The armour fix makes this game way too easy. The high tier troops should be rarer.

[black_bulldog]

Personally I think that Tier 4 troops should be the optimal "bang for the buck" for the player, with T5 being less efficient, and T6 even less so.

In other words, there should be diminishing returns when you upgrade your troops beyond T3-T4, where the increase in cost is bigger than the increase in lethality. Just how big this increase would be is of course subject to balancing, so I'm not going to give any particular numbers.

I also believe that all of this should be focused on the player and not affect the AI, as AI armies are already plagued by being 70% recruits after getting beaten once.
I know that TW tries to make it so that the AI and the player play by (roughly) the same rules, but I think that outside of eliminating blatant AI cheating, this is not actually a sustainable strategy. The player is way too good at using their resources compared to the AI, so the bots really do need handicaps, it's all about making them not so obvious and jarring.

I'm sorry but I'm going to have to disagree. Imho making t5 troop prices exorbitant is the wrong way to go. It means there's no reason to ever have t5 troops and they might as well not exist. What you're talking about is penalizing the player because the ai is . If they wanted to make leveling up to tier 5 troops a much harder process I'd be fine with that and I also feel that t6 troops should be rare so no one, player or ai, can run around with an army full of KG or Fian Champions. But if the ai is so bad that they keep throwing low tier troops against me that's not my fault that's something that Taleworlds needs address without unduly penalizing players. If the ai loses a big battle or 2 they need to turtle up and start training then come back or sue for peace, not keep recruiting a bunch of low level troops to throw at me again and again because that's not a close approximation of how it worked and more importantly it makes for boring gaming which is what we have now. The ai battle mechanic in this game is bad so what you're asking is to fix the problem by essentially making top troops useless. That's not going to sit well with a lot of players.

 

[Honved]

So, what happens if you boost the experience requirement for the top tiers? It will take longer to train up those elite troops, leaving the armies with more mid-tier troops as it should be. Recruits will train up as quickly as they do now, but each additional tier will take longer, creating relatively few elites. They SHOULD be rare, both for the player and for the AI, so making it harder to get them seems like some kind of answer.

 

[JunKeteer]

With the high chance of armies stacking together on sieges and fights, I've seen doomstacks of T5/6s (so far Battania, Empire, Khuzaits) just roll through and take multiple towns and castles in one sequence.
Before, it was maybe a single town or castle and then the army either dissolves or gets defeated after losing troops. Then the opposing kingdom does same thing and takes it back; back to 0 'balance' most cases without player invention.

I'm all for it, as my playthrough landscape is a lot more varied with kingdoms taking a large swath of area, struggle with rebellions, seeing another kingdom take advantage, or lose significant portion their 'home' towns from a flanking war without my input.
I joined Sturgia (WE somehow took Tyal and still holding years in), and a 2K group of Khuzait took 3 towns in one push, but after 2 years peace, they all turned rebellious at around the same time and after a while, managed to convert to new clans/back to us (as we lost a couple clans) as we were struggling. IMO, this is much better than the back and forth 'balance' we had before.

That being said, fighting a lot of elites does provide significant challenge (some tweak/balancing still needed between kingdom cultures), as long as their 'recovery' rate for AI gets reduced. So that if you manage to fight a massive 2K vs 2K of elites vs elites, whichever side loses should take a long time to get that 2K# of elites again, and gives more weight to that battle.
It also adds the interesting element of fighting battles solely to attrite the opponent vs just the win/lose/repeat. Knowingly breaking into a losing siege defense or creating a small/minor army (ie 250 vs 1K) battle just to help kill off as many elites as you can so they can't easily take that next town/castle.

One other thing though I noticed, siege defenses are a lot more favorable to simulate given the armor changes with real-time combat. Would assume it should be the other way where the real-time combat should generally give you the chance for the better outcome (ie Total War game). Or this can still be due to buggy assignments with siege positions from the few towns/castles I've defended.

 

[RandyOglestein]

I'd like higher tier troops to be more expensive to maintain and also take longer to train up.
That being said, for AI to get more non-recruit troops, I'd love to see some party-management options available either in the field and/or in settlements. Something like:
1. Resting - temporarily increase morale and party movement speed, scaled in magnitude and duration by time spent resting (of course with upper and lower bounds)
2. Training - Specifically for regular troops. XP distributed among troops at regular intervals (the longer you wait, the more XP gained), though the value per interval should be relatively low. With a properly scaled tier-upgrade pathway, this would allow AI and the player to quickly train up troops beyond Recruits, but wouldn't provide enough XP to get a ton of T4 and T5 troops very quickly. Of course this training XP and/or the intervals could be modified by various player skills and perks
3. Mentoring - Specifically for companions. XP given at regular intervals to one or more companions (XP value remains static, then is divided amongst the selected companions) in a specific skillset. That way you could train your companion is specific skills. XP value and/or intervals could be modified by various player skills and perks
4. Scouting - Given the new encyclopedia changes, you could "send out" scouts to gather intel from a larger radius around you to help you find nobles and their party information as well as village information like possible rewards for raiding. Level of information and size of radius could scale by time spent scouting
5. Scavenging/Looting - Reduce troop upkeep and food usage, but temporarily reduces movement speed, scaled in duration by time spent scavenging (of course with upper and lower bounds). Also reduces relation with noble associated with location where you're at
6. Prepare/Maintenance - Slightly increases weapon damage and armor values temporarily, the number of party members affected could scale with time spent preparing/maintaining

 

[Askorti]

I'm sorry but I'm going to have to disagree. Imho making t5 troop prices exorbitant is the wrong way to go. It means there's no reason to ever have t5 troops and they might as well not exist. What you're talking about is penalizing the player because the ai is . If they wanted to make leveling up to tier 5 troops a much harder process I'd be fine with that and I also feel that t6 troops should be rare so no one, player or ai, can run around with an army full of KG or Fian Champions. But if the ai is so bad that they keep throwing low tier troops against me that's not my fault that's something that Taleworlds needs address without unduly penalizing players. If the ai loses a big battle or 2 they need to turtle up and start training then come back or sue for peace, not keep recruiting a bunch of low level troops to throw at me again and again because that's not a close approximation of how it worked and more importantly it makes for boring gaming which is what we have now. The ai battle mechanic in this game is bad so what you're asking is to fix the problem by essentially making top troops useless. That's not going to sit well with a lot of players.

You are disagreeing with something I didn't say. At no point did I say that the price of T5 troops should be exorbitant. I said that increase in price should be bigger than increase in quality. I even specifically didn't state any numbers and said that exact numbers would be up to balance.

As for why I look at it this way, it's pretty much porecisely because I don't think TW is up to the task of making the AI capable enough to field armies that make sense and are challenging without giving it some kind of crutch. I would obviously much prefer a better AI that knows when to fight and when to train their armies, but that is honestly not something I expect TW to bother with at this point.

 

[black_bulldog]

You are disagreeing with something I didn't say. At no point did I say that the price of T5 troops should be exorbitant. I said that increase in price should be bigger than increase in quality. I even specifically didn't state any numbers and said that exact numbers would be up to balance.

As for why I look at it this way, it's pretty much porecisely because I don't think TW is up to the task of making the AI capable enough to field armies that make sense and are challenging without giving it some kind of crutch. I would obviously much prefer a better AI that knows when to fight and when to train their armies, but that is honestly not something I expect TW to bother with at this point.

Sorry if I read too much it that, but I hadn't had my coffee when I read your post so I wasn't fully awake. Yeah I think pretty much everyone can agree that Taleworlds can't handle anything like that, which sucks. I just hope so talented modders can fix it because for me the game is just a slog.

 

[CrazyElf]

No army is full of one set of elite troops. The UK doesn't just have SAS for instance. put there price up or something.

Most armies have specialized soldiers, such as tanks, artillery, etc. However, a modern special forces can't really be compared to Bannerlord.


Either way, having all recruit means a very homogeneous army with no specialized lower tier units. Just tier 1 recruits. To me, that ruins the game. Minimal unit diversity. Less opportunities for unique tactics since the recruits make up such a high percentage of the total army.

For that reason, I'd say give the AI more higher tier units after a battle and make it easier to recruit them. It would make the game more difficult in that the AI would not come back with recruit heavy armies. They would have mixed tier armies and present a bigger threat to the player.


The RBM mod Lord Retinue Uptier can resolve this, but it should be in the base game as well.

 

[JunKeteer]

Most armies have specialized soldiers, such as tanks, artillery, etc. However, a modern special forces can't really be compared to Bannerlord.

Either way, having all recruit means a very homogeneous army with no specialized lower tier units. Just tier 1 recruits. To me, that ruins the game. Minimal unit diversity. Less opportunities for unique tactics since the recruits make up such a high percentage of the total army.

For that reason, I'd say give the AI more higher tier units after a battle and make it easier to recruit them. It would make the game more difficult in that the AI would not come back with recruit heavy armies. They would have mixed tier armies and present a bigger threat to the player.

Having only recruits is definitely a problem but recent patch it seems like there is a lot more of only one type of high tier troop and only one or two of the other tiers. Maybe a missed economic factor or intentional so TW gets as much feedback from us on the armor changes we've all been asking for to balance out in a later patch.

In terms of the ratio from T5>T4>T3>T2/T1s; troop count should be 5>10>30>40 or around there. Applicable to all types of troops (ie range, HA, infantry, shock-troop, cavalry); then tweak the ratios depending on the culture and their troop 'specialty'.

I don't know if AI parties are affected in the background by perks or the party budget UI we have but maybe all AI should start off with a base budget of X-cap amount (TBD clan tier/prosperity/influence/or perks) and have it increase with war declarations.

 

[yangot]

Just simply increase daily xp on troops tier 1-4 for AI lords. On this way, AI lords can maintain a mid to high tier party

 

[CrazyElf]

I don't know if AI parties are affected in the background by perks or the party budget UI we have but maybe all AI should start off with a base budget of X-cap amount (TBD clan tier/prosperity/influence/or perks) and have it increase with war declarations.

Perhaps - this would involve the AI getting a pretty decent sized party right away after a defeat, but I'd rather have that than have 1-2 battles being decisive.

 

[Earth Dragon]

Because I think it's ok to make AI lords begin with recruits if they are defeated recently, in order to make vitories more fruitful.

Coming full circle are we.

This was already an issue that added to the “snowball” effect. Once a faction lost 2-3 major battles with its beginning allotment of troops, it was finished. Khuzaits speed and position on the far side of the map allowed it to run down more parties and rebuild while others could not. So Khuzait painted the map teal

 

[Earth Dragon]

Or you could just expand the range of mid tiers so the units can start to specialise without being able to dominate every engagement and so the incrementalism of army building is more pronounced.

I don’t think there should be “more tiers” but troops should definitely “dead end” sooner.

For example: if Battania has weaker horsemen/cavalry, why make them go to Tier 5? Why not make them go to Tier 4 and stop versus giving them a weaker tier 5 troop?

Brucelleris, Sturgian Archers, Khuzait Foot Soldiers etc could all follow this design