The player levels extremely slowly you can max out focus points and attributes and even rack up 60-100 kills in a battle and still level up at a rate of death before 275 in a skill. combined with the updates and incompatibilities that require restarts and the horrific lack of an import-export that isn't supported it makes the grind miserable. 311 hours and 6 characters in and it's only gotten marginally better with updates. Companions level 1000x slower than the player, and most can't even get a single kill in a fight and the best I have seen in a single battle is 3. Following that their chance of dying in battle rests at around 50% and the idea of them not going down is kind of ridiculous. The only role I have found them to be viable in is as crossbowmen. With bows or throwing weapons they couldn't hit a barn if they were inside of it and in melee, as mentioned below a looter will destroy them every time.
Now, companions combat AI is that of a mentally ill looter no matter what their level is or skill proficiency. You even can deck them out in ultra armor and give them the best possible crafted weapons and then proceed to watch them meet their match at the hands of a pitchfork... which also tends to kill them wasting 10-15 actual hours of developing them from hot garbage to well still hot garbage but encased in almost indestructible metal.
The proposed fix would be to apply better combat AI to companions based on level and skill, also vastly increase their leveling rate so they can actually be useful for something other than cannon fodder. My tier 2 troops outperform any companion to date no matter how they were equipped or leveled.
For governors, every guide I have read to date agrees on two things companions should not be wasted in a governor slot. They are tremendously more valuable leading a party or a caravan. The primary reason for this is to even get decent bonuses from a governor they have to have high levels in import skills which you as the player also need to level: medical, scouting, engineering (with 1.5.7) steward, etc... the easiest way to get those is by giving them command of a party, the second-best is by caravan and the third by using the party feature to assign a role. which brings into focus the main issue with the new leveling system in that it is excruciatingly slow even for the player and many of the skills have high-level bonuses exclusive to the clan leader which is you or your heir later on. Meaning to get the most benefit you have to level those skills and not use a proxy in your party for them.
I would propose that the governor position would be much like the party leader and caravan system leaning towards the Party system. meaning they would govern their province but would also field a party. Since the position is locked by owning a city or a castle and further by having an available companion it makes sense to me to provide a meaningful reward for managing to keep them alive long enough and training them up to a point that they actually provide enough bonuses to be worth placing in that position. The party composition could be further augmented by limitations of the province they govern such as a city would field more troops but at a much lower tier mainly consisting of tier 2-3 with some tier 4s and a castle would field a smaller contingent of tier 4-6.
Now, companions combat AI is that of a mentally ill looter no matter what their level is or skill proficiency. You even can deck them out in ultra armor and give them the best possible crafted weapons and then proceed to watch them meet their match at the hands of a pitchfork... which also tends to kill them wasting 10-15 actual hours of developing them from hot garbage to well still hot garbage but encased in almost indestructible metal.
The proposed fix would be to apply better combat AI to companions based on level and skill, also vastly increase their leveling rate so they can actually be useful for something other than cannon fodder. My tier 2 troops outperform any companion to date no matter how they were equipped or leveled.
For governors, every guide I have read to date agrees on two things companions should not be wasted in a governor slot. They are tremendously more valuable leading a party or a caravan. The primary reason for this is to even get decent bonuses from a governor they have to have high levels in import skills which you as the player also need to level: medical, scouting, engineering (with 1.5.7) steward, etc... the easiest way to get those is by giving them command of a party, the second-best is by caravan and the third by using the party feature to assign a role. which brings into focus the main issue with the new leveling system in that it is excruciatingly slow even for the player and many of the skills have high-level bonuses exclusive to the clan leader which is you or your heir later on. Meaning to get the most benefit you have to level those skills and not use a proxy in your party for them.
I would propose that the governor position would be much like the party leader and caravan system leaning towards the Party system. meaning they would govern their province but would also field a party. Since the position is locked by owning a city or a castle and further by having an available companion it makes sense to me to provide a meaningful reward for managing to keep them alive long enough and training them up to a point that they actually provide enough bonuses to be worth placing in that position. The party composition could be further augmented by limitations of the province they govern such as a city would field more troops but at a much lower tier mainly consisting of tier 2-3 with some tier 4s and a castle would field a smaller contingent of tier 4-6.
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