Make the army compositions of some NPC lords more diverse and unique to add flavor and reduce monotony

[Dreed89]

It is boring to always fight against nearly the same composition like 50% infantry, 30% archers, 20% cavalry etc.

Make some lords favor gathering specific units to add more flavor to the game. This can also be based on the character of the lord, or some other parameters.

Total army size numbers can be adjusted to balance things, or, it can stay the same and gathering these troops may take longer for these lords.

Examples:

• Full archer army
• Full cavalry army
• Full recruit army (for poor lords)
• A raider type of (may be based on traits) lord that use skirmishers, fast infantry etc.
• A noble and rich lord that utilizes more of T5-T6 units

Even if it creates a little unbalance, for me it is better than fights that are clones of each other.

This feature can even create more play style options when choosing which lords to befriend and recruit, making every play-through different.

 

[MostBlunted]

No, please don´t make them have full archer / full cav / full recruit armies.

 

[Gundabad]

I'm not sure if this really is the same as what you're suggesting – maybe not 100% this or that – but at least that all lords have a randomised preference of battle tactics and, ergo, troop upgrades. Just to add some flavour. Maybe this already exists, but I haven't noticed so far.

 

[Dreed89]

No, please don´t make them have full archer / full cav / full recruit armies.

They were just examples. Does not have to be that way. But you got the main idea.

I'm not sure if this really is the same as what you're suggesting – maybe not 100% this or that – but at least that all lords have a randomised preference of battle tactics and, ergo, troop upgrades. Just to add some flavour. Maybe this already exists, but I haven't noticed so far.

Yes, 100% is not a must. Just need some characteristic and diversity. As you said, applying different battle tactics is also a very good idea. For instance calculating lords may prefer to play defensively and utilize the terrain better.

 

[Crowcorrector]

No, please don´t make them have full archer / full cav / full recruit armies.

This sounds like the worst idea ever.

Even the Khuzaits don't have 100% horse mounted armies

 

[Alcedo]

I would like to see more variety of troops by region, not by faction. I mean, Southern Vlandians could have stronger infantry or crossbowmen, Eastern Sturgians could have more/stronger cavalry, etc. This would make lords of the specific region have slightly different armies. This is the variety that would make sense to me.

The idea that different lords would use different strategies is cool but it would be better if it depended on lord's personality (calculating, valor, honor, mercy). I.e, calculating lords are more likely to position their troops in a smarter way, brave lords would prefer attacking before defending, merciful won't chase the deserting troops, devious would try to make fake maneuvers. But this looks very hard to implement

 

[danEN]

What we need is more ai formations and tactics.

 

[MostBlunted]

What we need is more ai formations and tactics.

Oh yes.

I would also prefer if factions would prefer factions troops. If you play "long enough" most of the armies are just mixed. Doesn´t matter if you fight the Empire or Battania, both will have mixed armies. They look too random for me.

A faction should rely on 60%+ of their own faction.

 

[Apocal]

What we need is more ai formations and tactics.

The AI have a lot of tactics that they use, you just never notice them because it comes down to "stay back" or "go to the player." You have to look closely to see the difference between the different varieties of charge or advance or full scale attack. I haven't yet seen coordinated retreat, to be sure, nor a ranged envelopment. So there is a chance I'm just getting the placebo effect. But it is just as likely that those tactics haven't yet been tweaked enough to actually trigger during a battle.

Or that as a player, I'm doing something to prevent them from triggering.

Oh yes.

I would also prefer if factions would prefer factions troops. If you play "long enough" most of the armies are just mixed. Doesn´t matter if you fight the Empire or Battania, both will have mixed armies. They look too random for me.

A faction should rely on 60%+ of their own faction.

Restricting the potential recruiting pool is a terrible idea for every faction that isn't the Khuzait Khanate or Battania but especially for the Imperial factions since their baseline composition is pretty much complete **** performance-wise.

 

[NLCRich]

Oh yes.

I would also prefer if factions would prefer factions troops. If you play "long enough" most of the armies are just mixed. Doesn´t matter if you fight the Empire or Battania, both will have mixed armies. They look too random for me.

A faction should rely on 60%+ of their own faction.

I think it has to do with the eventuality that some lords will join a faction other than their base faction, and also because as the lands spread the kingdoms get more diversity in troops they can recruit from their own villages. However, I agree it takes away from the immersion some with the faction armies, and we definitely need more formations and tactics and for them to work correctly, and also for A.I. to improve their own tactics to make it more interesting.

However, I do not think armies of all one troop type is really a great idea. An army like that will always have an obvious weakness. If there was a bit more diversity, that would suffice for me. Kind of OP's idea but to less a degree, maybe one lord prefers to have a higher % of cavalry versus another for certain reasons, but not all that type. If we had a little of that and differences in the tactics used from faction to faction, I think that would be enough to keep it interesting. Obviously there is still work to do in other areas as well to make it all come together nicely.

 

[danEN]

The AI have a lot of tactics that they use, you just never notice them because it comes down to "stay back" or "go to the player." You have to look closely to see the difference between the different varieties of charge or advance or full scale attack. I haven't yet seen coordinated retreat, to be sure, nor a ranged envelopment. So there is a chance I'm just getting the placebo effect. But it is just as likely that those tactics haven't yet been tweaked enough to actually trigger during a battle.

I wouldn't class them as tactics though, they're more just like instructions at this point. For example today I played a battle 1100 Sturgian's vs 1000 Vlandians. In the battle the first instruction I got was to charge the 12 Sturgian cavalry i commanded Into the 100+ Vlandian cavalry. A lot of the time there's literally no tactical meaning behind the instructions, it's seems like something the dev's just added to spice up battles.

What I want to see is something like they literally showed in the recent dev update. It's a bit scuffed but you have an actual army formation here that's not just 1 line of infantry, 1 line of archers and then cavalry either side, there's actual depth to the army.

Sadly it seems like just a cinematic feature for the video, but it would be great to have these types of formations in the game.

 

[svelok]

I'm not sure if this really is the same as what you're suggesting – maybe not 100% this or that – but at least that all lords have a randomised preference of battle tactics and, ergo, troop upgrades. Just to add some flavour. Maybe this already exists, but I haven't noticed so far.

yeah this would be cool. just using their traits or whatever, the AI has a lot of under the hood traits beyond just the personality ones the player sees that would be good for this.

it's kind of a subtle thing though, you could implement this feature and most people might not even notice it?

 

[black_bulldog]

It would be nice if some lords will only recruit from their own faction while others will take anyone.

 

[Apocal]

I wouldn't class them as tactics though, they're more just like instructions at this point. For example today I played a battle 1100 Sturgian's vs 1000 Vlandians. In the battle the first instruction I got was to charge the 12 Sturgian cavalry i commanded Into the 100+ Vlandian cavalry. A lot of the time there's literally no tactical meaning behind the instructions, it's seems like something the dev's just added to spice up battles.

Those instructions are just going to whatever sub-unit, directing it to do whatever. There is no way to tell which big-picture tactics the AI is actually trying to use, as far as I know. Sometimes armies have a little blurb, but those don't seem to have a correlation with anything. I treat them as fluff.

What I want to see is something like they literally showed in the recent dev update. It's a bit scuffed but you have an actual army formation here that's not just 1 line of infantry, 1 line of archers and then cavalry either side, there's actual depth to the army.

Well, formations are something else.

 

[Bigamo]

to be honest i always thought that the max tier of troops used by each clan should be the clan level. Makes no sense that i with a tier 0 clan, hunting looters am using palatine guards. The tier 6 troops of each faction should only be usable by the super powerful clans. I just never sugested that cause i know people will want to burn my house. But i agree, especially now with captain traits (the party leader is considered captain of anything?) makes sense to have more especialised armies with different compositions. I would LOVE to see "galant" characters working with more knights for instance.

 

[Bigamo]

It would be nice if some lords will only recruit from their own faction while others will take anyone.

And that comes to the old discussions that taken settlements should change culture after some years. But TW refuse to implement it.

 

[black_bulldog]

And that comes to the old discussions that taken settlements should change culture after some years. But TW refuse to implement it.

I actually don't like the idea of settlements changing culture.

 

[Ichon]

I actually don't like the idea of settlements changing culture.

I do, it is natural progression assimilation but it should be capped at 50% as full change takes centuries but there are always a few people more willing to adapt and then some settlers from the conquering culture getting to 50% could happen in the span of a Bannerlord campaign.

 

[black_bulldog]

I do, it is natural progression assimilation but it should be capped at 50% as full change takes centuries but there are always a few people more willing to adapt and then some settlers from the conquering culture getting to 50% could happen in the span of a Bannerlord campaign.

My point being that not everyone would want that.