Bandit Hideout taking over the world

[TwentySicks]

TL;DR the bandits snowball into an empire with the greatest "baiting" tactic ever, killing the AI lord, my AI parties and everyting. making the game unplayable after 450+ days.

I started the game with max difficulty settings, but ended up trying to setting them to easiest when trying to kill the 150+ hideouts. It did not work well.

I am aware of the issues with the bandit hideouts, and at least they removed the "feature" if getting knocked out inside a hideout you lose all troops.

BUT, here is another issue, one which springs directly from the so called "fix" to the overpowered hideouts problem.

See, if you just leave the hideouts alone, they will grow in power and the numbers of bandit parties on the map will start to increase. After 450+ ingame days, where i completely ignored hideouts, my map is now covered in bandit parties of 5-20 men (a couple of them go to 100+ sometimes, but they are very rare).

The problem here is now this; I cant clear out the hideouts. Ive tried setting all settings to easy, bringing only elite troops, but still a hideout with 150+ enemies takes me several trips back and forth with my men. Took me an entire evening, of 4-5 hours *REAL TIME* to clear out 1 bandit camp. all the while the other 7 nearby, just increase in strength. I move on to the next hideout, rinse and repeat, but i can never catch up to the bandit killing.

Now, this wouldnt be a major problem, however! The fact that bandit parties "stick together" when they are close enough to each other? Yeah, all the lords and NPC parties are getting completely wrecked because of this.

An NPC lord might follow a group of 8 bandits, but when he reaches them, all the nearby bandits clump together into one massive army of bandits, completely wiping the NPC lord.

The snowball effect is real. These lords end up with recruits and repeat the same process as above, getting mauled again and again.

My game is basically unplayable at this point lol, but i dont want to restard, because i will end up in the same problem, unless i keep patrolling the map for eternity killing bandits and hideouts before they get too strong.

Also, ive tried sending my companions to deal with the hideouts, but the hideouts never despawn. They just go to 0 troops and start building up again from there, and the nearby village guys are convinced the hideout is gone, but its really not.

 

[Mortoni]

Agree, too much hideouts and my lords have 90% recruits always. Companion->party->lose against bandits. This is the circle never end and if he or she survive a bit they have alway 90% recruits... Need a proper training every day like in warband

 

[Necco]

honestly, what i've done is just turn on cheats teleport to bandit camps ctrl alt f4 to kill them all then teleport back to my regular location not taking any of the loot etc as to not really influence my position.

 

[Waybook]

It would be cool if the amount of bandits depended on the economy.
More starving poor people -> more bandits.

That said, they should just add a reasonable upper limit to how many bandits can be in a hideout.

BTW, if you accept the quests in cities "x needs help with forest bandits" etc. then they cause the bandit hideouts to evacuate, making them easier to deal with.

 

[pr0faker]

hmm haven't had much issues with bandit hideouts, save for some bigass searaider ones. I do have a mod to get 20 men with me instead of the 10 you get from vanilla and that pretty much is enough if you have tier 4-5-6 units and decent companions. I did notice that after dealing with one lair that there are 2 things happening: 1. there usually are 1 to 3 little groups standing still around the lair, if you dont fight them, they will start a new one at that spot almost instantly, only with a smaller number than before, so lvl 4 becomes a lvl 3 hideout. 2. Surrounding groups of bandits will do the same so you need to hunt them down to stop them from instantly restarting the hidouts. They will come back later but usually takes a while then. One time I came across a 150+ bandit group unluckily right after a big battle so I had to face 2 to 1 ratio of desert bandits vs my wounded f*cked up party, thus getting wrecked by them.

 

[Icaurs]

TL;DR the bandits snowball into an empire with the greatest "baiting" tactic ever, killing the AI lord, my AI parties and everyting. making the game unplayable after 450+ days.

I started the game with max difficulty settings, but ended up trying to setting them to easiest when trying to kill the 150+ hideouts. It did not work well.

I am aware of the issues with the bandit hideouts, and at least they removed the "feature" if getting knocked out inside a hideout you lose all troops.

BUT, here is another issue, one which springs directly from the so called "fix" to the overpowered hideouts problem.

See, if you just leave the hideouts alone, they will grow in power and the numbers of bandit parties on the map will start to increase. After 450+ ingame days, where i completely ignored hideouts, my map is now covered in bandit parties of 5-20 men (a couple of them go to 100+ sometimes, but they are very rare).

The problem here is now this; I cant clear out the hideouts. Ive tried setting all settings to easy, bringing only elite troops, but still a hideout with 150+ enemies takes me several trips back and forth with my men. Took me an entire evening, of 4-5 hours *REAL TIME* to clear out 1 bandit camp. all the while the other 7 nearby, just increase in strength. I move on to the next hideout, rinse and repeat, but i can never catch up to the bandit killing.

Now, this wouldnt be a major problem, however! The fact that bandit parties "stick together" when they are close enough to each other? Yeah, all the lords and NPC parties are getting completely wrecked because of this.

An NPC lord might follow a group of 8 bandits, but when he reaches them, all the nearby bandits clump together into one massive army of bandits, completely wiping the NPC lord.

The snowball effect is real. These lords end up with recruits and repeat the same process as above, getting mauled again and again.

My game is basically unplayable at this point lol, but i dont want to restard, because i will end up in the same problem, unless i keep patrolling the map for eternity killing bandits and hideouts before they get too strong.

Also, ive tried sending my companions to deal with the hideouts, but the hideouts never despawn. They just go to 0 troops and start building up again from there, and the nearby village guys are convinced the hideout is gone, but its really not.

There is a mod on nexusmods that allows you to "send troops" into bandit hideouts and clear them out. Also another mod that i think lets you take your whole army with you into a hideout, or at least a larger amount of soldiers.

I myself use the "send troops" mod and will occassionally clear out some random bandit camps as i go. Its not ideal but it is useful

 

[pr0faker]

Also you can retreat from attacking the camp, and then do the rinse and repeat with fresh troops. Even lowering the difficulty for them is possible, and then putting it back on whatever you had after destroying it. So unless your game is bugged out and giving your idiocly big bandit camps, I dont see the big deal with them.

 

[bleach3825]

As others have said. Bannerlord Tweeks lets you set how many troops you can bring. I bring 50. Also, if you get the Patrols mod. You and anyone else that owns a fief can buy patrols. They will take out all but the largest bandit groups running around. I don't start with that one on since you want to kill these small groups for EXP. Later though, it's nice not to have to deal with bandits at all. Except for the rare 100+ group.

Also, a perk of the patrols is they will drop off whoever they capture in your town/castle. Got a lot of archer dudes that way.