SP - Player, NPCs & Troops Bandits should not upgrade to Noble troops, and Battanian troop tree needs a revamp

[MinhTien]

As it stands, with the change to make bandits surrender more often, it is ridiculously easy to get Noble troops with Disciplinarian perk, why would anyone pick +5 Security when waiting over that? Earlier today, I caught up to 2 big groups of forest bandits and instantly gained 58 Fian-line troops... by doing pretty much nothing, and the upgrades itself also costs pennies for the best archers in game.

Recruiting surrendered bandits already gives the players a quick way to increase their fighting force, turning bandits into Noble troops just tilts the balance waayyyyy too much toward the player with the Lords' armies as weak as it is, and the Noble troops may end up way more common than the "commoner" troops. With that in mind, merely upgrading bandits into higher-tier commoner troops, like Vlandian Vanguard and Khuzait Heavy Horse Archer, is already more than strong enough.

But wait, Battania currently doesn't have a common archer line for the Forest bandits to upgrade to, even though their specialty is supposed to include longbow. I know they have Fian, but that doesn't stop other factions from having overlap, with the commoner troops as the weaker version of their specialty. Instead at Tier 5, Battania has 2 types of shield infantry, and 2 types of cavalry, which feels redundant, especially the cavalry. Is there any Battania village that produces horses? Why do they have so many types of mounted troops?

The 2 lines of infantry, I think the Clan Warrior line is supposed to represent more organized and armored Regulars serving the Nobility; while Wood Runner - Wildling is supposed to be lighter Irregulars that live in the woods, the wilder type of Battanian. However, the Wood Runner gets shield at Tier 2, and to me at least, end up being more suitable to serve as line infantry in a shieldwall, while the Clan Warrior just feels like a liability. Also, the Tier 5 Trained Spearman is very weirdly named. You go from Trained Warrior to Picked Warrior back to Trained Spearman???? Picked Warrior sounds more exclusive and elite, like hand-picked companions of a lord. And what happened to the Oathsworn like in MP? Did a mistake happened and names got swapped?

There is already a Ranger class in MP for Battania and a Ranger Armor, and there are a lot of references to Battanian woodsman in in-game lore, so I propose something like this.

		Volunteer​
	Clan Warrior: get the shield instead to serve as line infantry. Move the Falxman here, the Falx seems expensive, reserved for richer folks		Wood Runner: no shield. Hunter/survivalist type with bow, javelin and hand axe to act as skirmisher.
Trained Warrior	Raider		Woodsman with long bow and 2h wood axe	Skirmisher: can stay the same from here
Picked Warrior	Falxman		Seasoned Woodsman	Veteran Skirmisher	Scout: Merge the 2 cavalry lines, light cavalry with javelin
Oathsworn (just a rename)	Veteran Falxman		Ranger: compare to the Palantine Guard, these guys would be less tanky and more offense oriented with stronger longbow and okay 2h axe, but still weaker than the Fian.	Wildling	Horsemen

This is just a rough idea that I think fits better with what we know about the Battanian.

 

[wurmo]

I think for Bandits it would be a better match turning them into minor-faction-troops, rather than upgrading to nobles.
And Battanians could compensate their lack of archers just by recruiting from minor factions,
they have quite some archers in their neighborhood.

Minor-faction-troops should be better for cohesion than major-faction-ones, at least when at war with them.
Well, and the "mercenary"-mercenaries could disappear, there are already Vlandians and their Boar-minor-faction.

 

[Kangamangus]

Good catch. I thought I remembered reading about the dreaded Battanian archers when I had to track down all of those jerks about Whatshisname's Folly.

 

[Toplayer]

I agree with that bandits should not be in noble troop tree, but the noble troops will be too rare without the bandits

 

[Boomstomp123]

I agree they should only become commoner troops ,Noble troops should only be able to be bought from the Kingdom page and only with influence and only if you are a lord of that faction not even if you are a mercenary .That would make sence.

 

[wurmo]

Turning Bandits into minor-faction-troops would only make sense with factions that are described as somewhat bandit-like.
The more cultivated ones should be recruitable in taverns of their cultures, as long as the town-owning faction is not at war with the minor fasction.

Maybe looters could first be recruited as looters, and then can be upgraded into hidden hand ?
Upgrade mule to warhorse maybe, but looter to Elite Menavliaton...

 

[Hoki]

Yeah them upgrading to nobles makes no sense, and makes noble recruits not worth investing in.
Probably most people’s noble troops are coming from bandits right now.
The bandit trees themselves I’d like to see expanded to be their own more fully fledged factions. Like, just make elite highwaymen, with looted higher quality stuff.

 

[MinhTien]

I agree with that bandits should not be in noble troop tree, but the noble troops will be too rare without the bandits

Personally, I think it's better for the noble troops to be rare. The nobility class should constitute a small portion of the population and serves as the elites of the army, not the mainstay.

If noble troops become TOO rare without the bandits, devs can easily balance it by tuning the chance of recruiting them from towns and villages, OR even add new ways to recruit nobles.

 

[MinhTien]

I think for Bandits it would be a better match turning them into minor-faction-troops, rather than upgrading to nobles.
And Battanians could compensate their lack of archers just by recruiting from minor factions,
they have quite some archers in their neighborhood.

Minor-faction-troops should be better for cohesion than major-faction-ones, at least when at war with them.
Well, and the "mercenary"-mercenaries could disappear, there are already Vlandians and their Boar-minor-faction.

That's an interesting idea. We could even have a mix, some bandits turn into regular faction troops, some into minor-faction, or even have choices, like Sea Raider can turn into both Varyag (and eventually become cavalry) or Skolderbrotva (remain as dedicated heavy infantry).

It would add more varieties to the game.

 

[Toplayer]

Personally, I think it's better for the noble troops to be rare. The nobility class should constitute a small portion of the population and serves as the elites of the army, not the mainstay.

If noble troops become TOO rare without the bandits, devs can easily balance it by tuning the chance of recruiting them from towns and villages, OR even add new ways to recruit nobles.

I am not good enough to handle multiple kinds of troops, and i think only a few noble troops are not effective at all.

The noble troops are not only rare, but also based on RNG.
I was trying to get some Khuzait Noble's Son and they are available in 10 villages. Unfortunately, the landlords didnt offer enough quests to improve the relation so I only got 10 Noble's son in a year.

 

[Neofd10]

As it stands, with the change to make bandits surrender more often, it is ridiculously easy to get Noble troops with Disciplinarian perk, why would anyone pick +5 Security when waiting over that? Earlier today, I caught up to 2 big groups of forest bandits and instantly gained 58 Fian-line troops... by doing pretty much nothing, and the upgrades itself also costs pennies for the best archers in game.

Recruiting surrendered bandits already gives the players a quick way to increase their fighting force, turning bandits into Noble troops just tilts the balance waayyyyy too much toward the player with the Lords' armies as weak as it is, and the Noble troops may end up way more common than the "commoner" troops. With that in mind, merely upgrading bandits into higher-tier commoner troops, like Vlandian Vanguard and Khuzait Heavy Horse Archer, is already more than strong enough.

But wait, Battania currently doesn't have a common archer line for the Forest bandits to upgrade to, even though their specialty is supposed to include longbow. I know they have Fian, but that doesn't stop other factions from having overlap, with the commoner troops as the weaker version of their specialty. Instead at Tier 5, Battania has 2 types of shield infantry, and 2 types of cavalry, which feels redundant, especially the cavalry. Is there any Battania village that produces horses? Why do they have so many types of mounted troops?

The 2 lines of infantry, I think the Clan Warrior line is supposed to represent more organized and armored Regulars serving the Nobility; while Wood Runner - Wildling is supposed to be lighter Irregulars that live in the woods, the wilder type of Battanian. However, the Wood Runner gets shield at Tier 2, and to me at least, end up being more suitable to serve as line infantry in a shieldwall, while the Clan Warrior just feels like a liability. Also, the Tier 5 Trained Spearman is very weirdly named. You go from Trained Warrior to Picked Warrior back to Trained Spearman???? Picked Warrior sounds more exclusive and elite, like hand-picked companions of a lord. And what happened to the Oathsworn like in MP? Did a mistake happened and names got swapped?

There is already a Ranger class in MP for Battania and a Ranger Armor, and there are a lot of references to Battanian woodsman in in-game lore, so I propose something like this.

		Volunteer​
	Clan Warrior: get the shield instead to serve as line infantry. Move the Falxman here, the Falx seems expensive, reserved for richer folks		Wood Runner: no shield. Hunter/survivalist type with bow, javelin and hand axe to act as skirmisher.
Trained Warrior	Raider		Woodsman with long bow and 2h wood axe	Skirmisher: can stay the same from here
Picked Warrior	Falxman		Seasoned Woodsman	Veteran Skirmisher	Scout: Merge the 2 cavalry lines, light cavalry with javelin
Oathsworn (just a rename)	Veteran Falxman		Ranger: compare to the Palantine Guard, these guys would be less tanky and more offense oriented with stronger longbow and okay 2h axe, but still weaker than the Fian.	Wildling	Horsemen

This is just a rough idea that I think fits better with what we know about the Battanian.

This is an awesome and well planned idea that TaleWorlds should definitely put in place. At the moment, Battania has really disappointed me with the lack of ordinary archers, which is a shame as it was the faction I was looking forward to the most.

 

[wurmo]

Have an idea about recruitment of minor-faction-troops.
They should be recruitable from villages or towns, depending on the description.
Lets look at the vlandian Brotherhood of the Woods :
a peasant movement hiding in the woods.
So they should be recruitable for factions they are not at war with,
and from villages, not towns.
So how many woods has Vlandia ?
If i will bind it to the resource, then this brotherhood could hide behind the wood of Mareiven,
this village has the only vlandian wood.
But they are hiding anyway, so they could do this also in Battania in wood-villages from bordering fiefs.
And now Sturgia has Foresters, wich also have an affinity for wood.
So they could extent to the remaining two eastern battanian wood-villages (Sturgia itself has only one).
But what is with the wolfskins, shouldn't they be recruitable here ?
I think yes, until the faction owning the villages is at war with them.
Then they get replaced by other minor factions.
Should they extend into vlandian territory ? I don't think this would fit here.

Horses would make sense for cavallery.
The Lake Rats get fish and so on.

Iron would work, but for towns rather than villages.
So i make the vlandian Boers permanently available in Rovalt.
But i want more mercenaries,
so other towns get a chance based on their prosperity (rather than security).
And Rovalt gets this also, so there is chance for a second recruitment-row.
I want an overlap with other minor fasctions,
in the northern part of Vlandia this could be with the Skolderbrodva,
in the southern the Legion.

There could just be an additional recruitment-slot, next to the merchants ones.
Showing the minor-factions-flag instead of a head,
troops shown based on prosperity,
open slots based on relation with the minor faction.

 

[Koshkasa]

I think for Bandits it would be a better match turning them into minor-faction-troops, rather than upgrading to nobles.

Sounds fun. Can you add that to the poll, @MinhTien ?

The OP is right, getting a 80% noble retinue (which should be either impossible or an extreme rarity at least) by capturing literal bandits isn't reasonable.

 

[Old One-Eye]

Or just not let them upgrade past Sea Raider Chief, Forest Bandit, Raider etc. THe player always and only get them for free, you always fight them regardless of your faction and they're absolutely good and useful troops at their current top tier anyway. There is no logic or in-game reason for bandits to transform into nobles of any kind.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

Shameless plug, but how do you feel about my personal Battanian troop tree? Not available on Nexus mods yet, but I feel like it fixes issues.

Spoiler: Here.

I get the feeling that all factions are supposed to be limited to only 15 troops (Imperials could use with a 15th, I'm planning on giving them one), so I limited the roster to that. I feel like their lords build too much cavalry, so I've decided to limit them to only one, combining horseman and skirmisher into a sort of border warrior.

 

[Meko]

But it requires a stupid high level of leadership and a perk point to even use. That a ton of investment and example of your characters personal talent to turn a hardened criminal with years of fighting the dirty fight, into an equivalent of a pampered nobleman son who was trained by an instructor without seeing any real combat.
It seems a fair exchange for the investment into leadership that you could make that small leap between a top level bandit to a bottom level noblemans son, which you still have to pay to upgrade and then train up a whole new tree.