A few "points" on why combat(armour) is more satisfying when using realistic combat mod compared to vanilla

[Askorti]

As someone who hasn't tested the mod yet, can you explain to me how this affects the pace of the game? By this I mean, do battles take much longer to complete, and how much of a knock-on effect does this have on progressing through a campaign?

Just to point it out in very simple terms, so that it's immediately obvious. Bannerlord desperately needs the battles to be longer.
What good is an "epic" battle of thousands of troops if it's over in literally under 5 minutes?
I cannot stress this point enough, but these short battles are a humongous detriment to the game. I am by no means saying that we should go to the other extreme and have Total War-esque battles that last for up to an hour. Absolutely not. But 10 minutes for a decently sized battle should be the minimum in my humble opinion.
However, that would require for battles to incorporate some maneuvering, as just 10 minutes of hacking and slashing isn't the way to go either.

In short, longer battles are a must, but it will take more than just making the units more resistant to damage to do it well.

 

[Callum]

Just to point it out in very simple terms, so that it's immediately obvious. Bannerlord desperately needs the battles to be longer.
What good is an "epic" battle of thousands of troops if it's over in literally under 5 minutes?
I cannot stress this point enough, but these short battles are a humongous detriment to the game. I am by no means saying that we should go to the other extreme and have Total War-esque battles that last for up to an hour. Absolutely not. But 10 minutes for a decently sized battle should be the minimum in my humble opinion.
However, that would require for battles to incorporate some maneuvering, as just 10 minutes of hacking and slashing isn't the way to go either.

In short, longer battles are a must, but it will take more than just making the units more resistant to damage to do it well.

As someone who prefers the newer Total War battles that are much quicker and allow me to complete VH and Legendary playthroughs in a reasonable amount of time, I asked the question because I would really dislike the other extreme of those 1-hour battles in this game. And as with TW, I like to play all of my battles in Bannerlord and worry about what sort of knock-on effect adding a couple of minutes to each battle could have on a playthrough. But, as you and others have pointed out here, the length of battles in the mod seems to be quite reasonable in my opinion, and I am tempted to download it and give it a try.

 

[Askorti]

As someone who prefers the newer Total War battles that are much quicker and allow me to complete VH and Legendary playthroughs in a reasonable amount of time, I asked the question because I would really dislike the other extreme of those 1-hour battles in this game. And as with TW, I like to play all of my battles in Bannerlord and worry about what sort of knock-on effect adding a couple of minutes to each battle could have on a playthrough. But, as you and others have pointed out here, the length of battles in the mod seems to be quite reasonable in my opinion, and I am tempted to download it and give it a try.

Thank you for your response.

Personally what I believe to be the right approach would be to make big battles less frequent but more impactful and interesting. Currently even those multi-thousand troop battles become... Boring and tedious after a while. They lose their shine pretty quickly because you've seen one or two and you've basically seen them all. What is more, you often barely finish one big battle, and another one is just on the horizon.

So a general idea, that then would have to be fleshed out would be thus:
Make battles (slightly) longer. Make them more interesting. Make them rarer.

Making them rarer would address your concern about longer battles affecting total campaign length, while also making each battle more meaningful and impactful.

Just like you, I played all of my battles manually, and I do not know if this is your experience as well, but what I experienced eventually was a "battle fatigue", where after several big army battles, I saw every next one as more of a chore rather than an exciting opportunity. I assume you would agree that this kind of situation is not a desirable one even if you haven't experienced this yourself.

Now I realize that I moved a bit outside the scope of this discussion, I'm sorry. To bring it back around to the actual point, I'm happy to hear that you're considering giving the mod a go, I hope it gives you some ideas that you could relay to the devs.

 

[mujadaddy]

how anyone can play this game without RBM is a mystery

My story: played pure vanilla 500+ hours. Realistic Battle AI is mandatory. Combat? Is okay, does some good things, but my MAIN complaint is that it moves my hand placements & changes swings on pole arms which I developed over 500 hours. I've added Better Horse Charges, which is small and simple.

Also, there is the "Realistic Battle version" of mods to consider. Not that major, but it is something to consider.

But I absolutely endorse TaleWorlds including RB in native so armor works better.

 

[loulou76100]

As someone who prefers the newer Total War battles that are much quicker

well ok now that explains it...

 

[Reiksmarshal]

As someone who prefers the newer Total War battles that are much quicker and allow me to complete VH and Legendary playthroughs in a reasonable amount of time, I asked the question because I would really dislike the other extreme of those 1-hour battles in this game. And as with TW, I like to play all of my battles in Bannerlord and worry about what sort of knock-on effect adding a couple of minutes to each battle could have on a playthrough. But, as you and others have pointed out here, the length of battles in the mod seems to be quite reasonable in my opinion, and I am tempted to download it and give it a try.

I get your concerns and TW is a good example, even if bannerlord battles were closer it would be a bonus. Currently battles are over so fast in bannerlord I'm lucky if I can get 2-3 kills before the battle is over while fighting on foot. I barely have enough time to flank and the battle line fight is resolved because troops are going down so fast.

I think it is pretty clear that single players want an armor increase, from the test that I did the battles weren't increased by that much as the battles are so short atm. My 5 minute battles went most of much is movement went to 10-15 minutes which is right around where current Total war battles are not including Three Kingdoms.

 

[Ulfhedinn_]

As someone who prefers the newer Total War battles that are much quicker and allow me to complete VH and Legendary playthroughs in a reasonable amount of time, I asked the question because I would really dislike the other extreme of those 1-hour battles in this game. And as with TW, I like to play all of my battles in Bannerlord and worry about what sort of knock-on effect adding a couple of minutes to each battle could have on a playthrough. But, as you and others have pointed out here, the length of battles in the mod seems to be quite reasonable in my opinion, and I am tempted to download it and give it a try.

I think this would fit a poll... I prefer longer battles and that increases the strategic possibilities too.

For example: I have an elite cavalry and a mediocre infantry while the enemy has regular cavalry and infantry.
My best bet is to defeat the enemy cavalry with my superior cavalry and then use them to attack the infantry from the flanks.
That will depend a lot on how long my mediocre infantry will hold out. Currently in Bannerlord they will huddle in a bubble that will last a few minutes and my cavalry would still be facing the enemy cavalry...

Even considering the fastest battles in Total War, Bannerlord ends light years earlier!

 

[11hunter22]

One of the modules is troop overhaul (its recommended even if you play with other overhauls because it fixes tournaments). Then there is BSI and DRM both fully compatible with RBM (and also compatible with RBM unit overhaul since they replace old units for new units, so no worries).

Thanks for the recommendation. BSI looks great at first glance, but unfortunately it doesnt seem to work properly as some T5 Infantry Troops have well over 100 Armor while others are around 50.

 

[Fantomen]

RBM has become one of my mandatory mods, it really makes the game that much better paced.

However one issue I still have is that with RBM there is no good niche for lightly armoured troops, you basically just want elite units with heavy armour. The heavy armour doesn't slow down or tire units enough that lightly armoured troops can kite or outmaneuver them which should be the natural answer to them.

I miss the stamina system from Brytenwalda. I hope in the future there will be some kind of fatigue system and more impactful weight penalties that makes sure both heavy and light armour has tactical niches on the battlefield.

Just in general I think a lot needs to be done about how different units have their optimal use so the endgame of combat is not just "get the strongest units and they beat everything."

I also think party size should be limited by unit value rather than numbers, make the player choose between numbers or quality. It would give us incentive to use lower tier troops and make the question of "best" unit more complex, so some factions might have really cost effective low tier units while another has better elites and you'd be motivated to design your army around that.

 

[Ulfhedinn_]

RBM has become one of my mandatory mods, it really makes the game that much better paced.

However one issue I still have is that with RBM there is no good niche for lightly armoured troops, you basically just want elite units with heavy armour. The heavy armour doesn't slow down or tire units enough that lightly armoured troops can kite or outmaneuver them which should be the natural answer to them.

I miss the stamina system from Brytenwalda. I hope in the future there will be some kind of fatigue system and more impactful weight penalties that makes sure both heavy and light armour has tactical niches on the battlefield.

Just in general I think a lot needs to be done about how different units have their optimal use so the endgame of combat is not just "get the strongest units and they beat everything."

I also think party size should be limited by unit value rather than numbers, make the player choose between numbers or quality. It would give us incentive to use lower tier troops and make the question of "best" unit more complex, so some factions might have really cost effective low tier units while another has better elites and you'd be motivated to design your army around that.

In this topic I also suggested a movement penalty for heavy infantry units:

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/poll-unit-behaviour-by-class.444163/

 

[DennyWiseau]

RBM has become one of my mandatory mods, it really makes the game that much better paced.

However one issue I still have is that with RBM there is no good niche for lightly armoured troops, you basically just want elite units with heavy armour. The heavy armour doesn't slow down or tire units enough that lightly armoured troops can kite or outmaneuver them which should be the natural answer to them.

I miss the stamina system from Brytenwalda. I hope in the future there will be some kind of fatigue system and more impactful weight penalties that makes sure both heavy and light armour has tactical niches on the battlefield.

Just in general I think a lot needs to be done about how different units have their optimal use so the endgame of combat is not just "get the strongest units and they beat everything."

I also think party size should be limited by unit value rather than numbers, make the player choose between numbers or quality. It would give us incentive to use lower tier troops and make the question of "best" unit more complex, so some factions might have really cost effective low tier units while another has better elites and you'd be motivated to design your army around that.V

Very true I also play exclusively with RBM and its clear that the biggest crux of that mod is how much heavy armor troops will outperform light armored, rendering them almost useless in comparision. I suspect this problem is one of the reasons why TW hasent done anything about the armors in Bannlord so far, because it would mean they have to implement some kind of stamina system.

I've used this stamina mod together with RBM for awhile which does work quite well with it now, unfortunatly however, it only serves to makes heavy units even stronger than light troops as attack speed and attack damage is "debuffed" universally which result in everybody doing little damage to eachother but heavy armor troops taking almost no damage at all.

 

[CrazyElf]

As someone who hasn't tested the mod yet, can you explain to me how this affects the pace of the game? By this I mean, do battles take much longer to complete, and how much of a knock-on effect does this have on progressing through a campaign?

Yes.


RBM because it increases the pace of battles has the following effects:

1. It takes many more kills to destroy higher tier enemies.
2. Getting maces and other blunt weapons becomes a much bigger priority for that reason, as cut damage isn't that good vs high tier units.
3. What ends up happening is that when 2 armies meet, as they close, the kill feed is slower, because armor resists more damage.
4. Archers are less powerful and a more balanced (as opposed to skirmishing biased with tons of archers) is the optimal troop composition.
5. In melee, both sides take longer to kill higher tier troops. In turn, getting high tier troops becomes much more important because they are more survivable.
6. As a commander in field battles, you have more time to make important combat decisions because the kill feed is moving slower, but it also means that your ability to command has much more weight to the battle.
7. In duels, in stock Bannerlord, if you screw up, often you can die in 1 hit. Because fights in higher tier armor take several hits, it means that you and the AI can both recover from errors.

Keep; in mind though that this is for field battles I am talking about.

These are some really interesting answers, thanks for that! (the additional breakdown of timings was also really nice so thanks @svelok !)

I was curious because I play quite a bit of Total War and the difference between the older games and the more modern ones can be anywhere up to an extra 40 mins for a battle, which obviously has a huge impact on how a campaign progresses. But to hear that the mod doesn't affect looter battles at all and has quite a minimal, and possibly even beneficial, impact on battles and sieges is nice to know.

Have you ever played Darth Mod on Total War?

In some ways it is similar. Battles will take longer, but the difficulty is unchanged since armor works both ways.

Actually RBM consists of several modules, one of which improves the AI as well.

Honestly dying to try RBM so I am actually slowly working on a 1.6 modlist now, thanks to a post about working mods for 1.6 on the Eagle Rising discord.. I got about 25 mods strong. Trying to push a bit further, though. I miss some mods already, like Calradia Expanded, Custom Spawns and some of the faction ones but got most of the essentials.

Definitely going to have to do my own compatibility tweaks with every mod that I had that touches weapons, armors or ranged weaponry.

Try Drastic Battle Mod.

Drastic Battle

A simple mod improves vanilla battle experience. It changes damage calculating formulas.

www.nexusmods.com

It is more compatible because it doesn't modify the stats of the base game items.

 

[Gandamula]

I'd like to try the mod but I can't play without Bannerlord overhaul mod.

 

[Calabanar]

Honestly, if armour gets a buff with the drawback of making troops move noticeably slower and perhaps reducing raw damage output slightly to simulate encumbrance (something along the 25% malus for the best armour set possible in Bannerlord), then I don’t even think stamina would be necessary. It would also be interesting for heavy armour to hinder missile reloading speed, that way light archers could have a real purpose instead of just being fodder: once more, better damage output and more mobile—> a true skirmishing force! Heavier bowmen on the other hand would be great as castle defenders and hybrid fighters/close range support.

Lighter troops would have the advantage of having a higher damage output and being more mobile, while heavy troops would be much more durable, with of course the middleground units being the compromise between the two.

Heavy troops wouldn’t be OP, but would still serve their purpose: surviving and holding the line (and killing, of course), and so would light troops. It would all be much more dynamic!


Btw, I have never tested this so I’d like to know, does high encumbrance slow horsemen down? Is there a substantial difference with not wearing anything?

 

[Maelstrom8]

So.. earlier I tried Realistic Battle Mod on 1.6 with 30 other mods. I didn't get into any real battles but I simulated a mid to late game experience by putting myself against looters with good armor, playing around in arena a bit, messing around. Yep, armor and weapons feel good. I wholeheartedly approve of two handed axes.

I sacrificed some big boy mods, though. It happens. Calradia At War (Custom Spawns), Calradia Expanded, Scum and Villainy - etc are not updated to work with the beta patch. It works with CA-Eagle Rising (really good mod) it's disabled until someone or I make a compatibility patch, they'll all get absolutely destroyed, same with Valkyries, but they're so small I let them stay enabled, so they can get wiped out. More Troops mod actually works, and Open Source Armory as well - they both have RBM patches. The Swadian and Vaegir armory haven't really been touched but they're just pure armor so I don't need to touch them unless I want to use them. Reskin Rearm.. I don't know if it works and I cba to try it, too many items to add to the tweak list.

I think the whole reason why it wasn't working before was because of Custom Spawns and Calradia Expanded, but maybe because of those jank old japanese/chinese factions that have their own armor and weapons that mess stuff up. Eh. Starting to enjoy this mod list, just have to tweak Kaoses' tweaks a bit better.

 

[DennyWiseau]

The Swadian and Vaegir armory haven't really been touched but they're just pure armor so I don't need to touch them unless I want to use them.

You can use the items files from here to make vaegir (and vlandian armory) compatible with RBM

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

More Troops mod actually works, and Open Source Armory as well - they both have RBM patches. The Swadian and Vaegir armory haven't really been touched but they're just pure armor so I don't need to touch them unless I want to use them. Reskin Rearm.. I don't know if it works and I cba to try it, too many items to add to the tweak list.

I noticed you do use my More Troops mod. If it helps, the RBM patch does increase the armour on ADamnSexyName's stuff, although I really need to work on making it work better.

 

[Maelstrom8]

You can use the items files from here to make vaegir (and vlandian armory) compatible with RBM

Reading the post that followed yours, I think that I confused myself and I may not need this, but if I'm wrong, this'll help, so thanks.

I noticed you do use my More Troops mod. If it helps, the RBM patch does increase the armour on ADamnSexyName's stuff, although I really need to work on making it work better.

Yop, sure do. Without some of the bigger mods being compatible, I was hoping at least your mod work out (I totally get how you feel with beta patches btw). Luckily for now it does. I am a fine believer of "try the mod before you ask if it works".

Anyway yes, I think I've been understanding it wrong. See, I was looking at the armor values within ADamnSexyName's armouries, mods instead of realizing that your items patch had increased values and hence would replace his mod(s) if it loaded after, so I don't think I'd worry about a Winged Great Helm in-game being anything but 95 head armor.

Think you're doing fine.

 

[DennyWiseau]

Reading the post that followed yours, I think that I confused myself and I may not need this, but if I'm wrong, this'll help, so thanks.

You dont "need" them but you can use the item files I linked if you dont want the game to be unbalanced when it comes to armor that is not set up for the most recent RBM armor values. For example a visored full helm has 150 armor with RBM while it only has 50 armor and all mods such as veagir armory is balanced for vanilla not RBM

 

[Urzahil]

I go with Realistic Battle Mod with De Re Militari. Every medieval army's troops have had included a significant amount of levies and that's realistic because the really equipped and trained troops were actually in the minority, historically. It actually gives your ranged a reason to live so they can mow down those cheap ass levies before the heavies destroy them. It's just a race to see which army's heavies and levies survive the best in beating the other army.