Need More Info Endless Wars and AI decision to keep pursuing it

[Sarsante]

Summary: Playing a late campaign (over day 2k) kinda sucessfully for a first campaign AI started to declare war on me non stop. I'm Vlandia king and AI started to have endless wars declared agasint me. I turned cheat mode on to test AI behaviour when I propose peace and the result of the testing it's weird. It seems more casualties and conquering their fiefs increase their will to pursue the war even when they're heavily outnumbered and clearly losing it because the tribute price keep going up. I guess this is a bug that makes AI declares wars non stop including suicidal ones (ie they've 4k men vs 20k men kingdom).
How to Reproduce: Let AI declare war on you and rush to conquer their fiefs, tribute price to peace out will increase despite they losing the war, which indicates more they lose less willing they're to end the war which makes no sense.
Have you used cheats and if so which: yes ctrl+alt+f4 to win battles
Scene Name (if related):
Media (Screenshots & Video):
Computer Specs:
OS: W10
GPU: GTX 1080
GPU Driver Version: latest
CPU: i7 7700k
RAM: 32 GB
Motherboard: Asus Z270F
Storage Device (HDD/SSD): SSD Samsung 860 EVO

 

[MArdA TaleWorlds]

Forwarded to the QA team for further investigation. We will reach out again if we need more information. Thanks for reporting and sorry for any inconvenience!

 

[Sarsante]

Forwarded to the QA team for further investigation. We will reach out again if we need more information. Thanks for reporting and sorry for any inconvenience!

Thanks!

Please let me know if the QA team needs anything because I've worked in QA in the past so I know sometimes we just can't reproduce it.

 

[Zorion_no]

I dont think its a bug as much as its a feature.
But in all the posts made about the topic that I've seen for ppl who suffer from this, the devs who are in the know dont seem to respond.
And they resolve into nothing.
Hopefully you get some answers.

Overall from my observations is that from what I can see in the menu of the kingdomes is that you are at war with EVERYONE.

Meaning that on average each of theese kingdomes have the same amount of lords as your faction to lead armies.
Now if you combine all the forces that they have, vs your 20k power, they will be higher than yours.

The same issue is when its 1 v 1 kingdomes, and they never go for peace, as they instead hire mercenary companies.
Thus prolonging the war instead of makeing the logical sense and go for peace.

Example in my plays I've had wars vs kingdomes that had 10+ of the companies in their employ.
They where loosing all battles and more and more land, but they never wanted peace.

What they need to add in is caps on the amount of mercs kingdomes can have 3 or 5 at tops.
(remember each company have 4 lords, so meaning if they have 3 thats 12 more lords, at 5 its 20 lords).

Also they should add in some attrition/will to fight, based on loss of land or loss of big battles in the field.

Now how have I come to this conclusions, well I've spent crazy amount of hrs into some of the games, and I observe a pattern.
Also in some of the games for testing I've had the theory about the amount of lords being the issue - execute them.
While it will get you hated, even among your own lords, "its worth it" in terms of the experiment.
No prisoners just execute and you'll see that they either do 2 things, loose cause of no more lords in the kingdome(wiped of the map) or they suddenly get a higher will for peace.

The core issue is that the ai as far as I can tell is set to gank you like that to prevent the effect that is in play, your kingdome is "too big".

Also try to just retreat back to starting lands and just let it all be reclaimed by the other factions.

Then you'll see they make peace with you and go back to declaring war on eachother.

Keep in mind the executing part makes it "impossible" to recruit new lords into your kingdome though.

There needs to be much better mechanics imo for peace than it currently is, and from what I've seen that modders can do there is(note I dont use mods during Early Access to get the gamedate/observations without the mods causeing their own issues).

I'm hopeing that the mechanics that is set to warmongering to get data etc, and that this isnt the final form of war/peace, but it dont matter cause once the game is released I'll fix "issues" by mods (*issues may be gamedesign I dont like for instance).

 

[Doofus]

Yeah, to summarize Bannerlords: The more you are winning, the more the opponent wants from you to stop the war. The more you are losing, the more eager your own lords are to accept peace. Your lords hate it when you are winning and the enemy lords love it when you are winning.

 

[Sarsante]

I understand as being a way to not allow your kingdom to get "too big" but it should have some limits mainly because of 2 things:

1 - every month have 4 or 5 factions declaring war on you leads to a very boring experience. Yeah, it's fun for the first couple hours then it becomes very frustrating and just annoying fighting non stop for 15 hours of gameplay. Someone declares war and before your army gets there and besiege one fief, you're spammed by 3 other factions declaring war.

2 - it should make more sense if/when they declare war. A faction with 4-5k men should not be willing to fight a faction that has 20k men. also a faction that doesnt even have border with your kingdom and it's far weaker (7k vs 20k) shouldnt just declare war, makes no sense.

Current state of my map: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/885996944156143691/908507802245431346/unknown.png

Southern Empire declared war and went besiege Argoron. Why?

Aserai loves with passion Thractorea Castle, but ignores the town and the castle owned by Western Empire on their way. Why?

Their moves even if it's intended to only control player growth should make some sense

What happens all the time, even if I peace out all of them paying 5k tribute a month tops later: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/908357989830885406/908533632614953000/ok.png

 

[Zorion_no]

I understand as being a way to not allow your kingdom to get "too big" but it should have some limits mainly because of 2 things:

1 - every month have 4 or 5 factions declaring war on you leads to a very boring experience. Yeah, it's fun for the first couple hours then it becomes very frustrating and just annoying fighting non stop for 15 hours of gameplay. Someone declares war and before your army gets there and besiege one fief, you're spammed by 3 other factions declaring war.

2 - it should make more sense if/when they declare war. A faction with 4-5k men should not be willing to fight a faction that has 20k men. also a faction that doesnt even have border with your kingdom and it's far weaker (7k vs 20k) shouldnt just declare war, makes no sense.

Current state of my map: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/885996944156143691/908507802245431346/unknown.png

Southern Empire declared war and went besiege Argoron. Why?

Aserai loves with passion Thractorea Castle, but ignores the town and the castle owned by Western Empire on their way. Why?

Their moves even if it's intended to only control player growth should make some sense

What happens all the time, even if I peace out all of them paying 5k tribute a month tops later: https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/908357989830885406/908533632614953000/ok.png

Basically for those of us who suffer from the "endless war or chain wars" with little to no peace - it just tanks the fun once you hit that spot.
Take a look at your power, and typically you'll notice it happend when your faction hits a certain point.

The problem is that once you hit the sweetspot, the other factions tend to be less at war with eachother and instead gank up on you.
While its "nice" in one way to counter the power a player give to a faction, and thus over time will be more and more powerful - thus steamrolling, it also breaks "immersion" or fun.

Need to put more emphasis on peace in late game aswell, specially in terms of that "power" rating not being "proper".

As in the first example if you look at the amount of clans in the kingdome of the op, he have just the starting clans there, and so do most of the enemy.

And thats what should be put more to the kingdomes decision, amount of lords available to field armies.
Atm you fill up the dungones with 20-30 of them, and yet no peace, cause they have so many to take from.
(specially when you are in a 1v1 and they have 10 mercs.. so 40 lords extra..)

While we still have much more land and are winning each battle, they just dont give up, which kind of actually fuels the snowball effect unless the players just "stops careing" and let the progress fall, and thus you get weak, and they want peace.

Dial down the bloodlust for the winning sides imo.
In rl you would have something called "overstretching" you can ask Napoleon how that played out in Russia for instance.

The way the faction power bases it on the cities/castles isnt "good enough" it should take into account number of lords to protect it aswell, so the winning would be more keen on peace to "stabilize the progress".

Ideally also dial down the "loyalty" of the lords, I mean 10 years without a fief that some of them have had, and yet they havent defected to other kingdomes make no sense to me.

 

[MArdA TaleWorlds]

Are you still experiencing this issue on the latest version of the game?

 

[Zorion_no]

Are you still experiencing this issue on the latest version of the game?

I've noticed an improvment in 1.70 Beta, but only to a point, still the same if you hit a "threshold" you wont get much peace.
Note that In this current play, started after the last hotfix, the AI have been that much more keen to want peace quicker - so we've not hit that "threshold as of yet".

Mixed of our faction also hireing mercs now and have been since the last patch, and that so far the AI havent hired 10 + merc companies, so far more "balanced" with 2-5 of them.

Still though, we need to have a 3rd faction declare war most of the time to get peace, unless you really decimate the enemy in quick sucession.
Basically if they have starting power at war of 7k, they will not want peace until their power is 3,5k or below.
Which is "dumb" since that means basically all the power is based of their garrisons more or less, and not really of the troops in the field.

But yah so far its been a "dream" in this play, where I've been pinching my arm, no war yet?
and I've actually found myself haveing to "vote" for a war just to spice things up abit.
(note that I've had plenty of wars all around, feels much more balanced so far.)

 

[engamohd]

Are you still experiencing this issue on the latest version of the game?

I am on the main 1.7.0 version on Epic. My issue is that the faction I join as a merc/vassal declares wars against everyone, literally. I had it in my two campaigns now, as Aserai and Sturgia. In the Aserai campaign Unqid declared war on everyone, even the Sturgians which we don't share any borders with. With the Sturgians, we keep declaring wars, Battanians - Vlandians - Khuzaits - All Empire factions, even though we are getting pummeled at all fronts, losing most castles on the frontlines, but still we keep declaring wars, with 100% support, the kind you can't even affect with 150 influence. It is really frustrating and makes it impossible to make any progress without some sort of exploit, such as the retreat one.

Ah, and the random reinforcement issue is just driving me crazy when trying to hold a defensive position, or attacking a defensive enemy.

 

[Doofus]

Playing 1.7.0. Actually one of my better games. I still get more or less all the factions wanting to war us, but since I didn't become ruler until I had about 30k influence, & I have a lot of holdings, I actually am able to afford to override most of my lords opinions regarding war. In fact, I'm up over 40k influence now. So most of the time I'm only warring 2 kingdoms, which is manageable. I am playing Aserai and have currently wiped out Vlandia, Battania, & Western Empire (OK, they still exist, but since they hold no territories, they aren't too much of a factor). I think I was personally helped in this campaign by being given a lot of territory when I wasn't even the ruler, because we didn't add other lords for a while and everything we were taking was next to my fiefs. Currently I pretty much hold all of Vlandia & about 1/2 of Battania & the Western Empire. I doubt I'll be given anything else, but those holdings easily support my 4 parties, even with very good troops in them.

 

[Zorion_no]

Playing 1.7.0. Actually one of my better games. I still get more or less all the factions wanting to war us, but since I didn't become ruler until I had about 30k influence, & I have a lot of holdings, I actually am able to afford to override most of my lords opinions regarding war. In fact, I'm up over 40k influence now. So most of the time I'm only warring 2 kingdoms, which is manageable. I am playing Aserai and have currently wiped out Vlandia, Battania, & Western Empire (OK, they still exist, but since they hold no territories, they aren't too much of a factor). I think I was personally helped in this campaign by being given a lot of territory when I wasn't even the ruler, because we didn't add other lords for a while and everything we were taking was next to my fiefs. Currently I pretty much hold all of Vlandia & about 1/2 of Battania & the Western Empire. I doubt I'll be given anything else, but those holdings easily support my 4 parties, even with very good troops in them.

Yah overall this is true, but as you point out once you get to a point, there will be endless wars, unless you are the king and can overrule it.
Bit harder when you arent.

I think its better in 1.71 perhaps than in 1.70.

as for the defeated kingdomes, those are "pest lords" like we had in Warband which cant really do anything, but will try to raid villages and harass villagers/caravans.

Ideally defeated kingdoms when its just the king's clan left, should be either reverted to a regular clan after 100-300 days?
Or like its in Viking Conquest(Warband dlc/mod) "exiled".

Still superweird though, they havent had land now for 2 years, and its only the rulers clan left, yet they keep on hireing merc clans, but they are very poor.

Same with rebel factions, that survive to "stick" but then loose their holdings, and are not joining factions, but declare war on all.
Pretty sure that banditkings like they end up most other factions would care less if you executed them.. (penalty for execution is too harsh, thus give players/kings option to Exile lords perhaps?)

 

[Doofus]

I agree with most of what you've said there. I'll explain the merc clans though. As they are now, they join kingdoms at war so that they can raid villages both to steal the wealth of the village and to get a bonus from the kingdom at war with the village. I'm convinced the merc clans actually would rather not join any armies to attack or defend towns/castles. They are basically just better organized bandits.

 

[Gadheras]

The biggest issue with constant wars on all fronts is you are just resorted to go around put out fires. You never get a breather to take care of your kingdom, go look up lords to recruit etc. When you make peace and they pay tribute to you, then they shouldn't just decleare war on you as soon as you turn your back. It doesn't make sense that a kingdom that REALLY like you war you either. The whole diplomacy system need some overhaul with maybe some alliance/non agression/trade pacts thrown into them etc.

 

[Zorion_no]

The biggest issue with constant wars on all fronts is you are just resorted to go around put out fires. You never get a breather to take care of your kingdom, go look up lords to recruit etc. When you make peace and they pay tribute to you, then they shouldn't just decleare war on you as soon as you turn your back. It doesn't make sense that a kingdom that REALLY like you war you either. The whole diplomacy system need some overhaul with maybe some alliance/non agression/trade pacts thrown into them etc.

Supposedly there is a 30 days grace period after peace have been negotiated.

I have provided to the devs 1 savefile where thats not the case.

They should prolly bump that 30 days to 100 or atleast 60.

The problem with the endless wars imo, is also that you end up makeing the faction "snowball" the others.
So by haveing more peacetime it would also halt the progress of the faction the player is with.
Or ideally remove th merc-factions, the games where I did use the console and removed them, the balance of peace/war was much better/fun.

Wars just drags on as the kingdomes hire too many merc-clans, I mean 10+ clans to your enemy is 40 new lords for them to control.
At the very least they need to cap the amount of mercs they can hire to 3 or 5, so its +15 or +20 lords tops.

For the record I'm tracking on Nexus several diplomacy mods, that fixes alot of theese issus, adds alliances, non-agression etc.

 

[MArdA TaleWorlds]

Do you have a save file of session that you experienced this issue? With your save file, we can reproduce the issue much easier and faster. You can find your save file here:C:\Users\username\Documents\Mount and Blade II Bannerlord\Game Saves
You can send your save files to us via the ticketing system on the website. To send us a ticket, please visit the www.taleworlds.com site and login to your forum account from the top right. Click to "My Account" and then click to "My Open Tickets". You can create a ticket there and include the save file and as well as the forum link of this thread. You can find more info about how to upload files to us with the new ticketing system here. Thanks for reporting and sorry for any inconvenience!

 

[Gadheras]

Supposedly there is a 30 days grace period after peace have been negotiated.

I have provided to the devs 1 savefile where thats not the case.

They should prolly bump that 30 days to 100 or atleast 60.

The problem with the endless wars imo, is also that you end up makeing the faction "snowball" the others.
So by haveing more peacetime it would also halt the progress of the faction the player is with.
Or ideally remove th merc-factions, the games where I did use the console and removed them, the balance of peace/war was much better/fun.

Wars just drags on as the kingdomes hire too many merc-clans, I mean 10+ clans to your enemy is 40 new lords for them to control.
At the very least they need to cap the amount of mercs they can hire to 3 or 5, so its +15 or +20 lords tops.

For the record I'm tracking on Nexus several diplomacy mods, that fixes alot of theese issus, adds alliances, non-agression etc.

If the mercs was limited to be recruited in the area they native too, it wouldn't be so bad, but when you might experience one faction suddenly hire every merc clan in the game.and you have camels roam around in snowy sturgia etc, its meeeh.

Also when you get stuck in war with several factions/kingdoms at once, a 30 day cooldown doesn't really mean much because in such a constant war, a new war will proc as soon as you can get a peace. This really put a damper on the late mid to late game. Also when everyone is locked up in wars you have bandits and looters running rampant around unchecked.

 

[Zorion_no]

If the mercs was limited to be recruited in the area they native too, it wouldn't be so bad, but when you might experience one faction suddenly hire every merc clan in the game.and you have camels roam around in snowy sturgia etc, its meeeh.

Also when you get stuck in war with several factions/kingdoms at once, a 30 day cooldown doesn't really mean much because in such a constant war, a new war will proc as soon as you can get a peace. This really put a damper on the late mid to late game. Also when everyone is locked up in wars you have bandits and looters running rampant around unchecked.

Pretty much "story of my games"..

Most of the time its endless wars, or as I call it chain war, as you get peace with one then there is another jumping or you get peace with first cause of the 2nd attacked or 3rd etc.

Thats why for those of us who gets into this kind of games, there needs to be better mechanics to get peace.

1. add "fatigue" to wars that is global and not locked to just the current war, thus a kingdome who's been at war for a long time, would want peace much more.
2. move the 30 day grace upwards to 50 atleast.
3. make tribute have a end time, so there isnt a war cause the others dont want to pay that much tribute now.
4. add in from warband a "make peace" quest like it was from mayors.
5. let us talk to enemy lords or king at the very least(when we arent kings ourselves) and make a deal for peace, where we for instance pay the tribute cost(again if its tied to 30 days, and if you look at the typical tribute is 3-4k when I play most of the time) so 90-120k to get peace with a faction.(and with haven peace being 50 days it wouldnt be that often you'd be "forced to pay it out".
6. change the AI and mercs being hired after defeats, to have merccompanies have a heavy upfront payment to be hired(this would also mean they would be more potent(not run around very poor with 30 units in their party), and also it would tax the kings hard so theey couldnt hire endless of them (keep the current system for the player when being a merc-clan thats fine, lets work for the money).
Fighting 10 native clans + 10 merc clans isnt that "great fun" when as soon as the war is over, another enemy declares war and over time end up hireing all those 10 merc clans aswell.

I get it, that its most likely cause we who experience this is prolly playing on a difficulty to low for us, and thus are "too sucessful" vs design, but thats still something the devs should account for, and try to make it no be a no-end to war once your faction have a "powerrating" of 12-14k Once I hit that spot, there is never a time of peace after, constant at war with 1 or more all the time, which tbh tanks fun.
Specially if you "need to do kingdome business" so a city dont revolt due to starvation or loyalty(AI controlled city not player) - and travelling from frontline take 5-7 days 1 way, and by that time the ai have sieged and captured 2-3 years of progress in a blink, cause your ai lords are dumb, and dont defend, but siege something far of into the enemy land, then stop the siege whe the other siege is attacking, they then turn to defend, and by the time they arrive in 2-3 days its over ..

 

[Doofus]

Supposedly there is a 30 days grace period after peace have been negotiated.

I have provided to the devs 1 savefile where thats not the case.

They should prolly bump that 30 days to 100 or atleast 60.

Yeah, I had a situation yesterday in my game where I made peace with the Sturgians while at Balgard, went and took Dunglanys from a rebel clan, and before I could get to Epicrotea afterwards they had already declared war on me again. I'm estimating about 10 days had passed. Rather than 30 days, maybe the programming resets the peace status at the start of each month (season) instead of after an actual 30 days. I'm at the point in my game where in any 10-day period I'm lucky if I don't have either 6 or all 7 factions at war with me.

 

[Doofus]

I get it, that its most likely cause we who experience this is prolly playing on a difficulty to low for us, and thus are "too sucessful" vs design, but thats still something the devs should account for, and try to make it no be a no-end to war once your faction have a "powerrating" of 12-14k Once I hit that spot, there is never a time of peace after, constant at war with 1 or more all the time, which tbh tanks fun.

I can't believe thats the case, since I've never won a game; assuming winning is having your kingdom control all the spots. With most games, I start at the easiest setting to learn the game, once I win, I up it to a tougher setting and keep making it tougher. I'll admit I didn't fully try winning at Easiest level because I felt like I was beating up on babies. But I've tried more than a dozen games on Easy (middle) level difficulty and haven't come close to winning. My best is about 3/4ths of the territories.

And yes, I no longer do 'kingdom business' unless I happen to be close to my territories, which doesn't happen much anymore. I have a lot of hideouts I'd like to get rid of, but don't have the time. I know I have at least 2 hideouts near one of my towns, but if I go take care of it my kingdom will probably lose at least 2 or 3 territories before I can get back to the front lines. Plus, I expect both remaining Empire clans to go full bore against me soon as the Neretzes quest penalty kicks in. Seeing the quest is still a waste, I likely will avoid doing it again for at least the next 6-12 months after this, but I wanted to see if there were any significant changes since the last time I had tried it. Silly me.