SP - General Deserts to be difficult to conquer and march through [Suggestion]

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

Maxim I: "The frontiers of nations are either large rivers, or chains of mountains, or deserts. Of all these obstacles to the march of an army, deserts are the most difficult to surmount; mountains come next; and large rivers hold only the third rank."​

The Why


Lore-friendliness
"The Empire even at its heights preferred not to send its legions into the army-devouring wastes." Very wise of them. Except, when we look at the gameplay, what actually is there to deter attackers from the deserts? Are there even any debuffs except for maybe party speed? Besides, from my experience the Aserai usually take a defensive stance, which again makes sense lore-wise but the fact that they can't utilize their strong geographical advantages means they're outmatched by pretty much every other faction all the time. Which leads me to..

Realism and immersion
Obviously, deserts were a logistical nightmare in real life, lack of wild-life and plants meant that armies could not live off the land, meaning they would have to rely on the supplies they brought with them which wouldn't last forever, among other things, of course. With the barrenness of important resources in deserts in mind, mostly food and water, maintaining an army's supplies would be a primary concern. This would be achived primarily through towns, productive villages, oases and rivers and groundwater wells and the like, explored in more detail below.

"Many deserts have limited amounts of noticeable landmarks and as such maneuvering through a desert can turn into a logistical nightmare. Militaries often make use of cavalry to traverse the large expanses of a harsh desert without increasing the exertion of the soldiers who are already at a higher risk of dehydration because of the high temperatures during the day."​

The How


Making foraging and living off the land nearly impossible
As mentioned before, the lack of wild-life, plants and water would make towns and villages primary targets for any invading army. This would force armies to target cities, meaning sieges, meaning even more food and supplies will have to be brought, meaning less speed + the speed debuff of deserts.
"The scarcity of water may lead to change in bases, moving from one position to another looking for a water source."

Supporting feature necessary: Addition of foraging

Adding heat exhaustion
With heat exhaustion implemented, deserts would be a nightmare to march through, since an army couldn't march for a day or two without having to stop and rest. This would also mean they would consume more water / drinkables, which are once again difficult to acquire in the desert. This would increase attrition and exhaustion greatly, resulting in a gradual decrease of morale and combat effectiveness, mechanics I explain in more detail in the link below.

Supporting feature necessary: Water, rivers and oases having a use (N/A)
Supporting feature relevant: Encampments
Supporting feature necessary: Army attrition and exhaustion mechanics

"Random" events that cause delays
This could be implemented for pretty much every other terrain as well but deserts and sand dunes especially harm mobility massively. You could have an event where some soldiers have to be rescued from being buried in sand and that could cause a delay. You could even have soldiers bitten by venomous creatures, get injured or even die if your army doesn't have a skilled enough surgeon.



These are all the ideas I came up with for the time being, the thread's open for discussion and further suggestions.


P.S. Goes without saying that the Aserai culture bonuses would decrease these negative effects by 80 or 90 percent.

 

[King Yngvar]

Good idea but perhaps instead of culture bonuses, it could be troop dependent as in only Aserai troops will have fewer negative effects. If attrition were added, marching through Sturgia during winter could also pose a similar problem for non Sturgian troops.

 

[MinhTien]

Yeah, agree, though maybe not to the extent that you propose.

Taleworlds has stated that they don't want to make the game too complicated, but they already put terrain penalties elsewhere (i.e: it's nothing too complicated), I'm kind of puzzle about the lack of apparent penalty in the desert.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

The problem with things like desert attrition in games is that it usually just boils down to always avoiding certain pieces of land, but the developers often dont have the balls to make it totally impassable to the AI. Also the deserts in this aren't big enough to justify losing men or equipment to attrition. You can go across the entire desert in a day.

I would suggest something simple where camel mounted troops get a slight speed bonus, so if all your men are on camels you can traverse the desert faster than anyone else. I think if there's too much more than this it just turns parts of the map into hurt zones with no incentive to enter them. I don't like the idea of giving the aserai flat desert bonuses either because it makes them even more one dimensional than they already are.

 

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

The problem with things like desert attrition in games is that it usually just boils down to always avoiding certain pieces of land, but the developers often dont have the balls to make it totally impassable to the AI. Also the deserts in this aren't big enough to justify losing men or equipment to attrition. You can go across the entire desert in a day.

I thought the same thing and I think making the map larger and lands of significant value increasing would help with this along with many other problems and limitations the world map possesses at its current state. I'll edit and link a thread to one such suggestion thread shortly.

I would suggest something simple where camel mounted troops get a slight speed bonus, so if all your men are on camels you can traverse the desert faster than anyone else. I think if there's too much more than this it just turns parts of the map into hurt zones with no incentive to enter them. I don't like the idea of giving the aserai flat desert bonuses either because it makes them even more one dimensional than they already are.

Eh, that suggestion for me sounds a bit too simple and uninspired.
There being no incentive to invade Aserai lands is unfortunately true, but you could fix that by making Aserai the most prosperous faction which again would be true to game lore. Like Egypt was to French economic interest, although the map once again needs to be reworked and expanded for this to be believable.
I don't think a bit of variation in faction types would make them necessarily boring or one-dimensional, quite the opposite in fact as currently all factions show pretty much the same in behaviour as each other in nearly every play trough and it feels random if anything. A trade-oriented faction is one step towards a more dynamic and interesting Calradia.

 

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

Taleworlds has stated that they don't want to make the game too complicated, but they already put terrain penalties elsewhere (i.e: it's nothing too complicated), I'm kind of puzzle about the lack of apparent penalty in the desert.

I tried to make it as simple as possible while adding some much needed depth but considering most of these features would be working in the background anyway, all this isn't very complicated.
Thinking twice about your campaigns and planning accordingly should be part of the experience, I believe. Right now leading an army into some campaign requires little to no planning or consideration other than stocking as much food as you can find and that's incredible amount of wasted potential there,don't you think?

 

[Capillati]

How water and fruits aren`t part of commodities to trade and use is beyond me... but even without them, the easiest fix would be to just have a flat war 1 on 1 for everyone, make 2 on 1 wars very rare and once they`re finished (which should also be fast, especially in the beginning stages of the game), have them be at peace for 250 days or something.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Eh, that suggestion for me sounds a bit too simple and uninspired.
There being no incentive to invade Aserai lands is unfortunately true, but you could fix that by making Aserai the most prosperous faction which again would be true to game lore.

The problem with attrition mechanics is that they are basically punishing the player for no real reason other than going into certain areas, but this is a game which expects and encourages the player to run around the map on a whim. Nobody actually plans for campaigns because there are no systems in place to encourage players to do so. You run around with all your troops all the time and the only difference between regions is a vague difference in bandit types.
I think this is fine. Warband was a very in-the-moment kind of game where you basically can't see 5 feet in front of you on the campaign map and distractions are everywhere.

Trying to add incentive variation to parts of the map would currently make little sense when simple looter chases can take you across half the map.

I don't think a bit of variation in faction types would make them necessarily boring or one-dimensional, quite the opposite in fact as currently all factions show pretty much the same in behaviour as each other in nearly every play trough and it feels random if anything. A trade-oriented faction is one step towards a more dynamic and interesting Calradia.

Variation should be highly situational and not just flat bonuses to entire mechanics, otherwise it ends up limiting playstyles even more by having one faction be "the trade faction" and another be "the siege faction" or whatever. If you're a trader in any other faction than aserai it would just ruin the experience knowing that you're missing out on bonuses.

Rise of Nations was a weird game with about 20 factions, each of which had insanely broken bonuses that made them all feel completely different. For example the Chinese could produce civilians instantly, the Iroquois couldn't produce farms but could also build anywhere, and the Lakota could steal resources by attacking buildings using their unique unit. Bannerlord is a very different game, but the same idea of faction uniqueness applies. Factions should have benefits that impact multiple playstyles, not just one.

 

[MinhTien]

I tried to make it as simple as possible while adding some much needed depth but considering most of these features would be working in the background anyway, all this isn't very complicated.
Thinking twice about your campaigns and planning accordingly should be part of the experience, I believe. Right now leading an army into some campaign requires little to no planning or consideration other than stocking as much food as you can find and that's incredible amount of wasted potential there,don't you think?

I want more in-depth interactions with the World map as well. Unfortunately people often have very different ideas about things like this, so it's hard to please everyone.

Personally, I kind of want to have to feed the Horses depend on the area you in, so steppe and grassland for most of the year = no extra food for horses, while in winter or in mountain and open desert the horses eat through your grains and other food stuff (Just realised that we lack generic vegetable, only olive and grapes, there is only one type of meat as well). It could be a good way to balance out a horse-heavy army. However, I have a feeling that this would be hard to balance and maybe more trouble than it worths. I hope we can get that eventually.

Water as a resource is in a similar position. Would love to have that, if it works well.

Definitely in favor of having Encampments. Viking Conquest had some interesting ideas that can be improved upon. I'm thinking about having a field camp that you need to build, like a siege camp but faster, where you can rest to heal more quickly, leave some troops/parties behind to take only a small group to better chase bandits, etc.. But instead of acting as a permanent garrison like VC's Hideout, the camp would only be a temporary base, if you leave the camp alone too long, troops will desert, other parties would leave and do their own thing, etc.. You could tie these mechanics to Quartermaster, Leadership and other skills. You could also utilised your companions with support/party skills to maintain your camp when you are away.

 

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

The problem with attrition mechanics is that they are basically punishing the player for no real reason other than going into certain areas, but this is a game which expects and encourages the player to run around the map on a whim.

Do you realistically expect to march an entire army through vast and hostile wasteland without forethought and not suffer any consequences?
Besides, the rule is that the larger the party the greater the effects and debuffs, taking of course into account the method of travel.

Trying to add incentive variation to parts of the map would currently make little sense when simple looter chases can take you across half the map.

Ahem

Supporting feature necessary: Army attrition and exhaustion mechanics

Nobody actually plans for campaigns because there are no systems in place to encourage players to do so.

What the **** do you think I'm suggesting?

Variation should be highly situational and not just flat bonuses to entire mechanics, otherwise it ends up limiting playstyles even more by having one faction be "the trade faction" and another be "the siege faction" or whatever. If you're a trader in any other faction than aserai it would just ruin the experience knowing that you're missing out on bonuses.

I didn't mention cultural bonuses for that. I meant that the land, the cities would be a lot more viable for commerce, more productive and prosperous, roads would be safer and what have you. Sort of like Ancient Egypt, which makes them a juicy but difficult target.

Rise of Nations was a weird game with about 20 factions, each of which had insanely broken bonuses that made them all feel completely different. For example the Chinese could produce civilians instantly, the Iroquois couldn't produce farms but could also build anywhere, and the Lakota could steal resources by attacking buildings using their unique unit. Bannerlord is a very different game, but the same idea of faction uniqueness applies. Factions should have benefits that impact multiple playstyles, not just one.

"Trade-oriented faction" and "trade faction" give very different impressions so don't distort my words.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Do you realistically expect to march an entire army through vast and hostile wasteland without forethought and not suffer any consequences?

No, but you would have to completely redesign a lot of the game to make attrition and planning even function as mechanics. Travel is basically trivial because so much of Bannerlord relies on you running across the map basically every day. I'm not inherently opposed to making deserts harder to traverse, but in the current state of bannerlord it would be the equivalent of adding a crawling section to a sonic game.

Here is a list of things you would basically have to remove from the game to make campaign resource planning work:
- Chasing parties: there would have to be something in place to practically guarantee you can catch anyone you chase, otherwise there would have to be something to limit how far you can go.
- Fetch quests would have to be removed. Most quests would have to be something you do very locally.
- Trade would have to be reworked so that you tend to run a smaller number of routes more often, so that the player isn't expected to go to every city to find deals or chase discounts.
- Recruitment in one settlement would have to be viable.
- Speed of travel would have to be reduced significantly.
- The AI would have to be a lot less idiotic to make sure that it catches armies before they siege stuff, rather than just waiting for the AI to start attacking and then running (very slowly) to meet them.
- The economy would have to be balanced for long campaigns since lack of food would completely gimp the player's ability to move.
- Pathfinding would have to be recoded in order for the AI to avoid areas it might take attrition in.

As I said I'm not inherently opposed to making the game like this but all these mechanical changes need to be considered when making such a drastic change to the way the player interacts with the world. Otherwise a mechanic where you have to stock up on food for a long journey counters most of the stuff that's currently in the game.

"Trade-oriented faction" and "trade faction" give very different impressions so don't distort my words.

Trade is a core mechanic, and if you make one faction even marginally better at trade using flat bonuses, it becomes "the trade faction" in the player's eyes. In warband for example the nords are "the melee faction" even though the unit differences between huscarls and other top tier infantry are fairly marginal in the grand scheme of things. You could potentially do a melee build as the Sarranids for example, but the game basically discourages you from doing this, which narrows the amount of things you can do with your character. Faction balance should be about making different factions play differently rather than just making them better at one core mechanic or the other.

 

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

No, but you would have to completely redesign a lot of the game to make attrition and planning even function as mechanics.

What sophisticated, in-depth system does the game already offer that you would have to replace to make room for these suggested mechanics? There plain and simply isn't one, but there should be and that's what I'm suggesting. It would take work, maybe redesigning and balancing some already existing features, but if that's going to be a problem then why in hell are there even devs in the first place.

- Chasing parties: there would have to be something in place to practically guarantee you can catch anyone you chase, otherwise there would have to be something to limit how far you can go.

What? And why?

- Fetch quests would have to be removed. Most quests would have to be something you do very locally.

Again, why? Some peasant expecting a random traveller to deliver an animal herd across the Calradian continent* in a week is in any way signifcant to the enjoyment of the game or immersion, or lore, or anything, really? I can think of a dozen alternatives or alterations to this quest in a matter of seconds.

*This word should have been more impactful but just taking into account the size and the number of settlements and cultures in Calradia it's a damn joke.

- Trade would have to be reworked so that you tend to run a smaller number of routes more often, so that the player isn't expected to go to every city to find deals or chase discounts.

Why?

- Recruitment in one settlement would have to be viable.

WHY? HOW IS THAT RELEVANT?

- Speed of travel would have to be reduced significantly.

Either that or just expand the map size, same effect for the most part but expanding the map size, reworking the map in general would help much more in other departments as well.

- The AI would have to be a lot less idiotic...

Sounds good to me.

- The economy would have to be balanced for long campaigns since lack of food would completely gimp the player's ability to move.

Not sure how that equals balancing anything other than numbers but more food in general, yes.

- Pathfinding would have to be recoded in order for the AI to avoid areas it might take attrition in.

That doesn't sound very difficult to do nor would it require a complete overhaul. There have already been suggestions of roads and such so pathfinding in general could use an improvement along with said suggestions and features.

As I said I'm not inherently opposed to making the game like this but all these mechanical changes need to be considered when making such a drastic change to the way the player interacts with the world.

When a game is so drastically lacking in content, ingenuity and a general sense of logic, yes, there need to be drastic changes and improvements made to make up for whatever this mess of logical errors and emptiness is.

Otherwise a mechanic where you have to stock up on food for a long journey counters most of the stuff that's currently in the game.

Such as what?
Only thing I can think of is foraging which isn't in the game [yet] so what the hell?

Trade is a core mechanic, and if you make one faction even marginally better at trade using flat bonuses, it becomes "the trade faction" in the player's eyes. In warband for example the nords are "the melee faction" even though the unit differences between huscarls and other top tier infantry are fairly marginal in the grand scheme of things. You could potentially do a melee build as the Sarranids for example, but the game basically discourages you from doing this, which narrows the amount of things you can do with your character. Faction balance should be about making different factions play differently rather than just making them better at one core mechanic or the other.

I am quite frankly having difficulties grasping your way of thinking, or it could be that you didn't phrase this text very well. I don't even know where to start, can you give more specific and understandable examples?

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

I think you're misunderstanding why I listed those mechanics. I don't necessarily like them, in fact most of them are garbage, but they're just something to keep in mind when adding something which has so much impact in the rest of the game. Perhaps I should have put the bit about reducing speed first as that's what impacts the rest of the mechanics so drastically, but reading your replies makes me feel like you think I think something which I never said.

The reason I'm saying all this is because attrition and supply is a system I tried to implement a few years ago when overhauling warband. I reduced travel speed by a lot, removed all of the quests, completely overhauled recruitment, campaign AI, the economy and a billion other things to try and turn warband into a better simulation, but I still couldn't really justify expecting the player to stock up every few days, and nothing happened in the empty areas of the map anyway so nobody traversed them. I even made it automatic, but then I had to make sure that the actual traversible areas of the map had towns close enough for there to be enough supply.

This is the reason why a lot of people hate survival games so much, because the idea of having food and water be depletable resources sounds fun in theory, but the reality is that unless your game is centred around the idea of resource management (bannerlord is not), or you can somehow make resource gathering part of the core mechanics (if bannerlord was a farming game first and a combat sim second), it's just going to boil down to a regular annoyance for most players.

If you've ever played Kenshi (which shares a lot or mechanics with mount and blade) your hunger depletes slowly enough that you as an individual could travel across the entire 100km continent on an empty stomach, but if you have an army of 40 guys you have to stop off every few towns to get food. The difference in Kenshi is that most of the game is about farming, hunting or stealing food and the combat comes second. Your first 2-3 hours are about getting something to eat while running away from anyone who'll fight you.
Kenshi also has regional attrition, by the way.

Meanwhile in bannerlord, what I've seen most players doing is either seeing the "you're running out of food!" notification and then stocking up on bread and forgetting about it for another 5 days, or just buying a bunch of food whenever they go to sell their crap in a town. This isn't just player ignorance: the game design has encouraged them not to care about supplies. Food in towns is plentiful and you can go across the entire map without running out. This is fine, that's not the focus of the game. But then if you suddenly include an area where supplies run out faster and you can't live off the land, it's going to be a completely different pace to what the rest of the game expects, and this isn't a good thing in a nonlinear game. You're just going to make players avoid that area entirely, or get confused as to why theyre running out of food even if you have a big "THIS IS THE DESERT" sign in it. Again, this isn't player ignorance. Cohesive, well designed games don't require this kind of blatant signposting.

Trade is a core mechanic, and if you make one faction even marginally better at trade using flat bonuses, it becomes "the trade faction" in the player's eyes. In warband for example the nords are "the melee faction" even though the unit differences between huscarls and other top tier infantry are fairly marginal in the grand scheme of things. You could potentially do a melee build as the Sarranids for example, but the game basically discourages you from doing this, which narrows the amount of things you can do with your character. Faction balance should be about making different factions play differently rather than just making them better at one core mechanic or the other.

I am quite frankly having difficulties grasping your way of thinking, or it could be that you didn't phrase this text very well. I don't even know where to start, can you give more specific and understandable examples?

A core mechanic is a repeatable, versatile task that the rest of the game is built around. In Minecraft this is something like placing blocks, crafting or hitting entities. Combine these tasks in different ways and you have 90% of the game. In Bannerlord these are melee combat, trading and campaign map movement. Typically if a game has factions or classes, it's a bad idea to make core mechanics flatly better or worse for some factions, because you are nerfing one of the core features your game is designed around.

In Empire: Total War, they implemented tech trees for different factions. However there was one tech (Fire By Rank) which made you better at the core mechanic of the game: shooting muskets. If you rushed this tech, you were so good at shooting that all the other mechanics built around shooting became easier as well, and suddenly half the game became trivial. In later Total War games they made sure that the techs only impacted non-core mechanics, for example you might get new weapons and abilities, but you would never get a flat bonus to strength (well you would, but it was like +4% each time, which is also really really bad level scaling crap but I won't go into that).

This is what I mean. So many things are reliant on trading that if you just make it better or worse for one faction, much of the rest of the game becomes either impossible or trivially easy.

 

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

I think you're misunderstanding why I listed those mechanics. I don't necessarily like them, in fact most of them are garbage, but they're just something to keep in mind when adding something which has so much impact in the rest of the game. Perhaps I should have put the bit about reducing speed first as that's what impacts the rest of the mechanics so drastically, but reading your replies makes me feel like you think I think something which I never said.

The reason I'm saying all this is because attrition and supply is a system I tried to implement a few years ago when overhauling warband. I reduced travel speed by a lot, removed all of the quests, completely overhauled recruitment, campaign AI, the economy and a billion other things to try and turn warband into a better simulation, but I still couldn't really justify expecting the player to stock up every few days, and nothing happened in the empty areas of the map anyway so nobody traversed them. I even made it automatic, but then I had to make sure that the actual traversible areas of the map had towns close enough for there to be enough supply.

Expanding the map would also mean increasing the number of settlements and how often they appear, don't you think?
Those stuff to keep in mind are for the developers to consider since they are the ones that know their game and development the best, I made my suggestion. It takes careful consideration and work to implement mechanics in the game, I expected as such.

This is the reason why a lot of people hate survival games so much, because the idea of having food and water be depletable resources sounds fun in theory, but the reality is that unless your game is centred around the idea of resource management (bannerlord is not), or you can somehow make resource gathering part of the core mechanics (if bannerlord was a farming game first and a combat sim second), it's just going to boil down to a regular annoyance for most players.

If micromanagement as simple as clicking on a water resource, or setting up a foraging party in less than 15 seconds bothers anyone the solution is simple, add a "dumbed down" version of the game which is basically what we have now. No depth, no planning or consideration needed due to lack of consequences and incentives to do so, little to no- maybe even less features than Warband, it's perfect. Some people even like it. If you're one of them, great, but I didn't pay half 50 Euros for what is practically a visually -ahem- """improved""" version of Warband.
And what part of me saying this would only be a signficant annoyance for LARGER ARMIES do you not understand? They are pretty much solely assembled in times of war, a defense or an offensive campaign. You don't feel a difference leading a band of 40 men to an army of 500 and that to me doesn't feel right. Leading such armies simply feels like an annoyance because the only way you can feed them is with the food you buy / pillage from the few settlements you happen to pass through and by the time you've arrived at the next settlement half your army has already deserted due to starvation. This simply isn't an enjoyable, immersive and captivating experience.

If you've ever played Kenshi (which shares a lot or mechanics with mount and blade) your hunger depletes slowly enough that you as an individual could travel across the entire 100km continent on an empty stomach, but if you have an army of 40 guys you have to stop off every few towns to get food. The difference in Kenshi is that most of the game is about farming, hunting or stealing food and the combat comes second. Your first 2-3 hours are about getting something to eat while running away from anyone who'll fight you.
Kenshi also has regional attrition, by the way.

Meanwhile in bannerlord, what I've seen most players doing is either seeing the "you're running out of food!" notification and then stocking up on bread and forgetting about it for another 5 days, or just buying a bunch of food whenever they go to sell their crap in a town. This isn't just player ignorance: the game design has encouraged them not to care about supplies. Food in towns is plentiful and you can go across the entire map without running out. This is fine, that's not the focus of the game. But then if you suddenly include an area where supplies run out faster and you can't live off the land, it's going to be a completely different pace to what the rest of the game expects, and this isn't a good thing in a nonlinear game. You're just going to make players avoid that area entirely, or get confused as to why theyre running out of food even if you have a big "THIS IS THE DESERT" sign in it. Again, this isn't player ignorance. Cohesive, well designed games don't require this kind of blatant signposting.

I'm not saying change the game mechanics for deserts alone,specifically, it needs a lot of supporting features (some of which are already linked) to make it work properly otherwise as you've stated it will just feel out of place and cause confusion and further frustration. Of course you don't present entirely new mechanics once the player has simply entered different terrain. For example:

But then if you suddenly include an area where supplies run out faster and you can't live off the land

You already can't at the moment because it's not an implemented feature.. yet, at least. See what I mean?

You're just going to make players avoid that area entirely, or get confused as to why theyre running out of food

Once again with the rest of the game being so bare-boned and lacking any depth yes that would feel out place. But that would not be the state of the game when more detailed and in-depth mechanics such as the one I'm suggesting here are added to the game.
Once we're past what feels like early alpha you can have pop-up tutorial messages once you enter a snowy terrain or desert giving the player a very brief description, sort of like the ones in Attila, which is already a lot more helpful than anything else that acts as tutorial rn.

A core mechanic is a repeatable, versatile task that the rest of the game is built around. In Minecraft this is something like placing blocks, crafting or hitting entities. Combine these tasks in different ways and you have 90% of the game. In Bannerlord these are melee combat, trading and campaign map movement. Typically if a game has factions or classes, it's a bad idea to make core mechanics flatly better or worse for some factions, because you are nerfing one of the core features your game is designed around.

Not what I asked but whatever.

This is what I mean. So many things are reliant on trading that if you just make it better or worse for one faction, much of the rest of the game becomes either impossible or trivially easy.

Are so many things really extremely reliant on trading as the game currently stands? I don't know **** about game development or coding so I wouldn't know what's going on with the system in the background but it feels nothing like it having a significant impact at all, maybe food stocks, but that's half-broken anyway I couldn't tell. No clue as to what makes you think a slight economical advantage for one faction would make all others completely useless in trade. Did Nords make every other faction's infantry obsolete?

 

[Apocal]

No clue as to what makes you think a slight economical advantage for one faction would make all others completely useless in trade. Did Nords make every other faction's infantry obsolete?

He didn't say they would be completely useless. He said the opposite, that Nord T6 infantry (the only T6 units in the game) were only marginally better than other faction's infantry, but Nords were still considered the infantry faction. An issue of player perception, in other words -- "I could've been an Aserai trader and gotten more out of this playthrough/build..."

I don't necessarily agree (or disagree) with him.

But to me it seems that any attempt to force players into something like planning out pre-modern foraging logistics (which were based upon pillaging people, not so much the land) is going to run into an issue that logistical problems are not straight-forward for the AI to deal with. A person knows that if their army consumes (rando numbers) 100 units of food daily, it will take 5 days to traverse a food-less attrition zone to the next town and their army moves fast enough to cover that in 4 days, the only way to justify a day spent in pursuit of an enemy army is if that enemy army will reliably pay out at least 100 units of food. Otherwise they'll start to starve and be worse off overall.

Bannerlord's AI currently isn't that smart. It isn't even always smart enough to stock up on enough food to make it to its objective -- let alone time spent accomplishing that objective.

But maybe that is the sort of thing Aserai and Sturgia need to be viable.

 

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

He didn't say they would be completely useless. He said the opposite, that Nord T6 infantry (the only T6 units in the game) were only marginally better than other faction's infantry, but Nords were still considered the infantry faction. An issue of player perception, in other words -- "I could've been an Aserai trader and gotten more out of this playthrough/build..."

I dont see anything necessarily bad about that. Except I didn't say the trade bonuses would be in the form of cultural bonuses, I said that the cities would be a lot more prosperous which would make trading viable. Trade bonuses should depend on character background of course.
And... A trader should go where trade is most profitable, right? Isn't that the point?

Bannerlord's AI currently isn't that smart. It isn't even always smart enough to stock up on enough food to make it to its objective -- let alone time spent accomplishing that objective.

I mean, yeah? AI being somewhat smarter is what we all want innit? Which is why I keep mentioning key "supporting features" as much as possible, as this feature on its own will not work very well at all.

 

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

bump.

 

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

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