Well, how often do you surrender?
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AI Lords literally never surrender. Why?
- Thread starter ManWithKnife
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Zerosaiko
Knight at Arms
Honestly, not often, though that's more on me screwing around in the early game and with companions than anything.
With that said though, even if a player did get into a situation like that, they'd probably just opt to leave troops behind and flee (well, or they'd reload, but the game can't be balanced around infinite save/load anyway), which is something that AI lords could also do in previous entries to the series (though only in campaign map autocalc, and they were bad at it and were likely to just get caught in combat again) but can't do anymore, though Disorganized could make fleeing like that more viable in Bannerlord.
Plus Bannerlord already has parties that can surrender, they just don't happen to have much importance other than earning the player more Roguery from surrendering all of their stuff instead of having to pick a fraction of it off of their corpses.
If a player has death enabled for themselves, they're taking a big risk fighting a battle they don't have any hope of winning, since their character is certain to be taken out in such a fight and if the RNG disfavors them, that character is dead. So surrendering might actually be a better idea if they're in a bad enough state that they can't leave troops behind or they just don't want to lose Valor XP.
AI characters are also taking on that same risk, which could be understandable for a Valorous or Impulsive one, but in my opinion suspension of disbelief does get strained some when a lord (especially a cautious one, maybe a generous one since I think that applies to how the player treats troops?) will take the risk of a fight they'd need divine intervention to not get absolutely slaughtered in. Or also a merciful lord raiding villages all day and night without the slightest of consequences (relations, -mercy, whatever), but that's beside the point.
The game doesn't have to be fully (or even mostly imo) realistic, but as frustrating as some lord deciding to leave troops behind would be (or surrendering as per this topic, which would probably cost the player loot), interactions like that could help lords feel more alive, especially if their traits impacted them.
I do wonder if TW is going to make traits impact more of the simulation, but I don't remember where they talk about plans like that anyway.
five bucks
Knight at Arms
Unlike AI lords, we actually will execute them. And AI lords can't savescum their way out of a loss either.
But yes, I agree we lack reasons to surrender currently and this should be fixed. I made a suggestion how to fix it. https://forums.taleworlds.com/index...urrender-have-a-purpose-simple-system.449173/ but in the meantime it should not be used to excuse AI surrender not working, because it's clearly not good gameplay. If we outnumber someone by 100x we should be able to just skip the battle entirely.
The ai has to deal with the situation as is, no reloads, so what players want is for npcs to use some kind of real world logic and act like there's consequences to their actions. For most players surrendering isn't even on the table so asking this question is irrelevant unless playing ironman mode.
There was a mod that turned it on. It made the mid-game super-easy because you could trivially crank your personal party power so high (all-T5/T6 mounted troops) that the AI could never compete.
edit:
Apparently it is still around. Maybe he has rebalanced it a bit but my initial impression was that it was a feature that sounded cooler than it played, because it made the game far too easy if you knew at all what you were doing.
edit:
Apparently it is still around. Maybe he has rebalanced it a bit but my initial impression was that it was a feature that sounded cooler than it played, because it made the game far too easy if you knew at all what you were doing.
Julio-Claudian
Sergeant Knight
Yeah I've used that one in the past and it did make things too easy, especially capturing towns. That was a long time ago though. Also only works for the player.
'AI values life' is better imo. Works for player and AI. It also has settings which you can tweak. It isn't always updated though, sadly.
five bucks
Knight at Arms
Personality traits are the key.
Lords who are impulsive or valorous should never surrender under any circumstances, like now. So at the very least you can't cheese everyone.
Lords who lack relevant traits should be very difficult to make surrender - but possible. So the player can't run around using a full T6 party to cheese your average lord party, but they can do so against a lord party which is under usual strength due to recent battles, etc.
Lords who are cautious or calculating should be quite achievable to make surrender with the party sizes you mentioned. (The calculating lord isn't stupid - he can see how a fight against a full T6 party is going to end). Thus making the surrender feature and personality traits actually useful, but without letting you cheese everyone.
On the other hand, Calculating lords will never surrender to a player who has a Sadistic trait (let's pretend for a second that TW does something sensible and makes executions reduce Mercy rather than Honor) because they know they will probably be executed if they do. This will buff non-execution playthroughs.
Garrisons should factor in the strength ratio of your party versus theirs but also heavily weigh in the fortification. So that it's difficult to make a garrison surrender, but possible. Because it is incredibly stupid when a garrison of 10 men (the remainder after a failed sortie) refuses to surrender to an invading army of 300. I feel like I've seen you say before that this game has too many sieges already; one way to cut down on that is to make garrisons surrender more often.
Yes, that would be one way. But TW doesn't really want that; they want, as much as possible, for players to get the big battle spectacle as early and often as possible. Letting players dunk on the game because they made smart moves on the campaign map isn't something they are interested in going out of their way to enable.
five bucks
Knight at Arms
You could be right, but to me it seems that their original intention at least was to let players resolve sieges via negotiating surrenders, based on the blogs about it.
I have to agree there. Vanilla BL's exceptionally boring, I just noticed I'm using 14 simultaneous mods and wanted to add 3 more but those are incompatible with the core I've built, and I am totally unwilling to play without them... That speaks a lot on itself I think...
as for the OP, comes back to my ages ago suggestion of establishing more realistic Sieging in general, forcing AI and encouraging the player to let those playout for surrenders because assaults would virtually wipe your army. That'd make the game leagues less fan-fic and more realistic. Currently the AI does assaults and leaves with 3/4ths of their army no problem, move on and chain siege like there's no tomorrow, which begs the question: what's the point of castles even existing if those can't hold any army for more than a few days? It's a waste of resources building something so inefficient if you ask me, it'd be more profitable if instead of fortifying the position you just kept it as a village, since you'll be playing capturing tag with your enemies
Another issue is not having rules for territory depth captures, originally the point of castles, and capturing them, was exactly the simple fact that if you went for the crown jewel of a kingdom, like a prosperous town, you'd be met with attrition by skirmishers coming from all those fortified places you just passed through, you'd lose supply lines and ultimately your army would starve out and be slowly picked off by skirmishers until everybody deserted or died. As is you can declare war on Khuzait as Vlandia and capture their capital town no problem, the only thing you have to worry about is having enough influence pts for cohersion and having enough food, yet nobody seems to pay mind that you are marching with an army through their realm without authorization xD....
I belive the game holds the grounds to make more proper developments of diplomacy and war, but that would mean adding auto-skirmishing parties to castles that zerg rush the invading army, increasing food consumption (simulating attrition) of the army if they moved too far from the border, and ultimately adding auto-war declaration if you entered another realm with an army formed. This would punish both players and AI for doing dumb stuff and doing ludicrous foreign territory resupplying runs, like having Vlandia army spamming recruitment from Battanian towns, but would also demand a reshaping of AI behavior which would mostly keep to their borders and be heavily penalized if they were playing army pursuit. It would also stop deep territory raidings, which's the key factor and most important point of having castles and garrisons. As is, garrisons are just a "discouragement" number factor for AI to decide the "next target", makes for a poor experience. Say that the skirmishing made into the game, it would also stop BS mercenary cockroach clans from annoyingly destroying caravans on the other side of the world simply because they RNG joined you or your enemy kingdom. In fact that's one of the most dumb things that happens in this game, they join a kingdom, destroy some caravans, leave the kingdom and never for even a single moment contribute to the war or actually fight the war.
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RozBritanicus
Sergeant
You would think they (cowardly) would surrender if out numbers or the power rating of the army they face is greater.
Nawari
Veteran
I tested a lot of mods, too often they are made to customize armies. Frankly, for my part, it does not interest me. The few mods that affect gameplay are too rare and often tinkered with as they can.I have to agree there. Vanilla BL's exceptionally boring, I just noticed I'm using 14 simultaneous mods and wanted to add 3 more but those are incompatible with the core I've built, and I am totally unwilling to play without them... That speaks a lot on itself I think...
as for the OP, comes back to my ages ago suggestion of establishing more realistic Sieging in general, forcing AI and encouraging the player to let those playout for surrenders because assaults would virtually wipe your army. That'd make the game leagues less fan-fic and more realistic. Currently the AI does assaults and leaves with 3/4ths of their army no problem, move on and chain siege like there's no tomorrow, which begs the question: what's the point of castles even existing if those can't hold any army for more than a few days? It's a waste of resources building something so inefficient if you ask me, it'd be more profitable if instead of fortifying the position you just kept it as a village, since you'll be playing capturing tag with your enemies
Another issue is not having rules for territory depth captures, originally the point of castles, and capturing them, was exactly the simple fact that if you went for the crown jewel of a kingdom, like a prosperous town, you'd be met with attrition by skirmishers coming from all those fortified places you just passed through, you'd lose supply lines and ultimately your army would starve out and be slowly picked off by skirmishers until everybody deserted or died. As is you can declare war on Khuzait as Vlandia and capture their capital town no problem, the only thing you have to worry about is having enough influence pts for cohersion and having enough food, yet nobody seems to pay mind that you are marching with an army through their realm without authorization xD....
I belive the game holds the grounds to make more proper developments of diplomacy and war, but that would mean adding auto-skirmishing parties to castles that zerg rush the invading army, increasing food consumption (simulating attrition) of the army if they moved too far from the border, and ultimately adding auto-war declaration if you entered another realm with an army formed. This would punish both players and AI for doing dumb stuff and doing ludicrous foreign territory resupplying runs, like having Vlandia army spamming recruitment from Battanian towns, but would also demand a reshaping of AI behavior which would mostly keep to their borders and be heavily penalized if they were playing army pursuit. It would also stop deep territory raidings, which's the key factor and most important point of having castles and garrisons. As is, garrisons are just a "discouragement" number factor for AI to decide the "next target", makes for a poor experience. Say that the skirmishing made into the game, it would also stop BS mercenary cockroach clans from annoyingly destroying caravans on the other side of the world simply because they RNG joined you or your enemy kingdom. In fact that's one of the most dumb things that happens in this game, they join a kingdom, destroy some caravans, leave the kingdom and never for even a single moment contribute to the war or actually fight the war.
The most "developed", in this sense, is "The Land of Sika", it is a total overhaul of the game. It is the most promising. But I never managed to go all the way. As often in this game, everything takes too long.
As for mods that affect "stats", I am wary of them, there is a lot of delirium on the subject. I tested some, and sometimes it's very strange and not fun at all. I tested "Realistic..." mods. The troops then behave very strangely. The battles are long, long, long...
Anyway, the biggest problem is the lack of sense of the game, the lack of depth, the lack of "reason to play". If someone asks me, "What is the purpose of the game? What is the map for?" I can only answer one thing: battles, battles and more battles... "For what?" "I don't know, there is no goal, the factions declare war in a loop without ever really knowing why." "It's silly ?" "Yes".
Here's the basic game in a nutshell...
But it seems that millions of people like it. So if millions of people have seen a miracle, it must be true...
"I violently hate heroism on command, gratuitous violence and stupid nationalism. War is the most despicable thing." Albert Einstein
"The interest in believing a thing is not a proof of the existence of this thing." Voltaire
"The amount of people who believe the same thing at the same time does not establish a proof." Albert Einstein
Never, which is why I think they should actually have an incentive to the player for surrendering, if that makes sense. In warband you just lose your entire army and all your companions go to the four winds, which is nothing but a loss of progress and makes you want to savescum, because it wastes less of your time. But if they can make even the worst case scenario in the game less of a timewaster than savescumming, then people are likely to roleplay more fluidly without having to metagame just to progress.
RozBritanicus
Sergeant
They should make being captured interesting . Like being humiliated by a cruel lord or beaten or being made to fist fight a few guys for the fun of the enemy lords and having a chance to escape that's not run on boring percentages . Make being captured part of the game.
