End game is impossible.

[Duskmare]

Snowballing is the obvious issue, but there's a lot of intricacies that make it such an issue.

For one, there's no limit to how big an army can get. So bigger factions have bigger armies, which helps them snowball harder.

Secondly, bigger factions are more attractive to AI lords. So they won't leave that faction and are more likely to join that faction. I'm pretty sure this is why many people report lords asking for 200,000,000 denars when you try to recruit them to your own faction.

Thirdly, these two combined mean that you're stuck with a max army size of about 700 (About 300 stewardship, 3 additional parties with 100 units each and the policies "royal guard" and "retinue" or whatever it's called that both give a bonus to the clan leader party size) units going up against armies of 1200. I was unlucky enough to get caught between two of such armies and ended up in a battle of 2,000 vs my 700.

Since you can't recruit enemy lords you can't increase your own army size. Since you can't increase your own army size, you can't destroy enemy armies twice your max size. Even if you do beat one you'll lose most of your units and have to start building up numbers and quality again. Since you can't beat their armies they'll continue to snowball and the lords will demand more and more ridiculous amounts of money from you in order to join your faction. Then the loop continues until that faction wins.

So essentially, if you want to win you have to really rush to grow your renown, your own faction and then become the snowballing faction. I reckon that'll honestly make it feel really easy though since the snowballing effect means that the other factions just won't pose a challenge.
Plus, I doubt it's even possible to grow your renown fast enough to manage all that before a faction starts snowballing.

 

[Duchess Rosé of Suno]

I just finished a 1800+ day game not cause i wanted (Damn crash ruined it)
Started my Empire on day 300 and by day 1647 the borders wherent very snowballed.
Battania still had it's original Land, West had only lost 2 towns one to Vlandia(The Owning clan jumped ship) and Zeonica to me who then sold it to the South only town they have, Asarai haven't even expanded past Danustica, Vlandia owned 1/4 of Sturgia and 1/4 of North. With my Empire owning the rest.(Died and got to play as a Heir)
On my first save only the Khuzaits had lost land by day 289.
Itd be great if they could reproduce that more. its more luck than anything. And the it wasn't that hard just time consuming musta fought a couple hundred battles at the start towards the middle once I stomped Sturgia it wasn't so many wars

 

[froggyluv]

What happens at the end? Portal open to new dimension? Cookies and Pizza? Is there a nice Endscreen??

 

[redphoenix596]

It is not too hard, just posted about this in another thread. Difficulty is a matter of perspective and player ability / playstyle. I personally would prefer the game to be still harder than it is, especially peacedeals need to be more expensive and there needs to be a longer gap between recruitment of AI mercenary factions as these are way too strong a boost to your power.

Also we need new lords for AI factions if you cheese and execute all their heroes they are just defenseless.

I play with a set of houserules my self to make the game harder so it stays interesting for me.

if you feel its too hard, decrease difficulty? though I think they should add more options to customize the difficulty level.

was super great that 1.3 made the game more difficult though, would have propably quit playing out of boredom already otherwise. Great changes and great update!

 

[Fungo]

In my last playthrough when I saw two of the factions run around with armies of 1700-1800 troops, I just thought F it and started over.

 

[Duskmare]

It is not too hard, just posted about this in another thread. Difficulty is a matter of perspective and player ability / playstyle. I personally would prefer the game to be still harder than it is, especially peacedeals need to be more expensive and there needs to be a longer gap between recruitment of AI mercenary factions as these are way too strong a boost to your power.

Also we need new lords for AI factions if you cheese and execute all their heroes they are just defenseless.

I play with a set of houserules my self to make the game harder so it stays interesting for me.

if you feel its too hard, decrease difficulty? though I think they should add more options to customize the difficulty level.

was super great that 1.3 made the game more difficult though, would have propably quit playing out of boredom already otherwise. Great changes and great update!

How do you avoid the issues that I rose above? Do you play on easier difficulties with less unit and player damage or something, so that you can take on armies of 1200 with just 700?
Do you manage to rush and become the snowballing faction like I suggested?

The issues I raised are non-negotiable issues with the game. It's not simply 'difficulty' when the AI wants an impossible number of resources for you to recruit them. The only way you could find it easy is if you managed to avoid these issues. Otherwise you'd be having 2-3 armies of 1200 soldiers sent at you repeatedly while you can only have a max of 700 units.
Perhaps you're just getting lucky and none of your factions are snowballing?

Also, I've heard people say that peace deals can be super expensive too. I think that depends on how many battles you win or how many enemy units you destroy compared to how many of yours they destroy. So if you play well then peace is cheap but if you're getting beaten down by the AI then you won't be able to stop them from beating you down. Another issue, also based on the absurd numbers the barter system can come up with as "reasonable requirements".

I mean, I could reduce the damage that everyone takes and have fairly balanced battles with those armies of 1200, but I like the risk of units actually being vulnerable. The issue isn't that I'm not good at the game. I have destroyed a couple of those 1200 strong armies. It's the fact that the game is unbalanced and puts you in a position where it's nearly impossible to win. Even though I can defeat those 1200 strong armies, it's inevitable that it would cost me at least half my own army and that another 1200 strong army will roll up in a couple of minutes. As I said earlier, I literally had two of them sandwich me earlier because they're everywhere.

So yeah. It's great that you're finding the game harder and enjoying that but I don't think we're talking about the same thing here.

 

[Mahow]

This might be an unpopulair way.. But.. I finished the game (after 142 hours - the first 60 I just ran arround making money so snowballing was still a thing in those patches). The way I "won" was by choppin heads. After fighting the same army for the 8th or 9th time. I got annoyed. And chopped a few heads. Instantly after a patch next week I was hated by all.

Figures that you can't be hated.. If there is no one left to hate you, right? So I did. Result: everyone dead, me, age 70 something, sole ruler. Towns love me again due to high security though. Which is nice

 

[Monkey]

There needs to be a random lord generator. Soldiers from the various factions whose lords were all beheaded would ascend as leaders, maybe creating new clans, in order to keep the factions alive and the war strong. What is this game if there is no war? There would be no purpose in it.

 

[mserhatbalik]

Yes, right now the only valid way is to chop heads and lower their numbers permanently. Especially if you are trying to create kingdom by soloing a siege.

I find it annoying as a player who rather prefers more diplomatic approach to things.

 

[Yozzer]

I was having similar problems which was spoiling the fun, so I installed improved garrisons 3.0 on Nexus mods. It installs easy, and made a big difference. It is customisable, and lets you, (should you wish), automatically train your garrison up to a level you set, slowly fills it with troops from your prisoners and villages, up to a limit you set. You need to play about with it a bit, but also if you want you can send out patrols. I have it set so part of the garrison is not paid for, just the fief generated troops. I also have a patrol I set to 40 to help sort out the looters.
You may not care for it, but I liked it so much I donated well worth having a look, very professional and I do not consider cheating.

 

[Monkey]

I was having similar problems which was spoiling the fun, so I installed improved garrisons 3.0 on Nexus mods. It installs easy, and made a big difference. It is customisable, and lets you, (should you wish), automatically train your garrison up to a level you set, slowly fills it with troops from your prisoners and villages, up to a limit you set. You need to play about with it a bit, but also if you want you can send out patrols. I have it set so part of the garrison is not paid for, just the fief generated troops. I also have a patrol I set to 40 to help sort out the looters.
You may not care for it, but I liked it so much I donated well worth having a look, very professional and I do not consider cheating.

There are many mods that fine tune many aspects of the game's economics and logistics. None of them are cheating as long as they affect all clans/kingdoms equally. I try to avoid them, though, in order to stay "intimate" with the unmodded game's tune and be able to provide better feedback in that regard. I've tried some of the fine tune mods and most of them are really good. They do change the game for the better and TaleWorlds should learn from them. I'm not saying they should change the game to be just like the mods - I don't think they should - but learn from them.

 

[xdj1nn]

I just finished a 1800+ day game not cause i wanted (Damn crash ruined it)
Started my Empire on day 300 and by day 1647 the borders wherent very snowballed.
Battania still had it's original Land, West had only lost 2 towns one to Vlandia(The Owning clan jumped ship) and Zeonica to me who then sold it to the South only town they have, Asarai haven't even expanded past Danustica, Vlandia owned 1/4 of Sturgia and 1/4 of North. With my Empire owning the rest.(Died and got to play as a Heir)
On my first save only the Khuzaits had lost land by day 289.
Itd be great if they could reproduce that more. its more luck than anything. And the it wasn't that hard just time consuming musta fought a couple hundred battles at the start towards the middle once I stomped Sturgia it wasn't so many wars

wow, you've failed miserably then... You needed to finish the questline to unite the empire (it's very helpful, though it generates some weird results specially given that you lose too much relations with the other "empires" over-time). I've went that far and the issue then becomes the cheating AI with diplomacy along with their sneak-sieges, food issues vs prosperity issues of fiefs and the awkward AI behavior when switching factions. Food issues basically kill the entirety of all fiefs' garrisons... You'll end up with an empire that consists only of Militia on every single fief.

Unlike Warband, no lords join your kingdom on their own will, you have to track down and manually recruit each Clan Leader, which is extremely annoying. Also, lack of internal politics and the bugged fief distribution kind of ruins your management skills, because you cannot properly distribute land, it's a massive border gore where lords that have accumulated influence will basically want everything, and when you distribute evenly, **** happens because you lose tons of relations and take massive influence hits.

About the "cheating" over diplomacy is that once you're the major player on the map, AI factions start to instantly force peace once they steal a fief from your empire, it's RIDICULOUS, and extremely annoying, specially because Campaign AI is retarded, so they never defend properly any fiefs, if at all... It's common to also see your own lords summoning armies depriving you from making a strategical force of your own, and start roaming around like idiots doing nothing with 1k men or more, they do that until they run out of food and basically suicide their own armies by morale alone. It's quite astonishing how ****ed up end-game is, but it's not because it's "hard", on the contrary, it's because it's so easy that it generates a ****load of erratic behaviors.\

I'd like to have a competing empire once we reach said stage of the game, unfortunately the map is too small, and there are too few factions (same issue we've had with Warband).... A mod like 1257ad for BL would basically obliterate the Vanilla experience on amount of factions and size alone.

 

[Monkey]

I'd like to have a competing empire once we reach said stage of the game.

I never got to see the unfolding of the "conspiracy" quest. Maybe (I hope) it will do just that. I've created a kingdom once but decided to restart and just stay a vassal because of the lack of sufficient end game mechanics.

 

[xdj1nn]

I've never got to see the unfolding of the "conspiracy" quest. Maybe (I hope) it will do just that. I've created a kingdom once but decided to restart and just stay a vassal because of the lack of sufficient end game mechanics.

Yeah, it likely works the same way, you push through the quest (in independent it's dominate 2/3rds of Empire Territory, then achieve 100 war score against 3 factions), after that you get the absorb all remaining imperial factions into your own... I believe that would happen the same way by serving some imperial faction... The kingdom one, I'm not sure...

 

[paladinx333]

FYI: There isn't any real end game yet. Just a bunch of half finished ideas. That's why having your own kingdom is so awful.

 

[KingsMan5]

Im trapped in late game. Having 4 Imperial towns and 2 clans as mercenaries. Im at war with 5 factions because of silly main conspiracy quest. I am constantly besieged by 500 or 1000+ men armies. I guess no one is at war with no one except me LOL. War loot is very poor and nowhere to be sold since I am a grand enemy and towns has only like 50k denars... My balance is about -3000 denars/day with workshops and caravans. Executions give too much penalty and prisoners escape way to easy. I dont find game too hard on highest difficulty but its a constant grind for me in the late game. I am using about 10 mods to get as much realism in game as possible. Its grindy, not challeging, but a good game overall. After some polishing and few good mods it will be way better.

 

[xdj1nn]

Im trapped in late game. Having 4 Imperial towns and 2 clans as mercenaries. Im at war with 5 factions because of silly main conspiracy quest. I am constantly besieged by 500 or 1000+ men armies. I guess no one is at war with no one except me LOL. War loot is very poor and nowhere to be sold since I am a grand enemy and towns has only like 50k denars... My balance is about -3000 denars/day with workshops and caravans. Executions give too much penalty and prisoners escape way to easy. I dont find game too hard on highest difficulty but its a constant grind for me in the late game. I am using about 10 mods to get as much realism in game as possible. Its grindy, not challeging, but a good game overall. After some polishing and few good mods it will be way better.

This difficulty is temporary if you move fast, if you delay your late game you get stuck on this loop. The only solution when you end up in this corner is to download any mods that allow you to force peace (diplomacy fix or the other one, or even both). Also, you should be trying to recruit as many lords as possible. I've made the same mistake once, it was mind boggling. Anyway, the best way to deal with it atm is to not let your game come to late game, because even if you do as I did and form the "mighty empire" you'll be dealing with other bull**** that makes the game extremely boring.

 

[Duchess Rosé of Suno]

wow, you've failed miserably then... You needed to finish the questline to unite the empire (it's very helpful, though it generates some weird results specially given that you lose too much relations with the other "empires" over-time). I've went that far and the issue then becomes the cheating AI with diplomacy along with their sneak-sieges, food issues vs prosperity issues of fiefs and the awkward AI behavior when switching factions. Food issues basically kill the entirety of all fiefs' garrisons... You'll end up with an empire that consists only of Militia on every single fief.

If you consider owning over half the World failing lol
I have it so theirs no time limit which imo is dumb in a sandbox game.
I was just about to declare war on the West had even gathered my Vassals and their 3600 Troops. Was the strongest faction with 13457 Power.
And eh I don't wage war on Villages and Peasents rule of thumb. Had Patrols as a mod to so all Lords could Hire them for Villages so food isn't as bad of a snowballing effect on the AI.
"Once you wage war on the civilian population you have already lost the war"

 

[pTivo]

There are many mods that fine tune many aspects of the game's economics and logistics. None of them are cheating as long as they affect all clans/kingdoms equally. I try to avoid them, though, in order to stay "intimate" with the unmodded game's tune and be able to provide better feedback in that regard. I've tried some of the fine tune mods and most of them are really good. They do change the game for the better and TaleWorlds should learn from them. I'm not saying they should change the game to be just like the mods - I don't think they should - but learn from them.

Nice thought, i see you're a man of culture as well