[1.5.6] Do you like Bandit Hideouts better now?

[Hammerhi99]

After 5 month i came back into game. Played my last playthrough under 1.4.somewhat. Now I restarted with 1.5.6 and was very soon irritated because of smaller amounts of bandits in the hideouts (did forrest and mountain hideouts first).

Now i just entered the "new designed" steppe bandit hideout andf was really, really p*ssed! They blocked the passage up into the hill, I was used to take! WHY?

I know, many players had their troubles with cleaning out bigger hideouts but for me they where ok. Sometimes challenging but absolutely doable... with the right strategy. AND, they were perfect for training my companions and family members in combat. Especially the steppe hideouts were perfect. I could clean hideouts with 50+ bandits by pulling them in groups, guiding them over ridges right in front of my firinglines, while drawing the enemies attention on me and my held up shield. Forrest hideouts worked fine, too.

Admittedly, it allways took some time to clear a hideout. I couldn´t just rush through it, enemy groups had to be pulled with caution.

But now? The biggest hideout i had until now had 13 enemies plus the boss group at the and. They are absolute nobrainers now. I can just rush through, take the loot, some prisoners and perhaps gain some relation for quests but that was not the main reason for me to clear hideouts. The main reason was allways the opportunity to skill my companions/family members in weapon skills and athletics. But with this few enemies, it´s not worth the effort.

What do you think?

 

[Gandamula]

I only do it when I need money, and use crossbows with order to fire at will, I give order to advance, and I'm running behind them. Playing the same maps more than once or twice is a little bore.

 

[black_bulldog]

Fighting 50+ forest bandits with 10 guys you'll be lucky if you have more than 1 troop left. No thanks. But what was worse having those odds against Sea Raiders because that's going to be a party wipe.

 

[clovis_sangrail]

I love them. I pick nine level 4 or 5 troops I want to level up, then when we get to the boss, I duel him and generally can one-hit his ass with my Big-Ass Bandit Smasher 2H Sword of Doom +5.

Plus, hideouts give me something to do while I am out on a horse-buying expedition.

And they are a good way to get prisoners to recruit. I like having an army of Sea Raider Chiefs, Forest Bandits and Highwaymen.

 

[vonbalt]

Generic hideouts are cool, could use a bit more variety like many things in the game but what i can't stand is that the mainquest is choke-full of them, really hope it's placeholder and they add some unique scenes for it, right now i'm doing the new conspiracy quests and every few days i get sent to deal with a caravan of weapons or another generic hideout (with atleast some unique enemies now) ad nauseam.

 

[Hammerhi99]

Fighting 50+ forest bandits with 10 guys you'll be lucky if you have more than 1 troop left. No thanks. But what was worse having those odds against Sea Raiders because that's going to be a party wipe.

With the right tactics I most of the time could manage it without losing even one man. You just had to figure out the pulling mechanics. Worst thing you could do in a forrest hideout for example was to bodypull the groups or just run forward and allowing your men to shoot (because your buddies opened fire on ANYONE they hardly could see and in doing so, alerted the whole camp at once, resulting in an open shootout you only could lose). You had to put your man in a line behind a ridge (without direct line of sight toward the enemies). Then I triggered the nearest group of enemies by shooting one of them. As soon as they beginn to yell, i ran back to my men, put up my shield and duck down in front of them (and allowed my men to open fire). As soon as the enemy group came over the ridge, my men shot the enemies, while the enemies shot my shield (took a bit practice to get most of the attention, just duck in place did not do the job. I had to "dance" a bit in front of them most of the time). Worked perfectly.

Same thing with mountain and steppe hideouts. In forrest hideouts, i usually split the enemies into 3 groups. In mountain and steppe hideouts in up to 5 groups. In steppe hideouts, the hill on the right side (the pass upt there is blocked meanwhile) was perfect for such an ambush. It was allways the same trick : Lure the groups one by one toward a point were BOTH, enemy AND friend, see each other in the very last moment but soon enough to remain in range combat distance. By abusing this pulling mechanics you could ensure that your men allways had to deal with only one group of enemies (which was often enough almost more than enough^^) and you minimized the damage your men had to take by let the enemy shoot you.

Searaider hideouts were allways way more tough than the others, but the method was the same. I often had to retreat after the first waves (sometimes even twice or more times, when the hidout was really crowded). Problem here was often, that my men couldn´t find enough arrows to reload after some time, because the enemies just had javelins and axes. Also, when i had early casualties i most of the times rather decided to retreat and to take a second try a day later. Otherwise, with only one men less and the lacking firepower some kind of negative snowballeffect evolved and in the long term resulted in heavier losses or even a whipe.

 

[Hammerhi99]

I love them. I pick nine level 4 or 5 troops I want to level up, then when we get to the boss, I duel him and generally can one-hit his ass with my Big-Ass Bandit Smasher 2H Sword of Doom +5.

Plus, hideouts give me something to do while I am out on a horse-buying expedition.

And they are a good way to get prisoners to recruit. I like having an army of Sea Raider Chiefs, Forest Bandits and Highwaymen.

I like them too, but that was not my point. I liked them even more before, when they were bigger and my question was whether you prefer them small like they are now or big as they were before.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

They can still pack in a lot sometimes. This was in 1.5.6 don't know if it changed, but I got put up against 20 ****ing sea raiders at the boss fight.
I 1hko the boss though.

 

[Ruttiger]

After 5 month i came back into game. Played my last playthrough under 1.4.somewhat. Now I restarted with 1.5.6 and was very soon irritated because of smaller amounts of bandits in the hideouts (did forrest and mountain hideouts first).

Now i just entered the "new designed" steppe bandit hideout andf was really, really p*ssed! They blocked the passage up into the hill, I was used to take! WHY?

I know, many players had their troubles with cleaning out bigger hideouts but for me they where ok. Sometimes challenging but absolutely doable... with the right strategy. AND, they were perfect for training my companions and family members in combat. Especially the steppe hideouts were perfect. I could clean hideouts with 50+ bandits by pulling them in groups, guiding them over ridges right in front of my firinglines, while drawing the enemies attention on me and my held up shield. Forrest hideouts worked fine, too.

Admittedly, it allways took some time to clear a hideout. I couldn´t just rush through it, enemy groups had to be pulled with caution.

But now? The biggest hideout i had until now had 13 enemies plus the boss group at the and. They are absolute nobrainers now. I can just rush through, take the loot, some prisoners and perhaps gain some relation for quests but that was not the main reason for me to clear hideouts. The main reason was allways the opportunity to skill my companions/family members in weapon skills and athletics. But with this few enemies, it´s not worth the effort.

What do you think?

I think Hideouts are far too large, and it's easily the least enjoyable part of the game right now. I never had this problem with warband hideouts. 5 minutes of running around through empty terrain isn't helping the game at all.

Increasing your hideout parties should require a perk either, it should go up slowly with leadership.

 

[Hammerhi99]

They can still pack in a lot sometimes. This was in 1.5.6 don't know if it changed, but I got put up against 20 ****ing sea raiders at the boss fight.
I 1hko the boss though.

Yes, I recognized that, too in the meantime. It´s the bossfight at the end thats gone harder now. Worst thing that can happen : You clear the hideout itself without any losses and then get one- or twohitted during the everyone hits everyone chaos in the final fight, resulting in immediately panicking your men and you have to watch them get slaughtered while running away.

And some hideouts are still silly bugged and along with the still existing problem with stairs, really strange and annoying things can happen. Once i had ONE remaining steppe bandit in the last room on the right. He was up on the gallery and i just thought "Let the guys finishing him, I won´t take a hit now while trying to bug myself up that ****ty stairs now." Result was... well I really don´t know what happened, but it seemed the last guy glitched down between the gallery and the wall behind and my men got wounded one after the other in the attempt to reach him.