1.7 - Too many noble troops available

[Ask]

It isnt about that. It is about whether or not the mechanisms feels engaging or immersive.
[...]
The current system is just more immersive.

But it's as engaging as recruiting any other troop in the entire game. And I'm also not very sure how immersive it is for a village to have almost all their stock of fresh recruits be nobility either, but I know crap about the middle ages. It sure is comfortable and easy to use right now which is nice, but I personally don't think it's good game design.

Just saying, but if nobles are supposed to be you know, nobles, some special unique troop with their whole separate tree and whatever, it'd only make sense that their recruitment had something more going for it, or at least weren't almost more common than peasant recruits.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

But it's as engaging as recruiting any other troop in the entire game. And I'm also not very sure how immersive it is for a village to have almost all their stock of fresh recruits be nobility either, but I know crap about the middle ages. It sure is comfortable and easy to use right now which is nice, but I personally don't think it's good game design.

Just saying, but if nobles are supposed to be you know, nobles, some special unique troop with their whole separate tree and whatever, it'd only make sense that their recruitment had something more going for it, or at least weren't almost more common than peasant recruits.

Generally, people didnt actually live in castles (they lived in the surrounding villages). For whatever reason, assumably just because it sounds cool, TW decided to call them nobles. But, they are not actually nobles.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

It is funny though how all the AI goes to khuzait land and gets recruits and nobles. When you fight a wimpy minor faction early and they have 1 or 2 khan's guards (that I'm sure got leveled up by fighting bandits and doing quests and not just cheats) and they're a complete menace compared lower tier troops and unequipped characters! I's it's own kind of fun though.

I also find it's feast or famine sometimes. In some games I can just circle around and load up on nobles easily, in some games it's just a waste land with like 1 noble in 3 castle villages and such.

I don't think it's too bad because there's still incentive to raise relations with notables and raising nobles to t6 is expensive early and must actually be done carefully to avoid making your daily wage too much too soon. I do agree though that the utility of "Veteran's respect" has gone down since the increase in nobles. Until tier 6 the normal khuzait HA is arguable better then the KG line because it has 2 stacks of arrows, so it is a trade off. Fians don't really have any disadvantage but still until t6 they're not much better then other ranged units. For Cav.... well lets just say I don't usually recruit the other nobles anyways and would prefer a normal troop. But that's something I hope can still change and make high tier Cav more powerful.

The other consideration is that the normal spawning of troops for notables is for the AI too so just making less spawn actually effect their parties a lot too and because they use auto cale having things like less Cav will change the balance a lot . T6 Cav isn't weak in auto calc.

If TW is concerned about players over using noble troops and new fix could be something like for the player they must be Clan rank X to promote them past tier Y. However I think it's not a big problem as the player stacking normal troops is also very powerful. It's worthwhile to invest in the best, but the second best units is still very good!

 

[xGreedo]

I have been talking about this for months now. People don't want this to change i will never understand nor agree with these people. but it is what it is. sadly

 

[Brentimus Maximus]

Just dropping my 2 cents that, yes, nobles are way too readily available but I don't want to go back to the days when they were impossible to get.

 

[AngryPanCake]

If the AI cheats, why should the player not.

If the AI cheats, use the console!

 

[Bluko88]

Anyone else annoyed by how easy it is to recruit noble troops now? Before, I used to rush to get 150 leadership so that it'd make it easier to get fians (having said that, I've always thought bandits converting to noble line seems incredibly wrong. Bandits becoming nobles? Right).

Anyhow, it's totally pointless to get that leadership perk since there's really no issue getting noble troops now. In fact, there's just too many. I don't even need horses anymore because nearly every imperial town has loads of horsemen.

Eh overall I'd say it's a good change. I was against it at first as well, but having played for a significant amount of time lately I think it results in an overall better experience, especially for newer players or anyone who doesn't want to play 100+ hours. This game is way too grindy/repetitive as is. Also let's not forget A.I. doesn't need horses for upgrades (unbelievably stupid cheat for A.I.), so frankly the player having more access to horse units just evens things out.


The Battanians prior to this change were rubbish. Basically nothing but footmen/skirmishers/falxmen with some horsemen and a couple stray archers. Now you actually encounter significant amount of archers with them, and good ones at that; makes Battanians much more threatening since they aren't just 90% infantry anymore.

Vlandians don't seem that much different honestly, just a few more horsemen now. Banner Knights are good, but they never been especially OP. Though they can amass a really heavy amount of cavalry, so this does add to their danger. That said Vlandian Sharpshooters have got to have the record for killing my player characters.

Aserai as a whole are bordering on being OP. Got really good infantry, pretty good archers, and Palace Guards are probably best shock troops. And now they've got tons of horsemen with javelins through Noble line. If it wasn't for the javelin accuracy nerf, they would destroy everything to the point of being utterly broken. Only thing that bugs me is they field very few archers now.

Empire feels a lot more balanced, while I used to think being "footman focused" was good & unique - it really gimped the A.I. Especially since the Empire ends up fighting everybody AND makes up majority of map. Empire really does need Cataphracts to deal with Khuzait horse archers and Vlandian/Aserai horseman. Empire doesn't really have true spear units - so yes they should have their own horse units as a counter.

Khuzaits are more horse archer heavy now. Woo! (/end sarcasm) Kind of makes it easy for them to win in larger/longer field battles, since horse archers absolutely thrive once formations get scattered. Thankfully they aren't perfect skirmishers anymore, so they can actually be beaten by the A.I. Not sure why some are praising Khan's Guard, they're good, but hardly broken. You can cheese this game with most any unit type, except for 2-hand shock troops.

Edit: forgot Khan's Guard have glaives; a totally balanced weapon! Strange they haven't been a bigger problem in my battles against Khuzaits lately..

Sturgians still seem lacking. While having more horsemen helps them out, if there's supposed to be a mostly infantry based Kingdom it should be Sturgia. Their infantry is overall good, but good grief their ranged line is rubbish other then horse Brigands/Raiders. I really do think Sturgia could use an overhaul - another melee unit in main tree and I would say making their Noble line some crazy strong infantry would be the ideal route.

Battanians could use work too, Oathsworn and Wilding are virtually same unit. Also think Tier 2 skirmishers should have shields.


Ideally I do think it would've been better if Noble units came strictly from Castles. But that's too much work for TW I guess. Castles kind of suck as fiefs, other then being a cheap place to store troops. Also for people and "Veteran's Respect"... seriously basing a whole character/playthrough around a single perk is just dumb and asking for disappointment. You should in general want to focus on the Skill as a whole, not just one or two uber perks. You definitely should not have to "grind" them, especially in what's a singelplayer game of all things.

Unfortunately TW's non-existent planning/number checking and inability to add actual features (besides every 6 months) has doomed this game to be an unbalanced mess. The sooner folks accept that and steer TW to the essential small fixes, the better off we'll be when this game is finally released.

 

[five bucks]

Ah, good old days when empire armies had almost no cavalry and kept being spanked by horsie boys all over Calradia.
Unless TW gives Empire an alternative peasant horseman troop tree, noble troops shouldn't be nerfed.

Snowballing is pretty much fixed now to the point of the map arguably being too static. And the real reason it was fixed was changes to war declarations making factions more enthusiastic to accept peace.

I don't think halving the number of elite troops will suddenly throw the map back into 1.1 levels of snowballing, but if it does, other balance changes can always be made to correct that. Like nerfing the damn cavalry bonus in autocalc.

Because example I am playing as vlandia, I want full force cavalry 7.0 at least on world map speed to keep going in early of game right off bat, and It's seem only noble offer that right off bat, while normal troop don't offer that in right off bat, and you spent more time seaching mount to get what you want for troop

When it's a question of people who want a good game design that is well balanced, versus a person who just wants an easy fast path through the game...

Then in that case, I think the game should be well designed and balanced, while the person who just wants to get through the game quicker and doesn't care about balance can always install a mod to do so, or use cheats.

Summed up, your argument is that because you don't want to go around to a few villages getting horses to make up a bit of extra party speed - which really falls within the course of playing the game normally - the game should remain imbalanced.

TL;DR games should be balanced for variety and interesting gameplay, not for speedrunners.

Besides, halving the amount of noble recruits per individual village won't stop you from what you're already doing at all, it will just require you to visit a handful more villages so you can get your all-elite cav party. And in exchange, it will make the game more balanced, make noble units feel more special, and increase variety in the armies of players who are playing optimally without them having to artificially limit themselves.

It isnt about that. It is about whether or not the mechanisms feels engaging or immersive.

On the one hand we now have a system where the primary means of recruiting is going around rounding up men.

Before that, your primary means of acquiring nobles were either to capture prisoners and then convert them (the extreme version of which was converting bandits) or some version of luring your allies to initiate battles they could not win/failing to aid them so you could pick up the survivors.

The current system is just more immersive. You might be able to tweek the new system alittle but at some point the old ways will become more effecient and become the norm again.

Like I said already, all they have to do is halve the existing amount of noble recruits per castle village. Not bring it back to the 1.1 situation.

That is not going to make converting prisoners or bandit troops the most efficient way of getting troops. Visiting castle villages during your journey around the map will still be the most effective way of getting noble troops.

The real solution is to make infantry useful.

Until such a time pure elites are the optimal way; even if pure mono-elite forces are dull.

Three things are going to happen if you revert this change.

1) recruitment of elites will return to being a convoluted mess

This isn't going to happen as stated above.

2) Archers/horse archers are going to be the absolute top dogs again because they have low attrition rates

Not once armour is fixed, so that even shieldless infantry can get across a field to kill them in melee, or in the case of horse archers, allow them to survive what arrows from the inaccurate HA's actually so land for long enough that the HA's run out of ammo and are forced to charge in melee.
Therefore they will not be "absolute top dogs", as it will be a requirement to have large forces of infantry to support any body of archers from being slaughtered through by infantry, and horse archers will benefit from backup by reliable melee combatants once they run out of ammo.

3) Battles will return to being even more cakewalks; when you have finally managed to build your T6 fian/khan army

You're contradicting yourself in that sentence though, you are saying it will be more difficult to build a T6 army in the first place - and therefore maintain them due to attrition. I don't think it will make battles too easy by any means if the amount of noble recruits is simply reduced by half.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

Not once armour is fixed, so that even shieldless infantry can get across a field to kill them in melee, or in the case of horse archers, allow them to survive what arrows from the inaccurate HA's actually so land for long enough that the HA's run out of ammo and are forced to charge in melee.
Therefore they will not be "absolute top dogs", as it will be a requirement to have large forces of infantry to support any body of archers from being slaughtered through by infantry, and horse archers will benefit from backup by reliable melee combatants once they run out of ammo.

Well then, there is no problem. When archers are going to be slaughtered without supporting infantry then we will not want pure noble archer based armies anyway. So, how accessible they are becomes irrelevant.

You're contradicting yourself in that sentence though, you are saying it will be more difficult to build a T6 army in the first place - and therefore maintain them due to attrition. I don't think it will make battles too easy by any means if the amount of noble recruits is simply reduced by half.

No I am not, archers/horse archers are low attrition units.

Before the change, by the time you could run a mostly pure T6 party you would slaughter everyone effortlessly and with zero losses. The AI didnt have access to nobles either; the improved access to nobles has also increased the AI´s access to nobles. Hence, the relative quality gap between the player and the AI was markedly higher before than it is now.

So, you might have had a more balanced party, while building up, but you would still have a full, and relatively much more powerful, T6 army within a few years.

 

[humility925]

When it's a question of people who want a good game design that is well balanced, versus a person who just wants an easy fast path through the game...

Balance is not always good for game, game can be very bored when too well balanced, like every units stats is same, every kingdom had same units, so go on, even land, lake each kingdom had same as other kingdom. Too much balanced or imbalanced would ruined gameplay. If game had easy, fast and same time slow and hard at same time, it's balance, because it's there option, a choice, if you want too balanced, then mod would be better, game is meant for entertainment, and not meant to had too many rule and in name of too balanced, many people isn't buy game for balanced, they do buy for entertainment and fun, some people might find unbalance, playing overpower unit as fun, and some people might find balanced unit for fun, but not all same.

As far as I'm aware, a.i don't use full power of overpower units, just small number, while game offer you weak unit or balanced unit and overpower unit allow player to choice how game play. so that is balanced, not too much, and not too much imbalanced.
If player limited choice balanced unit, not gave them option, then half of player would be find bored game, not feeling entertainment, and some would not seek mod to fix,

But people buy game for entertainment, not for too balanced game, balanced's downside is don't had any unique features, something like someone throw fireball out of their hand, or not same as other, imbalanced do had unique feastures, chaos, every allied/and enemies are not same but a difference way to get done. Of course too much imbalanced and balanced is bad.

Easy mode, and Hard mode isn't balanced, as player gain little more or player gain less less than a.i do. Normal might be balanced.

Some player playing hard level, they choice to be handicapped so it's imbalance as well, so balance is not always fun, but some enjoy but not everyone.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

Come to think of it, I don't mind the change. It makes my future troop mod actually function.

The gimmick of it being that you can get strong regular troops as well as noble troops in a given 'noble' slot.

 

[five bucks]

Edit: I went through castle villages looking at how many elite recruits there are compared to normal troops, and which notables offer what.

1 - 3 elite and 0 normal troops. 2/3 notables were elite.
2 - 5 elite and 2 normal troops. 2/3 notables were elite.
3 - 4 elite and 3 normal troops. 2/3 notables were elite.
4 - 5 elite and 2 normal troops. 1/2 notables were elite.
5 - 2 elite and 4 normal troops. 1/2 notables were elite.
6 - 3 elite and 4 normal troops. 1/2 notables were elite.
7 - 3 elite and 4 normal troops. 1/2 notables were elite.
8 - 5 elite and 4 normal troops. 1/2 notables were elite.
9 - 7 elite and 5 normal troops. 2/3 notables were elite.
10 - 2 elite and 2 normal troops. 2/3 notables were elite.

Total potential haul from visiting 10 castle villages: 39 elites and 30 normal troops.

If it was changed so that the third notable in a castle village always offered normal troops, it would instead be somewhere around 27 elites and 42 noble troops.

Does that sound reasonable?

---

Well then, there is no problem. When archers are going to be slaughtered without supporting infantry then we will not want pure noble archer based armies anyway. So, how accessible they are becomes irrelevant.

It's still relevant because troops like Banner Knight and Khan's Guard make the Vanguard and Heavy Horse Archer totally irrelevant and a waste of a warhorse, because they do the same role but better, so you might as well just upgrade to a normal troop that fulfils a different role (eg sharpshooter or heavy raider) and never bother with the non-noble Vlandian melee cav or Khuzait melee cav.

What is meant to give those two a reason to exist is the comparative rarity of noble troops. If you can only get a full formation of noble cavalry by travelling a longer distance to visit castle villages, then it becomes a viable option to travel a shorter distance, and get a mixture of noble/non-noble cavalry to fill out your formation instead.

It's also still relevant because T6 noble troops are meant to feel rare and special. Getting a full party is an achievement, worthy of a king, something to look forward to in the otherwise soulless, repetitive lategame.

No I am not, archers/horse archers are low attrition units.


Before the change, by the time you could run a mostly pure T6 party you would slaughter everyone effortlessly and with zero losses. The AI didnt have access to nobles either; the improved access to nobles has also increased the AI´s access to nobles. Hence, the relative quality gap between the player and the AI was markedly higher before than it is now.

So, you might have had a more balanced party, while building up, but you would still have a full, and relatively much more powerful, T6 army within a few years.

Check my post history and you can see I have pushed many times for nerfing Khan's Guard melee attacks, and buffing armour.

When you're talking powerful, low attrition T6 parties you obviously mean Fians and KG's. Fians can mow down scores of enemies before they even get in melee range, and are decent melee fighters to boot. Khan's Guard have a huge supply of arrows and once those run out are the best melee fighters in the game!

But if armour is buffed against arrows, and KG become weaker melee fighters, then a party of all Fians will find the enemy surviving enough of their arrows to get into melee range and inflict casualties. And an all- KG party will find that their enemies often survive enough arrows that they have to charge into melee, where they perform worse than before and take casualties. In both cases, this means more attrition than now.

So the lategame will not be a cakewalk for the player.

Balance is not always good for game, game can be very bored when too well balanced, like every units stats is same, every kingdom had same units, so go on, even land, lake each kingdom had same as other kingdom. balanced's downside is don't had any unique features, something like someone throw fireball out of their hand, or not same as other, imbalanced do had unique feastures, chaos, every allied/and enemies are not same but a difference way to get done. Of course too much imbalanced and balanced is bad.

There are two types of balance, good balance and bad balance.

You are describing bad balance, which is where you just make things more the same.

But good balance is keeping things diffrerent, and giving them different upsides and downsides which make them equally good options to choose.

For example Dota 2 is called a very balanced game despite having very different characters, and Starcraft 1 has very different factions but they are very balanced, which is the whole reason Koreans still love to play it 20 years later.

Proper balance is always good for a game, unless you want to keep an option weak for lore reasons.

some people might find unbalance, playing overpower unit as fun

So you have 2 groups of people with different preferences. But one of those groups - those who want to throw balance out the window- make a bunch of content TW worked on useless if they get their way. Therefore they should not decide what the default game should be like. They can already use cheats or mods for that.

As far as I'm aware, a.i don't use full power of overpower units, just small number

AI use what they can get their hands on. They don't arbitrarily restrict themselves. I frequently see AI clear out all troops from a town when they go through.

But people buy game for entertainment, not for too balanced game,

What is the main thing that makes a game entertaining? The challenge.

What keeps that challenge from becoming repetitive? Varied content.

How do you make the player actually want to use varied content if they are taking the challenge seriously? By balancing it.

 

[Terco_Viejo]

Well said @five bucks .

 

[five bucks]

Well said @five bucks .

Thank you!

 

[humility925]

What is the main thing that makes a game entertaining? The challenge.

not necessarily, depend on person' personal and taste, main thing game entertaining can be goal, sandbox, playground, stimulation, Challenge can or can not part of game, depend on person' personal taste, some people play game as sandbox or stimulation without prefer challenge, depend on what game, not all game's main goal is challenge as some more forced on sandbox and stimulation more than mere challenge, while other game may main forced challenge but less sandbox/stimulation.

Bannerlord is more of stimulation/sandbox and less challenge, where puzzle are main challenge but not so much on sandbox and stimulation, there is difference type of game. Bannerlord could or can be challenge when option is turn on or not, but main part is stimulation/sandbox, with challenge turn off or on on person's prefer.

Like The sims 4, it's not challenge at all, but it's good game (but bug issues and EA Policy), and main goal is stimulation/sandbox, goal for example. Anno 1800, I do not feel challenge but yet enjoyed game, because it's very good game due great sandbox/stimulation (it's could be challenge but a.i is limited) (well anno 1800 was challenge, once I learned how to passed challenge, it's more fun and relaxed to design and build beautifully city, almost like a arts.

Challenge is not main entertaining, it's main challenge skill, think, yet its can lead to frustrating, tedious, anger so those are not entertaining, where entertaining is joy, relaxed, happy, enjoy, it's almost opposite. I do not see challenge is bad, but I do not see challenge as entertaining. It's like practice at sport, football, or wrestling, I do not feel entertaining at all, there is challenge all right, but no entertaining there even I won lot in wrestling, I do not feel entertaining, I was practice to be humble, most of time. I wasn't that interested in sport, but friend and peer even adult try pressed me into football, because they knew I'm very strong than average teenage when I was teenage at time. There is challenge but no entertaining, for example. Many peer, and adult even friend look down on me, when I try to quit, but they keep getting me join back again and again. I may physical strong at that time, but wasn't strong inside to tell them no, I'm not interested in sport till I'm Jr and senior, of course they knew me well that time, gave up on me after couple years. I asked friend why join sport, he told me he enjoy push and hit someone in sport, but I do not. I guess he might feel entertaining, and challenge maybe, but for me, no, I had no desire to hit or push someone off, even I got award football player of year for push someone very far, and push someone down (I was linemen) but don't want to join, adult coach was anger at me and feel fool to gave me award when next year I won't join football team. It's been on and off, I do not enjoy in sport, even there is challenge, I'm not entertained at all. Playing playstation one, or PC in 30 year ago, I do feel entertained and enjoyed gaming on console and PC
but now, just PC, no longer fan of new model console because too limited control, very costy and I don't like way company policy on console as must had online, so go on.

So Challenge is not main entertaining, but I guess it's could for some people, but not all people see challenge as entertaining, some see playground, stimulation as entertaining and no challenge in it or little.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

Edit: I went through castle villages looking at how many elite recruits there are compared to normal troops, and which notables offer what.



It's still relevant because troops like Banner Knight and Khan's Guard make the Vanguard and Heavy Horse Archer totally irrelevant and a waste of a warhorse, because they do the same role but better, so you might as well just upgrade to a normal troop that fulfils a different role (eg sharpshooter or heavy raider) and never bother with the non-noble Vlandian melee cav or Khuzait melee cav.

What is meant to give those two a reason to exist is the comparative rarity of noble troops. If you can only get a full formation of noble cavalry by travelling a longer distance to visit castle villages, then it becomes a viable option to travel a shorter distance, and get a mixture of noble/non-noble cavalry to fill out your formation instead.

It's also still relevant because T6 noble troops are meant to feel rare and special. Getting a full party is an achievement, worthy of a king, something to look forward to in the otherwise soulless, repetitive lategame.

They are never going to be relevant as anything other than temporary stand-ins for future elites. It has always been this way and it is highly unlikely that it will ever change. What you need in the game is a party that can continue to fight, battle after battle, with no or minimal attrition. Quality is one of the key variables to ensure that. TW has introduced elites and thus they are the go to units similarly to how Swadian Knights were the go to cav unit in warband. Its a pipedream to think otherwise.

Check my post history and you can see I have pushed many times for nerfing Khan's Guard melee attacks, and buffing armour.

When you're talking powerful, low attrition T6 parties you obviously mean Fians and KG's. Fians can mow down scores of enemies before they even get in melee range, and are decent melee fighters to boot. Khan's Guard have a huge supply of arrows and once those run out are the best melee fighters in the game!

But if armour is buffed against arrows, and KG become weaker melee fighters, then a party of all Fians will find the enemy surviving enough of their arrows to get into melee range and inflict casualties. And an all- KG party will find that their enemies often survive enough arrows that they have to charge into melee, where they perform worse than before and take casualties. In both cases, this means more attrition than now.

So the lategame will not be a cakewalk for the player.

Of course you go with KG/Fians; that was the point I raised to begin with. Rationing elites will negatively affect those who wish to focuse on melee cav the most.

And again, if or when, units are rebalanced sufficiently then it might make sense to talk about this. Until then all attempts to ration elites will only lead to these convoluted recruitment schemes that has dominated the game up until now. The OP himself admitted that he thought the conversion of bandits mechanism was stupid (but still used it).

 

[five bucks]

not necessarily, depend on person' personal and taste, main thing game entertaining can be goal, sandbox, playground, stimulation, Challenge can or can not part of game, depend on person' personal taste, some people play game as sandbox or stimulation without prefer challenge, depend on what game, not all game's main goal is challenge as some more forced on sandbox and stimulation more than mere challenge, while other game may main forced challenge but less sandbox/stimulation

People have different preferences for sure, but when one person's preference makes existing game content nearly useless, it's probably better to go with the option that doesn't do that.

They are never going to be relevant as anything other than temporary stand-ins for future elites. It has always been this way and it is highly unlikely that it will ever change. What you need in the game is a party that can continue to fight, battle after battle, with no or minimal attrition.

Banner Knights take attrition all the time in the current state of the game, and this will continue at a lower rate even after they are buffed. In addition, Vanguard are only one tier below them, it isn't a cavernous effectiveness gap between T5 and T6. Plus, they're cheaper in upkeep. All they need is a push in scarcity of T6, and they will have a reason to exist - travel time.

Let's do a gameplay scenario. Say your party's cavalry includes 14 Tier 5 Vanguard, and 10 Tier 6 Banner Knights. In a battle near Hongard Castle, all your cavalry die. So you travel to Pravend, recruiting along the way, and each village offers 3 recruit slots.

In Ferton you get 4 elites from 3 notables, and 3 normals from 1 notable.

In Hongard you get 6 elites from 3 notables, and 0 normals from 1 notable.

In Rulund you get 0 elites, and 5 normals from 3 notables.

In Palisont you get 0 elites, and 7 normals from 3 notables.

As the game is now, 1 day's travel gets you 10 elite recruits, and 15 normal recruits. In 2 days of travel, you get 20 Banner Knights.

But... if the game was changed so that castle villages had an even amount of elite and normal notables, that 1 day trip would give you 5 elite recruits, and 20 normal recruits. So getting 20 Banner Knights would take 4 days instead of 2. In other words, a mix of elite and normal cavalry becomes twice as time-effective, plus Vanguards are cheaper, and T5 is almost as good as T6.

So the increased scarcity makes Vanguards a viable option.

Quality is one of the key variables to ensure that. TW has introduced elites and thus they are the go to units similarly to how Swadian Knights were the go to cav unit in warband. Its a pipedream to think otherwise.

Of course you go with KG/Fians; that was the point I raised to begin with. Rationing elites will negatively affect those who wish to focuse on melee cav the most. And again, if or when, units are rebalanced sufficiently then it might make sense to talk about this.

I see no problem with complaining about excessive amounts of noble recruits now, because we know that armor rebalance is already on TW's radar anyway and is something they're working on. So they are more likely to prioritize that first. But let's agree to disagree.

Until then all attempts to ration elites will only lead to these convoluted recruitment schemes that has dominated the game up until now. The OP himself admitted that he thought the conversion of bandits mechanism was stupid (but still used it).

Perhaps you missed me say it, but like I said, removing the third elite notable is not going to make training up bandits or recruiting prisoners the best way of getting elites.
The best way will still be visiting villages, and picking up the elites that are just sitting there.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

Let's do a gameplay scenario. Say your party's cavalry includes 14 Tier 5 Vanguard, and 10 Tier 6 Banner Knights. In a battle near Hongard Castle, all your cavalry die.

The number one rule in Bannerlord. Dont fight battles that will cost you any significant number of elites! (hence, why ranged reign supreme in Bannerlord atm)

And again, they will just be substitutes for the real thing.

I see no problem with complaining about excessive amounts of noble recruits now, because we know that armor rebalance is already on TW's radar anyway and is something they're working on. So they are more likely to prioritize that first. But let's agree to disagree.

Of course you are entirely entitled to complain about it. And you are right, it is highly doubtful that it is something we are likely to agree on.

Eitherway, if melee cavalry one day becomes useful, be it t5 or t6, you will not see me complaining about it.

Perhaps you missed me say it, but like I said, removing the third elite notable is not going to make training up bandits or recruiting prisoners the best way of getting elites.
The best way will still be visiting villages, and picking up the elites that are just sitting there.

For Fians, probably not.

For Khan´s or melee cav, good question, I am not really the right person to judge.

 

[geala]

...

Eitherway, if melee cavalry one day becomes useful, be it t5 or t6, you will not see me complaining about it.

I find melee cavalry is actually useful, to counter horsearchers and archers, for example. I have to admit that it strains the cavalry a lot in heavy fights (high casualty rate) and that they need a backup from a solid shieldwall and from archers. I had a battle lately with a 130 stack (25 cavalry, 35 archers 75 melee infantry (about 30% of the infantry were T1 or T2, but all T1 in my game have shields; as I recruit mostly from prisoners, the cavalry were a wild mix of high tier, cataphracts, banner knights, vanguards, faris, some T6 from Customs Spawns and some unarmored T4 from my modded tribal troop tree) against Khuzaits with about 165 troops with 55 horsearchers and 30 mostly heavy melee cavalry, and they wrecked me several times (I reloaded) till I attacked the horsearchers early and dispersed them and the other cavalry in a chaotic horse fight. I had only 5 cavalry left after the victory or so. I use RBM AI module however, so maybe it may differ in vanilla.

To the noble spawn, it should be toned town considerably, it is not immersive to have so many of them. I hope after release there will be also mods which offer a certain max percentage division of the party, to avoid all elite armies.

 

[humility925]

In any case, I think banner Knight fine as it is when come cost and available, but Vanguards on other hand need buff, like free upgrade without buy mount, then that is more advantage for people who take vanguard, cheaper, not had to seach and buy costy mount to just upgrade 2 time, while it's should be cheaper and more power than Noble but banner Knight is better power but little more costly and had to buy war mount with only one time (war mount is painful to get even you had lot of money due limited number in world map in late game, early game may lot more, but for some reason as game went by, I see less and less of war mount like 1 to 3 war mount when need to upgrade 100 knight, it's already painful, especially if one player's medical low, and fighting outnumber army again and again when playing as honor and mercy lord, this might be less issues when player playing as cruel lord, killing other lord ensure they don't come back easy, while had a high medical skills.

In any case, It's not noble problem but rather make normal troop easier to upgrade more than noble do while remain cheaper wage with little more power than along line of noble, but top of line. At least for Vlandia, that is. Mount cost about 170 to 300 each while war mount cost anywhere 500 to 1800 each and that is very few in number more than normal mount plus risker to lose that mount during battle as well if knight got killed then not get it back, same thing we don't get normal mount back as well when upgrade war mount so Vanguard is huge drawback because of upgrade issues and available of war mount as well like those war mount cost 1,000 to upgrade troop along plus cost!!!

But I don't know about other faction, normal unit and noble unit, but for vlandia, that I can said as I'm fan playing as vlandia due warband swadia knight that I love to had yet fear when a.i had bunch of them, too.

Even player got noble, they had hard time to get war mount and that is very costy and lot of time trying to find huge number of war mount as well risk lost them in battle. Maybe that breeder perk is useful more than horde perk where help with speed when come to herding. I know most people would pick horde perk over breeder every time. I'm not sure breeder perk is that useful when want war mount when trying find more of war mount because It's very low chance for chance to get new war mount.