Doofus
Sergeant
I have actually won the game once. But generally I play at easy level (not easiest). My plan with most games is to start easy, then when I win a couple times try harder settings, etc.. Problem is (In my opinion) this game is almost impossible to win without playing a homicidal maniac. I should clarify that I play with the goal of conquering the whole map. I try to play more or less as myself in an alternate setting. So....I play as I nice guy trying to rid the world of endless wars by unifying all the countries under one nation/empire/kingdom etc.
From a practical standpoint, I don't just routinely release prisoner lords after a battle. But I do release them if a reasonable ransom is offered (ie: over 1k denars). I don't execute them, although I'm very tempted at times. It doesn't fit my personality. So..my most recent game I decided to play a female, which I've done once or twice before. I decided she will be so upset with arrogant lords that just want war at the expense of the common people. She will be so upset with mercenaries who basically just do raids and harm the common people. She will be so upset with all of this that she will start executing them at some point in the game. This makes sense to me because, if I understand the start of the game, the player is a commoner that masquerades as a noble lord. So his/her feelings would tend more toward helping the common people than adopting the traits of the arrogant lords. Figured then I could play the game by executing lords, which would make the game winnable, and still play under my good-guy terms. Nope. When it came time to do the first execution I just couldn't do it. The game itself doesn't hep with this. I think it should at least allow mercenary executions with no negative consequences. Personally, I feel whenever a faction declares war on you (not you declaring on them), if you capture the faction leader, you should be able to execute them with no negative consequences.
Beyond executions though, the game has so many problems that just don't logically fit. Here's a few;
If you do the bannerlord quest and you give the banner to the leader of a kingdom, he says its the greatest thing anyone has ever done for him...but you get no reward. You don't get any sort of stat bonus. You don't get a physical reward from that leader (special sword, helm, armor etc). As far as I know you don't even gain relations with that lord. If you decide to start your own kingdom you also get no bonuses from being 'the Bannerlord'. It doesn't help your charm. You get no lords flocking to join 'the rightful ruler'. Nothing. The only thing you get by doing the main quest the game is named for is unending quests to try to stop kingdoms from warring you. You can't complete them all though because they are geographically all over the map and you probably already have wars to fight and fiefs to try to manage. So eventually the quest results in a mulitude of kingdoms declaring war on you all at once. The only 'benefit' to doing the quest is that it allows you to start your own kingdom one clan level earlier. But this isn't really a benefit. It just means you can start it earlier when you are less prepared for all the wars & stuff. So absolutely no one should do the Neretzes/Bannerlord quest. So why is it even in the game?
You can't eliminate factions. Not even temporarily. In the later stages of the game, or even what I would call the middle stages (when your kingdom controls maybe 50% of all territories), you are in endless war with every faction, even those that don't even border you. If you could eliminate factions, you could sacrifice land to some factions while systematically concentrating on eliminating others. Then you could go back and take back the land you lost. But if you fight on one border, you are losing land on your other border(s) and then when you go to take that back you will lose the land you just lost because you couldn't get rid of that enemy.
Peace declarations are pretty much useless. I think there's no time limit on them, so even if you get peace with another kingdom in the mid-to-later stages of the game they will just declare war on you again within one season. Does this make sense? In real life have there been ANY wars that have had peace declared and 3 months later war starts up again? I've never heard of a single one. There are occasionally temporary truces declared, but they are declared as temporary, not permanent peace declarations.
You have governors in castles and towns. You give them garrisons and you have them recruit militia to help them. But they are incapable of hunting down and removing hideouts? They can't send you messages advising you there's no funds for building things or asking what you'd like built next when the build que ends? They can't even advise there's a problem with security because of a hideout? You can't send them funds to keep assisting with building? They can't handle some of the routine taks that come up or ask how you'd like to handle them?
Speaking of communications, No other lords will EVER come to you asking to join you, even if their kingdom now has no holdings? Mercenaries will NEVER approach you and offer their services? You have to hunt down the mercenary leader someplace while (presumably) leading your forces in a war? You are supposed to recruit enemy lords to your faction, but you are always at war and usually leading an army, which makes you slower than a solo lord party so you can't catch them. And if they are part of an army they won't talk to you about defecting to you.
Here's another thing that I've never seen anyone actually suggest. As you know, if you take over a town of a culture different from yours, there's a good chance it will rebel against you unless you put a governor in it of the same culture (even then it could easily happen, but not as routinely). My suggestion, that will never happen, is that when you vote who gets a fief it should tell you what cultures the clans being suggested for the fief have within their clan. Example: You are with an Empire faction. You just took a Sturgian town (Omor?). 2 of the clans have only empire culture lords/ladies within them, but the third one just had their leader marry a Sturgian lady and one of the younger members of the clan married a Sturgian lady as well. If I knew this I would definitely be voting for the third clan to get Omor. But unless I'm doing accountant level paperwork at my computer desk, I'm not going to know this. The game should give a small flag for each culture represented by the clan when presenting the fief for voting. Also, make sure the game puts the lord/lady of that culture in as governor (unless they are already governing a different town of that culture).
When I capture an enemy lord/lady I can 'sell' them to a ransom broker or wait for a ransom offer. They may escape before I get a ransom offer or I may refuse the ransom offer. But when I get captured, I never get the chance to do a ransom offer. I might escape or I may bribe my way out, but I can never send a ransom offer or have one sent on my behalf. I think in the over 4000 hours I've played this game I've only had one ransom offer over 10k and that was just over 10k. But bribes are typically between 100k to 500k, depending how rich I am. Why? The king of a nation isn't worth over 10k (usually not even 5k) but I'm worth 100s of thousands, even when I'm not the ruler? I might be able to afford it, but basically I'm getting screwed and no one can argue that I'm not. I hate paying these bribes on principal and it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Also...When I get away, whether its escaping or bribing someone, I have to be real careful or I'm going to be recaptured. So I just paid a 300k bribe, I get recaptured again, now I'm expected to pay another huge bribe? Have you ever seen another lord/lady recaptured after escaping or paying a ransom? If they can't be recaptured then I shouldn't be recaptured. I should have a free pass until I reach a town/castle that I, or my faction, controls. Does this make sense?
There's a hell of a lot of technical problems with the game & anyone can go look at those forums, but I wanted to express some of the problems with the game that just plain fall under the category of 'Illogical' and unrealistic. I truly believe that absolutely none of the Devs (or managers) have played the game and I feel that if they did they would understand the frustrations and problems with the game much better. I continue to play the game because I love the play style with both a campaign map and a battle map and controlling both your own character and the troops under you. But they really need to give the game an overhaul. I typically play about 1/2 way through the game then give up on it. They have improved some of the visuals adding new maps for battles & such and a wider variety of equipment. But its the basics of the game itself they should be concentrating on.
From a practical standpoint, I don't just routinely release prisoner lords after a battle. But I do release them if a reasonable ransom is offered (ie: over 1k denars). I don't execute them, although I'm very tempted at times. It doesn't fit my personality. So..my most recent game I decided to play a female, which I've done once or twice before. I decided she will be so upset with arrogant lords that just want war at the expense of the common people. She will be so upset with mercenaries who basically just do raids and harm the common people. She will be so upset with all of this that she will start executing them at some point in the game. This makes sense to me because, if I understand the start of the game, the player is a commoner that masquerades as a noble lord. So his/her feelings would tend more toward helping the common people than adopting the traits of the arrogant lords. Figured then I could play the game by executing lords, which would make the game winnable, and still play under my good-guy terms. Nope. When it came time to do the first execution I just couldn't do it. The game itself doesn't hep with this. I think it should at least allow mercenary executions with no negative consequences. Personally, I feel whenever a faction declares war on you (not you declaring on them), if you capture the faction leader, you should be able to execute them with no negative consequences.
Beyond executions though, the game has so many problems that just don't logically fit. Here's a few;
If you do the bannerlord quest and you give the banner to the leader of a kingdom, he says its the greatest thing anyone has ever done for him...but you get no reward. You don't get any sort of stat bonus. You don't get a physical reward from that leader (special sword, helm, armor etc). As far as I know you don't even gain relations with that lord. If you decide to start your own kingdom you also get no bonuses from being 'the Bannerlord'. It doesn't help your charm. You get no lords flocking to join 'the rightful ruler'. Nothing. The only thing you get by doing the main quest the game is named for is unending quests to try to stop kingdoms from warring you. You can't complete them all though because they are geographically all over the map and you probably already have wars to fight and fiefs to try to manage. So eventually the quest results in a mulitude of kingdoms declaring war on you all at once. The only 'benefit' to doing the quest is that it allows you to start your own kingdom one clan level earlier. But this isn't really a benefit. It just means you can start it earlier when you are less prepared for all the wars & stuff. So absolutely no one should do the Neretzes/Bannerlord quest. So why is it even in the game?
You can't eliminate factions. Not even temporarily. In the later stages of the game, or even what I would call the middle stages (when your kingdom controls maybe 50% of all territories), you are in endless war with every faction, even those that don't even border you. If you could eliminate factions, you could sacrifice land to some factions while systematically concentrating on eliminating others. Then you could go back and take back the land you lost. But if you fight on one border, you are losing land on your other border(s) and then when you go to take that back you will lose the land you just lost because you couldn't get rid of that enemy.
Peace declarations are pretty much useless. I think there's no time limit on them, so even if you get peace with another kingdom in the mid-to-later stages of the game they will just declare war on you again within one season. Does this make sense? In real life have there been ANY wars that have had peace declared and 3 months later war starts up again? I've never heard of a single one. There are occasionally temporary truces declared, but they are declared as temporary, not permanent peace declarations.
You have governors in castles and towns. You give them garrisons and you have them recruit militia to help them. But they are incapable of hunting down and removing hideouts? They can't send you messages advising you there's no funds for building things or asking what you'd like built next when the build que ends? They can't even advise there's a problem with security because of a hideout? You can't send them funds to keep assisting with building? They can't handle some of the routine taks that come up or ask how you'd like to handle them?
Speaking of communications, No other lords will EVER come to you asking to join you, even if their kingdom now has no holdings? Mercenaries will NEVER approach you and offer their services? You have to hunt down the mercenary leader someplace while (presumably) leading your forces in a war? You are supposed to recruit enemy lords to your faction, but you are always at war and usually leading an army, which makes you slower than a solo lord party so you can't catch them. And if they are part of an army they won't talk to you about defecting to you.
Here's another thing that I've never seen anyone actually suggest. As you know, if you take over a town of a culture different from yours, there's a good chance it will rebel against you unless you put a governor in it of the same culture (even then it could easily happen, but not as routinely). My suggestion, that will never happen, is that when you vote who gets a fief it should tell you what cultures the clans being suggested for the fief have within their clan. Example: You are with an Empire faction. You just took a Sturgian town (Omor?). 2 of the clans have only empire culture lords/ladies within them, but the third one just had their leader marry a Sturgian lady and one of the younger members of the clan married a Sturgian lady as well. If I knew this I would definitely be voting for the third clan to get Omor. But unless I'm doing accountant level paperwork at my computer desk, I'm not going to know this. The game should give a small flag for each culture represented by the clan when presenting the fief for voting. Also, make sure the game puts the lord/lady of that culture in as governor (unless they are already governing a different town of that culture).
When I capture an enemy lord/lady I can 'sell' them to a ransom broker or wait for a ransom offer. They may escape before I get a ransom offer or I may refuse the ransom offer. But when I get captured, I never get the chance to do a ransom offer. I might escape or I may bribe my way out, but I can never send a ransom offer or have one sent on my behalf. I think in the over 4000 hours I've played this game I've only had one ransom offer over 10k and that was just over 10k. But bribes are typically between 100k to 500k, depending how rich I am. Why? The king of a nation isn't worth over 10k (usually not even 5k) but I'm worth 100s of thousands, even when I'm not the ruler? I might be able to afford it, but basically I'm getting screwed and no one can argue that I'm not. I hate paying these bribes on principal and it leaves a sour taste in my mouth. Also...When I get away, whether its escaping or bribing someone, I have to be real careful or I'm going to be recaptured. So I just paid a 300k bribe, I get recaptured again, now I'm expected to pay another huge bribe? Have you ever seen another lord/lady recaptured after escaping or paying a ransom? If they can't be recaptured then I shouldn't be recaptured. I should have a free pass until I reach a town/castle that I, or my faction, controls. Does this make sense?
There's a hell of a lot of technical problems with the game & anyone can go look at those forums, but I wanted to express some of the problems with the game that just plain fall under the category of 'Illogical' and unrealistic. I truly believe that absolutely none of the Devs (or managers) have played the game and I feel that if they did they would understand the frustrations and problems with the game much better. I continue to play the game because I love the play style with both a campaign map and a battle map and controlling both your own character and the troops under you. But they really need to give the game an overhaul. I typically play about 1/2 way through the game then give up on it. They have improved some of the visuals adding new maps for battles & such and a wider variety of equipment. But its the basics of the game itself they should be concentrating on.
