Election system still ruins the game. Please delete, let player run own faction, please make strategy game!

[niekdegrijze]

If you're the king you should be able to go against your vassals' wants and even override a majority vote (unless you are foolish enough to have peerage/senate policy. finally i will have a reason to say "i am the senate" in this game) without having to spend silly amounts of influence, but suffer relations penalty for it depending on how tyrannical your decision was. For example if your decision had 40% support, that shouldn't cause as much discontent as picking something with 0% support. I agree that the diplomacy AI needs to be improved though, or my suggestions will become pointless as the AI lords in this game often vote as hive minds (100% or 0%) when declaring war or peace, and you'll have to suffer overriding 0% support and taking large relation penalties every time just to keep their bloodthirst in check.

Regarding diplomacy and kingdom management in general, I don't really like the idea of influence as a number that builds up over time and you can use it to force people and whole kingdoms to do what you want. Your influence over your kingdom should instead be all your relations with all other clans/lords, built up by the player's hard work and actions like doing favors/quests for them, forging ties and alliances through marriage, defending their settlements, and helping them out in battles. If people like you, they vote with you and join your armies, and if people dislike you, they vote against you and refuse to join your armies or may even decide not to join you in battle against the enemy.

However, every time you ask a favor from a lord, by asking them to join your army or vote with you on some issue, your relations should decrease a little bit, or maybe each lord should have a favor cooldown that gets shorter the friendlier you are with them, so you can ask them of more things in shorter periods of time. Becoming a "puppet master" of sorts, ruling from the shadows and wielding even greater influence than the king, your influence growing out of the support of the royal clans of the realm should be a real achievement, not something you dump influence into. The point is to make alliances and friends valuable without making them abusable. What do you think?

Exactly this?

 

[Moton]

I don't want to see peace votes when I'm in the middle of a siege. I don't want to be forced to vote before I can send troops to finish a siege or to sell my ENTIRE FACTION OF PRISONERS. I don't want to waste influence to block peace. I JUST WANT TO PROGRESS THE GAME MY WAY, with my plan, MY WAY! ME, THE PLAYER! THE CUSTOMER! I don't want to use the stupid, nonsense logic you programed the AI to use for voting!

It doesn't matter what the power/fief ratio is if I have the entire enemy faction poisoner, the vassals can do whatever they need to to build up with no threat, but they want to vote for peace because they don't know that. You should just delete this system, they don't need to vote for peace!

You made them stupid on purpose to prevent them from snowballing, but you need to make the PLAYER's system 100% separate because we DO NO WANT to use the same stupid reasoning the AI bots do! I don't need to be artificially sandbagged! I do not want it!

Have any Devs ever even played an actual game this far?

EDIT:
This goes for anyone wanting to defend these mechanics, show your late game maps or your non-opinion speculation is just hot air.
If you haven't experienced the system then why should anyone care what you think about it?

What was your positive experience in the late game regarding vassals voting for peace or war in rapid succession?

Was there a time when you felt the game was better because you couldn't set a target for your vassals to siege?

Is there a time the game was more rewarding and interesting because you vetoed a vassal proposal only to have them make the same proposal in a short time anyways and/or contrary proposals such as wanting both peace and new wars?

Have you used the new Clan creation system and did you find it useful compared to vetoing vassal proposals with your influence?

When/if you reach the power threshold where all factions will declare war on you, did you like that vassals will still calculate to vote for peace and release all prisoners, even though this peace is only a few days and dramatically benefits the other factions over their own?

Edit: A couple compromising ideas
What I would really like as a compromise is a bounty/reward system where the player/ruler can set a soft target for siege to encourage it's capture so vassal may choose the players desired target over one the AI score favors.

I think a reward/alternative to a strait veto would work too: I counter propose this peace proposal with a war bonus from my treasury to compensate!

I feel like the game would be so easely snowballed if you had full control all the time tho. The mechanic could probably be better but overall it's working as intended I guess.

 

[Tryvenyal]

Regarding diplomacy and kingdom management in general, I don't really like the idea of influence as a number that builds up over time and you can use it to force people and whole kingdoms to do what you want. Your influence over your kingdom should instead be all your relations with all other clans/lords, built up by the player's hard work and actions like doing favors/quests for them, forging ties and alliances through marriage, defending their settlements, and helping them out in battles. If people like you, they vote with you and join your armies, and if people dislike you, they vote against you and refuse to join your armies or may even decide not to join you in battle against the enemy.

This makes the game very player - egocentric like Warband and dissalow the vision where player and AI playes by the same rules(AI cheats but they at least interact with same features in Bannerlord. In Warband they played another game totally.)

In BL AI do take decisions, they take part of the game, moves it forward(argueable) even though their decisionmaking is hiveminded, stupid, predicable and sometimes extremly frustrating.

Instead of removing what makes BL unique and breaking that great vision at least all bridges towards a functional realistic AI diversified by ambitions, positions, personality and success should be completly blown.

 

[swally0ne]

People aren't complaining that it makes the game difficult, but that it makes the game no fun to play. Having the AI make stupid decisions is not a challenge in any game, it just means the entire purpose of the NPC interactions is rendered null and void. It's bad game design.



Ananda the OP has already 100%'d the game multiple times. Calling valid complaints "tears" is always a ridiculous rebuttal, but when it's someone who knows more about the game than some of the developers, it just makes you come across like an obnoxious contrarian who didn't read the thread.

dude i 100% so many times in several ways too, so what do you want to say with that? iam not impressed just because of that. valid complains? excuse me, just because OP is writing in colourful letters and complains over the same thing over and over again it doesnt mean ****.

now seriously: yes the ai needs to change (as i already said), but ananda wants to make own decissions all day, which never was the point of the game and its clearly visible. its also set in stone that the ai behaviour is going to change throughout early access. so what is this, if not crying around?

i will say it again: if you want to totally control the war decissions then use a mod.

 

[NPC99]

If you're the king you should be able to go against your vassals' wants and even override a majority vote

No problem, Caesar, provided there's a 5% chance you're assassinated for it.

 

[Tryvenyal]

dude i 100% so many times in several ways too, so what do you want to say with that? iam not impressed just because of that. valid complains? excuse me, just because OP is writing in colourful letters and complains over the same thing over and over again it doesnt mean ****.

now seriously: yes the ai needs to change (as i already said), but ananda wants to make own decissions all day, which never was the point of the game and its clearly visible. its also set in stone that the ai behaviour is going to change throughout early access. so what is this, if not crying around?

i will say it again: if you want to totally control the war decissions then use a mod.

I generally agree with this reply. But there´s so many good suggestions from the community on how to improve AI decisionmaking that I have full understanding if there are players speaking out to let the player control over letting stupid AI control just to be able to play and enjoy the game while the develop an improved AI.

This definatly serves best as a mod but this threads serves a much higher purpuse than a general rant- thread as it point out an isolated issue, although I assume big and hard to solve, with associated consequenses and severity.
If such a mod exists, it´s not a game improvement which is the idea with mods. It´s a game issue workaround. If TW thinks such mod is a popular improvement to the game, we will never get the AI Bannerlord deserves. Conclusion: USING A MOD IS NOT A SOLUTION IN THIS CASE.

 

[R1919]

One more time: no need to change AI, just add a kingdom policy that allows declaring of war or making peace available only for the ruler. Let's say, at the cost of a lot of influence.

Btw, afaik all "AI" logic in BL is: some days after declaring a war there's a tiny random chance checking every moment that some lord will propose peace (or smth else like a kingdom policy - basically, all such decisions are based on random). And, I guess, the chance is slightly growing every day. That's why I used to save every in-game day when I played BL until they have broken daily wages payment time (fixed in 1.6.5).

 

[Ser Jon]

dude i 100% so many times in several ways too, so what do you want to say with that? iam not impressed just because of that. valid complains? excuse me, just because OP is writing in colourful letters and complains over the same thing over and over again it doesnt mean ****.

If all you took away from OP is colored text, that explains a lot. Though I do feel it's more along the lines that you are hyper reducing OP's points because you know there's something to be said about it but you don't like it when people point these things out. It is one or the other though, that's for certain.

 

[swally0ne]

I generally agree with this reply. But there´s so many good suggestions from the community on how to improve AI decisionmaking that I have full understanding if there are players speaking out to let the player control over letting stupid AI control just to be able to play and enjoy the game while the develop an improved AI.

This definatly serves best as a mod but this threads serves a much higher purpuse than a general rant- thread as it point out an isolated issue, although I assume big and hard to solve, with associated consequenses and severity.
If such a mod exists, it´s not a game improvement which is the idea with mods. It´s a game issue workaround. If TW thinks such mod is a popular improvement to the game, we will never get the AI Bannerlord deserves. Conclusion: USING A MOD IS NOT A SOLUTION IN THIS CASE.

i was not referring to every suggestion made in this forum, but the suggestion made by op in this very thread. op wants to make war/peace on its own completly. the idea of a mod is to modify the game and that kind of approach shouldnt be forced to every player of the game. USING A MOD IS A SOLUTION IN THIS CASE

If all you took away from OP is colored text, that explains a lot. Though I do feel it's more along the lines that you are hyper reducing OP's points because you know there's something to be said about it but you don't like it when people point these things out. It is one or the other though, that's for certain.

same here. the solution made up by op is the point. yes he is doing a lot of talking for an issue already known by the dev. keep on complaining, whatever.

 

[Honved]

As said, allowing the player to simply ignore or override the AI's decisions when it makes a bad choice is a band-aid solution that doesn't solve the underlying problem. The cause of the problem in part that it's too dependent on the RNG, so it frequently does things without any reason, or even a passable excuse. A king or other leader should be influencing his vassals and allies BEFORE it comes down to a vote, not after, but without being given enough time before the vote to really change anything, that's not an option. The RNG decides, and you're stuck with a stupid result.

The other part is that it has a short attention span (I hate it when you follow a Marshal toward a village that's being raided, and then the Marshal reverses course because some other lord chased the raider away. 30 seconds later, the Marshal turns around again because the raider is back at the village again. After about 3-4 changes of direction, any illusions you may still have had about the Marshal actually being a rational being have been shattered and burned.

The third part is that the war/peace cycle is so short that it feels like a game of ping-pong, going back and forth suddenly from one adversary to another without any warning.

Without some means for the AI to gang up against "bullies", or slightly prioritize wars against the most powerful faction, you get snowballing. TW "fixed" the snowballing problem by making wars so short that nothing happens, and then peace short so some of the more action-oriented players won't get bored.

 

[Earth Dragon]

Obviously, but that's needlessly reductive. The point is to use the scripts to create an illusion of intelligence, or at the very least a kind of coherent will, just like your brain uses chemicals and electricity to create the illusion of consciousness.

Where Bannerlord fails isn't that it's not "intelligent" inherently, it's that it fails to create the illusion.

I don’t think it’s reductive at all.

What many people think of as “good AI” is one that make the “correct statistical choice” everytime. This often makes the AI extremely predictable and can be even easier to deal with then what is referred to as “poor AI” because you can’t get a grasp on what exactly it’s doing.

This is where it is hard to ACTUALLY script good AI. Making it both strategically sound yet unpredictable is difficult because, at the end of the day it’s just preprogrammed scripts that land in either the “extremely predictable” or “strategically inefficient” and sometimes even both.

 

[Mad Vader]

What many people think of as “good AI” is one that make the “correct statistical choice” everytime. This often makes the AI extremely predictable and can be even easier to deal with then what is referred to as “poor AI” because you can’t get a grasp on what exactly it’s doing.

This is where it is hard to ACTUALLY script good AI. Making it both strategically sound yet unpredictable is difficult because, at the end of the day it’s just preprogrammed scripts that land in either the “extremely predictable” or “strategically inefficient” and sometimes even both.

This (bad>good AI) is a ridiculous argument. Every AI is predictable when you figure its behaviors and you do after enough playing.
What adds to unpredictability is the complex state of the simulation with multiple factions and lords and other parties doing their own things. That you know the AI will be coming for your weakly defended town instead of doing something stupid is not somehow worse, it's what a human opponent would do too after all.
Making an AI less predictable on the other hand is a good idea and it's very easily done without a need for AI lobotomy first.

 

[Ser Jon]

same here. the solution made up by op is the point. yes he is doing a lot of talking for an issue already known by the dev. keep on complaining, whatever.

So you have nothing really to say, except to complain that people are complaining.

What many people think of as “good AI” is one that make the “correct statistical choice” everytime. This often makes the AI extremely predictable and can be even easier to deal with then what is referred to as “poor AI” because you can’t get a grasp on what exactly it’s doing.

You can predict the AI as is though, so that's not a good argument here.

Also, the current AI being so stupid that its choices seem completely random (when they aren't) isn't a "good" AI either. You can create an AI that doesn't make the "correct statistical choice" every single time (though some predictable isn't a bad thing), but an AI that almost constantly refuses to do something even remotely intelligent is garbage AI. The problem with AI like that is exaggerated when the player has to deal with it and has absolutely no way of enforcing more intelligent responses, which is in part what OP is complaining about. A player shouldn't have to baby sit the AI and if they do, it needs to be changed or more control needs to be granted to the player to avoid these annoying and boring burdens (if rewriting or severely adjusting AI code isn't an option to TW).

 

[swally0ne]

So you have nothing really to say, except to complain that people are complaining.

i said several times that the ai needs a fix, for OPs request there is a mod. what else do you want? am i not allowed to say a thing in this if iam not holding to OP okay i get it. i'll let you hold each others hand there is nothing against that XD

 

[Apocal]

Without some means for the AI to gang up against "bullies", or slightly prioritize wars against the most powerful faction, you get snowballing.

The AI does prioritize large factions for wardecs. It is the reason people keep having permanent war towards the late game, after they've taken a bunch of territory for their kingdom.

TW "fixed" the snowballing problem by making wars so short that nothing happens, and then peace short so some of the more action-oriented players won't get bored.

Snowballing was stopped by decreasing the Cav bonus to party speed.

 

[Ser Jon]

i said several times that the ai needs a fix, for OPs request there is a mod. what else do you want?

I was referring to you disregarding replying to my own comment to really just complain that OP is complaining, but clearly that went over your head.

Your opinion that OP's complaints and suggestions on improvement should be done with a mod is ridiculous, and you know it. You have no real or thoughtful reason as to why OP's points are invalid (and what few you provided is nonsense), and agreeing that AI needs fixing is pretty much something almost everyone agrees on, so blah. Instead of presenting thought out reasons as to why OP is wrong (as OP took some time to explain why its a problem at the very least), you disregard it as "complaining" and "mod material", as if mods are a solution or should be (they never should).

am i not allowed to say a thing in this if iam not holding to OP

No one told you not to share your opinion. Or are you upset that I called you out on your post hyper-reducing OP? Or should I be holding your hand?

okay i get it. i'll let you hold each others hand there is nothing against that XD

You understand very little, it seems.

 

[swally0ne]

I was referring to you disregarding replying to my own comment to really just complain that OP is complaining, but clearly that went over your head.

Your opinion that OP's complaints and suggestions on improvement should be done with a mod is ridiculous, and you know it. You have no real or thoughtful reason as to why OP's points are invalid (and what few you provided is nonsense), and agreeing that AI needs fixing is pretty much something almost everyone agrees on, so blah. Instead of presenting thought out reasons as to why OP is wrong (as OP took some time to explain why its a problem at the very least), you disregard it as "complaining" and "mod material", as if mods are a solution or should be (they never should).



No one told you not to share your opinion. Or are you upset that I called you out on your post hyper-reducing OP? Or should I be holding your hand?



You understand very little, it seems.

you have to be a hell of a guy at partys half of your tldr has been already answered enough by myself. anything else is not worth the time. not constructive, just trolling pseudo-psychologist. sry ?

 

[Ser Jon]

you have to be a hell of a guy at partys not worth my time. not constructive sry ?

I accept your concession, friend. Enjoy your day.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

yes he is doing a lot of talking for an issue already known by the dev. keep on complaining, whatever.

Is it known by a Dev? Where is a Dev talking about how they raised up 20+ clans and zerg'd the map and they had a peace vote abort a siege they had already won the main battle for?

just because OP is writing in colourful letters and complains over the same thing over and over again it doesnt mean ****

If you could make people shut up on the internet you could rule world.

As said, allowing the player to simply ignore or override the AI's decisions when it makes a bad choice is a band-aid solution that doesn't solve the underlying problem.

Yes this is so, I am asking for a big bandaid because the game hurt me! I would fully support a temp NO button while they work on a more immersive and robust solution. ?


---------
Also I just want to say: I play on the beta branch and report numerous new bugs every version, so using mods is not a viable solution for me.

 

[berserkercookie]

Do you guys also have the problem that your Kingdom is auto resolving peace and simply inform you after it? Also bankrupting you in the process cause somehow you made peace with an enemy faction and pay them tribute despite the fact you literally wiped the floor with them a moment ago?
Or is that just me?