Sturgia's unplayable

[LyonExodus]

comparison between units "who wins" when they are using very different weapons doesn't bring much more infos : it only leaves to hypothesis about why's.

i agree but it depends. a ranking systems by 1st and 2nd isn't the best method for sure. when i test them i prefer using a score system (using kills and casualties mainly) and having them fight against a sample of units selected to make results more stable. in some cases units are very close together while in others there is a huge difference in performance. that's why i will always be of the idea that testing is still an indicative measurement but one that can give you that extra info to enhance your game.

Anyway man, you made me a better player with your knowledge today, i can only thank you for that.

 

[LDominating]

So,are we in accordance that next patch should be Sturgia's patch?

 

[Danny5]

So,are we in accordance that next patch should be Sturgia's patch?

Yes, should be or at least a few more patches, I would like overall work for all faction troops as well

 

[Thrangor88]

Yes, should be or at least a few more patches, I would like overall work for all faction troops as well

I agree, this is more of a global overhaul of the troop trees. Define faction strengths and weaknesses, then redefine combat AI in relation to global units.

Sturgia = infantry => shield wall => AI which maintains its formation until the end of the battle

Battania = Archer on foot => skirmisher => AI looking for combat in the forest

Vlandia = Melee Cavalry => Corner Formation => AI looking for the pincer charge

etc ....

 

[Danny5]

I agree, this is more of a global overhaul of the troop trees. Define faction strengths and weaknesses, then redefine combat AI in relation to global units.

Sturgia = infantry => shield wall => AI which maintains its formation until the end of the battle

Battania = Archer on foot => skirmisher => AI looking for combat in the forest

Vlandia = Melee Cavalry => Corner Formation => AI looking for the pincer charge

etc ....

Yea strength and weakness are somewhat in the game, but not balanced, like sturgian should have the best infantry, but empire troops seems to be stronger lol

 

[LDominating]

Yea strength and weakness are somewhat in the game, but not balanced, like sturgian should have the best infantry, but empire troops seems to be stronger lol

Exactly this.

 

[Thrangor88]

For me, the strength of the empire should be the crossbowmen, not vlandia.
It makes sense that the empire should be more technically advanced and the empire should be the only ones to have this technology.

 

[five bucks]

For me, the strength of the empire should be the crossbowmen, not vlandia.

The specialty of Vlandia is apparently meant to be melee cavalry. Crossbowmen are only their strong point at the moment because armor is so imbalanced/bugged to give poor protection against ranged attacks; and because cavalry AI is bugged so that melee cavalry are crap. Once those issues get fixed, it probably won't be Vlandia's strength anymore.

It makes sense that the empire should be more technically advanced and the empire should be the only ones to have this technology.

According to Taleworlds, Bannerlord is a heavily historically inspired game, with a setting based in the years 600AD-1100AD.

TW has said Vlandia is based on the Western Europeans of that time period, Normans in particular. Normans had crossbows, which is why Taleworlds have chosen to include them.

In addition, it would make the game less varied if you got rid of crossbows from everyone but the Empire. I think it's more interesting if 4 factions in the game use crossbows and 4 use bows, than if only 3 factions use crossbows and 4 use bows.

My 2 cents is that the strength of the Empire should be pikemen, for a few reasons:

* Their real-life inspiration is the Byzantines, who are recorded as using lines of menavlion pikes to repel cavalry charges.
* Other cultures represented in Bannerlord probably did use pikemen too, but the Byzantines feature them more prominently (at least from what I've managed to find), and all the other cultures have something more clearly "theirs" (archery for Aserai/Arabs, horse archery for Khuzaits/Turkic peoples, cavalry for Vlandia/Normans, shock infantry for Battania/Celts, heavy infantry for Sturgia/Kievan Rus), so they fit better as pike specialists than any other faction.
* In-game art depicts them with pikemen.
* Lines of serried pikemen fit the Empire's "more organized than the barbarians" theme nicely.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

Vlandia should absolutely have good crossbowmen. The Battle of Pendraic specifically noted the importance of Vlandian crossbowmen in fighting back the Khuzaits.

Honestly, why do factions have to be so one dimensional? Why can't they have a distinct, yet multifaceted approach to their battles?

Sturgia should definitely have heavy infantry as their thing though.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

My 2 cents is that the strength of the Empire should be pikemen, for a few reasons:

* Their real-life inspiration is the Byzantines, who are recorded as using lines of menavlion pikes to repel cavalry charges.
* Other cultures represented in Bannerlord probably did use pikemen too, but the Byzantines feature them more prominently (at least from what I've managed to find), and all the other cultures have something more clearly "theirs" (archery for Aserai/Arabs, horse archery for Khuzaits/Turkic peoples, cavalry for Vlandia/Normans, shock infantry for Battania/Celts, heavy infantry for Sturgia/Kievan Rus), so they fit better as pike specialists than any other faction.
* In-game art depicts them with pikemen.
* Lines of serried pikemen fit the Empire's "more organized than the barbarians" theme nicely.

Being forced to use pikemen in the current state of the game would be anal devastation. And even if they actually worked, pikemen are only ever going to be equivalent to decent mainline spam infantry in this kind of game, while having good horse archers or foot archers is an actual gamechanging benefit.

 

[LDominating]

I don't agree with the mindset and idea that factions should have extremly weak troops in some domains. because their faction is not about that gameplay.
Or worse because "MuH hIsToRiCaL".

All troops should be good.

I don't want this to be another Warband where you use Swadian Knights,Vaegir Archers and Nordic Infantry.

 

[Philozoraptor]

My 2 cents is that the strength of the Empire should be pikemen, for a few reasons:

* Their real-life inspiration is the Byzantines, who are recorded as using lines of menavlion pikes to repel cavalry charges.
* Other cultures represented in Bannerlord probably did use pikemen too, but the Byzantines feature them more prominently (at least from what I've managed to find), and all the other cultures have something more clearly "theirs" (archery for Aserai/Arabs, horse archery for Khuzaits/Turkic peoples, cavalry for Vlandia/Normans, shock infantry for Battania/Celts, heavy infantry for Sturgia/Kievan Rus), so they fit better as pike specialists than any other faction.
* In-game art depicts them with pikemen.
* Lines of serried pikemen fit the Empire's "more organized than the barbarians" theme nicely.

You mean something like this ?

 

[five bucks]

I don't agree with the mindset and idea that factions should have extremely weak troops in some domains. because their faction is not about that gameplay.

Agreed- instead of expressing a faction's weakness by giving them a useless troop the player doesn't want to pick, faction weaknesses should be expressed by not having that type of troop at all. Faction strengths should be expressed by having two different choices of a certain type of unit by T5, and also always having that unit available at T2.

For example, Sturgia has two different types of shield infantry. Vlandia has two types of melee cavalry. Khuzaits have two types of horse archer. In this way, you can show the strength of a faction without needing to make a single unit overpowered, and forcing players to use it.

Then you also have the fact that Vlandia can't field ranged cavalry at all. This is a good weakness that makes their play experience feel a bit more different from other factions and changes the tactics you use when playing with or against them.

I think troop trees for all factions should be changed to have a unique "weakness" (unit they can't field) and "strength" (unit they field more of).

I don't want this to be another Warband where you use Swadian Knights,Vaegir Archers and Nordic Infantry.

Well it doesn't necessarily have to be.
The ideal is a midpoint between Bannerlord's approach of "some factions can do basically everything, which gives the player a lot of choice but also makes every faction feel too similar" and Warband's "most factions can only do one or two things, which makes them feel unique but robs the player of choice".

Spoiler: Like so:

* Empires have the most pike infantry units, but have no shock infantry.
* Vlandia has the most melee cavalry units, but has no ranged cavalry.
* Aserai has the most ranged infantry units, but has no pike infantry.
* Khuzaits have the most ranged cavalry units, but have no shield infantry.
* Battania has the most shock infantry units, but has no melee cavalry.
* Sturgia has the most shield infantry units, but has the least ranged infantry.

This would maximise the gameplay difference between factions, while still staying vaguely true to their real-life inspirations too.

 

[niekdegrijze]

Agreed- instead of expressing a faction's weakness by giving them a useless troop the player doesn't want to pick, faction weaknesses should be expressed by not having that type of troop at all. Faction strengths should be expressed by having two different choices of a certain type of unit by T5, and also always having that unit available at T2.

For example, Sturgia has two different types of shield infantry. Vlandia has two types of melee cavalry. Khuzaits have two types of horse archer. In this way, you can show the strength of a faction without needing to make a single unit overpowered, and forcing players to use it.

Then you also have the fact that Vlandia can't field ranged cavalry at all. This is a good weakness that makes their play experience feel a bit more different from other factions and changes the tactics you use when playing with or against them.

I think troop trees for all factions should be changed to have a unique "weakness" (unit they can't field) and "strength" (unit they field more of).

Well it doesn't necessarily have to be.
The ideal is a midpoint between Bannerlord's approach of "some factions can do basically everything, which gives the player a lot of choice but also makes every faction feel too similar" and Warband's "most factions can only do one or two things, which makes them feel unique but robs the player of choice".

Spoiler: Like so:

* Empires have the most pike infantry units, but have no shock infantry.
* Vlandia has the most melee cavalry units, but has no ranged cavalry.
* Aserai has the most ranged infantry units, but has no pike infantry.
* Khuzaits have the most ranged cavalry units, but have no shield infantry.
* Battania has the most shock infantry units, but has no melee cavalry.
* Sturgia has the most shield infantry units, but has the least ranged infantry.

This would maximise the gameplay difference between factions, while still staying vaguely true to their real-life inspirations too.

I like this troop tree overview and this would be a good system!
I am all for differentiating between factions

in addition I would like the battle AI to be different between the factions:
for example:
- Sturgia: more shield wall formations
- Vlandia: more cavalry charges in wedge formations, and infantry in defensive formations
- khuzaits: like they are, with good HA tactics

Also the campaign mechanics might be changed up a but between factions, besides different political systems.
- Sturgia:
more raiding an attacking during winter time on snow covered map. More parties per clan, with a lower troop limit, but with a lower influance cost to form an army. When an army meets a much bigger enemy army, the would split up and retreat back to the north where they have a speed advantage.
- Empire:
Less raiding and more sieging. Bigger parties, but less parties per clan.
- Khuzait:
More focussed on field battles. A lot of raiding and sieging to draw enemy armies out on to the open field. Only commits to siege assault after they enemy faction is depleted en garrisons are of low quality.
- Aserai:
To change this faction up, I would suggest a mamluke system like in Egypt. Make these units a lot cheaper but require a "slave"pool(from prisoners of war) for recruitment. They can field high quality troops for less money, but they are limited to the amount of prisoners they have. Additionally if the percentage of these troops in a party/army is to high it will have a impact on morale and these troop might even revolt. Attacking the other troops or becoming bandits.

(dealing with these bandit parties would be a good dynamic quest in Aserai land for higher level characters)

 

[KingEroc1st]

go sturgian archers only, you'll win. trust me

 

[five bucks]

I like this troop tree overview and this would be a good system!
I am all for differentiating between factions

in addition I would like the battle AI to be different between the factions:
for example:
- Sturgia: more shield wall formations
- Vlandia: more cavalry charges in wedge formations, and infantry in defensive formations
- khuzaits: like they are, with good HA tactics

Also the campaign mechanics might be changed up a but between factions, besides different political systems.
- Sturgia:
more raiding an attacking during winter time on snow covered map. More parties per clan, with a lower troop limit, but with a lower influance cost to form an army. When an army meets a much bigger enemy army, the would split up and retreat back to the north where they have a speed advantage.
- Empire:
Less raiding and more sieging. Bigger parties, but less parties per clan.
- Khuzait:
More focussed on field battles. A lot of raiding and sieging to draw enemy armies out on to the open field. Only commits to siege assault after they enemy faction is depleted en garrisons are of low quality.
- Aserai:
To change this faction up, I would suggest a mamluke system like in Egypt. Make these units a lot cheaper but require a "slave"pool(from prisoners of war) for recruitment. They can field high quality troops for less money, but they are limited to the amount of prisoners they have. Additionally if the percentage of these troops in a party/army is to high it will have a impact on morale and these troop might even revolt. Attacking the other troops or becoming bandits.

(dealing with these bandit parties would be a good dynamic quest in Aserai land for higher level characters)

Different strategic approaches for different factions sounds really fun, if there were general patterns you could kind of expect from a certain faction, or faction leader. Sturgia's season-themed war pattern is an especially flavourful idea.

 

[Adov]

OP surely does exaggerate a little and doesn't bother containing his emotions too much, but he's right in general. At current state Sturgia only has 2 top-tier units that are 2nd best in their class (Heavy Axeman and Heroic Line Breaker), a mediocre noble melee cav (used to be auite good when melee cav in general was good), a mediocre light cav (same here, jav-cav has issues allover Calradia), 2 units that are complete trash and no unit that really excells at anything. This seems mildly disappointing but not a disaster. What makes sturgian situation worse is their low- and mid-tier troops - way under-armored.
I don't really like all those nord-viking-vaegir conversions modders do - they're all about huscarls instead of cav, valkiries, poorly picked slavic looking names, misspelled norse ones and the general idea of an attempt to make sturgians a northern Mary Sue. But I do usually edit the spnpccharasters.xml in SandBoxCore to make sturgian troops suck just slightly less without deriving from their vanilla doctrine too far. First thing I do is, of course, swap the retarded condom-plated helmet (please TW, remove this atrocity from the game completely, not only it makes reenactor's eyes bleed, it's been a laughing stock from day 1) of the heavy axeman for the goggled sea-raider one so they'd look like badasses they are. Then I'd probably give em their coat-of-plates back - these guys should Tank, maybe 10-20 points of one-handed wouldn't hurt as well, bacause 2nd best line infantry should actually be the best - with legionaries just half a step behind. Heavy spearman could probably be good if thrusting polearms were a viable thing in Bannerlord - they should deal way more damage and thrust faster. Until that's a thing I'd probably just give em the ol' war razors back - but that's kinda op, and we, sturgians, don't like to be happy, plus the shock troop niche gets kinda crowded, so this one's questionable. Veteran bowman gets 2 stacks of piercing arrows and either a simple bow (which is just a wee bit better than the norse one) or the simplest longbow possible - that still makes him worse than any other top-tier archer but the gap is a lot thinner. Warriors and soldiers get slightly better armor. Recruits too, just a tiny bit, and I make scythes about twice as common among them just so those battanain volunteers with 2-handed hammers wouldn't feel that great. Think I'd also give line-breakers (both versions) some pelts just so they'd excell instead of being closely behind menavs. A year ago (1.5.7 or so) varyag vets would also lose to sea raider chiefs which I found kinda frustrating since the former is basically a civilised version of the latter and that leadership perk kind of felt like a waste, so I balanced the vets slightly to be just on par with raiders. Think, I did that by tinkering with 1-h and throwing, maybe shoulder armor for the vets, but I'm not sure they are still worse than raiders these days.
The above, I think, is just the right amount of buff sturgian troop tree needs. Other thing is their cultural trait. It's good to see TW finally got concerned and removed the infamous "20% less penalty from snow" but maybe they got it wrong, it was actually a good trait, just not good enough. Make it 50% instead - like the battanian one with forests. Or even 70% - snow is a seasonal thing afterall.

 

[LDominating]

OP surely does exaggerate a little and doesn't bother containing his emotions too much, but he's right in general. At current state Sturgia only has 2 top-tier units that are 2nd best in their class (Heavy Axeman and Heroic Line Breaker), a mediocre noble melee cav (used to be auite good when melee cav in general was good), a mediocre light cav (same here, jav-cav has issues allover Calradia), 2 units that are complete trash and no unit that really excells at anything. This seems mildly disappointing but not a disaster. What makes sturgian situation worse is their low- and mid-tier troops - way under-armored.
I don't really like all those nord-viking-vaegir conversions modders do - they're all about huscarls instead of cav, valkiries, poorly picked slavic looking names, misspelled norse ones and the general idea of an attempt to make sturgians a northern Mary Sue. But I do usually edit the spnpccharasters.xml in SandBoxCore to make sturgian troops suck just slightly less without deriving from their vanilla doctrine too far. First thing I do is, of course, swap the retarded condom-plated helmet (please TW, remove this atrocity from the game completely, not only it makes reenactor's eyes bleed, it's been a laughing stock from day 1) of the heavy axeman for the goggled sea-raider one so they'd look like badasses they are. Then I'd probably give em their coat-of-plates back - these guys should Tank, maybe 10-20 points of one-handed wouldn't hurt as well, bacause 2nd best line infantry should actually be the best - with legionaries just half a step behind. Heavy spearman could probably be good if thrusting polearms were a viable thing in Bannerlord - they should deal way more damage and thrust faster. Until that's a thing I'd probably just give em the ol' war razors back - but that's kinda op, and we, sturgians, don't like to be happy, plus the shock troop niche gets kinda crowded, so this one's questionable. Veteran bowman gets 2 stacks of piercing arrows and either a simple bow (which is just a wee bit better than the norse one) or the simplest longbow possible - that still makes him worse than any other top-tier archer but the gap is a lot thinner. Warriors and soldiers get slightly better armor. Recruits too, just a tiny bit, and I make scythes about twice as common among them just so those battanain volunteers with 2-handed hammers wouldn't feel that great. Think I'd also give line-breakers (both versions) some pelts just so they'd excell instead of being closely behind menavs. A year ago (1.5.7 or so) varyag vets would also lose to sea raider chiefs which I found kinda frustrating since the former is basically a civilised version of the latter and that leadership perk kind of felt like a waste, so I balanced the vets slightly to be just on par with raiders. Think, I did that by tinkering with 1-h and throwing, maybe shoulder armor for the vets, but I'm not sure they are still worse than raiders these days.
The above, I think, is just the right amount of buff sturgian troop tree needs. Other thing is their cultural trait. It's good to see TW finally got concerned and removed the infamous "20% less penalty from snow" but maybe they got it wrong, it was actually a good trait, just not good enough. Make it 50% instead - like the battanian one with forests. Or even 70% - snow is a seasonal thing afterall.

Everything you said is true.

But you forgot to mention something.
Unless you amass a type of unit,it's gonna suck for Sturgis.
Varyag Vets and Spearmen can ignore they have 26~ body armour,they compensate for it with 51 and 46 head armour which is extremly good for shield wall fighting.
If you do not have at around 50 infantry and always put them in shield wall and either wait for enemy infantry to barge in you or you manage to micromanage the infantry to be extremly close to their,these guys individually will suck ass.
Their axes are too short and the A.I of axe troops is incredibly bad compared to those of mace troops,who tend to block more and attack accordingly.

I have seen my axemen preparing to swing to a Voulgier from 10 meters away.

 

[Philozoraptor]

Dont forget that the AI will have random troops once you start fighting actual battles with 1000+ participants.

 

[Adov]

Everything you said is true.

But you forgot to mention something.
Unless you amass a type of unit,it's gonna suck for Sturgis.
Varyag Vets and Spearmen can ignore they have 26~ body armour,they compensate for it with 51 and 46 head armour which is extremly good for shield wall fighting.
If you do not have at around 50 infantry and always put them in shield wall and either wait for enemy infantry to barge in you or you manage to micromanage the infantry to be extremly close to their,these guys individually will suck ass.
Their axes are too short and the A.I of axe troops is incredibly bad compared to those of mace troops,who tend to block more and attack accordingly.

I have seen my axemen preparing to swing to a Voulgier from 10 meters away.

Actually, I compared sturgian t3 armors with battanian and vlandian - and they're, surprisingly, on par. Battanian Trained Warriors have about 5-6 more BA, but they still lost to sturgian soldiers in a 100v100 (Enhanced Battle Test mod). Which, I believe, wasn't the case about a year ago, when I was digging into this matter last time. So sturgian regular infantry is not in that bad of a place these days, but yea smth a bit better than a scarf wouldn't hurt. Heavy axemen are actually good enough to beat legionaries most of the time and even vet falxmen - mostly thanks to their initial jav volley in both cases (which apparently does not happen in the youtube video you mentioned, it seems the author tests melee only). Heavy spearmen are confirmed garbage tho - I had doubts about how they perform against cavalry - they don't brace their spears and just don't perform against anything at all.
Varyag vets confirmed to lack skills in comparison to their rogue counterpart - chiefs are significantly better in 1-h, throwing and athletics and also occasionally have fur cloaks, when vets occasionally have scarves.
I honestly don't see a problem with axes. Not with veteran warrior axe at least. It's shorter than a sword, yes, but has decent damage, good application and excellent swing speed. If anything, make this particular one more common among the sturgian troop tree, give it to vet archers for example, maybe also to 1/3 or a half of varyag/vet-varyag spawns.
Druzhinnik Champions consistently lose to Banner Knights and Elite Cataphracts but are on par with Vanguard Farises (usually wining). Maybe a heavy lance wouldn't hurt tho, but in that case banner knights should get a longer one too. They also occasionally wield a vet warrior axe which is good for infantry, but not that good for noble cav. The rectangular bitted one should be their trademark once again.
And yea, general cav AI is retarded, any cavalry performs better with RBM battle AI (didn't like the mod's weapon and troop overhaul, but thankfully these two come in separate modules). On the downside - this AI complicates things too much for shock infantry with throwables - like breakers and falxmen - these just keep throwing their ****ty axes till they run out of them instead of closing in asap in order to do what they're actually good at.

Now, about those Khan's Guards. Yep, they're way too good. Yep, all thanks to the glaives. Not only KGs actually, but starting from Torguuds and up. Even khuzait T4 noble units dominate anything. Only Elite Cataphracts got them routed for the enigmatic reasons of how morale works now - body count was still well in favor of KGs. So it's not about armor or skills or horses - only the glaives. RBM AI boosted Druzhinnik Champs win against KGs with minimum lead in bodycount right until the moment a massive brawl at point blank happens - then the glaives fix everything. I think a balanced way of setting this straight without giving glaives to every other noble troop would be removing it from torguuds and keshigs and maybe letting only half the spawns of KGs have it. Last part sounds a bit extreme to me though, but maybe better lances for all other t6 melee cav, and a proper AI that would couch them would work too.