Arbitrary restrictions that make the mid game feel frustrating

[Yertyl]

Presented in the form of a fictional dialogue with the game.

Alright, I have built up my renown and troops, and with this legendary banner, I can become the new BANNERLORD(tm). Time to go conquer some stuff!
Haha, not so fast. To conquer that next city, you need about 3 times as many men as you can command yourself. You can make your companions troop commanders though.

Then my trusted allies shall become the generals of my armies, and the lords of my new kingdom. Let's attack!
Haha, no. Unless you are already in a kingdom, you cannot actually fight with your own troops. You basically just pay them to lower your relations with everyone via constant raiding, and to ocassionally die in an amusing and/or idiotic fashion.

Then I guess I will declare myself the new God-Emperor using this divine BANNER. Time to g...
You need a fief to do that. You need an army to take that fief. Also, everyone and their grandmother will immediately declare war on you. Good luck surviving alone against constant assaults from kingdoms 5 times your size.

(...)
So you become a vassal, yes.

Alright, I became a vassal. Time to take a city as a base for my new kingdom!
Your enthusiasm is amusing. You can take cities, but not actually for yourself. Kingdom decisions are decided by voting, and you need influence to...influence these votes.

I guess I can gather some influence too. Alright, I have a lot of influence. Can I get my city now?
Nope, you can only vote for one of three arbitrary choices that will likely exclude yourself. But please, enjoy this castle on the other side of the map, in the middle of enemy territory!

...so what is my influence actually good for?
There will occasionally be decisions on which the rest of the council is evenly split, and your vote actually matters. But very few. Mostly, you can create armies to take cities for your ruler, or propose some laws that will give your ruler even more power.

This sucks. How can I become ruler myself?
The most practical way is to start a battle with your ruler in the army, and then shoot him in the back while everyone is watching. Do that several times for good measure. Calradians are huge believers in Klingon succession methods.

All those other lords seem to love me, and I have a ton of gold and influence. Any way to use that?
You can try persuade lords to join you based on probabilities you have no way of understanding. But only after you have have left the kingdom, which costs you all your influence, and makes everyone and their grandmother attack you. And you can only talk to heads of clans. And not while they are in an army. Or your prisoner. And you have to track them down with your whole army. Calradians hate letters and messengers.

(...)
Also, if they rule even one castle, they won't join you unless you pay them a fortune 10 times larger than anything even the richest clans of Calradia can dream of.
(......)
Just try to remember the motto of the MB2 midgame: "You can only watch."

 

[Monkey]

Despite the irony, there are many valid concerns in your post that need addressing by TaleWorlds. I do believe most of them will eventually be addressed. I'm not sure if it's by design or not, but creating your own kingdom is way, way harder than just joining an existing one for many of the reasons you pointed out.

 

[Apocal]

In the meantime, just take a rebelling town. They are garrisoned by militia troops so it is easy to dunk on them with a normal party.

 

[Moton]

What do you want? Unguarded cities? Being able to lead thousands and thousands of troops at level 5?

I never become vasal in any of my playthroughs and I can still take over castles at a pretty early stage, just pick one that isn't to strong and level 3 walls.

 

[Monkey]

In the meantime, just take a rebelling town. They are garrisoned by militia troops so it is easy to dunk on them with a normal party.

That's what I've been doing since rebellions were implemented. It's a pretty safe way of getting yourself a settlement (sometimes with good prosperity) without angering any of the factions.

 

[Yertyl]

What do you want? Unguarded cities? Being able to lead thousands and thousands of troops at level 5?

I never become vasal in any of my playthroughs and I can still take over castles at a pretty early stage, just pick one that isn't to strong and level 3 walls.

Well, I thought about listing my concerns in a serious manner, but I thought this format was more amusing, and it was pretty obvious what my concerns were. But some changes that would solve quite a few issues:

• The ability to always form armies with your own clan troops. Pretty huge point.
• Some grace period in which larger kingdoms won't attack you, or at least not as often as they do now, to have some chance of gathering clans/allies
• The ability to persuade people to join you before you declare your own kingdom. The game talks about a "civil war". I am pretty sure that usually, a single person does not declare a civil war and then starts thinking about who might join them.
• More ways to spend influence that actually benefit you as a vassal. Just remove the 200 influence limit for votes. And the leader of the army that took the fief should always be a voting option for the new owner. I currently have 1.5k influence and no way of spending it in a manner that makes sense.
• Some easier way of contacting people other than running to them personally for everything
• A persuasion system that is not quite as arbritrary. I honestly still do not fully understand what influences the probabilities, but it seems to be mostly traits and a bit of charm...while it should be more about personal relations (i.e. the lord likes you and dislikes the king) and strategic position. It's not very intuitive that one of the most important things you need to do to start your own kingdom is reliably deliver herds to get the "honest" trait.
• A way to become ruler of an existing kingdom that does not include an exploit would be nice, i.e. via relations, influence and money. Maybe just a proposal "new king" that costs a lot of influence. But if the other lords vote for you, and you have significantly more influence than the nominal ruler, this should be an option.
• The ability to discuss joining you with lords in an army, or in captivity (you capture normal troops to get them to join you, but it's the opposite for lords. Why?)
• And lastly, fief owners that want to join you asking for a sum of denars that you can reasonably pay without smithing javellings. Maybe more in the range of 200k than 1 Million+.

My point is not that founding your own kingdom is not doable at all, but more that a lot of rules feel counter-intuitive and arbitrary.

 

[a_ver_est]

• The ability to always form armies with your own clan troops. Pretty huge point.

If you where able to form an army with your clan parties as independent clan then it wouldn't be a reason to be a kingdom.

As independent clan no one can declare the war to you so it is a huge advantage over being a kingdom, and not being able to create an army is the huge disadvantage to balance it.

I want to have more control over my clan parties but not at the level to form an army unless becoming a kingdom has more pluses than right now.

 

[Yertyl]

If you where able to form an army with your clan parties as independent clan then it wouldn't be a reason to be a kingdom.

As independent clan no one can declare the war to you so it is a huge advantage over being a kingdom, and not being able to create an army is the huge disadvantage to balance it.

I want to have more control over my clan parties but not at the level to form an army unless becoming a kingdom has more pluses than right now.

Except that no other lords can join you? Owning fiefs does not matter much for overall strength since you are constrained to 4 clan parties no matter how much gold you have (and usually most of your gold comes from loot either way). Clan members are what matters. This would just make taking your first fief and work as a mercenary less frustrating.

I mean, currently, the only "canonical" way to form your kingdom seems to be

1. become a loyal vassal, build up influence and relations with everyone to get a fief
2. Betray everyone, instantly lose all influence you built up, take huge relationship hits and automically declare war on all of your former friends

It would be nice if being independent from the start, or peacefully taking over, were also (more) viable options.

 

[a_ver_est]

Except that no other lords can join you? Owning fiefs does not matter much for overall strength since you are constrained to 4 clan parties no matter how much gold you have (and usually most of your gold comes from loot either way). Clan members are what matters. This would just make taking your first fief and work as a mercenary less frustrating.

I mean, currently, the only "canonical" way to form your kingdom seems to be

1. become a loyal vassal, build up influence and relations with everyone to get a fief
2. Betray everyone, instantly lose all influence you built up, take huge relationship hits and automically declare war on all of your former friends

It would be nice if being independent from the start, or peacefully taking over, were also (more) viable options.

You are right, but anyway a 4 party army is a lot of men... I still feel overpowered.

Right now with the rebel cities is far easier to be independet, to easy to be honest... with 1.5.7 I have 3 towns and 1 castle as independent clan with just my war party, ironically I avoid creating more parties due the lack of control over them makes me feel like stupid waste.

Until now also rebel parties who has not succeed remained on the map for ever, and they become an easy source of lot/money to keep your finance running, thanks good they changed that in the current patch.

I agree to give to the player more control over clan parties, as I said the current model is such stupid that I stopped to create them... but at the same time, in my humble opinion, it should have some downbacks vs kingdom armies.

 

[Gandamula]

This game is to be played at a slow pace, the problem is that we have restarted it so many times due to Patches, that each time we have less patience to climb all the steps again. I now even use a Mod that gives me armor, and another that gives me a wife, I am not about to be going all over again.

 

[Yertyl]

In my eyes the central problem is this: In the early game, your progress is linked directly to the central (and most fun) gameplay element: your ability to fight and command your troops.
But as a vassal or new ruler, the important thing are voting mechanics, persuasion mechanics, and tracking people on the map (and hoping they want to talk to you). All of these currently feel pretty random, counter-intuitive, and beyond the player's control. Better military performance will net you more influence and gold, but not the ability to actually use these in a meaningful way.
It does not matter if you deal several crushing defeats to an enemy if your kingdom unanimously votes to declare a second or third war, or make peace when winning. No matter how many cities you take, if you are not one of the voting options, you will not profit from that victory (and indeed only work against yourself if you found your own kingdom and have to take that same fief again). And the ability to build your own kingdom effectively mostly depends on passing persuasion checks that have nothing to do with your military performance, and/or on using exploits.

 

[Ghost_awss]

+1

 

[veronicaaltoids]

What do you want? Unguarded cities? Being able to lead thousands and thousands of troops at level 5?

I never become vasal in any of my playthroughs and I can still take over castles at a pretty early stage, just pick one that isn't to strong and level 3 walls.

how do you deal with 500-1000+ big army attacking your little castle??
you need at least 300+ ideally 500+ troop, about 1 : 2-3 ratio to defend your castle.

 

[Apocal]

how do you deal with 500-1000+ big army attacking your little castle??
you need at least 300+ ideally 500+ troop, about 1 : 2-3 ratio to defend your castle.

I just left about 250 men garrisoning it and the AI never attacked. You can also just ride out and find any party of the faction you took it from and barter for peace. They'll accept and if you're still independent, other factions can't declare war on you.

But now the new meta is wait for a rebellion, raid one of the rebelling town's villages to start a war, then easily take the rebel town garrisoned by a small, crap-tier force. It is so easy you can do it at like clan tier 2, in under fifty days. And the best part is the faction might be mad but none of that matters because they go *poof* like a season after you take the town, along with any potential consequences.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

I dislike being a vassal, a ruler or having armies, but It's annoying that you don't have the option to as long clan. I mostly just do it for leadership, however it's such a long process that I often just don't. I like Veteran's respect but I don't NEED it and I like the one that gives you +5 party size per town....but again I don't need it. I feel like leading an army ,makes it just too easy to bulldoze everyone. As a lone clan you at least need to be smart about both who you fight and how you use your troops against larger forces. I would really like for leadership to just raise fast without armies.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

As an alt to being vassal for leadership, I like to just attack the Khuzaits asap and force recruit all the noble I troops they have, then when I have enough money and power I go look for a home for my Clan. In some games this is a rebel town but sometimes lately no rebellions So I pick a nice town far away, don't **** where you eat!


I took Otic... that town and the castles too just to feed inputs to the workshops in the town. The town I just retreat my precious party and murder the whole town myself. The castles that was too hard for me to deal with the xbow men, so I used a party of t2 xbow men and just had a shoot out at the ladders and easily won with only loosing like 1o guys. Then I beat the VLandians till I had good money (they wanted 85-175k)and payed them for peace so I can go back to bulling the Khuzaits with my fiefs safe. I think if you don't take a fief, peace is still cheap now, but once you take one they want more, however it seems to go down if you keep taking more and beating them down, not sure the calc though. Either way the utility of a fief is worth the price of peace.
I took onrina from Khuzaits just to be a ****, don't want it and was trying the pillage mechanic. I thik it's all downside as if I keep it and it rebels, the rebels go to khuzait, if the khuzait take it back they'll pillage it anyways and if it rebels..... will they choose me... no I don't think it's' allowed.

 

[CalarTheMerciless]

You are right, but anyway a 4 party army is a lot of men... I still feel overpowered.

Right now with the rebel cities is far easier to be independet, to easy to be honest... with 1.5.7 I have 3 towns and 1 castle as independent clan with just my war party, ironically I avoid creating more parties due the lack of control over them makes me feel like stupid waste.

Until now also rebel parties who has not succeed remained on the map for ever, and they become an easy source of lot/money to keep your finance running, thanks good they changed that in the current patch.

I agree to give to the player more control over clan parties, as I said the current model is such stupid that I stopped to create them... but at the same time, in my humble opinion, it should have some downbacks vs kingdom armies.

Firstly, while independent who are you going to chase with your ability to create an army? Looters?

The only reason to form the army is to get your first fief, it doesn't really matter if no one can declare war on you. Once you have that fief a nation (or many) are going to attack you with their armies so... who cares?

It's a silly arbitrary thing, like not being able to change your companions armor once they are leading a party or caravan. Yay for adding tedious and annoying gameplay of having to disband take back to party recreate caravan / party. Is it useful no should it like not being able to form an army when independent be removed yes.

Oh but you cant teleport armor and horses... no but I could send/ give them a package or leave them a package somewhere...

 

[Apocal]

The only reason to form the army is to get your first fief, it doesn't really matter if no one can declare war on you. Once you have that fief a nation (or many) are going to attack you with their armies so... who cares?

The AI doesn't (can't) declare war on independent clans. There is nothing stopping you from holding off on formally creating a faction until you have eight or nine fiefs.

 

[Tawny]

I love the dialogue format, and I agree with your points OP. A lot of the mechanics in BL are good ideas in isolation, they just don't work together in a good way.

 

[Nakh]

Taking your first fief as independent clan must form kingdom automatically. Just like this, have real estate = can be attacked. Clan only armies for mercenaries must be allowed, I hope devs will fix it or some modder come up with solution.