Fiefs income nerfed in 1.6.1 - Why???

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Dabos37

Sergeant Knight at Arms
I think that most here agree about fiefs income has never been great, but now for some weird reason it has been nerfed. There are tons of AI clans which already have economy issues, so why make it even worse for them?

If it is about nerfing the player’s income, just nerf loot or workshops which are giving 400 denars daily again and just the player has access to them.

Tax from prosperity has got down to 30% from 36% for some weird reason.
 
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Just about the last needed was less cash...it's almost as though they want the map littered with thousands of 30 man parties??

Currently, by mid game the map is littered with 200 man parties, which leads to easy-to-form, large armies. Sieging a city will lead to it being defended by 2 or 3 full armies. It renders war a long slog of samey field battles. Even with only one city, I can field 4 parties financed by my fiefs, and form a 7 or 800 man army from my clan alone - and keep it in the field permanently.

The entire game is based on the consequences of one large battle - but the irony is that battle in the actual game is impossible - it would instead be played out as a long series of boringly similar battles over many years.

In my games, to take a city, I might fight 3 or 4 or 5 field battles - rendering them nameless and repetitive. Wars are attritional - and thus boring. I'd like to see a situation where a large battle becomes a high risk affair that has real consequences for factions. Victory might open up opportunities for conquest - but also a chance to over extend. Loss leaves a faction reeling and scrambling to replace forces. Pyrrhic victory doesn't exist in game.

Forces should be hard to replace - and the longer a war goes on, should be harder and harder to replace.

One way to do this would be to change the ease in which lords build and sustain large parties quickly. So I'd be curious if this is in fact the case.
 
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I doubt it is related to making harder to replace troops, when at the same time we are getting changes for recruiting higher tier troops easier from notables.

The reason for nerfing fief income is probably related to making harder for the player to get money. I am ok with this because it is actually really easy to become rich in this game, but it is related to some workshops giving 400 denars daily and loot income being insanely high.

Kings like Derther and Ravangad usually have tons of financial issues and this change just make it worse for them.
 
Currently, by mid game the map is littered with 200 man parties, which leads to easy-to-form, large armies. Sieging a city will lead to it being defended by 2 or 3 full armies. It renders war a long slog of samey field battles. Even with only one city, I can field 4 parties financed by my fiefs, and form a 7 or 800 man army from my clan alone - and keep it in the field permanently.

The entire game is based on the consequences of one large battle - but the irony is that battle in the actual game is impossible - it would instead be played out as a long series of boringly similar battles over many years.

In my games, to take a city, I might fight 3 or 4 or 5 field battles - rendering them nameless and repetitive. Wars are attritional - and thus boring. I'd like to see a situation where a large battle becomes a high risk affair that has real consequences for factions. Victory might open up opportunities for conquest - but also a chance to over extend. Loss leaves a faction reeling and scrambling to replace forces. Pyrrhic victory doesn't exist in game.

Forces should be hard to replace - and the longer a war goes on, should be harder and harder to replace.

One way to do this would be to change the ease in which lords build and sustain large parties quickly. So I'd be curious if this is in fact the case.
Realism vs gameplay. Warband wasn't like what you are suggesting and it worked just fine.
 
Realism vs gameplay. Warband wasn't like what you are suggesting and it worked just fine.
Late-game Warband was absolutely a slogfest against infinitely respawning AI parties, it did not just "work fine." Almost everyone who pulled off a legitimate conquest used some form of cheese -- all Swadian Knights/Nord Huscarls, stacked Trainer skill, 1000 villager garrisons, etc. -- because it was so balls-out grindy.
 
Late-game Warband was absolutely a slogfest against infinitely respawning AI parties, it did not just "work fine." Almost everyone who pulled off a legitimate conquest used some form of cheese -- all Swadian Knights/Nord Huscarls, stacked Trainer skill, 1000 villager garrisons, etc. -- because it was so balls-out grindy.
Personally don't consider those methods as cheese...and late game I just refused to release captured lords.

Forces should be hard to replace - and the longer a war goes on, should be harder and harder to replace.

The problem I have with this, is that losing one battle could potentially lead you to lose half of your Kingdom.
 
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The problem I have with this, is that losing one battle could potentially lead you to lose half of your Kingdom.
This is completely accurate and reflected in the annals of history. Why do you see a problem with that? If you don't want to lose battles set the game's difficulty to 'easy'.
 
Seriously, in what world decreasing fiefs income would make harder to replace troops at all, while at the same time we have battle loot and other source income giving an insane amount of denars?

Check most of AI clans and you are going to notice that a lot of them are poor clans. It is even worse when we see some rulers clans with two towns and one castles being poor (Vlandia and Sturgia in most of my campaigns). It is even worse to see that some kings are not able to sustain a decent party while the player is able to do it without problem. It is silly to see that I am able to sustain a bigger party at clan tier 4 than some kings…

Reducing fiefs income is not a good idea in my view because it mostly hurts the AI, while the player is still swimming in money due to workshops and loot (especially if the player spams ranged units to easily grind AI lords). If you want to make battles more decisive, just make longer for lords to recover from getting defeated (increase spawning time), and make for them harder to escape.

Reducing fiefs income is probably the worse way to achieve what you are saying, and it only makes the game even easier for the player who is still able to get tons of money from different income sources which are much more lucrative than fiefs, and the AI does not have access. Then we have to face poor clans with mediocre parties which is pretty unfun.
 
This is completely accurate and reflected in the annals of history. Why do you see a problem with that? If you don't want to lose battles set the game's difficulty to 'easy'.

Realism vs gameplay. If thats the case, whats the point of.... developing your character, choosing companions, setting yourself up financially with workshops and trading. Whats the point of any of these things if your Kingdom can be snuffed out in the blink of an eye from a couple of battles?

Currently a large percentage of this game's mechanics simply wouldn't support that. What you guys are talking about would suit an overhaul mod.
 
Realism vs gameplay. If thats the case, whats the point of.... developing your character, choosing companions, setting yourself up financially with workshops and trading. Whats the point of any of these things if your Kingdom can be snuffed out in the blink of an eye from a couple of battles?

Currently a large percentage of this game's mechanics simply wouldn't support that. What you guys are talking about would suit an overhaul mod.
'Challenge' is the point of all that...
 
Well Lords have never been that strong to begin with but this should make it easier to convince them to join you, it's the mercenary minor factions who are always carrying wars, they seem to have a super fast recovery comapred to lords, larger party sizes and good quality combined with special units they get. And without any "messager" mod it's really hard for player to hire them while AI Rulers spam them to win entire wars for them. And they also seem to be more active with raiding villiges so you get more hidden "warscore" for tribute payments.
 
Well Lords have never been that strong to begin with but this should make it easier to convince them to join you, it's the mercenary minor factions who are always carrying wars, they seem to have a super fast recovery comapred to lords, larger party sizes and good quality combined with special units they get. And without any "messager" mod it's really hard for player to hire them while AI Rulers spam them to win entire wars for them. And they also seem to be more active with raiding villiges so you get more hidden "warscore" for tribute payments.

I have played some interesting battles against enemy kings with +200 units parties. Now it is pretty common to see lords creating parties with 100-130 units as much. Even some kings are unable to build decent parties.

“Lords have never been that strong” sure, why make them weaker then? Do not having messengers to recruit lords is a completely different issue which has no much to do with making AI lords weaker. Plus, it is not hard to recruit some clans fast if you plan it carefully some time before.

I really would love to have different difficulty levels for everything, to avoiding people complaining for “the game is too hard” making the game easier after every patch.
 
So rather than grind battles, you would prefer to grind everything else just have a few battles. If modders could create a hardcore realistic mod with few battles - also changing ...well basically everything about SP, sure. But not in native.
I believe it is not that black and white here. Smaller recruits intake should be somehow compensated with their combat toughness. But generally, lack of competence on the battlefield should be punished. The consequences of losing decisive battles might be this kind of challenging moment. You would still be able to hire mercs but this will cost you. A good strategist will be able to defend the kingdom but not without the price.

I agree that Bannerlord has to be further balanced. Current patching reminds me of Sanderson's "Mistborn" saga... TW is like the Emperor who wields a great power to shape reality but is unaware of the consequences of this experimenting. And to put it simply he's doing it wrong.

In the 1.6.0 and previous releases, I have had an impression that despite hitting the enemy pretty hard they were still able to counter with huge armies. Didn't feel they were as desperate as anyone should normally be while being so much obliterated.
 
The problem I have with this, is that losing one battle could potentially lead you to lose half of your Kingdom.
Said Harold Godwinson, Charles d'Albret, Béla IV of Hungary, Romanos IV and every other medieval war leader who lost half or more of their kingdom because of the fallout caused by a single decisive battle.

Yes many medieval wars were attritional slogs of siege after siege, but if a king or clan leader takes the field, there should always be room for drastic changes in the landscape based on losing decisive battles.
 
Seriously, in what world decreasing fiefs income would make harder to replace troops at all, while at the same time we have battle loot and other source income giving an insane amount of denars?
There isn't one. Decreasing fief income does almost nothing to affect recruiting, in practice. I don't know why TW decided to reduce it and I can't think of any reason it needed a nerf except...

...except if they wanted there to more poor clans in general, so players can recruit them for cheap.
 
I can't say for certain why they've decided to nerf the tax percentage, and maybe the reasons that people have already listed in this thread are the correct answers, but one thing to consider is that it appears they've also made some minor changes to the passive food income of settlements.

The "Land around settlements" bonus that all settlements used to have is back and has been rebranded as "Inside Production". Consequently, they've also reduced the food given per level of Orchards, but the sum total of the bonuses from Inside Production and Orchards in 1.6.1 is still higher than Orchards was alone in 1.6.0. Since the baseline food income that settlements have access to has increased across the board, the average prosperity of settlements should also rise, thus resulting in higher tax income.

Remember, when the game first released, the tax percentage from prosperity was only 20%. It was later buffed to 25%, then to 36%, and then nerfed to the present 30%. So even with the nerf, the tax percentage is still a full 10% higher than it was at launch. Since launch though, the average prosperity of settlements has fallen quite a bit (which would reduce tax income) and loyalty and security values tend to be lower (which also reduces tax income), which is why they probably felt a bump to tax percentages was necessary to balance things out. Now that settlements' passive food income has been buffed a bit, they might feel a minor decrease to tax percentages is warranted to balance out the higher expected prosperity.

It's probably best not to evaluate any changes they make in a vacuum since the game's mechanics are so interconnected, and balance tweaks to one mechanic are bound to also affect adjacent mechanics. They have the data collection tools to keep track of the broad effects any changes they may make will have.
 
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I can't say for certain why they've decided to nerf the tax percentage, and maybe the reasons that people have already listed in this thread are the correct answers, but one thing to consider is that it appears they've also made some minor changes to the passive food income of settlements.

The "Land around settlements" bonus that all settlements used to have is back and has been rebranded as "Inside Production". Consequently, they've also reduced the food given per level of Orchards, but the sum total of the bonuses from Inside Production and Orchards in 1.6.1 is still higher than Orchards was alone in 1.6.0. Since the baseline food income that settlements have access to has increased across the board, the average prosperity of settlements should also rise, thus resulting in higher tax income.

Remember, when the game first released, the tax percentage from prosperity was only 20%. It was later buffed to 25%, then to 36%, and then nerfed to the present 30%. So even with the nerf, the tax percentage is still a full 10% higher than it was at launch. Since launch though, the average prosperity of settlements has fallen quite a bit (which would reduce tax income) and loyalty and security values tend to be lower (which also reduces tax income), which is why they probably felt a bump to tax percentages was necessary to balance things out. Now that settlements' passive food income has been buffed a bit, they might feel a minor decrease to tax percentages is warranted to balance out the higher expected prosperity.

It's probably best not to evaluate any changes they make in a vacuum since the game's mechanics are so interconnected, and balance tweaks to one mechanic are bound to also affect adjacent mechanics. They have the data collection tools to keep track of the broad effects any changes they may make will have.

Thank you, this is a quite interesting information. Yes, I remember when tax percent was set at 20% at release, and it got increased due to a lot of people complaining about how small the fiefs income feels compared to other income sources.

I am not going to say that this 6% is a huge thing (it is actually bigger than it looks at first glance though, due to marketplaces buildings, etc), but it mostly hurts these clans with two castles or so. Getting -200 or -300 per day for the player is almost unnoticeable, but for the AI clans it could be a problem.

As an example, I have usually keep my old campaigns save games, and I checked one where I just had 4 castles (no workshops, no caravans, I was playing with same AI rules). In 1.6.0 I was getting +200 daily, but in 1.6.1 negative income -700 or so. This is unnoticeable for the player (I could get around 400 daily from only one workshop if I would want to buy it), but completely devasting for the AI which only gets money from fiefs and battle loot.

I encourage the people to check clans economy though the encyclopedy in 1.6.1 to check if there are much Poor clans. It was the case in 1.6.0 and it is probably worse now in 1.6.1.


There isn't one. Decreasing fief income does almost nothing to affect recruiting, in practice. I don't know why TW decided to reduce it and I can't think of any reason it needed a nerf except...

...except if they wanted there to more poor clans in general, so players can recruit them for cheap.

Yes, and this annoys me a lot. The problem here is that people want to become king at day 500 creating their own kingdom (the hardest path), playing at the highest difficulty, and then complain because the game is “hard”. Recruiting lords have been always pretty much doable and I do not get why it should be easier. Plus, I think we are going to be able to create new clans using our companions in the future, so these kind of changes are actually not necessary.
 
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