Overall I really enjoy this game, and I would love to see it expanded upon through a small series of critiques and suggestions.
Con - Town management is one dimensional. The biggest area of improvement is the garrison. So far I see no option to train your garrisoned troops or recruit new ones overtime. Obviously this shouldn't be game breaking, but it would do a lot for the game play to train garrisoned troops to the tier of recruits you can easily buy from towns maybe tier 1-3. Also there is no real way to reserve your army while your search for new recruits to fill the garrison. If you put your current army in the garrison, they will starve because the food production will be strained and they will abandon you. The army you worked hard to level up will be gone in a matter of days, and there seems to be no way to prevent it because food production is so bad throughout the entire game I have several cities, every single one with a negative food production despite the granary and irrigation being maxed. There isn't much in the way of economy either. I haven't seen a mechanic to change your tax policies, invest in more businesses in your cities, or assign patrols to protect caravans and villagers who want to trade. In fact, I haven't even seen patrol factions like the manhunters or deserters at all, which are very essential because bandits are a massive problem at the moment.
If troop training is too overpowered, that's understandable. But we really should be able to hire patrols. Town management is a big part of the game outside of combat, and I believe it needs more attention because as it is there isn't much we can do outside very trivial policy.
Con- At the moment it seems impossible to wipe a faction out completely. Let me explain. There's been multiple factions where I have went to war with as a part of a kingdom but every time the last remaining clan member of the faction is left, he is imprisoned and never released. Actually, I can only assume, because the encyclopedia is confusing in this specific regard. Every time I check to see where the last lord of the faction is, it will say he is at an ally faction's city, which presumably means he is in the dungeon. When you go to the dungeon, he isn't there. When you check the encyclopedia, it says nothing about being captured. However, when you check the location it wont change and it will be updated daily so the last enemy lord is being seen every single day at your allied city, but it's impossible to find him. He has to be imprisoned, but where he is physically I have no idea. This has happened every single time and there seems to be no way to entirely wipe a faction out as far as I can tell.
My suggestion to fix this is to make the lord available as a prisoner and implement a mechanic where you could actually purchase prisoners from a ransom broker yourself. I think this is a good idea for multiple reasons. Maybe you could buy higher tier troops from ransom brokers than you could from recruiting them through towns and overtime those prisoners will defect to your army.
Con - There seems to be no way to improve relationship with lords outside the faction. This caused a lot of headache for some time because at first I was a mercenary for the Vlandians but I renounced my "oath" and everyone in that faction hated me. I didn't expect to be so despised, because I wasn't a Vlandian vassal, I was just a mercenary under contract. Regardless, my relation plummeted, and no matter what I did I couldn't improve my relation with the lords. Many people suggested I use influence to fix that, but you can't. You need to be in the faction to use influence. If you are disliked by a faction you wish to join, there doesn't seem to be a means to fix this without cheats. In Warband you could grind quests, which I assume you will be able to do over time as more content is added, but a mechanic to amend this should have been implemented prior to release it really is kind of game breaking. Even if you give the faction ruler all the money you have, it will not raise your relation with him a single bit. Seems odd.
My suggestion would be for the time being is to allow people the ability to buy relation with gold and gifts until their is quest content added.
Con - No battle minimap! This was such a disappointment however I have learned to live without it through manually command troops on the battlefield but for those who enjoy roleplaying as a general outside the battlefield in a tent somewhere it is quite sad there is no battle minimap to control and order troops. The battles in Bannerlord are a huge improvement over Warband and where this game shines. I have no real criticism about the combat or battles, they are spectacular. However, it would be nice to have that feature back it was so helpful!
The battle minimap was a central cornerstone of my gameplay in Warband I hope there are measures in place to implement it in Bannerlord.
Con- Fief distribution seems unfair at times. I enjoy the occasion randomness of property allocation as it is somewhat realistic you never know who a lord might rule in favor of in some cases and that specifically is not the criticism. The main problem is when you conquer a city alone and aren't even on the ballot at all. I'm sure this has happened to everybody here at least once, because this happens to me all the time. I'm not saying we should be awarded the property immediately after conquering it, but I feel the player should at least be on the ballot. There is a different if we aid in a siege. I understand it is someone else's army, there are other lords contending for it. However, if you conquer a city on your own you really should, at the very least, get a guaranteed spot on the ballot even if its at a 0% probability so you are forced to use 300 influence just for the chance.
So far these are my main concerns and solutions to Bannerlord. There are other small concerns I left out as the game is still in early access so there is no point in making this post any longer than it already is but I feel this is a fair assessment after 70 hours of gameplay. Most the improvements I suggested are in the area of society, the war aspect of Bannerlord is virtually perfect in my opinion. I would like to know how you all feel about this feedback as well.
Con - Town management is one dimensional. The biggest area of improvement is the garrison. So far I see no option to train your garrisoned troops or recruit new ones overtime. Obviously this shouldn't be game breaking, but it would do a lot for the game play to train garrisoned troops to the tier of recruits you can easily buy from towns maybe tier 1-3. Also there is no real way to reserve your army while your search for new recruits to fill the garrison. If you put your current army in the garrison, they will starve because the food production will be strained and they will abandon you. The army you worked hard to level up will be gone in a matter of days, and there seems to be no way to prevent it because food production is so bad throughout the entire game I have several cities, every single one with a negative food production despite the granary and irrigation being maxed. There isn't much in the way of economy either. I haven't seen a mechanic to change your tax policies, invest in more businesses in your cities, or assign patrols to protect caravans and villagers who want to trade. In fact, I haven't even seen patrol factions like the manhunters or deserters at all, which are very essential because bandits are a massive problem at the moment.
If troop training is too overpowered, that's understandable. But we really should be able to hire patrols. Town management is a big part of the game outside of combat, and I believe it needs more attention because as it is there isn't much we can do outside very trivial policy.
Con- At the moment it seems impossible to wipe a faction out completely. Let me explain. There's been multiple factions where I have went to war with as a part of a kingdom but every time the last remaining clan member of the faction is left, he is imprisoned and never released. Actually, I can only assume, because the encyclopedia is confusing in this specific regard. Every time I check to see where the last lord of the faction is, it will say he is at an ally faction's city, which presumably means he is in the dungeon. When you go to the dungeon, he isn't there. When you check the encyclopedia, it says nothing about being captured. However, when you check the location it wont change and it will be updated daily so the last enemy lord is being seen every single day at your allied city, but it's impossible to find him. He has to be imprisoned, but where he is physically I have no idea. This has happened every single time and there seems to be no way to entirely wipe a faction out as far as I can tell.
My suggestion to fix this is to make the lord available as a prisoner and implement a mechanic where you could actually purchase prisoners from a ransom broker yourself. I think this is a good idea for multiple reasons. Maybe you could buy higher tier troops from ransom brokers than you could from recruiting them through towns and overtime those prisoners will defect to your army.
Con - There seems to be no way to improve relationship with lords outside the faction. This caused a lot of headache for some time because at first I was a mercenary for the Vlandians but I renounced my "oath" and everyone in that faction hated me. I didn't expect to be so despised, because I wasn't a Vlandian vassal, I was just a mercenary under contract. Regardless, my relation plummeted, and no matter what I did I couldn't improve my relation with the lords. Many people suggested I use influence to fix that, but you can't. You need to be in the faction to use influence. If you are disliked by a faction you wish to join, there doesn't seem to be a means to fix this without cheats. In Warband you could grind quests, which I assume you will be able to do over time as more content is added, but a mechanic to amend this should have been implemented prior to release it really is kind of game breaking. Even if you give the faction ruler all the money you have, it will not raise your relation with him a single bit. Seems odd.
My suggestion would be for the time being is to allow people the ability to buy relation with gold and gifts until their is quest content added.
Con - No battle minimap! This was such a disappointment however I have learned to live without it through manually command troops on the battlefield but for those who enjoy roleplaying as a general outside the battlefield in a tent somewhere it is quite sad there is no battle minimap to control and order troops. The battles in Bannerlord are a huge improvement over Warband and where this game shines. I have no real criticism about the combat or battles, they are spectacular. However, it would be nice to have that feature back it was so helpful!
The battle minimap was a central cornerstone of my gameplay in Warband I hope there are measures in place to implement it in Bannerlord.
Con- Fief distribution seems unfair at times. I enjoy the occasion randomness of property allocation as it is somewhat realistic you never know who a lord might rule in favor of in some cases and that specifically is not the criticism. The main problem is when you conquer a city alone and aren't even on the ballot at all. I'm sure this has happened to everybody here at least once, because this happens to me all the time. I'm not saying we should be awarded the property immediately after conquering it, but I feel the player should at least be on the ballot. There is a different if we aid in a siege. I understand it is someone else's army, there are other lords contending for it. However, if you conquer a city on your own you really should, at the very least, get a guaranteed spot on the ballot even if its at a 0% probability so you are forced to use 300 influence just for the chance.
So far these are my main concerns and solutions to Bannerlord. There are other small concerns I left out as the game is still in early access so there is no point in making this post any longer than it already is but I feel this is a fair assessment after 70 hours of gameplay. Most the improvements I suggested are in the area of society, the war aspect of Bannerlord is virtually perfect in my opinion. I would like to know how you all feel about this feedback as well.
