Endgame = mindless endless war

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It seems the only programming the developers could come up with for the later stages of the game is for every other faction to endlessly declare war on the main protagonist.
Not even one week goes by with peace in place. Just putting out fires all over the place, until you lose your temper and in a fit of frustration with the stupid minor (by now) petty kingdoms, go and wipe them out, take all their fiefs, and consign them to oblivion.

No peace treaties, no fun tournaments, no living in peace with your neighbours, no, not that. Just boring declaration of war after boring declaration of war. No matter how many time you trounce them, diminish their control of the map, etc. The only (programmed) way they know is to (yet again) declare a war they cannot possibly win.

Yawn. Where are the total overhaul mods please??
 
I basically agree with this. Warband is a better version of this game atm.

Edit: except combat, Bannerlord is slightly more fun I guess? But still lacks weird things like telling your infantry to advance 10 paces. But at least when I run into a horse I don't stop going 60 miles an hour instantly, etc.
 
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It really feels they didn't want the player (or are not concerned at all about) to progress beyond the vassal stage or the average sized kingdom. Like all of the fixes went into to making the game stagnate at this stage and no effort or consideration into how it progresses and ends. I think their "end game" idea is you get 7 or 8 fiefs either as a vassal or ruler and you just fight the same battles forever. To progress past this, you have to to brutally steam roll the AI while you vassals/faction barely help with anything. Because AI factions don't run out of money the map piles up with AI enemies anyways. In the past you own vassal would do okay at keeping them in check but in current versions the AI seems to just let enemies take back castes all the time so it just turn into wack a mole forever.
 
It really feels they didn't want the player (or are not concerned at all about) to progress beyond the vassal stage or the average sized kingdom.
Yes, way to many similar looking helmets, armours, horses, etc. made to create the illusion of major development, and almost zero effort to make an actual medieval campaign strategy game.
 
I'd assume from the focus on dynastic gameplay that the intent is for playthroughs aimed at unification to be long and prodding, and since most players will likely give up (either out of boredom from playing the same game save for a hundred hours or... other reasons) by the time unification is a viable thing to push for, the most important content is everything leading up to the back half of the game rather than the back half which is even being called "endgame" despite being what'll likely take up half or more of your play time to do. Really, I'd say forming a kingdom and making it solid is the end of the beginning, not the beginning of the endgame, but I can understand why it's treated like that by players since it's pretty... let's just say I'm probably the only person who enjoyed it (well, until I knew victory was inevitable anyway) and that's not a good thing since it could be so much better. From what I've read of this game's development history, it's not been significantly altered since its open beta so I'm guessing TW considers it a much lessor priority than everything preceding it.

At the very least, this game needs to be well balanced and the A.I. as finely tuned (or given cheats to be challenging) as possible so that it's not riddled with low-effort cheese strategies that contrast with prodding "conventional strategies" that only masochists like myself enjoy. If all the preexisting issues could be fixed, I think it'd be good enough to be considered a "done game" fit for released even if no new content is added. In fact, I think adding new content should wait until existing stuff is properly fixed and balanced since adding more on top of a mess just creates more mess that needs cleaning and it's especially offensive to console players like myself since we can't exactly exploit the free labors of the fan community to make it the game we want to play.

The cynic in me believes the "missing endgame content" will be addressed with DLCs/expansion packs because... there's a lot that could be done and now that the game is officially released, there's plenty of justification to do so. It just better not come out before the broken existing content is fixed because that's really insulting to both the player base and the game Bannerlord could have been.
 
I'd assume from the focus on dynastic gameplay that the intent is for playthroughs aimed at unification to be long and prodding, ..
I'd say this is exactly the point the AI currently fails to deliver. If the intent is to prolong the strategy, and deliver a meaningful experience, this would be a more realistic scenario:
Faction creates siege army -> Faction sieges fief.
Enemy faction defends fief at all cost (not instead sieging some other random fief on the map)
If faction manages to capture enemy fief -> ENTIRE siege army becomes newly acquired fief garrison - to DEFEND newly acquired fief.
Enemy faction will again attempt to re-conquer fief, requiring that garrison to remain on site for prolonged period UNTIL peace treaty.

This would accomplish several things:
1. Campaigns would be drawn out, and yet more meaningful
2. Armies would have a REAL purpose, and serve that purpose
3. Less armies on the board zerging around taking and abandoning fiefs with no intent, and frequently far from the inter-faction border, where almost impossible to defend.
4. More border skirmishes, defensive sieges (how rare is this in current BL??), and a slow, but steady expansion of a faction.
5. ?Longer peace periods - I would expect the AI to have a required interval to build a new invading expansion force.

Now that, that is dynastic gameplay in my book
 
I'd say this is exactly the point the AI currently fails to deliver. If the intent is to prolong the strategy, and deliver a meaningful experience, this would be a more realistic scenario:
Faction creates siege army -> Faction sieges fief.
Enemy faction defends fief at all cost (not instead sieging some other random fief on the map)
If faction manages to capture enemy fief -> ENTIRE siege army becomes newly acquired fief garrison - to DEFEND newly acquired fief.
Enemy faction will again attempt to re-conquer fief, requiring that garrison to remain on site for prolonged period UNTIL peace treaty.

This would accomplish several things:
1. Campaigns would be drawn out, and yet more meaningful
2. Armies would have a REAL purpose, and serve that purpose
3. Less armies on the board zerging around taking and abandoning fiefs with no intent, and frequently far from the inter-faction border, where almost impossible to defend.
4. More border skirmishes, defensive sieges (how rare is this in current BL??), and a slow, but steady expansion of a faction.
5. ?Longer peace periods - I would expect the AI to have a required interval to build a new invading expansion force.

Now that, that is dynastic gameplay in my book
Yes, I think this general loop would be an improvement and, ironically, I believe it's the intended loop but the A.I.'s not good at prioritizing targets (or maybe they have some kind of hidden mechanics where self-interest of some kind overrides strategic intelligence, I hope so anyway lol but then there ought to be a corresponding bros helping bros mechanic as well like I remember in Warband).

It's a gameplay loop seen in games dating back to the 80's for a reason lol; it works. And with Bannerlord's combat/battle gameplay, I think it could do it very well, especially if the other existing mechanics oriented around domestic growth were developed a bit more (like, giving nobles in peace time an incentive to monitor their fiefs to speed their growth/repairs or something) and interpersonal relationships, schemes, etc. we'd have something similar to several Romance of the Three Kingdoms games but with a unique battle/combat system.

EDTED to add: Player-armies do have a purpose though; to let you auto-battle your way to victory lol. During the unification phase, 99% of my battles were automated since I always had 1-2,000 troops against enemies a fraction this size to sweep aside lol. Only a few manual battles during the phases where I disband the army (to regather it near the place I intend to siege) and on the rare times the enemy army is about my size and I don't decide to avoid it until it breaks apart.
 
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Endgame = mindless endless war,

Yeah, I just reached that point. I believe its the impulse of the game, all game long. It just becomes pronounced more the longer the game last. It really makes the game pointless and unplayable. I think Ive been in constant war since the around halfway through the game I am playing. As soon as I regain the upper hand in one theatre someone else declares war on me or multiple kingdoms do and so on and so on. There could be a viable diplomatic solution, but there is not. Also even when there is peace your nobles are arbitrarily forcing wars on you if your king. I guess Ill come back to the game once this is sorted out in future patches.

 
Given that the game has seasons. Before winter was seen as peace time. The waar was still on. But usually no fighting happen.
 
Yeah, endgame = mindless endless war

This has been the case since the beta release, and nothing or just a few things have changed about that. All the nice suggestions related to make the endgame funnier and deeper have been probably discarded in order to keep the game “simple” for consoles.

I really doubt something going to change related to this. For more than two years TW have been reading threads about people complaining about how much boring the endgame is.
 
In order not to have a war with everyone, it takes fiefs in one direction. I noticed that other factions with high relations with npcs do not declare war on me. I play for the hindrance of the khuzai woman in batania and i have a strong relationship with everyone (from batania) and they never declare war on me even though I am a neighbor and you could say it's some form of alliance with them because they always declare war on enemies as I declare war on them. I started with the uStokole Castle in Sturgia.



I play very slowly and wait for new cities to develop because if you take over new locations and they are "empty" it encourages you to declare wars.
 
I've noticed Kingdoms with small number of settlements declare war on me continually, like they want to be exterminated, and push me to "World Domination" ! Is this a Nerf feature ?

You'd think they wouldn't want any conflict and ally with me ?
 
At the start of the game, the player has no fiefs. He would have to join a kingdom or create one to get fiefs (not including buying fiefs with the trade perk). But you can't just join the kingdom, you have take a fief from another kingdom. In order to do that, you have to declare war. The AI does the same thing in the late game. The AI kingdom wants another fief, so it declares war to get it. If the player's kingdom has the most fiefs, then it's the ideal kingdom to go to war with. Also consider that some kingdoms are paying tribute for the peace. They may want to declare war to stop paying. Try making peace in a manner where you pay the other kingdom, then they are less likely to declare war and give up that tribute. Basically, you are paying the kingdom to not attack you.
 
One thing is true when your army already has +300 men and you have to pay their salaries, many days of peace seem eternal, perhaps the balance to have many more days of peace should come from the fact that your cities and towns give you much money in tax form.
TW could include messages such as "the harvest has been success this year and X dinars have been collected" or the opposite, just as you as the lord of your lands, live from them and not from looting of the dead.
New mission for you once a year, collect your own taxes or send one of your captains with escort.
 
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Correct, that´s why it would be easy to implement in the game
Like sending a captain will mercy will give you enough and keep relation. Sending a captain with cruel will allow much more as war tax. But then again. There can be 100 implements to village, town and castle integration added in the game.
I hope to see it one day. Sending a captain to build village fortifaction and just houses to level them in engineering. Just help them for charm and medicin. Not as quests, but stadges. Village has reach 200 hearts and need new buildings to grow. There is actually no end on what to add.
 
Like sending a captain will mercy will give you enough and keep relation. Sending a captain with cruel will allow much more as war tax. But then again. There can be 100 implements to village, town and castle integration added in the game.
I hope to see it one day. Sending a captain to build village fortifaction and just houses to level them in engineering. Just help them for charm and medicin. Not as quests, but stadges. Village has reach 200 hearts and need new buildings to grow. There is actually no end on what to add.
It might sound like a good idea to some. But to others this is just going to be annoying irrelevant busy work (like every other quest). Its something for Mods.
 
It really feels they didn't want the player (or are not concerned at all about) to progress beyond the vassal stage or the average sized kingdom. Like all of the fixes went into to making the game stagnate at this stage and no effort or consideration into how it progresses and ends. I think their "end game" idea is you get 7 or 8 fiefs either as a vassal or ruler and you just fight the same battles forever. To progress past this, you have to to brutally steam roll the AI while you vassals/faction barely help with anything. Because AI factions don't run out of money the map piles up with AI enemies anyways. In the past you own vassal would do okay at keeping them in check but in current versions the AI seems to just let enemies take back castes all the time so it just turn into wack a mole forever.
You're describing symptoms of a bigger problem. Wack a mole isn't the issue. The issue is that once a player advances beyond a beginner the game offers zero chance of actually losing. The player no longer has to rely on his skill he just games the AI. After a certain point it kills playability for intermediate and advanced players. No challenge = no reason to continue playing. Yes, the AI doesn't run out of money but who cares because all they are capable of fielding is endless recruits that can easily be killed. The AI lacks any kind of meaningful challenge and has been reduced to nothing but a nuisance.
 
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