It was a one reason why VC Reforged has such ****ty reviews on Steam.
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A better way to Earn high Tiered troops
- Thread starter Magello
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It was a one reason why VC Reforged has such ****ty reviews on Steam.
Sorry for mentioning Warband again, but it has quite a few mods like this.
In practice, slower leveling _in itself_ doesn't work. Players will soon realize what units you need, to win battles with the minimum possible casualities. In every mod, this means top tier units, because they are the ones who have the armor and the DPS.
When units are harder to level up, but the optimal strategy is still to get as much top tier as possible, it means only more grinding. More fights with looters and bandits before the real fight.
If you have Warband, fire up Brytenwalda or Viking Conquest to see the effects of slow leveling. (spoiler: not fun at all)
Now this is a very good point!
I don't know many Warband mods which make lower tiers useful, but there are a few:
- The Last Days: Orc infantry is the "zerg" of the mod. They are quite bad in every way, but they are very cheap, don't require food (you can feed them prisoners), and you take three orcs per one army size. (= with an army size of 100, you can have 100 humans or 300 orcs)
- 1257AD: recuitment is not by person (eg. 1-10 recruit) but by lance (eg. 1 knight, 1 squire, 5 crossbowman and 13 footman at once). Knights _are_ much better than the rest. However, you cannot get a knight alone, he always comes with his supporting footman and crossbows. Since knights are much more protected than the rest (=the footman die more often), there is a good chance that during a long game the percentage of knights in your army will be higher. Maybe 1 in 5, instad of 1 in 20 you start with. But it is impossible to get 100% knights because of the recruitment method.
- No cross-class upgrade mods (most multiplayer mods with single player campaigns): multiple troop trees per faction, and there is no mixing between them. So, there is no "greek recruit", but greek skirmisher recuit, greek hoplite recruit an greek cavalry recruit. You have a random chance to get them in a village. Random chance, but it is a guided chance (romans have a higher chance to get infantry than cavalry or skirmishers)
It is a good question why would romans use auxilia spearman? They get the nice legions, heavy infantry in shining armor. The first time you are charged by gaul cavalry, you will realize that spearman which cannot advance past tier 2 is still better, than trying to stop a charge with tier 4 legions, who don't have spears at all.
When all unit tiers have some kind of use in the battlefield, which is not replicated by the top tier unit, there is an incentive to get them.
- With fire and sword. The speciality of this game is when you get a level 1 soldier (from castles or mercenary camps), it is a drilled soldier, and gets the job done just fine. The higher tiers have bit better skills, have a chance (but not guarantee) for better equipment, and of course have higher wages, but there is usually no rush to upgrade, as the bottom of the barrel tier 1 units are already pro soldiers.
It is not necessary for low tier units to be bad.
- Native Warband: actually there is a case where I don't upgrade units. The thing is that vaegir infantry drops the shield in higher tiers. I mostly recruit vaegirs to get marksman, don't really care about their infantry. And actually lower tier infantry, which comes equipped with a shield protect the archers better than vaegir guards. The other case in native warband is the khergit khanate, where there is not much difference between horsemen and horse archers, so I don't prioritize upgrading them.
The role of different tiers might change, so it makes sense not to level them up.
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@shikaka i would recommend you to give The mod de Ri military A chance. Has faction troop trees with separated upgrade paths for different tier distribution so not every unit can upgrade to a top tier. This in turn insures good balanced armies. For this mod is the ATC mod required. In the configuration file you can set auxiliary troop trees for conquered fiefs.
this is also a sugestion for snowballing (I know this will not be a problem with the next upgrade) if cultures can only recruit auxiliaries(max mid tier) in conquered fiefs they will not become much stronger after expanding outside their original territory
this is also a sugestion for snowballing (I know this will not be a problem with the next upgrade) if cultures can only recruit auxiliaries(max mid tier) in conquered fiefs they will not become much stronger after expanding outside their original territory
Dabos37
Sergeant Knight at Arms
1257AD mod recruiting system sounds amazing, but at this point it won’t happen in Bannerlord for sure. Would love to see a similar mod for Bannerlord though.
While I do agree with making troops upgrading too slow is not good, I find the current upgrading costs in 1.5.6 too low and getting Legionaries or Palatine Guards at day 14 or so is pretty common, even without having any perk. It is good that XP upgrading costs are getting increased in 1.5.7, but maybe the troops XP gain per battle will feel still too high. I personally liked how hard upgrading troops for the player was at game release, but sadly a lot of people came with the “grindy” argument thing and now it is extremely easy.
Concerning players realizing about the best unit to exploit the game, it would not be a thing if the game would be more balanced. Currently it is too easy to win battles if spamming ranged units, but it is not easy if you spam top tier infantry or cavalry units. You can get massive losses if you spam legionaries or cataphracts units in even battles, but sadly it is not the case for ranged units.
HalfMetalJacket
Knight
Yeah, there's room for a middle ground. VC is a bit of an extreme.
I would try to combine it with more expensive troops, but yeah, just having longer training times won't quite cut it.
I guess a multifaceted approach to it would help, but I think I wouldn't mind just a simple combination of expensive higher tier troops, harder to train troops, more useful lower tier units and the removal of party limits. That way, you can build your army to be a massive mob of levy peasants, or a small professional band of elites.
Gandamula
Sergeant at Arms
The main problem with units is the space they occupy, there is no radius around a unit that does not allow it to be occupied by several other units, it means that a tier 6 soldier can be attacked by ten looters in one second, and from a single side, in cities this is too evident, where naturally there should be ten, the engine of the game concentrates thirty or more units.
Furthermore, individual combat between units does not include defenses, or very little, the units attack each other, without any limit, pause or attempt to find a good place or safe distance, they never give a step back to avoid any attack.
That is why the battles, with two thousand men, last less than three minutes, and even more serious, if two hundred infantry, collide with another two hundred, it ends in less than thirty seconds.
Furthermore, individual combat between units does not include defenses, or very little, the units attack each other, without any limit, pause or attempt to find a good place or safe distance, they never give a step back to avoid any attack.
That is why the battles, with two thousand men, last less than three minutes, and even more serious, if two hundred infantry, collide with another two hundred, it ends in less than thirty seconds.
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I am currently not in a hurry, I will wait for a more finished version of base Bannerlord. Who knows how the final game will look?
To be honest my biggest issues with the game are not even related to army composition, which needs some fine tuning, but is actually... OK. Not great, but I can manage.
What I really miss are the features _not_ related to battles. Some meaningful interactions with fiefs, and more interesting vassal status (things to do when NOT planning to leave your liege) would be very nice. THe latter is the least developed feature in warband, sometimes you get invited to a party, or asked to follow the marshall. But otherwise it is not interesting in itself, it is very boring to play a loyalist. It is not necessary to be this way (eg. Crusader Kings 2 base game versus CK2 with the conclave DLC. Different worlds)
DAbos37 said:
I didn't spend enough time on the game (~30 hours or so) to have a more than a feeling about balance.
Currently I really feel that
- either archers are overpowered (they are able to use "target shooting" with good results, instead of attacking a general area.)
- cavalry charges are underpowered (when giving a charge command, the AI is not capable of coordinating the charge. Each individual cavalry unit will take the shortest route, so instead of charging in a straight line - for some horseman, this is not the shortest route! - , they end up bumping into each other).
Infantry is a good question. In Mount&Blade games they are traditionally worthless. There are some infantry mods out there, but making them work usually means giving them large shields and a deep, mobile formation. Unfortunately this means that they _will_ rule the battlefield. If you have Warband, check out the Viking Conquest DLC or the Sparta mod. Both are very nice mod, but tactically it is not interesting (everyone uses the same shieldwall tactic in every single battle).
HalfMetalJacket said:
Generally, I would be happy with actually useful lower tier units.
But currently they die so fast, and you have to get replacements so often, that I don't mind them being easy to train.
Gandamula said:
Hm, I was thinking that's just my bad luck. It seems that this might be a general issue.
I remember that early game I encountered something like 15 looters with a dozen peasants. I wanted to shoot a looter hurling armor piercing rocks at me. When I finally got him (10-15 seconds? 3 shots from a bow), I turned back and 12 peasants + 11 looters were already dead. Difficult to contribute when battles end this fast.
CrazyElf
Sergeant
My personal opinion is that armor still needs a big buff. I've noticed that is what many of the mods seem to do.]
Higher tier troops would then have more survivability with better gear.
veronicaaltoids
Regular
in the early stage of game, when i was still low level, low skill, I cheated and have the best armor, in the arena, a damn entry level infantry still knock me out....... I just swing too slow, and he swing faster than me, I could do nothing to fight back even I have the best armor
this will never happen in Warband......
armor in Bannerlord is like make in paper.... what a joke
You aren't wrong about balance in Bannerlord. I will say that VC's combat balance is more delicate though. Any number of things can make infantry just as middling as in Warband: making cav a bit tankier or more accessible, changing around certain weapon stats by modest amounts, small changes in armor protection or bows, etc. The shieldwall is dominant because the makers wanted it to dominate and went well out of their way to make sure it did.
Bannerlord, in comparison, has a tricky problem because the devs apparently want every tactical style to be viable, resulting in a hot mess where archers can delete half an army before the melee, then delete the other half in the melee.
VC came into my mind because infantry is generally lacking in most Mount&Blade titles. There are a few mods which make them the "ultimate battle unit", and VC is one of them.
In general, I agree with the approach of having a use for all troop types. I think it does good for replay value, that you can do combined arms, cavalry only, infantry only, archers only.
So the general approach is fine, the current balance isn't. I think this is not hopeless though.
- something needs to be done with the hit chances of horseman. The AI cavalry bots seem to miss an awful lot. (slightly off topic: To be honest - while I admit that I didn't practice much - as a player I missed often too from horseback.)
- some group pathfinding would be nice (so that cavalry arrives together for an impact, not individuals arrive one-by-one)
- it would be nice if levy archers could not pull off hollywood stunts.
- I also feel that bots should be concerned with defense. Currently they get slaughtered (by each other, no player involvement) in seconds. I mean you poke with a spear, and the enemy walks into it.
Cavalry charge is a difficult thing to implement:
I know I hated the Warband approach: You charged with a horse, got hit by a spear. The horse stopped with an instant handbrake, you and the spearman take no damage.
What should happen is: horse dies, rider falls to the ground, spearman falls to the ground as well. Horseman and spearman take damage. This is very difficult to implement I think, and might turn horse charges into a Benny Hill Show, so I could live with a compromise. (to be honest I managed to live with Warband's bad solution too. But since this game is in developement, and Warband isn't, I thought it would worth to look at it)
Not troop related, but my biggest issue with combat was always the (unit-level) AI, and I didn't see improvements there.
The individual combat AI is quite good one-on-one, actually.
But on unit level, it is horrible. What I mean:
AI bots behave like individuals again (same thing I mentioned with cavalry), and when they identify you as a target, they start chasing you. In Warband this resulted in the player backpedaling with ~10 AI bots chasing him. (you could do the same as a horse archer, bots just line up, so it is easier for you to shoot them) Some mods removed backpedaling, but the original problem is not that: the problem is that 10-12 AI units are not capable of acting like a unit (=enricling or at least flanking the player)
Correct me if I am wrong but do archers only target individuals when they shoot? Maybe adding low level archers only being able to fire at an area over a certain distance and then only individual aiming when someone is close enough?
They generally can't. If you watch them in small groups or in a tournament they generally only get one or two hits per quiver. The problem is that either they are fighting big, packed groups of targets (so they literally can't miss) or are focusing on the player, in which case it is just odds catching up eventually.
Earth Dragon
Sergeant
It’s just hilarious to see threads that are asking for the exact opposite that others were asking for. So then it became easier to level troops, now folks want it harder again.
This is why there has to be direction and a plan by the devs as you’ll never be able to please everyone. I agree with the “needs to be harder” folks, with castles being better places to store and train troops to help supplement loses better.
This is why there has to be direction and a plan by the devs as you’ll never be able to please everyone. I agree with the “needs to be harder” folks, with castles being better places to store and train troops to help supplement loses better.
In general I don't mind the game being easy or tough, as long as you can change it. (eg. change the XP multiplier in the .ini file)
Magello's original issue was that getting top tier units is not fulfilling.
I concur, but not because they are too easy to level up, but because
- they die too fast, so you cannot get attached to them
- in some cases - melee cavalry - their costs are not justified. A few are nice for chasing down routing enemies, but that's it.
I understand that some of these issues are due to balancing a single player campaign with multiplayer ("cannot please everyone")
Mikal Manfriedson
Veteran
I would make a proposal here: the more high tier troops you have, the less loot you get. You should not make top tier units absurdly expensive - just imagine, that they are entitled to a share of the loot instead. This might you make consider parking top tier troops in castles or a garrison for villages (why don't we have these?) and try to train troops or are encouraged to work with mid-tier troops?
Maybe we might need more missions, where your liege asks for top-tier troops for money and relation so it is worth to train them to get influence or even be considered giving another fief and not 'landless go first'. Make your liege think you are useful because you support your side and not because you are a traitor of your original side (that is rewarded for this with fiefs)
Maybe the rare chance occurs, that a top-tier unit will turn into a demi-companion (maybe not being suitable as governor, but such heroes could lead detachments in an army). It is too bad we have a companion limit (but I can see where it goes if we had no such limit).
Maybe we might need more missions, where your liege asks for top-tier troops for money and relation so it is worth to train them to get influence or even be considered giving another fief and not 'landless go first'. Make your liege think you are useful because you support your side and not because you are a traitor of your original side (that is rewarded for this with fiefs)
Maybe the rare chance occurs, that a top-tier unit will turn into a demi-companion (maybe not being suitable as governor, but such heroes could lead detachments in an army). It is too bad we have a companion limit (but I can see where it goes if we had no such limit).
Dabos37
Sergeant Knight at Arms
Mexxico, I think there is something wrong with the new code for units upgrade cost. I am seeing this in the code:
if (this.Tier == 0)
{
return 100;
}
if (this.Tier == 1)
{
return 300;
}
if (this.Tier == 2)
{
return 600;
}
if (this.Tier == 3)
{
return 900;
}
if (this.Tier == 4)
{
return 1200;
}
if (this.Tier == 5)
{
return 1500;
}
if (this.Tier == 6)
{
return 1800;
}
Upgrading a tier 4 unit to tier 5 now cost 1200, and not 1500 how you probably wanted to do according to your post. Plus is not possible to upgrade a T6 unit (it is the higher tier), so the last part of this code is wrong. I think the code should be something like this:
if (this.Tier == 0)
{
return 100;
}
if (this.Tier == 1)
{
return 300;
}
if (this.Tier == 2)
{
return 700;
}
if (this.Tier == 3)
{
return 1100;
}
if (this.Tier == 4)
{
return 1500;
}
if (this.Tier == 5)
{
return 1900;
}
