SP - General Changes required to create Good Tactics™

[five bucks]

Bannerlord's field battle tactics are currently shallow.

Armour being weak against arrows means the best tactic is obvious: sit your archers on a hill, put a small amount of infantry in front of them, and watch them kill everything. Or, get a party of all horse archers (Khan's Guard are incredibly overpowered), have them follow you, and just circle the enemy. No matter who the enemy is, these tactics will always give the best results, so you never need to change tactics or use your brain. There's no challenge.

Bannerlord doesn't need to be as tactically deep as Total War, but it can be better than this. The pieces are there for tactical gameplay, just a few flaws prevent it from working properly. Here are some changes that can make this game an engaging tactical experience, where the player needs to change their tactics based on the situation, and is rewarded for doing so.

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SOFT COUNTERS
Soft counters are common in tactics games, to add a variable for players to think about: choosing troops that are strong against the type of enemy you're facing. Or, if your troops get countered, using other tactics to try and offset the disadvantage.
In this way, soft counters make tactical gameplay important. Here is an example of how soft counters could work in Bannerlord.

Pike Infantry: Uses a two-handed braceable polearm. Is strong against melee cavalry, thanks to their braced pike that can stop and seriously injure a charging horse.

Shock Infantry: Uses a two-handed high damage weapon. Is strong against shield infantry, thanks to their high damage which can shred shields.

Shield Infantry: Uses a large shield and one-handed weapon. Is strong against ranged infantry, as their shield can soak up arrows while closing into melee range.

Ranged Infantry: Uses a bow, crossbow, or javelins. Is strong against ranged cavalry, as being steady on foot allows for more accuracy, faster fire rate, and the use of more powerful ranged weapons.

Ranged Cavalry: Uses a horse and bow or javelins. Is strong against pike infantry, who carry no shield to protect them from arrows, and cannot catch up to the cavalry to fight.

Melee Cavalry: Uses a horse and usually a couchable polearm. Is strong against shock infantry, who have no braced pike or large shield to protect them from a couched lance charge.

Most of this already exists in Bannerlord, except that nothing counters Ranged cavalry. All Ranged units counter all unshielded infantry. Pike units do not actually use their pikes against cavalry when the AI is controlling them. And Khan's Guard is good at everything and can easily beat every other troop in the game with no counter! To create a balanced counter system, the following changes are needed:

• Make armor work better against ranged attacks, so that archers and horse archers aren't strong against all sorts of melee troops.
• Remove the Glaive from the Khan's Guard, or greatly nerf the weapon.
• Make foot archers able to hit moving horse archers with reasonable accuracy. Currently, foot archers miss every shot because they shoot where a horse is, and do not adjust for the motion of the target.
• Make AI commanders have their pike troops stand still and brace their pikes against an incoming cavalry charge.
• Troop trees need to be reworked, because there are not enough pikemen, too many shielded troops, and different factions feel too similar to fight against. Making factions more unique in what troops they do and don't use means the player will have to change their tactics based on the faction they're facing.

MORALE
Bannerlord's morale should have three purposes.

One: Let a skilled player turn the tide of battle, by making an army able to chain-rout when enough troops retreat, as the dev blogs said was intended. Currently, players can intimidate individual troops or formations to flee, but troops from other formations will not realise that their army is massively outnumbered and will stay and fight, so you cannot turn the tide of battle this way.

Two: Let the player end a battle they are obviously going to win, without having to kill every enemy. This often doesn't happen, for the reasons above.

Three: Reward tactical maneuvers. Attacking an enemy from the flank doesn't affect morale much, whereas in real life it would be devastating.

• Implement Global Morale: When an army is outnumbered past a threshold, all troops below a certain tier flee. For example, if the army is outnumbered by 4x, all Tier 2 troops will flee. The threshold is affected by the army's morale before the battle, the Leadership skill of the commander, and the death of a commander.
• Being attacked from the flank should inflict heavy Formation Morale damage.
• Change the Loyalty and Honor perk to only apply to Tier 4+ troops.

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Combine these elements, and this is what Bannerlord's tactical gameplay will look like. (green tick = already in game):

UNIT QUANTITY
More men makes you more likely to win. Simple, but the factors below add complexity.
UNIT QUALITY
Higher tier units can defeat significantly more enemies.
UNIT TYPE/SOFT COUNTERS
Pike infantry, Shock infantry, Shield infantry, Ranged infantry, Ranged cavalry, Melee cavalry: Each troop type is weak and strong against another type.
TERRAIN
Elevation, cover, chokepoints, water: they can affect the speed of cavalry and infantry, stop ranged troops from shooting, or protect the flank of a smaller force against a larger one.
FORMATIONS/MANEUVERS
Flanking: hit an enemy formation from the side or rear to damage its morale.
Line, square, shieldwall, wedge, column, circle, etc.; each formation has different usefulness against different troop types.
MORALE
Individual morale: A unit will break and run if it experiences too many nearby allied deaths or retreats.
Formation morale: A formation will break and run if it suffers too many deaths or retreats.
Banners: Losing a banner bearer will lower the morale or abilities of a formation.
Global morale: If numbers disadvantage becomes too high, or the commander is lost, entire sections of the army below a certain tier can break and run, possibly causing more of the army to rout too.

 

[niekdegrijze]

Due to multiple factors, Bannerlord's field battle tactics are currently very shallow.

There's a clear best tactic: sit your archers on a hill, sit any infantry you might have in front of them stretched in a wide loose formation, and just sit perfectly still and watch the kills roll in. Or, have a party of all horse archers (Khan's Guard are particularly gamebreaking), have them follow you to prevent their AI doing anything stupid, and simply circle the enemy. You do not need to deviate from these tactics regardless of who you are facing. Due to the weakness of armor, battles also usually end too quickly for the player to really execute different tactics anyway.

Bannerlord doesn't need to be as tactically deep as Total War, but it can be better than this. Most of the pieces are there for a solid tactical game, they just don't work together. Here are some changes and additions that can be made to bring it together into a more engaging tactical experience, where the player needs to adapt their tactics over the course of a battle, and is rewarded for doing so.

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TACTICAL ORDERS
A key component of any tactics game is being able to direct certain troops to attack specific enemy troops. So:

• Add the ability for the player to tell a formation of troops to target a particular enemy formation.

If TW can't manage to get the AI to do this, any substitute is better than nothing - like the ability to say "don't change targets after the first enemy you engage" or "ignore all enemies except this certain enemy type".

UNIT TIER
Right now tier means little for infantry, as only two T1 recruits are needed to mob and kill a T5 elite. But if higher tier units were better fighters, then a unit's tier could mean how many T1s it can fight at once. So numbers would not be the only factor of whether you win a battle, tier would be as well. A smart player could multiply troop tier by quantity in their head to make an informed decision on whether their forces' experience outweighed a numbers disadvantage - though that number would, of course, not be a guarantee of victory, due to all the other tactical factors.

"The enemy has 100 men, and I have only 50. But their forces are inexperienced and poorly equipped, made up of 40 T1s and 60 T2s, while my men are all experienced and well-equipped T4s. So despite our numerical disadvantage, we can still probably win if we attack."

In order to make tier meaningful:

• Make armor provide significantly better protection against ranged attacks, and slightly better protection against some other sources of melee damage.
• Raise the threshold for a stun to occur on armor, so that two very low tier AIs with weak weapons cannot easily perma-stun a higher tier AI wearing good quality armor.
• Implement the morale changes listed below which make tier more impactful in morale.

SOFT COUNTERS
Soft counter systems of some kind are common in tactics games. They form naturally, from the real-life strengths and weaknesses some types of soldier have against each other. MP's Captain Mode has a partial counter system in place.
Soft counters add a tactical variable for a good player to think about: choosing troops that are good against the type of enemy you're facing to gain an advantage. On the other hand, the player's troops can be countered too, and a good tactician can offset the disadvantage by using terrain, flanking, morale, formations, having troops of higher tier, personally reinforcing the formation that is countered, or sending in other troops of a different type to reinforce the countered troops.
In this way, soft counters make tactical gameplay important. Here is an example of how a soft counter system could work in Bannerlord.

Pike Infantry: Uses a two-handed braceable polearm, with backup throwing weapons. Is strong against melee cavalry, thanks to their braced pike that can stop and seriously injure a charging horse.

Shock Infantry: Uses a two-handed high damage weapon, with a backup small shield. Is strong against shield infantry, thanks to their high damage which can shred shields.

Shield Infantry: Uses a large shield and one-handed weapon, with backup throwing weapons. Is strong against ranged infantry, as their shield can soak up arrows while closing into melee range.

Ranged Infantry: Uses a bow, crossbow, or javelins. Is strong against ranged cavalry, as being steady on foot allows for more accuracy, faster fire rate, and the use of more powerful ranged weapons.

Ranged Cavalry: Uses a horse and bow or javelins. Is strong against pike infantry, who carry no shield to protect them from arrows, and cannot catch up to the cavalry to fight.

Melee Cavalry: Uses a horse and usually a couchable polearm. Is strong against shock infantry, who have no braced pike or large shield to protect them from a couched lance charge.

Some of this already holds true in the game, but not all of it. To implement a counter system the following changes would be needed:

• Make melee cavalry more accurate in their charges. Also, make melee infantry less accurate at hitting fast-moving cavalry. Currently due to poor attack timing/aim, melee cavalry will fail many attempts at couched lance charges. This means they are not a real threat on the battlefield, not really worth taking or using, and they get murdered by shock infantry rather than countering them. Once they can charge properly, and shock infantry are not superhumanly accurate, this situation should reverse.
• Make armor work better, so that archers and horse archers aren't strong against all sorts of infantry and melee cavalry, and are limited to one strength/weakness each.
• The troop trees need to be reworked, mainly so that pikemen can be included more - as currently the amount of troops in Bannerlord that can actually brace is quite small- but also to reduce the amount of large shields in the game now that armor actually works, so post-nerf archers have enough shieldless targets to shoot at so they aren't too weak; and to make the factions more distinct in the troop types they have available, so the player has to change their tactics more based on the faction they're facing. Below is an example of how that could be done.

Spoiler

MORALE
When armor becomes more useful and troops take longer to die, morale will become more important. Bannerlord has a morale system where individual troops will flee based on nearby actions, but it appears to have no morale effects on the formation or army level - troops will stay in formation down to the last man if something does not happen to make them individually flee. The dev blog on morale said that a chain rout would be able to occur and cause an entire formation to dissipate, and gave historical examples of what they were going for by discussing an entire army routing in a historical scenario, but this is currently not the case. In order for this to happen in the game, more morale systems are needed. Also, the player currently has no reason to make their formation deep in infantry vs. infantry combat. In real life, the reason was that troops behind would stop the man in front from running away. So this needs to be simulated with a morale bonus, to make deep formations useful. And to create tactical depth with a morale system that the player can actually affect in gameplay, formation morale is needed, so the player can cause chain-routs by targeting and breaking low-morale enemy formations.

• Implement Global Morale: When a force is outnumbered past a certain amount, all troops below a certain tier flee. For example, if the army is outnumbered by 4x, all T2 troops will flee. This threshold is altered by the party's morale before the battle, and Leadership of the commander. If the commander is lost, the threshold of outnumbering required to flee drops dramatically.
• Implement Formation Morale: Each formation has a numerical morale value, set at the beginning of the battle based on party morale, tier, and Leadership skill of the commander. Nearby events happening, such as the captain getting kills or losing the banner bearer, causes formation morale to raise/lower; reaching zero causes a full formation rout. You can see which of your formations are low morale and reinforce them. With higher Tactics skill, you can see enemy formation morale, and make informed tactical decisions based on it.
• Being attacked from the flank should inflict heavy Formation Morale damage.
• A higher-tier formation attacking a lower-tier formation should reduce their Formation Morale. For example, T6 Banner Knights charging a formation of T1 Recruits should inflict some temporary morale damage, and make them likely to flee if they do not have a commander with good Leadership.
• Make it so that being in a deeper formation improves Formation Morale. This will balance out the encirclement advantage of being in a wider formation.
• Individual troops are currently very, very likely to rout at the drop of a hat if they are T1-2, but above T3 almost never rout. The likelihood of individuals routing needs to be a more gradual curve, otherwise morale becomes not important.

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Combine all these elements, and this is what Bannerlord's tactical gameplay will look like. (green tick = already in game):

UNIT QUANTITY
More men makes you more likely to win. Simple on its own, but becomes one of multiple factors to take into account with everything below.
UNIT QUALITY
Higher tier = can take on significantly more enemies, and possibly win against a numerical disadvantage.
UNIT TYPE/SOFT COUNTERS
Pike infantry, Shock infantry, Shield infantry, Ranged infantry, Ranged cavalry, Melee cavalry. Each of these troop types has an advantage and disadvantage against one other type.
TERRAIN
Elevation, cover, chokepoints, water: their effect on the speed of cavalry and infantry, what ranged attackers can shoot, and protecting the flank of a smaller force against a larger one.
FORMATIONS/MANEUVERS
Flanking: hit enemy formation from side or rear to significantly impact the whole formation's morale, maybe causing it to rout.
Line, square, shieldwall, wedge, column, circle, etc.; each formation has different usefulness against different troop types.
Depth of formation- wider formation to encircle enemy, deeper formation for better morale and entangling cavalry.
MORALE
Individual morale: A unit will break and run if nearby factors of death or allied retreat cause it to lose too much morale.
Formation morale: A whole formation has a morale score which, upon reaching 0, causes it to break and run. It is influenced by factors like the banner bearer being alive or dead, its captain dying/getting kills, kills and losses, etc. The player can see enemy formation morale if they have good Tactics skill, and target formations with weak morale to try and cause a chain rout.
Intimidation: A high-tier formation of elite troops charging a low-tier one will cause their morale to drop.
Global morale: If numbers disadvantage becomes too high, or the commander is lost, entire sections of the army below a certain tier can break and run, causing a chain rout.

Excellent overview and suggestions! I agree wholeheartedly

 

[Mad Vader]

Great to have another very constructive suggestion thread by someone worth ten rappers. I would emphasize (and link to their reference threads) for Taleworlds' sake the parts with "make armor great again" and "add formation focus fire if you won't fix your AI and we know you won't so just add it".
The morale part seems the least important to me as any morale mechanics can and will be exploited by the player, but not the Taleworldsian AI. This will arguably make the game worse. Total War mechanics are fun, but you need a decent opposition that uses them. You'll have Ananda videos about how he routed an entire army with two and a half soldiers.

 

[Vekar]

+1, but it means getting rid of the "everyone gets 100HP and cardboard armor! yaayyyy!" thing they currently have going on.

 

[SGT_Night]

+1 Very constructive thread, i agree 100% ???

 

[xGreedo]

+1 not bad.

 

[Halbedier]

High tier armies already can beat larger low tier armies.

Armour is made out of tissue paper, hopefully, will be fixed someday.
And moral basically doesn't exist, it would be nice if they added that.

Also, there is actually lot of units, such as pikeman. The problem is they are actually secret, so not many players know about them. f.e. staying with the pikes, did you know Empire actually has heavy pike infantry? It's called Elite Cataphract. Don't think too hard about why that's the case, just roll with it

 

[ziomek24]

I may disagree with absolutely everything, but most of you are right. There are so many things that could be added to this game that it would win a lot of new players and live for many years. Unfortunately, the board has another plan ... they say they have a school at their studio.

 

[five bucks]

Updated the thread based on the recent addition of formation morale, and rewrote it to make the goals of morale clearer.

 

[Terco_Viejo]

100%
Golden feedback

 

[five bucks]

100%
Golden feedback

Thanks!

 

[five bucks]

I can happily say that the recent melee damage to armour changes have made higher tier troops significantly more valuable in melee combat (in groups, at least. Their performance is still mediocre individually). They are not quite where they should be but it's a big improvement.

 

[five bucks]

Updated with recent changes to cavalry in 1.9, which have made cavalry a lot more effective across the board to the point they are now a useful part of the game. Bannerlord is approaching Good Tactics™!

 

[Tackier]

+1 I agree with with all your points. But spears/pikes would need to be buffed to almost how they are in RBM to be usable.

"Implement Global Morale: When an army is outnumbered past a threshold, all troops below a certain tier flee. For example, if the army is outnumbered by 4x, all Tier 2 troops will flee." I personally don't that the tier of the troop should determine their morale, in a realistic scenario most of the troops will hover around the T2 and T3 range, I think all troops should flee together once they've sustained enough casualties. A majority of a real life army would be made up of levy and militia troops.

 

[five bucks]

TW's recent addition of formation targeting means we can now hone in on specific formations which is good for intelligent tactics.

 

[Crisagon]

+1

 

[kyle_usmc]

+1