to mind the 1000 men standing around the hill while we set up camp.

    As for the Castle field battle, that would be exceptionally neat, perhaps they are working on the scenes themselves? As many of the Scenes have yet to be finished and many are duplicates / place holders for now.

  7. Some ideas to make the game more immersive and flavorful

    StewVader said:
    I think Artisans at villages would make villages more interesting. Basically, the artisans would consume items bought from towns and make rare/unique items for the player to consume. Yes villagers only sell items, most food to towns. We need items to give bonuses to villages (like tools to speed up hearth creation)

    I think requiring resources for settlement upgrades would add more immersion and feels better than just dumping gold. Or perhaps, allow the resources to speed up construction of Castles? I think there is something in to be found in the middle here. I also don't think its a grind, its more of a money sink.

    I think Tournaments should be expanded then. To allow for Kingdoms to compete in peace time, a non-war related thing to do. Joust, Melee, and Archery. I think it would be better than the general tournament.

    Claims and casus bellis could be implemented, but not necessary for war. There could be just wars and unjust wars that affect loyalty of settlements afterwards. Its just for flavor, wars are so arbitrary and random, and its all there is to do in the game currently. Just thinking of ways to make it more immersive. Claims could also be used to get more votes from the AI for war, etc etc.
    Click to expand...

    I like the idea of paying for materials to build stuff, you had to do this in viking conquest if you wanted to build ships. Which was really rewarding grinding for that first big long ship. It would also be a bit more of a money sink for those who complain theres nothing to buy and gold becomes too plentiful. Could make it so AI lords also have shopping lists for this, which would affect town economy based on whos buying what to upgrade at the time.

    The Artisans are hit or miss. Maybe a couple through out Calradia, for spice, and discovery, but every village already produces something "Unique" in the sense they make trade goods. Yes there are other villages that do the same, but they are spread out mostly. Couple Spice vendors, Tea houses, etc that offer a rare (Only 1 or two locations on the map) to buy these.


    The Idea of Castle tournaments with 1v1 jousting (1v1 horse back in a stylized arena) and archery contests in that you need to shoot X targets in Y time, or hit X targets with out missing, and they could just program the AI to have specific accuracies for these tournaments that are semi-randomized in difficulty (Peasant, Novice, Capable, Intermediate, Master, Grandmaster) and make a pool for who is capable of what. IE T1 Troops can only ever be Novice/capable. T2/3 could be Novice/Capable/Intermediate and so forth. Lords tending to be Master/Grandmaster, or have it related to their own archery skill. Tie these semi-thematic games with the long awaited Feast mechanic! So now its not just a dinner party, but a 2/3 Staged event. With the player being able to select the agenda. IE Jousting, Archery, Duels, Feast, or just Duel / Feast, and vice versa. Depending on how extravagant you want it to be, the more you pay, and more activities you need. You could also ask Lords/Ladies to play the various board games while at the dinner party. Over all just a big improvement on immersion / Character building with other lords.

    Instead of winning money, or a Tournament Prize, you gain reputation, and influence, and the person holding said event gets prosperity added to their estate? This would create another money sink in the fashion warband did with having to fetch food, and exotic trade goods.

    I also agree that Noble troops should be hired in Castles, and perhaps the feast function mentioned above could also give the Notables of the castle more power, with which to get noble troops more frequently (Use big lavish parties to attract all the young Noble warriors to your house for recruitment).

  8. how to make your AI swap weapons?

    MightyMidgit said:
    Currently there is no order to do this to my knowledge (even Warband did not have this unless you used mods). The AI simply uses the melee weapon it feels is appropriate for the current task. For example, when charging on a horse, a mounted melee unit will switch to a lance, but in a close melee it will switch to close-ranged weapon like a mace or sword if available. Similarly, a spearman will use a spear against a mounted enemy but sometimes switch to a sword if available for a melee where a spear is too unwieldy.
    Click to expand...

    Warband did have a "Use blunt weapons" command. Which is technically switch weapons.


    Perhaps if they see the suggestion they just rip that code from warband, update it if need be, and then apply it to "Polearms" "Twohanded" "Blunt" etc in their own little drop menu.

    Group 1-9> Weapons > Toggle X,Y,Z

  9. "Himil of Tismil was lost." -- But why though?

    Bannerman Man said:
    Alright, here are a bunch of details on how the notable power system works (as of beta 1.5.1) just to shine a light on it.

    First of all, there is a universal power growth/decay modifier for all notables each day depending on current power level. The more powerful the notable, the greater the daily decay. The centerpoint is 100 power. Under 100 power they will gain power each day.
    The exact equation for this decay is: [-1 x ((hero.Power - 100) / 500)].

    Some notable types also have a separate baseline daily power gain to counteract the daily decay, and some have additional losses. Merchants get +0.3 power per day. Both types of village notables get +0.1. Gang leaders actually lose an extra -0.6 power per day. Artisans also lose an extra -1 per day (presumably because they own the Artisan workshop).

    There are also a variety of other ways that notables can gain or lose power. The most familiar will probably be the flat power gains/losses as a reward/consequence of completing or failing quests. On top of this, if a notable has certain unsolved issues/quests they will also lose 1 power each day the quest remains unsolved (this includes the time while companions are sent on the mission, so there are extra drawbacks to sending companions).

    Npc lords can also "complete" quests under certain conditions by entering a settlement that has an outstanding issue. The npc must be the leader of the clan that owns the settlement. Each time they enter, they have a 10% chance of completing a random quest in towns, and a 30% chance in villages. I don't believe they receive any rewards for this.

    Notables will gain 1 power each day if they are a supporter of the clan who owns the settlement (check their tooltip). This effect is huge, and is enough to overcome the daily decay until power climbs very high. This effect is what is responsible for certain notables having more than 500 power. Village notables that don't get this boost are usually the ones who quickly disappear.

    If a notable has gold in excess of 10150 at the end of the day, the amount of gold over 10k will be converted into power according to the equation [(hero.Gold - 10000) / 150] and their gold will be set back to 10k. If a notable has less than 4850 gold at the end of the day, gold is set back to 5k, and power is removed according to the equation [(5000 - hero.Gold) / 150]. Workshops and caravans are notables' main sources of income.

    Merchant notables can only own 1 caravan at a time, which will bring in money for them (which then gets converted into power). If their caravan is destroyed, they will lose a flat 30 power upon creating a new one. They also always pay the wages for the caravan out of pocket.

    Workshops can be owned by any of the urban notables, and will gain them power through converted gold. If a workshop's capital ever runs out, a notable will declare bankruptcy, and the workshop is sold to another notable and its type is randomly changed. This is rare, but does happen.

    Gang leaders own properties called "common areas" (e.g. waterfront, clearing). They earn 0.1 power per day for each owned common area. Gang leaders can lose control of common areas in behind-the-scenes "alley fights." Owing a common area also earns a gang leader 30 gold per day per area. I'd have to double check, but I think they pay wages for thugs occupying the common area. These common areas also have "productions" of their own (such as extortion), but I'd have to look into it more to see if it produces income.

    Notables in a village will each lose 5 power when their village gets fully raided.

    As noted by others above, notables have a chance of disappearing each day if they are below 100 power and do not own any workshops, caravans, or common areas. This chance increases the lower their power falls.

    The whole point of the system is that individual notables will equalize at certain power levels depending on their specific circumstances. My guess as to why notables can disappear is to get rid of "failed" notables that don't have the right conditions to survive, and to give the player some ability to manipulate a settlement's notables. It definitely still needs additional balancing.

    So with all that in mind, what are some other conditions that you guys can think of that should cause notables to gain or lose power without being too redundant? For instance, currently the gold that is used to recruit troops just vanishes, but maybe it should go to the notable instead to boost the power of notables that are recruited from frequently (might be too powerful).
    Click to expand...

    See this is what I mean when I say that Bannerlord has a lot of depth. It just needs to be communicated a bit better. I had zero idea about most of this.

    How did you figure this all out? Did you just go into the inner workings of the code and decipher it all? However it was done, thanks for relaying it.


    I like the idea of a Notable getting the gold for its recruits, and to balance that, perhaps they would lose gold per day, based on the rank of recruit that is still in the settlement? So if a bunch of high level troops are kicking around during peace time, the notable is "Paying" them to just kind of loaf about. I forget if better units cost more in villages, as I never pay attention to that anymore, but if the higher ones are recruited for a better price, it can cause a jump in power, that will drop again during peace time. Thematically it could also be bored soldiers cause trouble. Which makes the townsfolk mad at the notable to explain the negative upkeep per day.

    I believe I read earlier that Warband had patrols, but I cant remember if that was base game or a mod.

    If bandit populations get too high around the area (Number of bandits equal or greater to x > Deploy Patrol) then the notable could "Pay" to send out a small patrol to help guard the village. Costing him both gold, and maybe village prosperity/militia.

    This in turn could cause defeated militia parties to become deserters if the bandits end up defeating them. Either by spawning a duplicate party as deserters, or causing the bandits to "Hire" said prisoners instead of just faffing about with them till a lord rescues them. Since people have been asking for deserters anyway, it would give another option to spawn them. Though I read somewhere that mexxxico is working on rebellions and such.

    It would also create an alternative for Lords and Players to level their own troops on something different than regular looters / bandits. Since the deserter militia would be a step up, but still not as dangerous as Sea/Forest Bandits. (Im not in Khuzait land to speak enough on steppe bandits).

  10. SP - World Map Campaign map speed, horses vs men.

    Apocal said:
    The problem is how you handle mixed parties.

    The AI usually has at least a few mounted units. If nothing else, most lords ride. So what happens? A proportional debuff to movespeed? Or do the units actually get stripped off when you enter impassible terrain? And the AI needs to understand the tradeoffs to avoid cheesing it -- although this is a decidedly tertiary concern -- and the information needs to be presented the player in a way that they intuitively understand certain kinds of terrain will have an effect on their mounted units.

    A secondary issue would be redesigning the map so there are actual reasons to ever be near those areas, while not having a hundred caravan pileup somewhere.



    Elefteroi (or however it is spelled), Beni Zilal, Ghulam and Karakhergits all use predominately mounted units. Jawwal have camels for their higher tier units as well.
    Click to expand...

    Yeah I wouldn't begin to know how to balance the technical implementations, or that they'd even work. Just throwing ideas about. It's definitely a much more daunting task than a simple buff or nerf though. As you said it could possibly get Game-y. Which I feel is a poor way to address a system that needs fixing, but could be the only solution. Perhaps similar to how extra horses gives a speed boost currently, based on percentage, the same could be applied that the more you have incurs a negative penalty in certain terrain types and it simply be left at that.

    I shall wait in the mean time to see how TW addresses it, as I'm sure they are vastly more capable then I am when it comes to the matter.

  11. Max Level ?

    AnandaShanti said:
    They have patients: you and your party all have normal heath issues everyday and they have to deal with them! It's along the lines of what is the quarter master doing to gain skill every day? Something that passively makes them better at their role over time.

    I mean full disclosure, I'm not a fan of this system for passive skills. I would much rather just dump a point into passive skills I want on a char like in Warband and get the effect. Is it dum, yes. Does it work, yes.
    Click to expand...

    Addressing the sniffles is vastly different then battlefield surgery, The quartermaster arguably has to perform his job rationing, and making sure stuff is mended, and maintained everyday, a surgeon only performs surgery as necessary!

    But I do agree that one should be able to boost the way certain skills are developed, be it through books, or other methods then just grinding them away by sacrificing your men (for Science!).

  12. SP - World Map Campaign map speed, horses vs men.

    Apocal said:
    Oh, for sure. I just don't think looking to real life is going to help much here because looking to real, historical employment of horses is a niche-within-a-niche. I don't want to get started too deep into it because it is boring and I sound crazy throwing around terms like "sheep equivalents" but basically any idea to nerf cavalry is going to be game-y.

    My criticism of the OP's idea was that it wouldn't do what he intended, not that it was unrealistic.
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    Yeah I get Real life =/= Gameplay, but there should be at least a semblence of a logical reason to nerf them, such as make some more difficult terrain, except in Khuzait lands etc.

    When people just arbitrarily toss around nerfs for the sake of nerfs, it can dilute gameplay. And I say this as a Sturgian player who uses only infantry (Including me) in most runs. Even my empire run Im not using horses (Cause I cant find any damn noble recruits!).

    I think a modification of the over world to add in swamps, and denser forests would do. Maybe even make some forests that are impassible to mounted units? So that infantry can escape through it (Albeit slowly) but the only way to be caught would be for the horse unit to go around. Since the AI tries to take the fastest path to the target, they would logically have to reroute once a certain threshold was hit.

    This would also buff the smaller mercenary clans, as I dont think many of them have mounted units.

    Could also be expanded upon to the Culture traits, in that some snow passes are impossible to traverse except as sturgians, and woods as battania etc.

  13. "Himil of Tismil was lost." -- But why though?

    Apocal said:
    Aserai is pretty much untouched, except in the west. It is just the end result of whatever balancing has gone on with notable power; instead of all village notables becoming weak and at risk of disappearing (not death), a few are able to hit the right combination of factors to become massively powerful (there is at least one who reached 800+ power, although I can't recall his name or village so good luck finding him in the encyclopedia...) and they stick around. The ones without such luck fade away and are lost, but if the village as less than two notables, another will be generated. That new notable maybe does have the right luck, so he becomes hugely powerful as well. And if not, he fades away and they try again.

    There are a few who are within normal power ranges (120-240 or thereabouts) but for the most part, if you're gonna be powerful, you're gonna be really ****ing powerful. And if you're not, then you'll be gone sooner or later.

    Also, I don't imagine for one second that this was intended and so I fully expect them to nerf it into the ****ing ground in the next patch or patch thereafter.
    Click to expand...

    I've seen a couple northern Empire notables with 350 ish power, poor sobs never had any recruits though

  14. SP - World Map Campaign map speed, horses vs men.

    Apocal said:
    It is just a suggestion to provide some give-and-take to using cavalry. Right now, there are incredibly few advantages to using infantry -- they kill less, die more, move slower, are just as time-consuming to train, equally expensive to maintain and count just the same for party size limits. Archers are in a somewhat better place but if it weren't for other parts of balance being out of whack, people would (rightfully) be complaining that there is no reason to ever use foot troops.
    Click to expand...

    I was just addressing the real life equivalent.

    I feel that the Horses suffer speed penalties in forests / Mountains would be a suitable nerf to Horse speed. As suggested by someone above. Perhaps make the over world have a bit more Dense forest etc in certain regions, so that the Horse parties are severely impaired in these regions. Adding marshes, and other terrain affects too.

  15. Map Modding is Beautiful (Video)

    bestmods168 said:
    Can't wait, wait.
    Click to expand...


    I can't help but feel that this character is meant to be Zhao Zhilong riding along the Yellow River.

    Hah the Guan Yunchang at the end confirmed it.
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