Bannerlord A.I.

[Pompy]

This problem could be solved by caravans ignoring the player or the lords, since we already receive heavy penalties (relations-wise) when attacking them. A more realistical approach would be for them to calculate a better path.

I think an awesome solution to this issue would be to implement an actual' trade blockade' mechanic. Something where you or other lords/clan members can establish a blockade outside of a town. The mechanic could be tied in with the Leadership/Steward/Tactics skills. The big thing, from my perspective, is you shouldnt be able to just pile up food and then destroy the prosperity of a town by standing outside of it. You could have skill checks that determine the effectiveness of the blockade against smuggling and even have companions take money to go get supplies for your own soldiers during the blockade. If you got really deep into this you could even establish an entire black market feature in the game, and that would give a lot of use to the Rogue skill. That would be really cool. You could potentially take risks attempting to smuggle goods through blockades for monetary gain. I think at a minimum the caravans need to be willing to go to different settlements. A really cool mechanic could be town relationships. By establishing trade routes between your fiefs and the lords' fiefs you could improve your relationship with the lord and the settlement itself. It could be tied to your trade skill and would really add another layer to fief management. Sorry for the massive post! I just think this is a huge opportunity to add in so many ambitious and fun new features.

 

[AndrewBones]

Yes this is a problem. Normally caravans change their target settlements after they run away from enemies too much in last hours. They cancel traveling their target and find another target. However if new target is in same direction this problem occurs. This is hard to fix if there is a bridge at critical point or player is holding at a point where caravans need to use to reach all other possible good targets. After fixing other serious issues we can develop this.

I'd just like to note it's not just caravans.

I was able to make several Aserai Lord parties starve almost to death by camping my party at the 'land bridge' into Aserai lands (north of Quyaz or whats-the-name). A secondary issue here was that the Lords could collectively take me on (like 200vs70) but they did not decide to do so, probably because of cumulative factors like low morale, wounded troops etc. Simply not one of them decided to push through and they all starved almost to nothing before I put them out of their misery.

I think some kind of overall "desperation" mechanic could help here - if a party is blocked for way too long or is forced into conditions like I described above, it could make a last ditch attempt to attack the blocking party or something. Maybe tie the chance of this happening to Lord personality in case of Lord parties/armies.

Also related: the parties behavior seems inconsistent when it comes to 'looking around' for friendlies that could help. Sometimes they realize they have more power together, and sometimes they are just afraid to act. This then also increases the effect of such blockades - unless an army comes by, the individual Lords hesitate to attack the blocking party.

 

[Pejot]

I'd just like to note it's not just caravans.

I was able to make several Aserai Lord parties starve almost to death by camping my party at the 'land bridge' into Aserai lands (north of Quyaz or whats-the-name). A secondary issue here was that the Lords could collectively take me on (like 200vs70) but they did not decide to do so, probably because of cumulative factors like low morale, wounded troops etc. Simply not one of them decided to push through and they all starved almost to nothing before I put them out of their misery.

I think some kind of overall "desperation" mechanic could help here - if a party is blocked for way too long or is forced into conditions like I described above, it could make a last ditch attempt to attack the blocking party or something. Maybe tie the chance of this happening to Lord personality in case of Lord parties/armies.

Also related: the parties behavior seems inconsistent when it comes to 'looking around' for friendlies that could help. Sometimes they realize they have more power together, and sometimes they are just afraid to act. This then also increases the effect of such blockades - unless an army comes by, the individual Lords hesitate to attack the blocking party.

From my expirience most small parties tend to attack big one only if there friendly army around. When there's just a bunch of single lords they run away in different directions.

 

[SlavonicPagan]

This game is a joke

 

[pmn1990]

You actually can starve out settlements, I noticed my cities food was directly tied to how much food was on sale in the trade in addition to what villages provide plus surrounding lands.

If you drop 100 fish into a town, the +food amount increases after a quick 5 seconds waiting in town, allowing prosperity to increase for a period, if you stop villagers and caravans the food will drop, forcing a lower garrison and prosperity, which is useful if you want to singlehandedly capture a city by forcing the garrison to less than 100. Sure, it would take a bunch of time, but its still an easy way to avoid massive troop loss when cities have 400+ troops.

If you buy all the food in a settlement then wait and do it again you can starve them them completely and easily drop their garrison to zero it doesnt take that long. You let caravans and villagers bring food then just buy it. Figured this out cause there are major food issues in player owned settlements capping garrison to under 150 unless you manually cart food back and fourth.