AI, Wars, Armies and a few other suggestions...

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Prison Mike

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So i came back to bannerlord a few weeks ago because i wanted to see how different things were after a few updates. I must say that i enjoy the game specially that early to mid game. its really cool to just work your way up in the ladders of whichever kingdom you choose to be part of or just making your own. There are a ton of problems in early to mid game but it is enjoyable. Now when you get to the late game there all of these problems are exacerbated. So here are some of my observations and maybe some suggestions to make the game more enjoyable. Im not a programmer so i dont know how possible are the things that i will suggest, but here they are because maybe, just maybe, they might help and if not at least i wrote this thing for my own amusement.

AI Behavior Battles: The ai really needs some work in various aspects of the game. Battles are really enfuriating, specially when you are not commanding an army. For what ive seen they do the following,
  1. If they outnumber the enemy they go all out and F3 the hell out of that battle. They send horses right towards the enemy shields and spears while the rest of the army is miles away. Thank the gods that spears are not as powerful as they should be because if not horse units would be dead in an instant.
  2. If the enemy has the superior force they stay back (smart), but if the enemy has more archers or horse archers the AI proceeds to encircle their range units making them worthless because in that formation the range units can barely shoot plus it creates a bigger target for the attacking army.
I would like for the AI to use the army as a unit. March down the field together and approach the enemy with caution. That would make sense. Horse charges should be done as an unit. horses are all over the place. They come in attack and then they start coming at the enemy one by one or in twos. That makes no sense at all. Then come in the foot soldiers, i mean what the actual hell. Foot soldiers really seem like they are lost all of the time. I have stood right next to them and they dont pay attention to me because they are still looking at the horse that hit them 20hrs ago, that is 1 mile away. Ive also notice that if they have throwable weapons, they keep using them even if they have enemies right in their faces. The fact that they dont switch weapons really annoys me. Foot soldiers should focus on the enemy they have in front of them. Maybe make them switch targets when they are 10 t0 15 feet away from them. Also i dont know if they can calculate when an enemy is being targeted by an ally and therefore they should switch to another target. This because i hate how 15 guys are going at this one enemy soldier while they are being surrounded by enemies, plus they are unable to hit that MF because they keep blocking their allied soldiers attacks. I dont know how possible it is but that would really change how this games battles work and look. I think that battles would really be amazing if the Ai behavior worked that way. Again im not a programmer so i dont even know how possible this is but man would i really like to see that happen.

Wars: This is simple, i think, please make wars objective based. Factions are declaring wars left and right and the AI doesnt even know what to do. they raise 30 different armies and they start roaming the map like crazy. Here is an example, so we declare war on the Kuhzaits and one of the generals created and army to take Makeb but that MF is all the way over at Lageta. by the time they reach Makeb the army is already foodless and the cohesion is close to 0%. This makes them either drop their objective of taking Makeb or they start going back and forth from Makeb to the nearest allied city to go replenish their food supplies. To add insult to injury, the army was a huge 2000 units army. Then the other army is gathering all the way in Ortysia. This really grinds my gears (peter griffin). Maybe making wars objective based would really help. Because the entire faction would work towards those objectives. Maybe not everyone should be able to call in the banners. generals that dont have the influence to hold their massive armies shouldnt be able to assemble them. Another thing that i think should happen is that when armies enter enemy territory there should be a penalty that gets heavier the longer you are in said territory and how deep in the territory you go in to. Its amazing how armies can just waltz in and pass by towns and castles to take that random settlement in the middle of the enemys territory. That shouldnt happen. I mean it can happen but there are heavy consequences for taking that action. No supply lines, surrounded by enemy land i all directions, low possibilities of reinforcements... Something else is that i think that armies in the campaign map should need to stop and rest. Its crazy how you can just walk day in and day out and there are no penalties for it. Maybe that would also help with snowballing as well, which, by the way is not as bad as it used to be but it still bad.

Diplomacy: I cant say how many times another faction has declared war on my faction just to have 3 days pass and have that same faction propose a truce and to top that the are offering a tribute. No battles lost or won, no castles or towns lost or taken its just a truce. It happens so much that you start gathering an army to take a settlement and boom there comes the peace offering. It happens when my faction is fighting multiple factions at a time, it happens when im only fighting one faction at a time. What the hell is going on?! When are we going to see alliances, that would really benefit struggling factions, like the Sturgians and battanians that always seem to get the shorter end of the stick. Maybe some trade agreements, non aggression pacts stuff like that. Kingdom decisions should also allow you to negotiate with other lords of your faction. Lets say i want to approve a certain policy, right now there is no way of swaying other lords to take my side. No way to bribe or to use my charm on them. If its not a popular policy there is no way of passing it. You cant even spend more than 100 influence to try to change the outcome. It would really be cool to see that power dynamic goiing on. Im not saying that passing an unpopular policy should be easy, but there should be a way to at least try it. This would give the charm and the rougery traits to really take a lil bit of the spotlight and that would open the doors to a different types of playstyles, The councilor, the mafioso or something like that, im not good at coming up with names.

Towns Castles Villages and rebellion: First i just want to say it plz just plz let me be able to give villages to other lords. I dont understand why they took this feature of the game. That was a great way for lords to start making some income in warband. Right now there are a bunch of unladed lords in the game and there are not enough castles and towns to give away. Im not saying that every lord needs to own a settlement but i think it would be good to have more lords making some money in the game. plus its a good way for the player to start himself. Upgrading villages watch towers in warband so that you would get a notification when enemies where passing by was really cool. Upgrading stuff in the village was a great way to improve the production of X village and make it more profitable. Maybe this could come with some missions attached to it. What could be done is that villages owned by a clan can only be given to said clans members. I dont know, for some reason i really want to see this come back to the game. That would really make me want to go to the village and walk around maybe see a certain building under construction or something like that.

There should be something more going on in towns. I mean other than the first few times i really dont have any reason to go in a town an visit it. I can access the missions from the menu the keep the arena. Why should i go in the town when there is nothing really to do in it? Towns to me seem really empty and uninteresting to visit. They look amazing, dont get me wrong, specially coastal cities are really beautiful but other than that there is nothing for me to visit for. Im not sure but it seems like the daily defaults in the manage town screen, dont seem to work at all. Please bring back bread, and the option to make a bakery as a workshop. Thats another thing that i cant understand why they took off the game. I MEAN ITS BREAD!

I think Castles should allow you to recruit special Noble units. Other than that there is not nothing else i have to say about castles.

Then there is the rebellion aspect of the game. Let me start by saying that i love it the concept! Cities that get fed up with their lords and take up arms against them is just amazing. Now My problem with it is how easy it is to avoid. The AI has problems with it because they cant employ companions in their clans, but as a human player, i think im human still, i just need to put any companion that belongs to the culture of the settlement and thats it. Problem avoided. I mean The companion doesnt even need to be a good steward. Just the fact that he belongs to that settlements culture is enough. That really sucks. This idea of the possibility of a rebellion is great but if it is so easily avoidable then its just there for the NPCs. Its just a way to stop the snowballing effect and to be honest its not working to that effect either. It would be cool to have a rebellion happen and if you take too long to deal with it then it could start spreading all over your other settlements and villages, turning it into a huge enemy to deal with. Maybe thats another way to make charm and roguery more relevant in the game. You can go in to cities and make people want to rebel against their lords, given that there are other factors that the city needs to have in order for a rebellion to happen. That could be another way to play the game. Start rebellions and become the usurper or the beacon of hope of the plebs or something like that. At the moment the Rebellion seems, like many other features in the game, incomplete.

Tournaments: Tournaments really need some work. The betting system sucks, i mean whats the point of betting each round if at the end you lose and dont get any of the money that you should have won because you won those rounds but not the tournament. if thats going to be the case then just make a single bet. you bet that you are going to win the tournament and thats it. I would make it so that you bet on the outcome of each round. But you have to win that round in order to get paid. If you win all rounds and then win the tournament you win your bets plus the tournament prize money and equipment or whatever. I also thought that maybe everybody starts with the same equipment, and as rounds go by you could start choosing different types of armor and weapons that fit more your playstyle rather than the random weapons that you get. There is also the fact that there is a leaderboard that serves no purpose other than show who has won the most tournaments. Maybe we can have a tournament at the end of each year and only the top 24 characters in the leaderboard are invited. This leaderboard would go back to zero after the tournament is done and the cycle starts again.

Sieges: While it is true that sieges are better now than before i would say that there are some things that really make siege battle really annoying. First is the fact that placing units in the walls when defending is a pain in the ass. The fact that you cant place units the way you want them is really frustrating. Second and i dont know if this has happened to anybody else when defending, but i split my army in different melee and range units so that i can place them in different parts of the castle/town. then when i start the battle they all merge back in to one whole unit. making it impossible to send different groups of the same type to defend different areas. Then i ask where are the boiling oil and all of those things that you could use to defend the walls. I really want that oil thing to happen, i really want to taste some fried Vlandian. Maybe im asking to much but it would be cool to see the defenders retreat to strategic points in the castle/town, because the keep fight is not really doing it for me. I would also like to see walls take longer before they go down. To me it all happens to fast. If an attacking army has 1000 men facing a garrison of 600 to 700 men that is not a real advantage for the attacking army.

Random things:
  1. Armor: Make armor do something. Specially in tournaments. How is it possible that if me the player in the hardest difficulty, join a tournament and beat a legionary with 3 blows when he has 130 one handed skill and i have 25? I already said this before but the AI also needs to be better at attacking and blocking, i mean is the most essential part of this game.
  2. Missions: More missions are needed. Specially for the late game. Doing the same missions over and over takes the joy out of the game very quickly.
  3. Companions: Companions are very lame. How about if a companion has served you loyally for a years then you can knight them and make them part of your family, or mary them into your family. They would stop being a companion and they would become part of the clan, capable of holding fiefs and stuff like that. make them get relationship points by fighting together, or make companion specific missions to help you boost your relationship with them and would make them more likeable and memorable.
  4. Traits: Please make traits mean something. NPCs have traits but they all behave the same. At the moment i have only seen it matter when taking a settlement and making the decision to pillage, destroy or show mercy and it only takes some minimal influence. Make angry characters, jealous, revenge types do something related to what their traits are. Right now all the nobles behave the same way and it is really boring. Maybe they can make missions related to traits and stuff like that.
  5. Events: Random events that requires you to make decisions and it could impact you in the short or in the long run. I thinks there is a mod that does this already but i want this to be part of the vanilla game.
  6. Bandits and looters: So as you progress in the game and your forces becomes bigger so does the looters and bandits. How about making it possible for these large group of brigands to get a leader if the group gets to a certain amount of people. Maybe they can start targeting your estates and things like that or that leader can begin to merge all the looters and the bandits around him and make an army that does something than just be there. Bring back deserters and man hunters. Allow me to be one or the other.
  7. Marriage: Needs a ton of work. I married Ira the successor of Arenicos when i was in clan level 2 had nothing to my name and yeah thats how i became the emperor.
  8. Roads: There should be roads in this game. if you want to take another route then go ahead but there should be roads that link up cities. i cant seem to understand why is this so impossible. Maybe you have to build them in the manage town screen, i dont know but there should be roads that makes traveling faster. You can always use alternate routes.
  9. Ambushes: This links up with the road system. If you stray from the road and are in a densely tree covered area you can get ambushed by bandits or another army and stuff like that.
There are many others things that slip my mind right now. But this thread is long enough. Hope that i explained myself well here. I have to say that i enjoy this game but it has so much potential that sometimes it infuriates me to see the path that its taking, now i really have to stop because im starting to sound like my high school teacher.
 
This is simple, i think, please make wars objective based. Factions are declaring wars left and right and the AI doesnt even know what to do. they raise 30 different armies and they start roaming the map like crazy. Here is an example, so we declare war on the Kuhzaits and one of the generals created and army to take Makeb but that MF is all the way over at Lageta. by the time they reach Makeb the army is already foodless and the cohesion is close to 0%. This makes them either drop their objective of taking Makeb or they start going back and forth from Makeb to the nearest allied city to go replenish their food supplies. To add insult to injury, the army was a huge 2000 units army. Then the other army is gathering all the way in Ortysia. This really grinds my gears (peter griffin). Maybe making wars objective based would really help. Because the entire faction would work towards those objectives. Maybe not everyone should be able to call in the banners. generals that dont have the influence to hold their massive armies shouldnt be able to assemble them. Another thing that i think should happen is that when armies enter enemy territory there should be a penalty that gets heavier the longer you are in said territory and how deep in the territory you go in to. Its amazing how armies can just waltz in and pass by towns and castles to take that random settlement in the middle of the enemys territory. That shouldnt happen. I mean it can happen but there are heavy consequences for taking that action. No supply lines, surrounded by enemy land i all directions, low possibilities of reinforcements... Something else is that i think that armies in the campaign map should need to stop and rest. Its crazy how you can just walk day in and day out and there are no penalties for it. Maybe that would also help with snowballing as well, which, by the way is not as bad as it used to be but it still bad.
Really good idea and I agree. The AI doesn't take into account supply limits when it forms an army and that really makes the game feel ridiculous in the late game. They declare wars simply to roll the dice and hope they capture something along the way. Armies don't support each other, armies don't have the same objectives. Lords form little armies of 400 men and then go siege a castle that has 350 thinking they might take it but losing more troops to spam losing siege engines then makes sense.

Some things I want to add that are straight out of Warband.

1. Why don't I get attacked by criminals in cities any more? What changed from Bannerlord to Warband that the criminal factions stop trying to kill you or rob you?

2. One of the options I enjoyed in Warband was kings seeking you out and saying - "Hey you're a strong clan. You should join me!" Maybe bring that back and in Bannerlord have the King say - "Hey you're a strong clan. I have (insert keep name) available, I will give it to you if you support my cause." It would make sense because most kings in this game have 3 - 4 fiefs so they could afford to lose one.

3. Why does the AI ignore me when they're raiding a town? Why don't they break off and run when they see an army 3 times their size coming at them?

also

4. Why can't I marry companions? I have asked this before and it makes very little sense to me. I have fought with this man / woman for countless battles. We have shed blood together and fought side by side throughout this long campaign and yet I can't show my affection for them or have feelings for them? What?

5. Why can't I raise the happiness of my family/companions unless I give them a fief or do things in sieges they would appreciate like not sacking a town or pillaging it? Why also does it feel like the only way to make them happy is agreeing that I shouldn't miss payments on my armies or let them starve? Or in the off chance a trait I chose gives them a random boost while rolling the dice between all my companions?

6. Why are player caravans limited to 30 troops and AI caravans range from 30 - 50?

7. If I marry the daughter of Monchug, why would he turn right around and declare war against me? Did me marrying his daughter not make him more inclined to think or me now as an ally or bloodkin? I mean, that just doesn't feel right to me. You would think marrying his direct kin would add a modifier or a check to the AI saying - Hey this guy married into my family, I probably shouldn't ruin that.

8. Why does the AI leave castles with absolutely no garrison after they take it? I've literally seen them take a keep with 1400 troops only to sack it and then leave without establishing a garrison of more then 10 - 20 troops. The enemy just turns right around and retakes it and guess what? They don't leave a garrison either!

9. Character Creation : Why can't I have scars or warpaint but not both?

That's all for now.
 
1. Why don't I get attacked by criminals in cities any more? What changed from Bannerlord to Warband that the criminal factions stop trying to kill you or rob you?
plz yesss! why have they taken out sooo many of the fun lil things from warband. it would also be cool that you can sneak into bandit hideouts and take them in a very stealthy mode. Like you have to crouch and hide till you have the chance to take them, out. hhehehehhehe
9. Character Creation : Why can't I have scars or warpaint but not both?
they really need to work on that and make an option for your character to get scars when he gets knocked out in battles. like theres a percentage that you might get them scars. that would be a nice feature.
7. If I marry the daughter of Monchug, why would he turn right around and declare war against me? Did me marrying his daughter not make him more inclined to think or me now as an ally or bloodkin? I mean, that just doesn't feel right to me. You would think marrying his direct kin would add a modifier or a check to the AI saying - Hey this guy married into my family, I probably shouldn't ruin that.
diplomacy needs a makeover, a complete makeover. right now its all over the place.

4. Why can't I marry companions? I have asked this before and it makes very little sense to me. I have fought with this man / woman for countless battles. We have shed blood together and fought side by side throughout this long campaign and yet I can't show my affection for them or have feelings for them? What?
Why cant you marry anyone! anybody that you want. I mean cmon!
8. Why does the AI leave castles with absolutely no garrison after they take it? I've literally seen them take a keep with 1400 troops only to sack it and then leave without establishing a garrison of more then 10 - 20 troops. The enemy just turns right around and retakes it and guess what? They don't leave a garrison either!
late game becomes a back and forth over the same towns/castles or quick declare war declare peace because of these types of things.
2. One of the options I enjoyed in Warband was kings seeking you out and saying - "Hey you're a strong clan. You should join me!" Maybe bring that back and in Bannerlord have the King say - "Hey you're a strong clan. I have (insert keep name) available, I will give it to you if you support my cause." It would make sense because most kings in this game have 3 - 4 fiefs so they could afford to lose one.
right now NPCs are just there. They really dont offer anything at all other than the fetch me this or collect me that type of quests. you cant even have a simple scripted conversation with them. They are extremely shallow, empty.

also a nice lil thing that they can add is the chance to decorate your keep. there is really no reason for me to visit my keep. none! plus they are really dark. like way to dark.
6. Why are player caravans limited to 30 troops and AI caravans range from 30 - 50?
my caravans keep getting destroyed because of this.
 
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