NLCRich
Squire
yep they end up with a lot of horses, doesn't make sense. Also, their horse units are not that good... They don't seem to last in my cavalry very long.
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Development Priorities
- Thread starter Sidrath
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Squire
TheShermanator
Sergeant
On the OP topic: TaleWorlds, IMHO, should prioritize development design towards (1) refining core balance issues, (2) adding core features that are still missing, and (3) modding tools. In short, TW is uniquely situated to address core balance and adding basic game mechanics still missing, and modding tools will allow the community to address all of the other fluff and preference issues. Devs should improve the underlying game design infrastructure - and let all of the enterprising modders out there fill in the gaps.
I'm concerned that, when I see player proposals on development priorities, it still seems to be mostly little preference things that annoy them. E.g. archers OP, Khuzaits OP, better armor needed, etc., etc. Mods, especially once the good modding tools come out, can fix most of that. And they can fix all of that based on individual player preference, which of course varies. Core campaign balance and missing basic campaign features (and the balance related to those added features), however, are much harder for mods to do well. That's where TW needs to step up. So when I see people demanding quick fixes on the little stuff, and then these TW patches touting the hot new Battanian armor or whatever with the core stuff still very unfinished... I'm concerned about dev priority management.
[ "Core balance issues": E.g. food management, village growth rates, prosperity to food relationships, AI military snowballing, optimizing AI party and army behavior, player influence/gold snowballing, tight margins on passive income vs. fat income from enemy party loot + ransom farming, etc.]
["Adding core features that are still missing": castle management, city management, kingdom management, robust 'relations' management, robust diplomacy, etc., etc. Basically, fleshing out the game after the party management stage of the game, which is of course great.]
I'm concerned that, when I see player proposals on development priorities, it still seems to be mostly little preference things that annoy them. E.g. archers OP, Khuzaits OP, better armor needed, etc., etc. Mods, especially once the good modding tools come out, can fix most of that. And they can fix all of that based on individual player preference, which of course varies. Core campaign balance and missing basic campaign features (and the balance related to those added features), however, are much harder for mods to do well. That's where TW needs to step up. So when I see people demanding quick fixes on the little stuff, and then these TW patches touting the hot new Battanian armor or whatever with the core stuff still very unfinished... I'm concerned about dev priority management.
[ "Core balance issues": E.g. food management, village growth rates, prosperity to food relationships, AI military snowballing, optimizing AI party and army behavior, player influence/gold snowballing, tight margins on passive income vs. fat income from enemy party loot + ransom farming, etc.]
["Adding core features that are still missing": castle management, city management, kingdom management, robust 'relations' management, robust diplomacy, etc., etc. Basically, fleshing out the game after the party management stage of the game, which is of course great.]
I would be really interested what this "discovered efficient way" of yours means. Not because I don't want to play 800 hours to figure it out. Just because maybe your alternative efficient way would be something I would not play anyway. For example:
1. Killing trillions of looters...
2. Do repeatedly the same quests...
I am +1 for not taking away smithing income until there are other meaningful possibilities for income (note, I don't do save-cheating to unlock parts).
I tried many alternative ways to get some meaningful income in early game but it always ended up with crafting/selling 2H swords. But to be fair I am not talking about 100k javelins. In most cases it's 600-2k swords before clan 1 and at clan level 1-2 it's 5-25k for 2H swords (smithing level 100).
I myself would recommend to balance this to max 5k weapons until clan level 3 but only if the other aspects of the game are fixed. It would be also nice if the crafted weapons could be used for troop upgrades but that is probably too much to ask.
Workshops, caravans - in early game it's out of scope. To have 13-15k is nearly impossible and if you somehow get it, your caravans got captured and workshop produces 30-60 denars if you are lucky. Trading with goods does not work either and after some point its boring as hell (running up and down with goods).
10 looters drop like 350 denars worth of loot. Killing off actual bandits usually clears 700-1000 denars in a single fight. 15K denars in the early game is not nearly impossible. Just get 20 recruits and go beat up bandits. Or get enough seed money (through killing looters/bandits) to buy desert horses around Askar and haul them up to Vlandia to sell for twice the buying price.
And let's not forget Tablut, easy 500 golds for each town you visit.
For just to test this quickly - I started new campaign. Some data:
1. 20 party against 13 looters - looted 150 denars ( 50 denars on wages / 2days)
2. 20 party against 10 looters - looted 230 denars ( 100 denars on wages / 2days)
3. 20 party against 13 looters - looted 250 denars ( 100 denars on wages / 2days)
4. 20 party against 27 looters - looted 500 denars ( 108 denars on wages / 2days)
Some more expenses on food, upgrade, recruit... Lets say I have 700 after 4 looter groups killed. My estimate is I need to kill around 80 looter groups to get 14k.
Yet, you made me curious about this, so I will collect exact data on loots expenses tomorrow until the point I get 15k for caravan or workshop (one). I will save and test both how much they will produce.
HalfMetalJacket
Knight
Fian Champion as in the specific tier 6 unit. Turning them into common troops would mean losing them in particular. For all the justified complaints about how OP archers currently are, I still love the idea of a super elite archer unit, and I'd hate if they went away.
Also, I disagree with the idea that Cataphracts should be the absolute best shock cavalry. One of Vlandia's strengths is meant to be their shock cavalry, so if anything their Banner Knight ought to be the best, at least in terms of just hammering people. In practice they're somewhat more devastating than other lancers at bullying infantry, just not in any appreciable way seeing that they all suck right now. In my mind, cataphracts should bring extremely heavy armour and a very long lance to the table. Make them stand out as the tankiest unit, if less potent on the offence.
And considering how badly the Empire powercreeps on almost everything with their roster, I don't want to have the best shock cavalry on top of that.
All, that aside, I don't see the issue with an expanded noble tree. Of course it's not a huge priority, and I'd rather devs spend their time refining the combat AI and equipment first. But with more noble troops we can actually please more people.
You're including selling the loot, right?
My typical early game is going from tournament to tournament to gear up and get funds, at the very start I'll do this with no one else in my party until i get up to sturgia (2-6 tournaments on the way), once i get up there i quest and do tournaments until i get close to clan tier 1. Once i get close I've normally gained over 15k from tournaments (selling gear i dont want, tourny rewards can sell from 500-1500, plus the money you get from betting and winning) and quests, all the while i keep around 20 sturgian troops that i hold at tier 3 to keep party costs sub 100. I then go recruit my first companion which is a trader if one is available. Once I get them I'll set them up as a 15k caravan in Aserai territory (starting at one of the cheap horse towns is always profitable).I can typically get that done in around 20 in game days. I almost never lose this first caravan and I have positive income going forward from that point. Once a second trader spawns I will make another caravan and get as many out as possible. Meanwhile i find out who pays the most for mercenaries and join them. Now that a faction only stays at war with 1 other faction, i dont have to recycle my caravans as much so they definitely make more over their lifetime. I generally keep at least 1 caravan per party i have going, and I do my best to vassalize as a faction is about to take a town i want, to ensure its given to me with the no settlement bonus. From that point its just balancing your troops size and quality to fit your general income. I normally don't invest in workshops until i have a base passive income from caravans. Once all this gets set up money just sits in the millions for me and is never a problem again. When caravans die, I use the governor exploit to get them back into my party and send them back out as 22k caravans which tend to survive longer. Workshops are essentially a 15k village and if you can hold on to them long enough, it's completely worth it. I often view them as offsetting my garrison costs.
In my current campaign i started after the most recent hotfix, this is going really well for me.
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CrazyElf
Sergeant
I'm in agreement that archers are in need of major changes.
My big complaint though is not so much archers are potent against everything as much as it is that as is, armor doesn't really offer much of an advantage.
Facing armored units should encouraged the use of fewer archers and swords, but more blunt weapons (think pollaxes and halberds, which were developed heavily because of armor becoming more prevalent).
My big complaint though is not so much archers are potent against everything as much as it is that as is, armor doesn't really offer much of an advantage.
Facing armored units should encouraged the use of fewer archers and swords, but more blunt weapons (think pollaxes and halberds, which were developed heavily because of armor becoming more prevalent).
Mushbeast
Knight at Arms
I especially like that power-draw mechanic you've described. It'd be awesome to see (weaker) arrows dinking off heavily-armored units to little to no effect, maybe only at long ranges or something. It'd really make them stand out as 'heavy infantry' rather than the 'slightly-heavier-infantry' that it feels like to me at the moment. Should also allow for more manoeuvres around the map.
They did say they would be working on armor systems at some point, possibly even in this thread. Hopefully they add something along those lines!
The value of the loot is what makes you money not the cash you get from killing them.
HalfMetalJacket
Knight
That sort of clashes with the overall late antiquity sort of vibe(?) that they're going for. But then again, they have units with glaives, voulges and rhomphaias around, so meh.
Building up is easy you just need to be reasonable about your objectives. If you over recruit (hard to since you're capped initially) for no good reason then you'll be slow and bleed money. Limit yourself to about 10 good men until you're ready to build a real 50 man force to defeat other lords. Then it's all in, you gotta win and keep winning. A bit of it can be luck (or something ) as sometimes there great quests everywhere in a new game. sometimes there's nothin. But there's always looters and bandits and tournaments! Tournaments are very easy now too. In the Imperial areas the tournaments have a lot of sword and shield fights which are very easy even on a fresh dude. Quest like train the troops are very giving for the low risk/time if you find them! If you're good at horse archery you can solo minor factions like embers of the flame and hidden hand too. If you catch them coming out of a town you can easily drag all the prisoners back in and sell them!
My game I: do tutorial (because beta want to test it), go to nearest town and sell unwanted civilian gear and swords, buy better horse and more arrows, circle around looking for "deliver the horses", beat any bandits (but forest) or weak minor faction I can, steal the horses, do any other good quest, continue as I make my way east, do tournaments, even if I don't bet the item is still something. Very easy to rack up 10-15k, I only recruit from prisoners too. Now with little cash I select a spouse and go get married, this is good to do before you have a big party,spouse will usually have some un-wanted but expensive stuff that will double or more what you paid for marriage. Now I rest in a town and creaet and hier, then rescue brother. Now it's time to make more of a party, though often I've collected some good stuff already. With brother as stewart I can go up to 80 men if I want even with low clan rank. I don't like being a vassal so I just attack whatever clan is in a lot of wars (usually khuzait) and bring in big bucks. If you're a vassal be aware wars can end and start at inconvenient times, so sell those lord asap! Once you can beat lords money is a non-issue, though I do worry if you joined a peaceful faction.
During the hundred Years war, England shattered massive formations of heavy cavalry with their introduction to welsh longbows. I can think of numerous battles where large groups of longbows literally won the day almost entirely on their own merit.
Which ones?
Because Agincourt was the biggest and best known and even then it came down to a drawn-out melee between English and French men-at-arms. Crecy was the next biggest, but the longbow's biggest success there was beating Genoese crossbowmen.
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+ it was raining and the ground turned to mud.
Longbows could only penetrate the armor in the right angle so the knights need to be close enough to the archers. The longbows didn´t win the battle alone, it was the whole tactic england used.
First of all, thanks for all your responses. I will start a new 1.5.2 campaign end will try to explore these other game-play approaches.
1. Winning tournaments against elite, heavily armored units and lords with super armors&skills is kind a same exploit to me as crafting/selling swords. Especially with lack of your player skills/armor/weapon at the beginning. Another thing is, in easy/veteran and challenging difficulties it's not so easy to win those fights. Practice fight is also an exploit if you want to have regular income (200), i.e. hiding until they kill each other and win the practice fight.
2. Getting few specific trader-companions which will trade in only specific location (Aserai) is also kind of bugged. Especially with so few spawns. It would be acceptable for me if I could hire any companion and train him/her to have good trader skills. Also I do not like to be limited to one faction location. It's only my opinion but it should not be limited geographically to one faction. This is also kind of bug/exploit to me (especially with governor exploit).
3. Regarding looter-killer even with those numbers of looter-kill incomes it's too much looters to kill. Not to mention this approach requires continuation with strategy 2 (caravans). So if strategy 2 does not fix the money issue you will need to kill even more looters (until vassal and fiefs).
You are right about the upgraded units, I have the tendency to upgrade them as soon as available. I don't know I just kinda hate that little yellow icon there
But usually this upgrade approach is intentional for later game stage - to be able to defeat enemy parties with higher numbers. That brings lot of renown and enables rapid clan progression.
Yes. Selling loot and ransom prisoners too. However I did not calculate the plundered gold which seems to be giving 100-200 more denars. Unfortunately those messages still disappear too quickly and there is no record about them.
I have few comments on this:My typical early game is going from tournament to tournament to gear up and get funds, at the very start I'll do this with no one else in my party until i get up to sturgia (2-6 tournaments on the way), once i get up there i quest and do tournaments until i get close to clan tier 1. Once i get close I've normally gained over 15k from tournaments (selling gear i dont want, tourny rewards can sell from 500-1500, plus the money you get from betting and winning) and quests, all the while i keep around 20 sturgian troops that i hold at tier 3 to keep party costs sub 100. I then go recruit my first companion which is a trader if one is available. Once I get them I'll set them up as a 15k caravan in Aserai territory (starting at one of the cheap horse towns is always profitable).I can typically get that done in around 20 in game days. I almost never lose this first caravan and I have positive income going forward from that point. Once a second trader spawns I will make another caravan and get as many out as possible. Meanwhile i find out who pays the most for mercenaries and join them. Now that a faction only stays at war with 1 other faction, i dont have to recycle my caravans as much so they definitely make more over their lifetime. I generally keep at least 1 caravan per party i have going, and I do my best to vassalize as a faction is about to take a town i want, to ensure its given to me with the no settlement bonus. From that point its just balancing your troops size and quality to fit your general income. I normally don't invest in workshops until i have a base passive income from caravans. Once all this gets set up money just sits in the millions for me and is never a problem again. When caravans die, I use the governor exploit to get them back into my party and send them back out as 22k caravans which tend to survive longer. Workshops are essentially a 15k village and if you can hold on to them long enough, it's completely worth it. I often view them as offsetting my garrison costs.
In my current campaign i started after the most recent hotfix, this is going really well for me.You can see at clan tier 1 i have 1 caravan out and 24k with a positive income from the first caravan. I'm just waiting on a new trader to spawn before i send a second one out.
1. Winning tournaments against elite, heavily armored units and lords with super armors&skills is kind a same exploit to me as crafting/selling swords. Especially with lack of your player skills/armor/weapon at the beginning. Another thing is, in easy/veteran and challenging difficulties it's not so easy to win those fights. Practice fight is also an exploit if you want to have regular income (200), i.e. hiding until they kill each other and win the practice fight.
2. Getting few specific trader-companions which will trade in only specific location (Aserai) is also kind of bugged. Especially with so few spawns. It would be acceptable for me if I could hire any companion and train him/her to have good trader skills. Also I do not like to be limited to one faction location. It's only my opinion but it should not be limited geographically to one faction. This is also kind of bug/exploit to me (especially with governor exploit).
3. Regarding looter-killer even with those numbers of looter-kill incomes it's too much looters to kill. Not to mention this approach requires continuation with strategy 2 (caravans). So if strategy 2 does not fix the money issue you will need to kill even more looters (until vassal and fiefs).
You are right about the upgraded units, I have the tendency to upgrade them as soon as available. I don't know I just kinda hate that little yellow icon there
But usually this upgrade approach is intentional for later game stage - to be able to defeat enemy parties with higher numbers. That brings lot of renown and enables rapid clan progression.
redmark
Squire
Other companion types can make decent traders and level up their trade skill pretty quickly. There's some luck (or save-scumming) involved in getting ones with 3+ SOC, but the scouting-wanderer-of the wastes/hills or roguery types seem to fit quite often. But the spicevendors/swift traders will trade anywhere, regardless of their culture.
After the initial looter stage, my focus are large looter parties, bandits and quests - particularly caravan ambush and extortion by deserters. Train troops gives a significant financial reward if you don't lose too many (give the borrowed troops their own formation number, or combine with recruits, and run them against looters).
With bandit hideouts, you can get three quests related to it active in parallel, all with decent rewards in addition to the prisoners and loot on offer - village bandit hideout quest, village 'help with outlaws' (and each group of bandits within the hideout counts, as well as wandering groups of bandits and looters who don't run away from you), and a town 'associate kidnapped by bounty hunters' (which has a very short timeout, so accept this one last; just about enough time for two attacks with a day or two rest in between if you need to weaken the hideout with the first attack).
And there is legitimate money to be made from normal smithing, without making mega javelins. Basic rule of thumb is build up skills on smelting and refining, then don't make anything beyond your skill level (damage/value should be nerfed much more than the current penalties do); and if you really want to not take advantage, self-impose a restriction that you can't just put all the skill points into the highest level blade/axehead etc you can manage and use level 1 components elsewhere.
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Speaking of how to make money in the early game; hopefully TWs reintroduces their idea of criminal enterprises they demonstrated in the PC Gamer March 2016 gameplay.
If I rememver correctly they were planning on alloying the player to install their own troops as criminal gangs in cities as a way to make income in the early game
If I rememver correctly they were planning on alloying the player to install their own troops as criminal gangs in cities as a way to make income in the early game
