Feedback about my bandit campain (roguery)

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I started a campain in which i work as a bandit, with bandit troops and all. My goal is the be a nuisance to the snowballing factions (khuzait and battania) by pillaging their towns, killing their lords off-guard, executing the khuzait lords, solo siege a castle once possible and create own kingdom in order to have the option of forming armies with siblings. First of all, i am enjoying this campain so far, the Khuzait problem seems way better, empire managed to survive and Aserai is way more agressive towards Khuzait than usual.

There are a few issues with this type of gameplay that i would like to point out
1- Roguery is a crazy grind.
Most of my gameplay revolves around being a bandit, pillaging villages, caravans and farmers. As well as slaving and selling prisoners.
By the time i hit clan tier 4, my roguery skill is at 88 (started at around 35... placed all the points in roguery at the beginning). I just cant imagine ever hitting 275 with roguery, it just doesnt go up at all. Its way too long. Pillaging has so many downsides it should level up roguery way faster, espiecially when you raid a well guarded village (75+ militia).

2- Pillaging is so not worth it + possible bug exploit
So here are the downsides of pillaging :

-You lose reputation with tons of people very fast
-You become at war with a faction even though you murdered literally everyone and nobody was technically aware that you raided the village.
-You get slowed down, vulnerable to getting ambushed by a fast moving lord that comes to defend the village
-The loot you get from pillaging is worth jack all. Literally you waste almost as much food pillaging than you loot food from the village. You cannot produce any income with this method, even when you raid a village that hasnt been touched since day 1. The only exception seems to be the villages that produces war horses that can sell for 1.3k. Even then, its nothing.
-Lords can still recruits units from fully raided villages.

Here are the upsides of pillaging :
-You level up roguery (very slowly)
-You steal a BIT of goods that can sell for very small profit
-You weaken the village's faction (a bit, difference is barely noticable)

The pros are not worth the cons, at all.

Other issues i see with pillaging village :
How the hell are the nearby lords even informed, or informed that fast, that i am raiding a village ? I just executed everybody. Like its kind of annoying that your character is considered a dumbass unable to raid a village without alerting a massive army nearby. Against factions that move fast, like Khuzait, its sometimes near impossible to raid a village without having a vassal chasing you to every corners of the world.

Some villages are literally created with the goal of making you lose as much units as possible in the battle vs the militia leaving 0 room for tactics. You spawn right in a mountain with the militia already controlling the high ground and charging you, making you unable to position your archers, inf and cavalry properly. Some villages are designed to f**k you up, straight up.

Bug that Taleworlds want to fix :
It seems that we only lose relation with lords the moment the village is completely raided. If i decide to stop the raid at 99% and leave, i will not lose relation. For the sake of playing fair i completed all my raids in the campain, but i couldve raided villages without losing relations that way.

3- Enemy of my enemy is my friend ? HELL NAH
Im not gonna go too deep into how i played my campain, but i'm just gonna throw it out there : Vlandia, Southern Empire and Aserai should be blowing my d**k for everything that i've done for them. While Khuzait was at war with Aserai i was following the Aserai army, raiding villages near the town they were sieging, when they were chasing a Khuzait army i would go and catch up the Khuzaits for them in order to initiate the battle. I've done the same for Southern empire vs Khuzait and Vlandia vs Battania. Vlandia had only 2 castles left, completely conquered by Battania. I raided Battania so much and helped Vlandia so much to took back like 4 castles once i started helping them and weakening the Battania.

Guess what ? They all HATE MY ASS. Why ? Becauses when you execute lords, EVERYBODY hates you, even the enemies of the lord you just beheaded. I had no choice to execute some Khuzait lords, they were starting to snowball. So i took some high clan tier lords of them. Everybody hates more now. Since everybody hate me, i cannot join anyone as a Mercenary to help them, i cannot enter anyone's castle. I was literally the lord and savior for Vlandia and they spit in my face when they see me.

Guess which factions loves me the most ? Battania. Battania is the faction i raided the most and beaten the most in battle. The difference is that i dont execute them, i release them to get some charm.

So heres the result :
Khuzait hates me with a passion
Aserai hates me even though i've helped them win vs Khuzait
Southern empire hates me, but not as much as Aserai, the reason being i helped them alot before starting to execute Khuzaits. I got into Rhaega's favors before i went full murderer.
Battanians love me even though i'm their worst nightmare
Vlandia hate me even though i literally saved them from being deleted from the game.
All the mercenary clan hate my ass. Like they give a **** that i execute some Khuzaits, they are mercenaries...

The results makes literally 0 sense when you take into account the way i played my game. Something needs to be done with Roguery because its way off.
 
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Yeah I also tried to make a VIKING RAIDING PARTY! and.. well... raiding Khuzait was a terrible idea since their Vassals always come quicker than the actual raiding finishes, aswell the financial reward for raiding is mediocre.
Plus I dont think that many of the Rougery skills are really worth it currently.

However it was fun to defeat Khuzait vassals over and over.
Remember kids: When fighting Khuzait, have a lot of archers and move them to the left flank.
Those silly Horsearchers rides STRAIGHT into your rain of arrows.
 
I really wanted to make roguery work but these issues are just too much to have any fun. It really feels like the idea was just abandoned. They really need to have certain cultures approve of raiding, like the sturgians.

They also need to really flesh it out. Like am I a raider, a slaver, or a smuggler? I really think adding an option to smuggle goods in caravans or into cities from raiding would really add to the game.
 
I started a campain in which i work as a bandit, with bandit troops and all. My goal is the be a nuisance to the snowballing factions (khuzait and battania) by pillaging their towns, killing their lords off-guard, executing the khuzait lords, solo siege a castle once possible and create own kingdom in order to have the option of forming armies with siblings. First of all, i am enjoying this campain so far, the Khuzait problem seems way better, empire managed to survive and Aserai is way more agressive towards Khuzait than usual.

There are a few issues with this type of gameplay that i would like to point out
1- Roguery is a crazy grind.
Most of my gameplay revolves around being a bandit, pillaging villages, caravans and farmers. As well as slaving and selling prisoners.
By the time i hit clan tier 4, my roguery skill is at 88 (started at around 35... placed all the points in roguery at the beginning). I just cant imagine ever hitting 275 with roguery, it just doesnt go up at all. Its way too long. Pillaging has so many downsides it should level up roguery way faster, espiecially when you raid a well guarded village (75+ militia).

2- Pillaging is so not worth it + possible bug exploit
So here are the downsides of pillaging :

-You lose reputation with tons of people very fast
-You become at war with a faction even though you murdered literally everyone and nobody was technically aware that you raided the village.
-You get slowed down, vulnerable to getting ambushed by a fast moving lord that comes to defend the village
-The loot you get from pillaging is worth jack all. Literally you waste almost as much food pillaging than you loot food from the village. You cannot produce any income with this method, even when you raid a village that hasnt been touched since day 1. The only exception seems to be the villages that produces war horses that can sell for 1.3k. Even then, its nothing.
-Lords can still recruits units from fully raided villages.

Here are the upsides of pillaging :
-You level up roguery (very slowly)
-You steal a BIT of goods that can sell for very small profit
-You weaken the village's faction (a bit, difference is barely noticable)

The pros are not worth the cons, at all.

Other issues i see with pillaging village :
How the hell are the nearby lords even informed, or informed that fast, that i am raiding a village ? I just executed everybody. Like its kind of annoying that your character is considered a dumbass unable to raid a village without alerting a massive army nearby. Against factions that move fast, like Khuzait, its sometimes near impossible to raid a village without having a vassal chasing you to every corners of the world.

Some villages are literally created with the goal of making you lose as much units as possible in the battle vs the militia leaving 0 room for tactics. You spawn right in a mountain with the militia already controlling the high ground and charging you, making you unable to position your archers, inf and cavalry properly. Some villages are designed to f**k you up, straight up.

Bug that Taleworlds want to fix :
It seems that we only lose relation with lords the moment the village is completely raided. If i decide to stop the raid at 99% and leave, i will not lose relation. For the sake of playing fair i completed all my raids in the campain, but i couldve raided villages without losing relations that way.

3- Enemy of my enemy is my friend ? HELL NAH
Im not gonna go too deep into how i played my campain, but i'm just gonna throw it out there : Vlandia, Southern Empire and Aserai should be blowing my d**k for everything that i've done for them. While Khuzait was at war with Aserai i was following the Aserai army, raiding villages near the town they were sieging, when they were chasing a Khuzait army i would go and catch up the Khuzaits for them in order to initiate the battle. I've done the same for Southern empire vs Khuzait and Vlandia vs Battania. Vlandia had only 2 castles left, completely conquered by Battania. I raided Battania so much and helped Vlandia so much to took back like 4 castles once i started helping them and weakening the Battania.

Guess what ? They all HATE MY ASS. Why ? Becauses when you execute lords, EVERYBODY hates you, even the enemies of the lord you just beheaded. I had no choice to execute some Khuzait lords, they were starting to snowball. So i took some high clan tier lords of them. Everybody hates more now. Since everybody hate me, i cannot join anyone as a Mercenary to help them, i cannot enter anyone's castle. I was literally the lord and savior for Vlandia and they spit in my face when they see me.

Guess which factions loves me the most ? Battania. Battania is the faction i raided the most and beaten the most in battle. The difference is that i dont execute them, i release them to get some charm.

So heres the result :
Khuzait hates me with a passion
Aserai hates me even though i've helped them win vs Khuzait
Southern empire hates me, but not as much as Aserai, the reason being i helped them alot before starting to execute Khuzaits. I got into Rhaega's favors before i went full murderer.
Battanians love me even though i'm their worst nightmare
Vlandia hate me even though i literally saved them from being deleted from the game.
All the mercenary clan hate my ass. Like they give a **** that i execute some Khuzaits, they are mercenaries...

The results makes literally 0 sense when you take into account the way i played my game. Something needs to be done with Roguery because its way off.
Agree with every point, let’s me add my thoughts.
- raiding should be more rewarding
- Executing nobles should not anger their enemy’s.
- You should be able to dual a bandit leader to take over his hideout, afterwards you can form an army out of the small parties connected to the hideout.
-After your renown/roquery/relations is high enough other bandit party’s want to follow you as long as it is profitable for them.
-A successful bandit could get a “letter of marque” (Dutch: kaperbrief) this could function in the way of the mercenary system.

there are so many ways to make a bandit play through more interesting, it would be a shame if nothing is done to it.
 
Yeah raiding really sucks. What's really good though is forced recruitment! Only the 1st village you do it gets mad at you and and it starts a war, but you can do it all you want after and they don't lose relations. Depriving the Khuzaits of all their noble units is sweet :smile:
Also, doing the "deliver the herd" quest for aseri is good because they give you 10 aeseri (I can't spell it) warhorses and you can just sell them and woopsie poopsie, 10-15k easy and you can buy 2-3X more other warhorses, or whatever.
 
Yeah raiding really sucks. What's really good though is forced recruitment! Only the 1st village you do it gets mad at you and and it starts a war, but you can do it all you want after and they don't lose relations. Depriving the Khuzaits of all their noble units is sweet :smile:
Also, doing the "deliver the herd" quest for aseri is good because they give you 10 aeseri (I can't spell it) warhorses and you can just sell them and woopsie poopsie, 10-15k easy and you can buy 2-3X more other warhorses, or whatever.
Once I figured out forced recruitment was the way to go I stopped raiding villages. It's just not worth it.
 
I am really hoping Roguery is just a low priority item right now and wasn't a cut feature. There is so much potential here to add new elements to play and make money in the early and mid game.
 
It sure is lower priority, and I would dare say it is not fully implemented.
If you go to the back alleys and talk to the thugs, you'll see that they talk about some protection tolls they take from people. Apparently, you can fight them and capture the area, but you don't get anything from that. I would assume they have some features in mind that would enable you to capture and manage them as a profitable enterprise, just as the gang leaders do now (or don't, if the feature is not even implemented for the AI). The thugs also mention they fence goods in the town. That also begs the question if stolen items would need to be smuggled in or out. That would, of course, require the cooperation of the bandits outside. I even made a suggestion to make the bandit parties and gang leaders more intertwinned, kind of like persistent bandit clans that have an economy of their own.
Bandits and hideouts overhaul: a breath of fresh air into the bandit underworld | TaleWorlds Forums

Edit: Here's a quoted post from my thread.
just on modding table side - each culture has its own bandit defaults and rebels that are empty for all the major factions from what i see. Could be a way to create more cultural regionalism banditry

<xs:attribute name="rebels_party_template" type="xs:string" use="optional" />
<xs:attribute name="bandit_bandit" type="xs:string" use="optional" />
<xs:attribute name="bandit_chief" type="xs:string" use="optional" />
<xs:attribute name="bandit_raider" type="xs:string" use="optional" />
<xs:attribute name="bandit_boss" type="xs:string" use="optional" />

and i agree bandits immediately looked to me to have a heap of potential and a good tight faction and place for me to start modding Bannerlord for the first time
This user found out about the rebel feature back in August. It makes me wonder if indeed they are baking something major for the bandits.
 
I really wanted to make roguery work but these issues are just too much to have any fun. It really feels like the idea was just abandoned. They really need to have certain cultures approve of raiding, like the sturgians.
the problem with Roguery is that it doesn't work. for all other skills they reinforce what the player is doing: Two-handed makes you better at two-handed weapons, Scouting makes you see more, Engineering makes you better a sieging. but Roguery doesn't make you raid better, doesn't increase the chance of bandits joining your side. not letting you escape captivity, not even sneaking into towns to sell that loot you just raided. but what does it it give you? 0.25% more battle loot!! so unless you're fighting a lot of battle, it is near useless!
 
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