SP - World Map My thoughts on the Faction Snowball effect. Campaigns should go on forever!

[great_khan]

diplomacy is weak in bannerlord, i suggest talewords learn from totalwar three kingdoms, that game have really good diplomacy, factions act cleverly.
i dont understand why factions must be allways in war or wars must be so long, after some battles, looser can suggest options to winner and finnish the battle or very weak faction can became Colony of other one that can suport him.
soory for poor english

 

[Backstabak]

If you cant work out that the point is not to make sieges longer, but less frequent. Making sieges longer makes it easier for everyone gang up on one faction. Especially the player. I find it very odd you find sieges more decisive and predictable than field battles. You should spend some time learning field combat strategies. You literally only need to win the initial clash to throttle the rest of the army and its reinforcements... More to the point it sounds like you would prefer each faction to have a reduced number of lords and clans, meaning defensive garrisons have a higher success rate and therefore survival rate. Again, this is all end game balancing.

You probably haven't read any my other posts about having a simulated economy that can scale can be abused to super set a faction. You should look around more, code logic has already been brought up on this. I havent even added to my new thread on smithing about steel equipment either.

I suggest you start reading what I write first, before you reply. You wrote

Historically it was easier to 'lay siege' and wait people out. Don't assume humanity was non stop murder rape pillage. People weren't complete scumbags, otherwise we wouldn't be where we are.This is the same argument with piracy on the seas, people rather not die. Fighting often was a last resort. Even land battles didn't have high casualty rates in the melee, the true slaughter was running down the fleeing, broken soldiers.

That is you talking about history...

And yes sieges were preferred because battles were quite unpredictable and often decisive.

...and that is me replying to that.

I also fail to see how having longer sieges makes it easier to gang up on one faction. If you need to siege for a while it gives that one faction time to respond instead of just loosing a castle or a city (or more likely several of those) because they couldn't even manage to assemble in one place.

I have said nothing about the number of lords or clans. I don't see how changing their number is going to make garrisons better or worse. Or well it can, it is just significantly more simple to tune the garrison itself.

I also disagree that the problem of one nation quickly dominating is an issue of "end game". You are likely not even going to get to that end game before the map is painted a single color. As I've said from beginning, proper fix would require implementing additional system. That takes time, but in the meantime I don't see why some simple fix can't be implemented (tax reduction/troop wages cost inefficiencies) so that the game is even playable.

And yes, I haven't read your posts about smithing. However, unless dominating kingdom lords just abuse the economy of smithing, I fail to see how it is relevant to why they stomp their neighbours and dominate the map within few hours.

 

[Mawotb]

I suggest you start reading what I write first, before you reply. You wrote



That is you talking about history...



...and that is me replying to that.

I also fail to see how having longer sieges makes it easier to gang up on one faction. If you need to siege for a while it gives that one faction time to respond instead of just loosing a castle or a city (or more likely several of those) because they couldn't even manage to assemble in one place.

I have said nothing about the number of lords or clans. I don't see how changing their number is going to make garrisons better or worse. Or well it can, it is just significantly more simple to tune the garrison itself.

I also disagree that the problem of one nation quickly dominating is an issue of "end game". You are likely not even going to get to that end game before the map is painted a single color. As I've said from beginning, proper fix would require implementing additional system. That takes time, but in the meantime I don't see why some simple fix can't be implemented (tax reduction/troop wages cost inefficiencies) so that the game is even playable.

And yes, I haven't read your posts about smithing. However, unless dominating kingdom lords just abuse the economy of smithing, I fail to see how it is relevant to why they stomp their neighbours and dominate the map within few hours.

im going to make it very simple for you:

1. it isnt an easy fix
2. it has missing content
3. there are multiple reasons why factions steamroll
4. im like 2.5 years in on a second playthrough testing **** other than sieges in game time as an independant clan level 1 and the faction i trade is already in possession of ~50% of the map.
5. an example of the steamrolling is if the armies dont take penalties for starving ie having no food which explains armies leeching off players.
6. I gave you coding / developing based responses that were very clear and concise. Historically speaking and accuracy wont be in the game because reasons.
7. its called context, this is a medieval / feudal faction sim to keep it simple, in EA. i said multiple times you focused on end game balancing that is likely to be a huge waste of time before all content is in.
8. wanting a very very very small part of a game to be hyper polished to your personal preference shouldnt need further explanation.

 

[AlteR]

The ARMY Feature: And finally, and I think most importantly, is the system of joining these massive roving armies prowling around the map. This feature seems absolutely worse in every single way than the Marshal system from Warband because there's just no give to it, no elasticity or flexibility. When a Marshal called an army, it would lead to these gigantic roving bands of multiple lords and their men storming through the map, YES, but a few of those lords would always bleed off to chase bandits, or follow a caravan, or something. There was a chance that steamroll would lose its steam. In this Army feature, it seems to happen a lot less. People join a gigantic army and they just stick together until it dissolves which leads to 900+ troop armies just steamrolling around the map and given the grindiness of the skill system, and of the renown, when am I ever going to be able to stop that sort of thing on my own? It just seems impossible. You can either run away, conceding your castles, or try to form a bigger army and hope you win. And when these gigantic armies collide? The winner continues to steamroll, the loser finds his faction utterly decimated due to the other problems listed above. This is breaking so many campaigns right now because the balance is just abysmal. Everything centers around these gigantic battles and once they're done, the war is basically over. Is this more realistic and historically accurate? Yeah, I suppose it is. But it's not the best for gameplay at all. The stakes are too high in these confrontations and a faction's life or death is decided in them with very little chance for them to recover.​

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I think that could easily be fixed with the influence system. Make assembling armies cost more and lower basic NPC lords influence alongside making it harder to gain.

 

[Pseudo-Gerber]

Alright, but historically even tiny castles could hold out against large armies and sieges easily lasted months. As it is right now a siege is resolved in like 3 days. That's not enough time to do anything. What's more is that the attacking army barely suffers any casualties. 500 garrisson vs 2k army would cause maybe 200 losses, that's nothing.

I too think that all systems should be put in first, which is what I mostly wrote about. On the other hand that doesn't mean that there can't be some quick bandaid in the meantime that prevents massive blobbing. So that players can actually enjoy the game in the meantime, since they paid for it. Maybe just add a negative modifier to army cohesion and troop cost that would scale off the total number of kingdom fiefs.

I resisted a siege from a 1400 men strong army for 4 days when they were out of food, yet they barely lost any troops. They eventually abandoned the siege. They should've not besieged in the first place in my opinion, no food should starve your army in great numbers after 3 days out of food and heavily impact morale. Their morale wasn't dropped a single tenth of a point during food shortage.

 

[Mawotb]

I resisted a siege from a 1400 men strong army for 4 days when they were out of food, yet they barely lost any troops. They eventually abandoned the siege. They should've not besieged in the first place in my opinion, no food should starve your army in great numbers after 3 days out of food and heavily impact morale. Their morale wasn't dropped a single tenth of a point during food shortage.

This is literally going back on a point made earlier on, this is probably a bug. thus this point makes balancing sieges inert as the very thing that does most of the sieging is the thing broken not sieges. Why cant people read.

 

[Fehendil]

A shame we can't share seeds or something xd

 

[Prifter]

Look at the patch 1.0.4 notes everyone, lords now manage their finances which should slow down the snowball effect!

 

[Fehendil]

Not at all. Top priority should be performance. Then it should be multiplayer matchmaking ranked system. Then whatever else.

FPS is running top notch on my mid pc with all on ultra. Just set the combat AI to avarage and the sieges won't take a frame.

 

[Lucius Confucius]

EDIT: With the poll I mean that the single player sandbox experience should be able to last forever, with multiple factions always present and able to fight each other. As to the single player quest campaign, it should of course have an end.

1. Feasts and Peace.
Bring it back! Have factions at peace for longer times, right now they're just at peace for a few days at most.

2. Resurrecting fallen nations.
If the right conditions are met, have a fallen nation be able to resurrect itself in a city or a few, perhaps with a large army in its control.

3. Introduce Rebellions asap in Early Access.
This will naturally curb expansive nations. Give larger nations more stability issues.

4. Have multiple weaker nations declare war on the strongest until it is made slightly weaker, then peace time.
This is another way to slow down the big boys.

5. Make Campaign AI prioritise defence rather than offence.
Patrol borders, attack incoming armies.

6. Have Campaign AI focus on raiding more when on the offence, instead of capturing castles/towns constantly, make raiding more profitable.
Make raiding great again! This will also naturally slow down the pace of the campaign.

Updated:
7. Campaigns should be able to go on indefinitely with factions rising, falling, and should always have multiple factions on the campaign at the same time.
This will give actual use for the clan system and inheritance, since now, if one faction conquers all it is game over, and you will have no use for your heirs.

8. Lords should gather in the Capital of the factions for votes on kingdom issues. Thank you @Sithrain
This will act much like a feast and make lords less on the offence. Those who do not show up, do not get to vote.

9. Reinforce all garrisons.
With reinforced and improved garrisons, it will be more difficult for an army to steamroll siege several castles in a row, which is happening right now.

Just my thoughts currently, may add more. What are your thoughts? Please add ways to stop snowballing and I will add them to this topic.

 

[Fehendil]

Agreed, singleplayer is in a rough state. Quit my third game earlier after a game breaking dialogue bug prevented me from talking to anyone anymore. Battanians were already steamrolling and we were making our last stand anyway. At this point ill probably wait until the next major patch to start a new game.

I wanted to play Sturgia first but since Batats always snow ball like crazy and they were my second choice, I had to go with them xd

 

[Fehendil]

Look at the patch 1.0.4 notes everyone, lords now manage their finances which should slow down the snowball effect!

I appreciate how quickly they roll out fixes to issues we mention. Feels like the right kind of EA.

 

[Robbie_RGJ]

Not at all. Top priority should be performance. Then it should be multiplayer matchmaking ranked system. Then whatever else.

Right now, the snowballing + the fact that nearly 200 armor pieces are accidentally(?) locked to being multiplayer only, leaves the singleplayer campaign being an early game demo at best. You can only play for like 20 hours before a faction takes over the whole map and makes it impossible to be your own kingdom and the best armor you can get is mid tier bandit trash. Oh yeah and skills give so little xp that I "beat the game" as a vassal of western empire before even getting a single skill to level 100. Adding ranked to multiplayer is hardly a concern rn for a game that has always had singleplayer as its main draw for many people.

 

[Fehendil]

Right now, the snowballing + the fact that nearly 200 armor pieces are accidentally(?) locked to being multiplayer only, leaves the singleplayer campaign being an early game demo at best. You can only play for like 20 hours before a faction takes over the whole map and makes it impossible to be your own kingdom and the best armor you can get is mid tier bandit trash. Oh yeah and skills give so little xp that I "beat the game" as a vassal of western empire before even getting a single skill to level 100. Adding ranked to multiplayer is hardly a concern rn for a game that has always had singleplayer as its main draw for many people.

+1

 

[froggyluv]

I havent really delved into the Leader personalities effecting world decisions thing but would like to know that is having some sort of effect. Meaning if you have a War drunk maniac as a leader, certain elements would try to undermine him to keep society peaceful etc..

 

[ABAlphaBeta]

They should also fix how time works.

Add not only rebellions but civil wars, there's a claimant box on the kingdoms page which means there must be something of that ilk in game.

 

[Shrugging Khan]

When one faction starts snowballing, the others should start forming alliances to contain them.

 

[ABAlphaBeta]

When one faction starts snowballing, the others should start forming alliances to contain them.

That would just make the game last forever... And the point is that they hate each other too much to do this

 

[bumblef*ck]

Yea i sat in a sturgian town, grinding my smithing up( Which by the way needs work, smithing way to long to grind, should get weapon parts from loot to make easier) and sturgia got wiped out quickly and then went vlandia, i have 22hrs in game ik its EA and the devs dont have the late game stages done, but the fac wars shoudlnt been done and over with so quickly

 

[froggyluv]

That would just make the game last forever... And the point is that they hate each other too much to do this

Thats why let the personalities decide this. If all Nations are led by War Hawks than let chaos reign and a winner decided.