Fiefs are imbalanced in a aggravated way that affects everything else.

[xdj1nn]

Fiefs are imbalanced in a aggravated way that affects everything else, it seems Battania holds towns with whooping 4 villages each, which explains why they steam-roll so often, whilst, say, Sturgia only holds 2 towns with 3 villages, and the rest is scarce with 2 each. That being said, the most OP nations at the start would be Aserai and Vlandia by the amount of towns, but I didn't check the amount of bound villages to them... In the end, that breaks the economy by making certain towns extremely wealthy whilst hindering other towns with 2 villages, making those depend upon you never conquering nearby towns and keeping all nearby castles (this way you boost the number of villages sending peasants to your town, making it richer). If you decided to conquer the nearby town, you'll break your main town economy. So, what's the best strategy right now? Conquer Battania, from there you'll be able to steamroll the early "kingdom" and soon enough you'll be snowballing everything.

On the other hand, if you start by any of the Empire's territories, you'll be playing roulette, to be at least somewhat efficient you'd need to take the cluster of towns located Northwest of the Kingdoms, notably you'd need to wage war against both Western + Northern and steal their 3 village towns, you'd still be in a disadvantage to Battania.

I think the World map needs balancing, proper balancing. Towns should have a medium equivalent of bound villages, else you're condemning certain AI factions / Lords to always be struggling.

 

[kampfbock]

To be honest i would prefer some imbalance in this part. The fiefs already feel way too bland and it seems like it doesn't matter what towns or castles you conquer. It is a feeling i dont like, i want the regions and fiefs to really feel distinct and that includes their economy. So some fiefs should be richer than other. But this should of course be somehow balanced in another way then, which atm it clearly is not.
I for one hope that they balance it with another system, rather than just equaling the fiefs and towns.

 

[xdj1nn]

To be honest i would prefer some imbalance in this part. The fiefs already feel way too bland and it seems like it doesn't matter what towns or castles you conquer. It is a feeling i dont like, i want the regions and fiefs to really feel distinct and that includes their economy. So some fiefs should be richer than other. But this should of course be somehow balanced in another way then, which atm it clearly is not.
I for one hope that they balance it with another system, rather than just equaling the fiefs and towns.

oh but it does matter, for the AI in Early Game, and on your first few fiefs too... Late game the economy is so broken on both Gold and Influence, that nothing matters anymore to anyone. This imbalance is the cause of premature faction extinction by the AI, as of late game, late game is just broken, so trying to judge it by that is not the smartest thing to do.

 

[kampfbock]

Ye i get your point, but as you said, the game is so broken and empty, that the fiefs are one of the few things balanceable atm. I can just say, that in the finished game, i would want fiefs that feel distinct from each other and that includes their economy. Balancing it is another issue, which we cannot even comprehend yet.
One solution right now would be to just go for a total value of fiefs per faction. Fiefs would still be different in their ''value'', but over all a faction would start of on a similiar level as any other.

Maybe if we ever get a game, that is more than just an outdated directional combat simulator, if we get a real strategy game, maybe at that point there would be other means to balance fiefs, but that day is not forseeable.