[Beta 1.4.0] Still to hard, no chance with kingdom

[Tintenkobold]

The game is still way too hard with your own kingdom. I mean - it's far from challenging, it's simply impossible to keep your stuff together or make any progress. Patch beta 1.4.0 made it much worse:

• Khuzait steam rolled Sturgia within no time after Sturgia healed from previous losses, even gained some fiefs
• Khuzait steam rolled Aserai after Sturgia got destroyed
• Khuzait ended up with 40.000 (!) strength, compared to ~10-15k in beta 1.3.1
• My kingdom is on war with 5 factions now. The rule which should prevent this seems to be missing in the patch
• I lost another 2 million for peace deals, I'm nearly bankrupt now. Prices for peace making are increasing, average peace deals now cost 500-600k for me

What has changed from 1.3.1 to 1.4.0?

• Revolutions mod not compatible, so I dropped it. This may have a much bigger effect than I thought because now towns change hands up to 5 times within days
• Some towns have very high food stocks (up top 700), some which performed well in 1.3.1 are down at 0, constantly suffering. Khuzait of course has many of those good ones
• I destroyed the rest of Vlandia and restructured my kingdom to give all vassals at least 1 town and 1 castle

I remember someone at this forum who posted why Khuzait always wins. I could not agree but now I start to think the same. It's frustrating and it's not increasing play time when one faction is overpowered and balancing has gone wild. You should face these problems, otherwise this game will be the "how Khuzait won every campaign within 25 years" simulator. Do you want this, Taleworlds?

I always told myself to stay strong, consider it a challenge. But now I'm about to quit playing for a while if it becomes harder and harder with every patch. I don't want to end this campaign after 200h just because Khuzait does not get nerfed. At the moment I have food problems (starvation is back again) although my villages are extremely wealthy, I can't fight in grassy areas because bushes have collision and some fixes seem to have vanished. It's ok if I lose my kingdom but what do to after Khuzait took over everything? That's not interesting, that's frustrating and boring.

 

[yedrellow]

Yeah I noticed the war thing. AI factions seem to at some stage of the game avoid warring each other and war-declare the player. Then it is hard to get peace as peace treaties are costing 800k (with new war declarations every 10-20 days). Maybe it's because ai want to settle on a small number of wars, and Northern Empire usually doesn't die properly due to problems with the main quest.

I am not sure, but for whatever reason once you get your kingdom to the ~10 town area, all ai seem to refuse to war each other and just war-declare the player. With the ai army buffs that means the human player has to fight ~5 2000 strength armies simultaneously. I don't think that most humans without savescumming would be able to get their kingdom to have enough armies to fight this back, especially as there is a 10 year time limit to starting a kingdom.

It is still viable with execution obviously, but mass execution shouldnt be the only viable late game strategy.

This was not the case in earlier patches, as ai kingdoms had no problems ganging up on other ai, so the player could engineer positions in which large ai kingdoms couldn't send overwhelming force at the player. Obviously the ai armies seemingly jumping from 1000 size to 2000 size on average (and increasing in quality) didnt really help the player in this regard. Secondly, ai vassals didnt defect from the player at 100 relations continuously like they do now.

I am not saying that the game should be massively easier, but ai seemingly ganging up on the player specifically and ignoring each other does make the kingdom stage a bit annoying. It would be like starting EU4 as a one province minor, with every ai faction declaring war on you every 3 seconds with no method to mitigate it.

 

[eddiemccandless]

@Tintenkobold , from your post I get the impression that you have used the same save through several patches, including a transfer to the 1.4 beta, is that correct? If that is true I can't help but wonder if some of the things you are observing are a consequence of that (especially since you also used mods that are no longer compatible).

 

[Tintenkobold]

@Tintenkobold , from your post I get the impression that you have used the same save through several patches, including a transfer to the 1.4 beta, is that correct? If that is true I can't help but wonder if some of the things you are observing are a consequence of that (especially since you also used mods that are no longer compatible).

That's true, but I watched every step carefully. Khuzait was weak. After I started with 1.4.0 things became wild.

I also did tests with new 1.4.0 campaigns using cheat engine (tickrate x10). Result is always the same. The only difference is who wins, either Battania or Khuzait. Khuzait is always overpowered though.

I'd say the fate of all kingdoms except Battania and Khuzait forms within the first 5 years. I did some testing with the mod "Separatism". It's alarming that Sturgian vassals break up instantly. That's the reason why the town "Omor" is so often besieged in the first years in most of my tests. And guess what: A kingdom with problems beginning at day 0 and bad topography simply can't keep up. It's like a new born child with only 1 arm while Khuzait and Battania are stronger brothers with mutations (3 arms). In almost every fresh campaign Empire has hard times too. Usually only 1 Empire faction survives but get's crushed later. Aserai can survive to a certain point. Vlandia seems very dynamic and does some wild things which is not helping at all.

Also interesting: Using the mod "Separatism" on my existing save game results in big break ups. Khuzait has got some bigger problems now and the campaign is interesting again. I decidedto stick with this mod. This forum is full with reports regarding major balancing issues and I invested 300 hours of play time to report bugs. So now it's time to have some fun with the mod. I will start a fresh campaign when huge changes to this have been made. Otherwise it's awaste of time and leads to nothing else but frustration and death of your kingdom.

I would go so far to say I'd wish to have "Separatism" in the native game. It's such a cool mod. With some tweaks this providestons of action, fun and rebalancing.Only thing I would add is that factions try to rebuild original kingdoms. Maybe by paying huge amountsof money to vassals to improve relation and make them join again. This would have some sort of "self healing" effect, some money changes hands, game is exciting and no faction can win with ease.

Yesterday I took Revyl which was owned by Olek. I had hard times with this guy, strong army, he has money, high tier troops. I also wanted the castle nearby which changed hands from him to Vlandia (I was in war with them) over to Khuzait (while I besieged Revyl). So I had to fight for Revyl, make peace with Vlandia, declare on Khuzait, take the castle and make peace again. All this happend with losses (money, soldiers) but without 20.000 Khuzaits raiding my towns all the time.

Also, I made Adram join my kingdom. After I donated him a castle and a town he left and created his own kingdom, most likely because he hated me and I forgot to increase relations because I was busy with other stuff. To be honest: I only made him join because he seemed strong. He was my tool, there was no deep connection like with my other vassals who stay with me since 20 years. So that's karma I guess. I was angry, but fkin love the dynamic of those events. That's what I play this game for.

I really enjoy this mod, it's close to what I expect Bannerlord to be.

 

[Waybook]

I added the separatism mod yesterday per your suggestion and it really is great. I love the chaos. It makes sense for some other lords to also have ambitions of becoming kings.
Devs should definitely add something similar to the base game.

 

[Alenovic]

I added the separatism mod yesterday per your suggestion and it really is great. I love the chaos. It makes sense for some other lords to also have ambitions of becoming kings.
Devs should definitely add something similar to the base game.

I'm sure they will. but before they can add chaos mechanics, they need a stable version of vanilla and specific safetly and stabilty mechanics which also can make a kingdom get back on its feet after losing a few wars, after that you can add different levels of chaos to it.