Army 'Cohesion' should logically apply to Clan Party Also

[LordOfAll]

This is just a musing on the game 'cohesion' mechanic. I can easily understand the devs reasoning behind the Army 'cohesion' mechanic. Without it, a player could form a huge army and forever march across the map destroying all in his way, virtually forever. I get that.

Now, if we think about the player's 'war party', the idea of having mixed troops is questionable. Would differing cultures 'mix' in a war party? For example, the idea that Khuzaits would fight alongside troops of the Southern Empire, without conflicts, is problematical. If there was ever a case for lack of 'cohesion', then this is it.

In respect to game play, this would suggest that a penalty of 'cohesion' should be imposed on the player who willy-nilly mixes troops from all cultures from all over the map into a group whose goal was to fight together 'cohesively'. In truth they are more likely to murder each other.

In following a lengthy YouTube campaign by 'Pixallated Apollo' (which I very much enjoyed!), he very randomly added troops from every faction he came across and subsequently defeated every foe. In "reality", his army should at some point have begun to 'break down' due to the 'cultural differences'. A lack of 'cohesion' should have been his downfall and should have been taken into account.

I would suggest, therefore, a 'cohesion' mechanic for player parties .... not a 'severe penalty' at first, just a gradually building 'Cohesion %' that would more or less force the player to maintain a party with a majority of its troops of the same culture. At some point, this 'Cohesion %' would begin to impact the 'moral' of the troops and consequently their fighting effectiveness.

This is not to say that the culture of the player has to be the same as the troops but only of the troops themselves.

This would, IMHO, make for an interesting twist to the game play.

 

[Sanktym]

Well I can relate to people from different cultures and factions fighting together under one banner. There is one cool thing that always works in this situations - coins. I think your army is all good if it has gold and varous food types. Why should your party loose their "cohesion" if, logically, they joined under your comand as some kind of mercenaries.

I think it will be more cool if there where a system like in game "Battle Brothers" - your party also need meds\bandages to heal wounded. Tools to repair broken armor\shields and to sharpen weapons. And last but not least - ammo for your ranged bois! Imagine this big army of Khuzaid Horse archers without its arrows! They are still deadly but c`mon not that scary and usefull in siege...

 

[LordOfAll]

Sanktym,
What I thought about was several times in my contracting career I had to separate groups of people from working together because they would not get along i.e. the Mexicans hated the Guatemalans, etc etc. and others...

While they were all being paid good wage, they could not be in the same area together without conflict.

I mention this not as ANY KIND of political or 'racist' statement but as an observation I have had of human behavior and cultures.

The 'Cohesion' factor in Bannerlord just got me thinking, that's all.

P.S. I am Italian American. I love everybody and they all love us.

 

[Apocal]

The AI isn't smart enough to manage this.

In "reality", his army should at some point have begun to 'break down' due to the 'cultural differences'. A lack of 'cohesion' should have been his downfall and should have been taken into account.

That's not reality; there were lots of multicultural armies, especially in the 11th century -- Saracen archers from Sicily were sought after by Norman lords, Turcopoles and later Poulains employed by Crusaders -- and they didn't fall apart any more readily than culturally homogeneous ones. Usually it was running out of food or money that would do it, not guys being angry at guys on the other side of camp.

And nobody in Bannerlord runs out of food or money.

 

[BadHalf The Drunkard]

One thing I found kind of ridiculous is that you can use a factions own troops against them. Surely Vlandians wouldn't want to fight their own countrymen, or sign up with your army when you are burning your way across their homeland, or raid their own village you recruited them from a few months before. It might be cool to see a mechanic like defection if you had enemy culture troops in your army, perhaps at the start of the battle they would switch sides, or disappear in the night and join an enemy lord as a random event or something. I don't think you should be able to recruit any troops from cultures you are currently at war with and perhaps even companions should have some unique events or dialogue options if they don't altogether leave you for it as well. But it certainly does put me off that while at war there are no consequences for using or recruiting troops from enemy cultures. But I kind of see that as a problem with the game overall. You have these big wars where you are burning towns and killing thousands and then when peace is declared it's like an episode of the simpsons and everything is back to normal the next day, you can stop in town pick up troops and goods and nobody bats an eye that just a week ago you were slaughtering them.

 

[LordOfAll]

Historically, I do believe that 'Apocal' is probably more correct here in regards to that past time and place. Today, it would be hard to believe that Turks would fight alongside Syrians. BUT, we live in an age of 'Nationalism' and in a more complex geopolitical environment. 'Now' is a different time and place. So, I will yield to the historical facts of the time and place that is dominant in the game.
But, good discussion ... and perhaps 'Badhalf' does have a point about fighting against your own faction.

 

[Apocal]

Historically, I do believe that 'Apocal' is probably more correct here in regards to that past time and place. Today, it would be hard to believe that Turks would fight alongside Syrians. BUT, we live in an age of 'Nationalism' and in a more complex geopolitical environment. 'Now' is a different time and place. So, I will yield to the historical facts of the time and place that is dominant in the game.
But, good discussion ... and perhaps 'Badhalf' does have a point about fighting against your own faction.

Just to be clear, my opposition isn't that it is unrealistic but rather that with the AI playing with the same rules, it won't be able to handle the issues it raises. This exact feature was in Warband but I don't believe it affected the AI.

 

[Telyon]

As Apocal already stated, this exact feature was abstracted in Warband through your units taking morale penalties if you were at war with their kingdom/culture, e.g., all Swadian units took a flat morale penalty, which factored into your party's average morale. Just another mechanic from Warband not in Bannerlord, I suppose.

 

[LordOfAll]

ok. I have 'Warband' but have never played it .. jumped onto 'Bannerlord' first. It is hard to say that some players would not like the game to not be 'historically accurate' while others really don't care. But we have all seen some pretty goofy and illogical stuff in games.
As for me, I have seen the way 'Bannerlord' AI seems to reckon some interesting scenarios (not battle AI, yet) and I figured this was something that could be factored into the 'Morale' as a negative (-).
But, this may as you guys say this issue maybe too complex for the AIt to handle.
Besides, there are several other things that would take precedence now anyway.