Reverting to an older savefile and joined as merc, this time only 22 active policies instead of 35. Restarting and Aserie fresh playtrough and see. Maybe it's intended they have some policies now?
Edit: Tested now on Aserie fresh start, 25 active policies upon joining as mercenary.
Hey folks, we just uploaded a hotfix for the beta branch. It includes the following:
Fixed an issue that caused AI rulers to miscalculate influence cost vs benefit when overriding a popular vote.
Fixed an issue that caused automated kingdom decisions for mercenary players.
The influence cost for the ruler to override the popular vote in a kingdom decision is now calculated differently. Players will be able to spend the decision's normal cost for up to 3 points of difference or "votes". They will have to spend the decision's max cost for any additional points of difference. (To elaborate further - the options associated with influence costs in a kingdom decision represent votes. So f.e. in a decision with the costs 10 / 40 / 100, choosing the 100 option amounts to 3 points or votes. If you are a king and want to overrule a popular vote that surpasses the alternative by 5 points / votes, your cost will amount to 100 (for the first 3 votes) plus another 2 x 100 (for the additional points of difference)).
Great news! I didn't expected a patch until monday, it makes me pride of being part of this EA. You rock!
I'm just testing and I got my peace treaty spending 40 influence. It seems Calatild must have spent 40 influence casting her vote so I matched her and the treaty was approved.
No I will be testing the duration of that treaty I will be paying 1350 denars/day to the Khuzaits.
EDIT: The peace with the khuzait is going well, but the western empire... they betrayed me instantly, tried twice more and betrayed me twice more. It did not cost money for me (it is good) but it drained all my influence purposing the treaties. I think traitor rulers or very vengeful rulers should act this way, take the money and continue the war but... now they don't take any money... didn't last even a day. In either case if this kind of behaviour is allowed it should have consequences like other kingdoms declaring war on them because their dishonorable ways.
Quick update from a fresh Aserai playthrough, initiated after the latest beta 1.4.1 patch yesterday. 2 years in (Winter 1087), Sturgia gone, Northern Empire gone, Southern Empire on their way out. Snowballing is happening significantly faster than in 1.4.0. Wars are extremely frequent, and feel forced. The moment we ended our war with Khuzait, a vote was immediately initiated to start war with Northern Empire (not even a neighbour) - passed with 100% support, keeping us at 4 simultaneous wars. Later on, the moment we ended a war with Vlandia, Khuzait immediately declared war on us, keeping us in 4 wars. The one time I was able to get to 5 wars, it only lasted a single day before there was a successful peace vote. Purely anecdotal, but if I had to guess, there's a threshold in there somewhere designed to cap any faction at 4 simultaneous wars. Coupled with the AI's rampant thirst for war, this means any declaration of peace of one front means typically war on another.
The AI Lords have no interest in peace, and I'm not really sure what is meant to trigger their sense of exhaustion from war. Currently locked in 4 wars (Battania, Vlandia, Northern Emp, Southern Emp). Most other factions only at war with a single faction + Aserai; unsure if coincidence or if there's a code block inciting aggression towards the player-aligned faction (not unheard of, in other strategy games).
Prosperity changes are being felt: building up a city's projects takes a very long time now. In the interim, their garrisons / militia numbers are small, which perhaps has facilitated the snowballing. Along wartorn borders, not uncommon for all villages to be routinely burned to the ground, as they have insufficient militia to resist even the smallest clans' parties. I actually like this, and have partaken in village burnings for the first time in any playthrough, to push up the "Successful Raids" count in our war summary (Diplomacy tab of Kingdom) and flip peace conditions towards the receipt of tribute (I think the village raids factor into the calculation, but hard to be sure). Tax income from towns/villages feels immaterial; workshops + max caravans + war loot is all that matters now.
Base game urgently needs an AI fix to give Lords an appetite for peace. Support for making peace in my faction was low when we were losing the war with Southern Empire; 2 years in it's still low when we're crushing that same war. The prospect of receiving tribute instead of paying for peace has changed nothing. I play 100% unmodded, so this is the beta branch state, post latest hotfixes: constant, forced warfare.
Edit: On a hunch, left the Aserai and relinquished all fiefs. Waited out in a town for a year, Aserai got slightly pushed back but not crushed. Their war count dropped to 3, for the first time since joining them - evidently a war ended and the war-lust was lower without player presence. Joined the Khuzait as a vassal, within 10 days a vote passed to declare war on Battania, getting Khuzait up to 3 wars for the first time since the playthrough began. A season later, Vlandia declares war too, taking us to 4. War declarations seem to occur more frequently for the faction the player is in? If so, please note that waiting 30 years in a town to 'simulate' border evolution will not work, as the player's alignment is a key variable.
Edit 2: Rewound my game to the pre-vassal stage, Summer 1086, just over 1 year in. At that juncture, every faction is still at war with just a single opponent. Altered course, went to join Vlandia. Within a single day, there's a vote to wage war against Battania, which passes unanimously. Within a week, Western Empire declares war on us. Rewound again, went to join Southern Empire instead. Immediately ensued 3 back-to-back unanimous votes for war on 3 separate fronts.
In 1.4.1, immediate aggression is declared against whichever faction the player joins. May also explain forced wars against player-run kingdoms in advanced savegames. Please check if bug or intended.
TL;DR: If internal QA currently relies on passively waiting in towns to test how the geopolitics unfold in a new patch ("simulation health"), this will not work for 1.4.1 as player allegiance is a key variable in war declarations. Also please note, 'Active Policies' bug is still there: if you open the Kingdom tab as a Merc, the faction will immediately vote on and activate 15-30 Policies.
This is going to be a very lengthy post which will cover numerous topics, but it is my hope to provide useful information and ideas to not only the developers but the community at large. I apologize in advance if this post reply would be better-served in a different section of the forum, but I felt it to be best here since I am currently using the beta branch. I have taken the time to read through each post on this thread, so I am quite aware of what is happening at the current time of writing. I would appreciate feedback of any constructive kind, so let's get started.
-Introduction-
I am on my first play-through, am currently at level 23 on day 1664, and I am playing on the easiest difficulty with a little over 200 hours. I have played through the story and formed my own kingdom and am now clan tier 6. I have a single mod, which is the Defection Overhaul mod that prevents vassals from leaving the kingdom randomly and instead creates a reputation-based system for doing so. I will spend a bit of time discussing this mod and my settings; if this is not of interest to you, skip to the Moving On portion.
I have found this mod to be absolutely essential, as without it the vassals would leave the kingdom and take their fiefs with them. Since it is essentially impossible to give yourself every fiefdom to yourself, this posed an enormous problem, hence using this mod. To the developers, please be aware that in its current state, it is impossible to build an empire which is lasting without this. It is worth following this mod's logic, and I will summarize my settings here. I believe these to be "fair" settings for defection. In recruiting vassals, they (more often than not) come from factions which you are or have been at war with at some point, and they generally do not like you. As such, all vassal relations are at minimum some negative value based on their honor. Here are the settings that I use and believe are a good base-line. I have had just one lord leave due to poor reputation with their clan.
Player's Kingdom - Minimum Leader Relation with Player
Defection: -50
Leave: -30
Leave as Mercenary: -40
These are the base-line relations (Honor 0). I believe that defection to another faction should take significantly less reputation than simply leaving, and paid mercenaries should leave less often than non-paid others.
In case this is slightly confusing, the formula for each of these is this:
Defection, Leave, Leave as Mercenary = Base - 10*Honor
(Ex. 1: for Deceitful defection, it is -50 - 10(-2) = -30)
(Ex. 2: for Honorable leave, it is -30 - 10(2) = -50)
____________________________
-Moving on-
With the mod discussion out of the way, I would now like to turn attention to core game-play. With the latest beta patch, I have noticed far greater stability in the level of faction chaos in terms of war-mongering. Prior to the beta, I was constantly fighting battles. On easy, this is doable, but on realistic I cannot imagine this being sustainable. It took quite a bit of time, but finally
the three empires were destroyed
and all that were left were the Vlandians (Strength 23,000), the Khuzait (Strength 11,000), and my own kingdom (Strength 8,000). These numbers are before the latest beta patch of beta e1.4.1 hotfix on 30/05/20. I am unsure of the corresponding strengths after the beta branch was applied; however just before applying the beta, I had noticed these (rough) changes: Vlandians (Strength 15,000 --> Strength 45,000), Khuzait (Strength 10,000 --> Strength 30,000), and my own kingdom (Strength 15,000 --> Strength 45,000). As you can see, all strengths went up by roughly a factor of three. I am unsure of the exact values, but these are close approximations.
As I said, the stability in the level of faction chaos has been significantly increased. Prior to the beta, I had a constant stream of 3-5 armies roaming around and doing their thing (albeit quite randomly). However, immediately after patching to beta, I noticed something which startled me a bit: All of my armies disappeared. For a few weeks in-game, this was the case. I thought something was seriously wrong, but I also noticed that the number of sieges from all factions had dropped to near-zero, and began to think maybe all army creation was bugged (perhaps due to the mod I use). Then something happened: a siege occurred in one of my cities or castles, and an army formed near it to defend. What I can say is this: it appears that armies now form in a reactionary way instead of random. Your vassals wait to form armies so that your troops can be more mobile, and they also form armies to attack fairly nearby settlements instead of whatever they choose. This did not exactly happen before applying this beta branch.
Following this post by Dean Beecham I spent two years in the game doing nothing, and I observed the exact same results. My kingdom was still standing solid. This actually blew my mind, since before this beta, my kingdom would have suffered greatly if I stepped out for even a single year, let alone two. I have to seriously commend the developers here for slowing the rate of battles and sieges down. It is great to be able to have glorious battles, but the constancy of them was getting very draining. Now I am able to actually play strategically and methodically as a kingdom ruler instead of having to run back and forth between battles, sieges, and back-caps which were all-too-frequent.
As of the writing of this post, things in my kingdom are stable for the first time. People are saying that peace declarations do not occur, but I have had them occur several times, but they are indeed rare. I must be fortunate, as I have yet to have my vassals declare war yet. Instead, I have had war simply declared on me (indeed, randomly), but the peace/war system appears to be working to an acceptable level. However, there is a serious bug with it, and I will discuss that now.
____________________________
-MAJOR BUGS-
Accepting peace while besieging a settlement:
This one has forced me to revert saves on numerous occasions. If you are besieging any settlement (and possibly raiding, though I have not had this happen) and a peace declaration appears, clicking on this and accepting the peace will cause the UI to stall out. Upon returning to the world map, the UI for settlements appears but with all text options absent on the left-hand panel. There is no option to leave, and the user must reload to a previous save before the peace offer occurs. That is a bug in itself, but it presents a larger issue: the peace offer will not likely occur again. So, if the user accepts this (rare) peace, they are out of luck if they do so while besieging a settlement. To avoid this bug, stop the siege before accepting, and everything will work as intended.
Siege towers still do not work in an optimal way:
I know this is well-documented at this point, but I want to spend some time on this. From my observations I have noticed one key thing, and that is the AI appears to be trying to use the ladder on the far right of the tower first, and then trying to use the others. I can understand this from a coder's perspective. We want to check if the "first" ladder is being used, and then proceed to use the others. The reason this causes problems is that it appears all of the AI are "ticking" at the same time as soon as a spot on the first ladder opens up, and so they all rush towards that spot, even if they were just about to get onto a new ladder. I can see a few ways to fix this, assuming this is indeed the problem, but the primary solution I have would be to lock in the AI to the next ladder once they saw the ladder is full. They are prevented from checking the previous ladders once they are locked in.
For example, suppose we have the six AI soldiers attempting to climb a ladder. At the first tick, all see the first ladder is available (all soldiers assigned 1), and would normally rush to climb it. The problem is that they would push each other out of the way. Instead, pick the closest soldier and have him/her climb it, and all remaining soldiers see the first ladder is full and will see it as full until the third ladder is also full. Now, all remaining soldiers are assigned 2 and would rush to climb the second ladder, so instead choose the closest soldier once more and give them this spot. Now the soldiers see the first two ladders are full, and the same logic is applied to allow the closest soldier to the third ladder to climb it, and the process repeats. The key here is to prevent the AI from constantly checking to see if the first ladder is occupied because that seems to be where the AI keeps piling up. Again, I don't know for certain if this is the issue, but it seems to be from close inspection and numerous sieges performed.
Formations are "bugged"
I put bugged in quotations because I can understand why the game logic is working this way, and there is a way around it. Essentially, having any cavalry in an infantry formation will cause that formation to attempt a cavalry level of spacing. This makes shield walls, etc. extremely ineffective and outright impossible. The AI will attempt to space out considerably and such formations are doomed. To avoid this bug have your troops dismount (F5 by default) before moving them into a specific formation. I have not had this method fail me since hearing about this solution from someone else (sorry, I forget who it was, but thank you random internet stranger!)
Perks/Attributes are mostly broken
Again, I know this is well-documented, but I have to mention it because it is so crucial. I can understand that a few of them won't work, but such a vast array of them seem to be inactive that I don't even know what to trust right now. I just assume none of them work except for the ones which clearly do. The two which are absolutely essential are being able to set up battle plans before the battle (deploy troops etc.) and being able to use any bow on horseback. I am seriously disappointed that these two do not work, but I trust that they are high on the developer's list and will leave it at that.
____________________________
-MINOR BUGS-
Siege engine icons are not showing properly
As the title suggests, not all siege engine icons display properly. Their locations can still be interacted with, however, so it is possible to build as normal.
Many chairs/benches/stools are bugged
It is often an endless loop of attempting to sit down. I have noticed this in many areas, most notably within keeps. To avoid this bug talk to a nearby NPC (repeat if this does not work immediately).
Certain in-game games are bugged
I am sure that this is documented elsewhere, but I am unable to complete a game of at least MuTorere in at least the keep in the city of Myzea. I have not tested other games or in other locations. I will do so and either update this post and/or make formal reports
Strange walking bug/glitch
This one, while hilarious, is quite strange. In at least the keep in the city of Myzea, it is possible to cause the AI to "bug out" when attempting to play a game of Mu Torere, and perhaps other games. To activate the bug, simply ask one NPC to play a game (you have to find one which will say yes), and then wait for that NPC to go and sit down at the game table. Then, tell them you're done and they will not get up and leave (some might, but I have not had them get up to leave). Now, go and find another NPC and ask them to play (again, you have to find one that will say yes). They will be unable to walk to the game table and will simply stand and orient themselves as if they were to begin to walk. Finally, tell them you are not interested in playing, and they will walk at about 300-500% speed to a different location and sit down.
____________________________
-Additional Considerations and Thoughts-
Prisoners escape far too easily
There appears to be very little difference between putting your prisoners in a dungeon or leaving them in your army. I have noticed a slight difference, but it should scale with how many of your own troops are around and how many other notable prisoners there are. For example, if there is a single noble in a dungeon of a keep with 900 defenders, there should be practically zero chance that they will escape. If there are 20 notable prisoners in that same keep, there is a higher chance any one of them can escape, but still a very low chance per day. If there is one notable prisoner in a keep with 10 defenders, there is a significant chance they will escape, but still quite low. If there are 20 notable prisoners in a keep with 10 defenders, there would be a much higher chance of escape. Any prisoner in your army should have a decent chance of escape (say 1-10% per day) during night hours, and half or a third of that during the day. The same goes for keep prisoners, but those are my basic ideas here.
Changing follower Gear/Perks/Attributes
I understand the logic behind not being able to change a follower's gear/perks/attributes while they are not near you, but it should be possible to change these things if they are in the same army as you. Dismantling an entire party just to give them better gear is not ideal and creates several logistic problems for the player.
Allow friendly parties and armies to reinforce player-owned settlements
As far as I have experienced, friendly parties and armies do not currently reinforce any of my owned settlements. It is up to me to place troops in the garrison. I am not sure if this is a bug or a feature, but it is very limiting and generally not advantageous for me to own any fiefdoms. I advise that this be altered to have the AI treat my settlements like any other NPC-owned settlement.
Force nearby parties to join your army instead of auto-engaging the enemy armies
This one has been on my list of annoyances for a while now. Essentially, if I am near an enemy army and forming an army myself, nearby friendly parties will engage the army on their own instead of simply joining the army I am making. Often times, I am forced to join the fight ASAP so that the party does not get destroyed. Usually, I am waiting on a few more parties to join to achieve an optimal success in the fight, and this sort of behavior disrupts my plans of engagement.
Slowed battles and siege rates have lead to more involved sieges
This is something I have noticed with the lower battle rates, and I am finding it to be flat-out awesome. The lower battle rates mean that there are generally fewer armies and things to go defend. This means that you as a player have time to actually give full-blown sieges. Before applying the beta branch, I had to go go go! between settlements and generally did not have time to build a full siege and shred the walls. Now, it is actually worth my time to bombard the walls and crack them. As I stated earlier, two years of doing nothing led to not much of a change in my empire, and so that alone convinced me that I had time to spend besieging settlements. What this means is that you no longer have to simply rely on battering rams, siege towers, and a group of anti-siege weaponry to protect yours during a siege; you can just break the walls and charge in with a minimal force. Before the beta, I would absolutely have to bring many more men than the defender count of a settlement, but now I am able to take a long time to break the walls down and go into a siege with an entirely different mechanic. Sure, there were times before beta when I would do this, but it takes a long time to break walls (even level 1 walls take a few days). Now, I have besieged a few settlements with just 4 trebuchets and charged in.
After several sieges, here is my suggested build order for smaller assaulting armies (enemy build speed seems to increase with your assault capabilities being higher for some reason)
1) 2 trebuchets to crack enemy siege engines and hammer walls while the rest are building
2) battering ram
3) normal/fire catapult for fire rate and to hit walls a bit (keep in mind the trebs are doing work the whole time against both)
4) first siege tower
5) 1 trebuchet or a normal/fire catapult (I recommend a catapult since they tend to target either walls or siege engines in the actual siege)
6) final siege tower
If you lose any of these, build it back as soon as you are able. If you get approached by a sizeable army during the siege process, you can engage the assault if you are able and then ideally defend the settlement from behind the walls/sally out on your own time. TIP: Make sure you have plenty of food before assaulting any settlement so you can spend as long as you need to in the siege. Generally, the enemy will not have food or not enough to survive for very long (especially later on in lengthy wars).
**Potential End-game Spoiler**
I want to point out what I consider to be one of the largest issues in the end game, and I would like the developers to seriously consider changing this. When you defeat the three empires, each one you defeat falls in a way completely different to all other non-empire factions: their vassals go to other kingdoms instead of roaming the map endlessly. This sounds reasonable on paper, but here is the key problem: it allows the other empires to form armies more easily and readily. They essentially reap the benefits of your fighting, and all you really get are the settlements. These settlements will likely be captured by one of the very vassals which joined the opposition, making the gain moot. I propose that they simply move about just the same way as all other non-empire factions, or they choose to join your kingdom. Personally, I do not care which happens, but them just randomly joining the remaining factions creates extremely difficult situations for the player—none of which are enjoyable.
____________________________
Concluding remarks
Thank you to anyone who has either read this post in part or in whole. I apologize for anything which is unclear and/or posted in the wrong location. I know about formal bug reports, but I wanted to post here so certain things were more visible and to paint a picture of some of the larger issues in one place. This will also serve as a platform for me (and hopefully others) to make formal reports of the major and minor bugs. This is a fantastic game, even if it has some quirks and bugs. I think it says a lot about the community that so many are active on the forums. What I suggest is that we all have gratitude with the developers, and in general practice patience towards them and the community as the game develops. I understand that we have purchased a product and want and expect certain things, but we are all a part of this together, and we should all act appropriately and without any entitlement. This thread has been pretty good and very respectful until the developers took a bit of time for holidays and then a small group of people became quite vocal and toxic. We can and have been better than that, so let's be supportive of not only the developers and the game, but also encourage one another to be thoughtful and respectful as the community evolves alongside the game.
Thank you for your time and attention. I hope that you all stay in good health!
-Concomitant
Kingdoms seem to put every policy to the vote when you as a mercenary open the kingdom page. Before this none of the policies are implemented. I preferred the old way where policies occurred organically throughout the years even if it wasn't realistic. Also, mercenaries can propose peace through the kingdom diplomacy screen still and lose 100 influence for doing so, putting their income to the negatives. Peace will never be accepted of course.
Testing the new patch and finally the treaties in the tribute/day fashoin. The logic about the treaties still needs to be addressed, it seems the way they are paid does not affect at all to the intention of respect the treaty. My treaties don't last longer than a day.
I don't know if the problem of the AI rulers breaking treaties and stop earning the tribute money is related to the fact that money doesn't have real value for them, maybe because they have millions.
I think the rulers accumulating millions should be addressed if their need of money is used in the decision making logic. I prefer this to a forced peace mechanic independently if the AI ruler will benefit from a peace or not. They also should consider the death of his men in the logic.
I really prefer a message telling me the Khuzait are not interested in peace than expending my influence convincing my vassals for a peace lastin 2 hours (5 seconds?). Even if purposing peace were free it leads to repeat the process over and over, thats not fun at all.
In my game I see clearly a need more lords in my kingdom as mercenaries defect very frequently... and I need time to find lords and money to attract them to my kingdom. I can't do it in constant war, my progress in the campaign is frozen. I'll keep testing and give my feedback.
Another bug I have noticed:
There are some lords with quests but they tell me I cannot help them. I had received that kind of message before but I think it was due to my negative relationship, but I am receiving it now with positive relationship so it seems it's a bug, it happens frequently with the new quest (Lord needs horses).
This forum is an experiment in what would happen if you collected several thousand entitled millennials in one place and didn't give them what they want exactly when they want it.
The combined tears could be used to cool off the atmosphere and reverse global warming.
My question: are all people in that age bracket whiney and spoiled or is that a USA phenomenon?
The recent change that prevents you for convincing lords to your cause while they are in an army (or travelling to join an army) is forcing you to look for new vassals only in peace time. Right now, there is no peace time and no way to create a small truce so this fix to the lords loyalty although being legit seems to break more the already broken eternal war concept.
Peace should last at least 10 days to be meaningful.
There are tons of great ideas about how to make better the war/peace declaration sistem and improve diplomacy, but I think that we just need some few changes to make the game enjoyable again.
- Kingdoms should start at war with just one or two enemies as much.
- Kingdoms should try to avoid wars against more than 1 kingdom at a same time.
- Some days of total peace should be a thing for every faction.
- Some days of truce should be a thing after every war. This is historical accurate and could improve a lot the current situation. It is ok if some factions break the truce period eventually but It should be a rare condition.
- Declaring wars again far away kingdoms should be pretty rare and should not happen oftenly.
I do agree with making a more complex diplomacy sistem where faction declare wars against others with some sense but just making the mentioned changes could improve a lot the current situation IMO.
This forum is an experiment in what would happen if you collected several thousand entitled millennials in one place and didn't give them what they want exactly when they want it.
The combined tears could be used to cool off the atmosphere and reverse global warming.
My question: are all people in that age bracket whiney and spoiled or is that a USA phenomenon?
What makes you think it's millennials? People of all ages can act like spoiled brats. And I know it's a catchy word, but millennial != young people; millennials are mostly in their 20's and 30's now with careers and families.
That's to be forgiven though, because the world nowadays is fast paced and it can be hard for some folks to keep up with the change.
This forum is an experiment in what would happen if you collected several thousand entitled millennials in one place and didn't give them what they want exactly when they want it.
The combined tears could be used to cool off the atmosphere and reverse global warming.
My question: are all people in that age bracket whiney and spoiled or is that a USA phenomenon?
Millennials haven't been the young ones for a while, and this kind of attitude is counter productive and only serves to incite flaming and ridiculous "generational" wars. And at the end of the day it is not so different from the behavior of people who are raging over the updates not containing what they were hoping for. We are all here because we want this game to be the best it can be.
I'm kind of curious to see how the hotfixes work, but Bannerlord Tweaks and Community Patch are broken now, and it's hard to play without them after having used them. They seem to be more complex mods but adding those features to the game would really help if is possible. Fortunately I left Steam offline and backed up the directory to my file server first so I can undo the hotfixes.
In my game I see clearly a need more lords in my kingdom as mercenaries defect very frequently... and I need time to find lords and money to attract them to my kingdom. I can't do it in constant war, my progress in the campaign is frozen. I'll keep testing and give my feedback.
I never understood this, I'll look at my account of 10,000,000 and think I'd gladly pay these guys 50,000 per day to stay (I can often make over 5k a day as a mercenary so 50,000 would be a completely insane amount), Why they can't say that they have a better offer and give me a chance to outbid?
Concomitant said a bunch of things about improving the game
Oh look new fixes to campaign bull****, time to start that 'don't kill everyone' nice guy game again.....
......oh it's was a just kidding fix, back to chopy chopy and squatting in towns as a lone non-kingdom Clan because that's the only viable or rewarding strategy.
**Potential End-game Spoiler**
I want to point out what I consider to be one of the largest issues in the end game, and I would like the developers to seriously consider changing this. When you defeat the three empires, each one you defeat falls in a way completely different to all other non-empire factions: their vassals go to other kingdoms instead of roaming the map endlessly. This sounds reasonable on paper, but here is the key problem: it allows the other empires to form armies more easily and readily. They essentially reap the benefits of your fighting, and all you really get are the settlements. These settlements will likely be captured by one of the very vassals which joined the opposition, making the gain moot. I propose that they simply move about just the same way as all other non-empire factions, or they choose to join your kingdom. Personally, I do not care which happens, but them just randomly joining the remaining factions creates extremely difficult situations for the player—none of which are enjoyable.
I really enjoyed your post, I think the most important point is this one in my opinion.
I have stopped playing because there is no point, the more your conquer, the more enemies you have to face, ending up having Zerg Lords everywhere, impossible to catch and that just harass you all the time, whereas you took some sweet time defeating their kingdoms in the first place.
When a kingdom is defeated, TaleWorlds needs to come up with something better than having the same ennemy going to another player's enemy. It's endless....
This is going to be a very lengthy post which will cover numerous topics, but it is my hope to provide useful information and ideas to not only the developers but the community at large. I apologize in advance if this post reply would be better-served in a different section of the forum, but I felt it to be best here since I am currently using the beta branch. I have taken the time to read through each post on this thread, so I am quite aware of what is happening at the current time of writing. I would appreciate feedback of any constructive kind, so let's get started.
-Introduction-
I am on my first play-through, am currently at level 23 on day 1664, and I am playing on the easiest difficulty with a little over 200 hours. I have played through the story and formed my own kingdom and am now clan tier 6. I have a single mod, which is the Defection Overhaul mod that prevents vassals from leaving the kingdom randomly and instead creates a reputation-based system for doing so. I will spend a bit of time discussing this mod and my settings; if this is not of interest to you, skip to the Moving On portion.
I have found this mod to be absolutely essential, as without it the vassals would leave the kingdom and take their fiefs with them. Since it is essentially impossible to give yourself every fiefdom to yourself, this posed an enormous problem, hence using this mod. To the developers, please be aware that in its current state, it is impossible to build an empire which is lasting without this. It is worth following this mod's logic, and I will summarize my settings here. I believe these to be "fair" settings for defection. In recruiting vassals, they (more often than not) come from factions which you are or have been at war with at some point, and they generally do not like you. As such, all vassal relations are at minimum some negative value based on their honor. Here are the settings that I use and believe are a good base-line. I have had just one lord leave due to poor reputation with their clan.
Player's Kingdom - Minimum Leader Relation with Player
Defection: -50
Leave: -30
Leave as Mercenary: -40
These are the base-line relations (Honor 0). I believe that defection to another faction should take significantly less reputation than simply leaving, and paid mercenaries should leave less often than non-paid others.
In case this is slightly confusing, the formula for each of these is this:
Defection, Leave, Leave as Mercenary = Base - 10*Honor
(Ex. 1: for Deceitful defection, it is -50 - 10(-2) = -30)
(Ex. 2: for Honorable leave, it is -30 - 10(2) = -50)
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-Moving on-
With the mod discussion out of the way, I would now like to turn attention to core game-play. With the latest beta patch, I have noticed far greater stability in the level of faction chaos in terms of war-mongering. Prior to the beta, I was constantly fighting battles. On easy, this is doable, but on realistic I cannot imagine this being sustainable. It took quite a bit of time, but finally
the three empires were destroyed
and all that were left were the Vlandians (Strength 23,000), the Khuzait (Strength 11,000), and my own kingdom (Strength 8,000). These numbers are before the latest beta patch of beta e1.4.1 hotfix on 30/05/20. I am unsure of the corresponding strengths after the beta branch was applied; however just before applying the beta, I had noticed these (rough) changes: Vlandians (Strength 15,000 --> Strength 45,000), Khuzait (Strength 10,000 --> Strength 30,000), and my own kingdom (Strength 15,000 --> Strength 45,000). As you can see, all strengths went up by roughly a factor of three. I am unsure of the exact values, but these are close approximations.
As I said, the stability in the level of faction chaos has been significantly increased. Prior to the beta, I had a constant stream of 3-5 armies roaming around and doing their thing (albeit quite randomly). However, immediately after patching to beta, I noticed something which startled me a bit: All of my armies disappeared. For a few weeks in-game, this was the case. I thought something was seriously wrong, but I also noticed that the number of sieges from all factions had dropped to near-zero, and began to think maybe all army creation was bugged (perhaps due to the mod I use). Then something happened: a siege occurred in one of my cities or castles, and an army formed near it to defend. What I can say is this: it appears that armies now form in a reactionary way instead of random. Your vassals wait to form armies so that your troops can be more mobile, and they also form armies to attack fairly nearby settlements instead of whatever they choose. This did not exactly happen before applying this beta branch.
Following this post by Dean Beecham I spent two years in the game doing nothing, and I observed the exact same results. My kingdom was still standing solid. This actually blew my mind, since before this beta, my kingdom would have suffered greatly if I stepped out for even a single year, let alone two. I have to seriously commend the developers here for slowing the rate of battles and sieges down. It is great to be able to have glorious battles, but the constancy of them was getting very draining. Now I am able to actually play strategically and methodically as a kingdom ruler instead of having to run back and forth between battles, sieges, and back-caps which were all-too-frequent.
As of the writing of this post, things in my kingdom are stable for the first time. People are saying that peace declarations do not occur, but I have had them occur several times, but they are indeed rare. I must be fortunate, as I have yet to have my vassals declare war yet. Instead, I have had war simply declared on me (indeed, randomly), but the peace/war system appears to be working to an acceptable level. However, there is a serious bug with it, and I will discuss that now.
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-MAJOR BUGS-
Accepting peace while besieging a settlement:
This one has forced me to revert saves on numerous occasions. If you are besieging any settlement (and possibly raiding, though I have not had this happen) and a peace declaration appears, clicking on this and accepting the peace will cause the UI to stall out. Upon returning to the world map, the UI for settlements appears but with all text options absent on the left-hand panel. There is no option to leave, and the user must reload to a previous save before the peace offer occurs. That is a bug in itself, but it presents a larger issue: the peace offer will not likely occur again. So, if the user accepts this (rare) peace, they are out of luck if they do so while besieging a settlement. To avoid this bug, stop the siege before accepting, and everything will work as intended.
Siege towers still do not work in an optimal way:
I know this is well-documented at this point, but I want to spend some time on this. From my observations I have noticed one key thing, and that is the AI appears to be trying to use the ladder on the far right of the tower first, and then trying to use the others. I can understand this from a coder's perspective. We want to check if the "first" ladder is being used, and then proceed to use the others. The reason this causes problems is that it appears all of the AI are "ticking" at the same time as soon as a spot on the first ladder opens up, and so they all rush towards that spot, even if they were just about to get onto a new ladder. I can see a few ways to fix this, assuming this is indeed the problem, but the primary solution I have would be to lock in the AI to the next ladder once they saw the ladder is full. They are prevented from checking the previous ladders once they are locked in.
For example, suppose we have the six AI soldiers attempting to climb a ladder. At the first tick, all see the first ladder is available (all soldiers assigned 1), and would normally rush to climb it. The problem is that they would push each other out of the way. Instead, pick the closest soldier and have him/her climb it, and all remaining soldiers see the first ladder is full and will see it as full until the third ladder is also full. Now, all remaining soldiers are assigned 2 and would rush to climb the second ladder, so instead choose the closest soldier once more and give them this spot. Now the soldiers see the first two ladders are full, and the same logic is applied to allow the closest soldier to the third ladder to climb it, and the process repeats. The key here is to prevent the AI from constantly checking to see if the first ladder is occupied because that seems to be where the AI keeps piling up. Again, I don't know for certain if this is the issue, but it seems to be from close inspection and numerous sieges performed.
Formations are "bugged"
I put bugged in quotations because I can understand why the game logic is working this way, and there is a way around it. Essentially, having any cavalry in an infantry formation will cause that formation to attempt a cavalry level of spacing. This makes shield walls, etc. extremely ineffective and outright impossible. The AI will attempt to space out considerably and such formations are doomed. To avoid this bug have your troops dismount (F5 by default) before moving them into a specific formation. I have not had this method fail me since hearing about this solution from someone else (sorry, I forget who it was, but thank you random internet stranger!)
Perks/Attributes are mostly broken
Again, I know this is well-documented, but I have to mention it because it is so crucial. I can understand that a few of them won't work, but such a vast array of them seem to be inactive that I don't even know what to trust right now. I just assume none of them work except for the ones which clearly do. The two which are absolutely essential are being able to set up battle plans before the battle (deploy troops etc.) and being able to use any bow on horseback. I am seriously disappointed that these two do not work, but I trust that they are high on the developer's list and will leave it at that.
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-MINOR BUGS-
Siege engine icons are not showing properly
As the title suggests, not all siege engine icons display properly. Their locations can still be interacted with, however, so it is possible to build as normal.
Many chairs/benches/stools are bugged
It is often an endless loop of attempting to sit down. I have noticed this in many areas, most notably within keeps. To avoid this bug talk to a nearby NPC (repeat if this does not work immediately).
Certain in-game games are bugged
I am sure that this is documented elsewhere, but I am unable to complete a game of at least MuTorere in at least the keep in the city of Myzea. I have not tested other games or in other locations. I will do so and either update this post and/or make formal reports
Strange walking bug/glitch
This one, while hilarious, is quite strange. In at least the keep in the city of Myzea, it is possible to cause the AI to "bug out" when attempting to play a game of Mu Torere, and perhaps other games. To activate the bug, simply ask one NPC to play a game (you have to find one which will say yes), and then wait for that NPC to go and sit down at the game table. Then, tell them you're done and they will not get up and leave (some might, but I have not had them get up to leave). Now, go and find another NPC and ask them to play (again, you have to find one that will say yes). They will be unable to walk to the game table and will simply stand and orient themselves as if they were to begin to walk. Finally, tell them you are not interested in playing, and they will walk at about 300-500% speed to a different location and sit down.
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-Additional Considerations and Thoughts-
Prisoners escape far too easily
There appears to be very little difference between putting your prisoners in a dungeon or leaving them in your army. I have noticed a slight difference, but it should scale with how many of your own troops are around and how many other notable prisoners there are. For example, if there is a single noble in a dungeon of a keep with 900 defenders, there should be practically zero chance that they will escape. If there are 20 notable prisoners in that same keep, there is a higher chance any one of them can escape, but still a very low chance per day. If there is one notable prisoner in a keep with 10 defenders, there is a significant chance they will escape, but still quite low. If there are 20 notable prisoners in a keep with 10 defenders, there would be a much higher chance of escape. Any prisoner in your army should have a decent chance of escape (say 1-10% per day) during night hours, and half or a third of that during the day. The same goes for keep prisoners, but those are my basic ideas here.
Changing follower Gear/Perks/Attributes
I understand the logic behind not being able to change a follower's gear/perks/attributes while they are not near you, but it should be possible to change these things if they are in the same army as you. Dismantling an entire party just to give them better gear is not ideal and creates several logistic problems for the player.
Allow friendly parties and armies to reinforce player-owned settlements
As far as I have experienced, friendly parties and armies do not currently reinforce any of my owned settlements. It is up to me to place troops in the garrison. I am not sure if this is a bug or a feature, but it is very limiting and generally not advantageous for me to own any fiefdoms. I advise that this be altered to have the AI treat my settlements like any other NPC-owned settlement.
Force nearby parties to join your army instead of auto-engaging the enemy armies
This one has been on my list of annoyances for a while now. Essentially, if I am near an enemy army and forming an army myself, nearby friendly parties will engage the army on their own instead of simply joining the army I am making. Often times, I am forced to join the fight ASAP so that the party does not get destroyed. Usually, I am waiting on a few more parties to join to achieve an optimal success in the fight, and this sort of behavior disrupts my plans of engagement.
Slowed battles and siege rates have lead to more involved sieges
This is something I have noticed with the lower battle rates, and I am finding it to be flat-out awesome. The lower battle rates mean that there are generally fewer armies and things to go defend. This means that you as a player have time to actually give full-blown sieges. Before applying the beta branch, I had to go go go! between settlements and generally did not have time to build a full siege and shred the walls. Now, it is actually worth my time to bombard the walls and crack them. As I stated earlier, two years of doing nothing led to not much of a change in my empire, and so that alone convinced me that I had time to spend besieging settlements. What this means is that you no longer have to simply rely on battering rams, siege towers, and a group of anti-siege weaponry to protect yours during a siege; you can just break the walls and charge in with a minimal force. Before the beta, I would absolutely have to bring many more men than the defender count of a settlement, but now I am able to take a long time to break the walls down and go into a siege with an entirely different mechanic. Sure, there were times before beta when I would do this, but it takes a long time to break walls (even level 1 walls take a few days). Now, I have besieged a few settlements with just 4 trebuchets and charged in.
After several sieges, here is my suggested build order for smaller assaulting armies (enemy build speed seems to increase with your assault capabilities being higher for some reason)
1) 2 trebuchets to crack enemy siege engines and hammer walls while the rest are building
2) battering ram
3) normal/fire catapult for fire rate and to hit walls a bit (keep in mind the trebs are doing work the whole time against both)
4) first siege tower
5) 1 trebuchet or a normal/fire catapult (I recommend a catapult since they tend to target either walls or siege engines in the actual siege)
6) final siege tower
If you lose any of these, build it back as soon as you are able. If you get approached by a sizeable army during the siege process, you can engage the assault if you are able and then ideally defend the settlement from behind the walls/sally out on your own time. TIP: Make sure you have plenty of food before assaulting any settlement so you can spend as long as you need to in the siege. Generally, the enemy will not have food or not enough to survive for very long (especially later on in lengthy wars).
**Potential End-game Spoiler**
I want to point out what I consider to be one of the largest issues in the end game, and I would like the developers to seriously consider changing this. When you defeat the three empires, each one you defeat falls in a way completely different to all other non-empire factions: their vassals go to other kingdoms instead of roaming the map endlessly. This sounds reasonable on paper, but here is the key problem: it allows the other empires to form armies more easily and readily. They essentially reap the benefits of your fighting, and all you really get are the settlements. These settlements will likely be captured by one of the very vassals which joined the opposition, making the gain moot. I propose that they simply move about just the same way as all other non-empire factions, or they choose to join your kingdom. Personally, I do not care which happens, but them just randomly joining the remaining factions creates extremely difficult situations for the player—none of which are enjoyable.
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Concluding remarks
Thank you to anyone who has either read this post in part or in whole. I apologize for anything which is unclear and/or posted in the wrong location. I know about formal bug reports, but I wanted to post here so certain things were more visible and to paint a picture of some of the larger issues in one place. This will also serve as a platform for me (and hopefully others) to make formal reports of the major and minor bugs. This is a fantastic game, even if it has some quirks and bugs. I think it says a lot about the community that so many are active on the forums. What I suggest is that we all have gratitude with the developers, and in general practice patience towards them and the community as the game develops. I understand that we have purchased a product and want and expect certain things, but we are all a part of this together, and we should all act appropriately and without any entitlement. This thread has been pretty good and very respectful until the developers took a bit of time for holidays and then a small group of people became quite vocal and toxic. We can and have been better than that, so let's be supportive of not only the developers and the game, but also encourage one another to be thoughtful and respectful as the community evolves alongside the game.
Thank you for your time and attention. I hope that you all stay in good health!
-Concomitant
Thanks for this great and well organised feedback. Will will work on making defection harder after player recruit vassals, other auto npc defections already working fine however if player persuades vassals lords change sides unnatural means that you pay lots of gold to override its defection score. I also examined how that mod solve the problem, our solution probably will be different. We decided on several different solutions already they will be implemented soon. After high ratio of fortification starvation problem I will deal with this defection problem.
In my game I see clearly a need more lords in my kingdom as mercenaries defect very frequently... and I need time to find lords and money to attract them to my kingdom. I can't do it in constant war, my progress in the campaign is frozen. I'll keep testing and give my feedback.
Theres obviously been a major change in War/Peace in the beta, I've never seen a kingdom fight 3 or more wars in 1.4.0 and even 2 wars are rare so idk what happened, maybe a new system was introduced
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