After a 1.5.10 Play-through, here are my thoughts

[Althix]

I could go on

at some point in the game, towns have ~800 troops militia, and garrison combined. which means AI parties never ever lay siege on these towns. all war efforts turning around previously taken towns and castles, which always are getting pillaged and reduced to nothing (nothing it is like 500 prosperity at best)

 

[Rbtparker13]

Or just, "From my father (mother) I was told..." Yuddie, yuddie, yuddie

Perfect!! And gives us good reason to actually remember some character's name

 

[Killer Kitten]

There are a lot of things in this game that were just wasted opportunities or just outright ignored.

1) Influence. I don't like how it's treated like a currency of sorts. It's okay, but it's not real immersive. What it should be is that if you wanted to influence the vote, you should be able to go up to individual nobles and convince them to vote a certain way just as you do to convince them to defect or join another kingdom. This is also why it's so blatantly easy to get fiefs in the game. That would be more fun, but it would only work if we had the next thing.

2) Feasts. This is why the original game worked well with the old influence, albeit crude, influence system. Because you could get nobles in one place, improve your relation which wouldn't change things immediately, but overtime was rather rewarding. And with so much of emphasis on building your own kingdom, it's a wonder why this mechanic was taken out.

3) The main quest. Of all the wasted opportunities, this is the biggest one. If I were doing this quest, I would forget the whole "find 10 lords" crap. Finding anyone in this game isn't a task; it's a trial by fire and now we have to go find 10 of them. What's wrong with finding one person from each kingdom, getting their take? That's it. Because usually if I find the king and then one his nobles, they tell the same story from the exact same perspective. That's redundant! Other than maybe a back story, it doesn't tell me anything about them personally either. Nor does it really tell you about your clan, your parents, or something to make this personal.

Secondly, this quest is just a big time clock. Now, I understand that it needs to be that way for the death mechanic. I get it! But that's all the value the quest adds. It's not like there's any twists and turns to make you go "Whoa! No way!" Like for example if you had your brother (if he's alive) join the opposite side that you do! So, then you have to have a throw down with him and then make a difficult decision as far as his fate. But literally nothing really happens.

If I had any coding skill, this is where I would be putting my first mod. I would be seriously revamping this quest.

 

[Spinozart1]

Why not put the special units of factions to the castles, so they can only be recruitable from there and how much you can recruit could be depend on the relation with the lord of that castle. This can give both incentive of getting good relation with lords and visiting castles at least in the campaign map.

Actually, villages bound to castles give more noble troops and earlier.
But I agree that castles should play a more vital role in campaign.
At least increase the minimum tier of troops in bound villages (tier 3 could be fine).
There are 67 castles for 53 towns...
Castles could be linked with towns as well. With the consequence that a kingdom can not besiege a town if he does not own the castle.

 

[a_ver_est]

Actually, villages bound to castles give more noble troops and earlier.
But I agree that castles should play a more vital role in campaign.

Castles should allow you to set a clan member as contestable which may help organizing military stuff of the clan, more or less like diplomacy mod did... allowing you to set patrols, transferring troops between garrisons, etc but it is not going to happen.

Towns should have a similar figure but for the economic stuff.

 

[stevepine]

Sadly, I don't think that TW have any plans to really add functionality to castles and villages.

Mexxico once said he would suggest to the devs the idea of adding more of an influential link between villages and their castle. But who knows.

Really good constructive ideas from us all in this thread, but like so many things... I think it will add have to wait for mods and modders to save the day.

 

[Ser Jon]

I agree.

And I do very much miss the feeling of capturing a castle that Warband gave. It felt deserved after hard battles, even moreso after doing so multiple times. I wonder if we are ever going to get to that point...

 

[Wulfric]

I think it would be nice if they started with the very action of becoming a noble in the first place, just like in Warband. Being a "noble" from the very get go in Bannerlord is a humongous wasted opportunity.

This could have even been tied with the marriage system such that one could marry into a noble family instead of being raised to nobility and the second generation of the player character could then become part of that noble house. The next goal then would be to rise within the clan itself to the position of clan leader through other marriages, schemes, etc. before coming to compete with other clans.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

My plan is to take all towns and leave all castles, so I can use forced recruitment on all the noble troops still from the castles bound towns.
So, castles are very important and useful to me, just not for me to posses, just to generate noble troops I can take without having to raise relations.