It's just a infinite giant meatgrinder.
Yes, be the butcher or the burgers. But if my cows get butchered it's a huge time sink, both IRL and in campaign time, but AI uses a magic hat trick.
Big battles should never happen on those small maps where both armies spawn like 300m away from each other.
Absolutely. I feel like there is some oversight in TW's strategy idea, like they really want the parties to square up against each other, when really the player
should do all they can to out maneuver and hit 1 half or less of the enemy with their full force. But everything, including the troops AI works against this.
Well, no matter how big the batttle is, every lord and their fiefs should get a "recruiting block". Less time for winners ofc.
Maybe also a "moral influence" to the kingdom with effects on declaring war and things like that
Agreed. The "want-money-check-power" for war/peace only works to keep AI in stalemate with each other. The peace is worthless without a agreed time of peace, with negotiations to either prolong it or end it with payment adjustments. Just letting the AI rebuild to 100% so they can attack you again is never worth it. As for their recruitment, they just get too much too easily, even with many lost fiefs. Having some other effect reduce their recruitment, such as moral of the people going down would help this.
I think a system for "manpower" should be added, where eventually after several such defeats the kingdom, be it AI or player-led simply doesn't have any more soldiers to muster to fight. The current recruiting system should theoretically allow this, but volunteers respawn so quickly, and the fact that you can recruit from neutral villages makes this meaningless.
Agreed. I don't even know how the AI does it TBH. Going form a near full faction, down to 1 town and a castle, the Aserai continue to pump our armies at near the same rate. Only capturing all non-minor lords actually stops them. There may in fact be less recruits and less power, but it's not enough to matter. They constantly raise enough that it must be answered by the player and that's all that matters.
If armiess were rarer and troop party sizes smaller it'd really add some excitement in going to battle with a big force.
Bigger battles sound great on paper, but their outcome needs to matter and the player should have some influence on said outcome.
Agreed. It should be a big event and have big consequence, not the daily norm
Why not have the most influential clan/ruler adopt the title, and, given much preperation, can assemble a mighty army not meant to just take a castle/town and leave, but go on an extended campaign, maybe even deep into enemy territory? It could be major shift from the regular border wars that happen time after time.
This would be good! I like the idea of a campaign and not endless attempted sieges with a 1/5 success rate. It would be cool if as the ruler we could offer some reward or use influence to...influence the target of the marshal too.
Giant armies were a need for game, i wouldn't say no to the even bigger parties and battle size
I think ideally, they could be great, but in the current game and all realistically plausible updates I think TW might make, I think the problems I tried to describe bring them down to an annoyance. I know full well larger (and even larger) battles where in high demand and it is one of the only additions over warband. For me the nail in the coffin was a thread where IIRC Callum responded to a Mod of Testudo formation saying something like the advanced formations and tactics being too much for the base game. This just laid it out to me that they want a big messy brawl and not actual tactics and player control that would IMO make large battles enjoyable.
Would be cool if this could be tied to the Battle Terrain System, so in smaller Maps only limited parts of your Army can spawn there roundwise like in Warband.
Agreed. I actually like the continue battles in warband. This was much better to deal with then continuing waves of reinforcements forever.
Exactly. And sad thing is, that TW actually made this worse during the EA, as they increased the number of noble recruits available in villages. So not only do you have no trouble replenishing your armies in general, you can just as easily do so for the most powerful units in the game.
This is true but I will say it favors the defeated more then the aggressor. For instance, although I do have easy access to Khuzait noble troops both going back to my lands or my primary garrison takes so long that it's always a worse Idea then staying in a the war area to stop armies and so my forces slowly dwindle and mutate while the enemy just keeps comming. On the other hand I am very annoyed by the amount of aserai nobles, both in the enemy and in my recruits. I want the the normal recruits but I'm getting way more nobles!
Reducing party sizes a bit could also work. Adding some kind of worn out mechanic or a kind of stamina to the kingdoms for war activities. This also could lead more frequency kingdoms seeking peace rather than their berserk behaviour.
I would like it if you could actually subjugate another faction. Instead of just payments until they feel like attacking you, make them actually swear loyalty to you in extreme situations like having their entire force prisoner and such. Or a way to support a ruined faction in it warfare against another action. We already do this on accident by paying peace to ruined factions, but doing this deliberately would be fun.
o as of now, the large battles are what keeps us occupied with the lack of content elsewhere. If it's fewer, but more impactful, battles that you want, first we must address what the alternative is.
This is true. The large frequent battles also pull the player into a cycle of dependency on war. The player needs a powerful force to content with armies but then in peace time the expense is overwhelming to many. So they become dependent on constant wars just to stay afloat. Of course, the lack of meaningful side content also motivates to dependence on war.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe the AI still gets additional recruitment slots from settlements, spawns already with a fair few troops, gets a daily troop XP bonus so they can upgrade faster, don't have to have the horses when they upgrade cavalry troops like the player does, and possibly other cheats/bonuses I'm not remembering off the top of my head. Individually these are small things, but they add up. I think TW should look at reducing or outright removing some of these.
Agreed, I don't know if they still get passive daily exp (from non-perks) but rest is still in. They also start the game with some +relations to notables. Really they need to be spending TIME doing quests to raise relations and there's no reason to give them the "easy" setting for recruit slots.
AI lords don't really do anything other than fight/raid, recruit, patrol. I think the AI lords should spend more time doing the same stuff the player does.
Absolutely! The fact the AI doesn't do anything is a big part of the problem too. For them to be considered an opponent they need to behave like the player. Especially spending campaign time to obtain both resources and relations.
I think this would feel like a much smaller problem if there was actually consequences for the big battles that do happen, like what's been already said countless times about AI easily recruiting new armies in moments after losing a thousand of them in an army fight.
+ A chosen/elected marshal being able to give specific targets/commands to other armies would be nice
Agreed! If I was going to play fair and pull a 1-2k army together and have brawl with an enemy the same size I would want a serious advantage from coming out on top. Like being able to recover and easily siege several fiefs at least (before next army) or the enemy being subjugated on the spot, giving up a fief to make peace. As is, the reward is just another big battle before you wounded can even recover.
If you really want to address large armies you have to address the two major reasons for their existence, the influence inflation and garrison size/autocalc formula for sieges.....
That's interesting and makes sense. However I only really care about player experience. I'm the baby, not the bathwater! I hope whatever they do so change this they put the player experience first. IMO the game has basically zero simulation appeal anyways so it's a shame to crap up the player's enjoyment so the AI can properly try and fail at sieges until the sun explodes. I would much rather be able to order vassals around, control war/peace as a dictator and have a much shorter game then long repetitive game where the AI simulation is constantly trying to drown it's self in the toilet.
I prefer battle as real armies, large ones... but definitely would be better if they made the Ai smarter
Yeah if AI is improved, as well as other wanted features (like group targeting) the larger battles will be come more enjoyable. But I held my breath long enough, I gotta breath.
Exactly. It isn't the size of the armies that is a problem (leaving aside the way reinforcements spawn in battles) but the fact that the loss of such a large army can be recuperated within a few dozen days. The loss of a large army should cause that kingdom to sue for peace, open negotiations, abandon their invasion, change their war strategy... but none of that exists in the game.
Agreed. On top, the war/peace system is problem too as vassals will always want peace when you actually have a massive advantage, just because they see the daily gold possible. They have no concept of how short the peace will be or how much more value their current position is. They just don't know anything at all and it's a shame.
Personally I found the whole idea of influence to be silly because basically it just ends up being another currency and a limited one to, for example you can't use it to influence other individual lords decisions in crucial votes or to get a lord to come to your aid if you really need it.
Agreed. Rather then spend it to override a vote, why can't use it get my vassals on my side and support my agenda? I get that the voting is a simplified attempt at this but it's not good. I want to actually build allies that will support me like you could in warband. I guess the relation system's short comings comes into play too. No matter how much they like you they can't understand that releasing the entire 70+ lords of a faction for 7k a day for ??? days is a bad deal compared to having free pickings of all their fiefs for as long as I hold them.
So, in my opinion, the game would benefit from:
1) reduce the number of units to a maximum of 1000 vs 1000.
2) solve the problem of the minimum distance between models and collisions.
3) improve the armor system.
Sounds good to me, although I want a lot more control over troops and an over head for such large battles and...well actually a lot of stuff... for me a lot of work need to be done for max sized battles to actually be GOOD. To me, the basic POV of battle seems designed for 200 troops max under you control and the more you go above the worse everything is.
i don't mind armies, but this makes the entire fight a slaughter after the initial clash then a disorganized march to the middle.
or pockets of idiots chasing cav all over the map while 8 guys 20m apart rush to kill them
Yeah, I really hope we get some improvement and I really really really want group targeting.
in addition to that, there is no big variety as long as there are so many noble horse units available in the game.
Unfortunately TW made the Cav a cornerstone of auto calc power and mobility for the AI so then letting them all have easy access became a necessity too.
i think you have a point but its not about the armies themself and more about surrounding issues to me.
Sure, at the end of the day we will still want better AI and controls and balance even if the armies are bigger or smaller. But it does stand out as a BIG issue and is commonly brought up.
in addition and with all due respect, no battle in this game seems interesting if you play with a mass of horse archers and retreat as soon as things get out of hand =)
Too me no battle is interesting if I don't have full control over it. If I pull in 1k+ army to fight and it's just positioning them and letting the enemy walk into their doom, that's not that interesting either. I need actual good controls to manipulate many small groups for such a large battle to be interesting and TW has already sad NO to more intricate formation controls. I think the AI is still too bad when not micro'd and it's doubtful any meaningful improvement will come save for mods.