Great Mod but there's nobody to fight!

[Cracka]

Was initially blown away by the quality of this mod, it's much better than VC DLC imo, however there doesn't seem to be much going on at the 27 day mark. I got really bored travelling around without finding any armies to fight (even with ctrl+T) there is hardly any armies on the map.

The only armies are groups of 20-35 of nasty elite guys who one-shot me, my horse and anyone in my army. The rest are small groups of Theow (6-8 strong) which are both too fast to catch and not worth the effort. So i'm just stagnating atm.

Fantastic mod, just not much action going on. Thanks to all who contributed to it!

 

[gdwitt]

There are several mods listed, Which ones?
There are many quests. Have you found them?
Usually it's still hard at day 27 unless you have somehow found alot of money.
The main mod's game stays slow motion until you become king then it becomes impossible.
Many buggy quests as well.
All submods: Have you run into Lords that follow you around like dogs and won't leave unless you use cheats and vanish to the other side of the map?

 

[Phoenix VII]

If you're looking for bandit armies armies to fight then Scotland and Ireland have plenty of bandit parties that are weaker than the Frankish and Dena parties in southern England.

This mod has a rather slow start. The quickest way to build yourself up is to buy Silver, Minerals, and Stone from villages in Wales, sell them to towns in NE England, and use the money to hire Veteran Warriors, Professional Mercenaries, and Equites from taverns while also doing quests and tournaments to build up Renown which will increase your maximum party size. In a few months time you should be strong enough to join a faction and beat up weaker lords for prisoners who you can sell for more money.

 

[gdwitt]

In the new submod (and repolished), when you build a loot wagon, you triple the chances of getting attacked.
Most of the bandit parties have upgraded elite bandits now with special spotting, pathfinding skills on top of elite fighting stats and weapons.
I simply modified some of Bruj's three new bandit leaders and upgraded other bandit levels.

Still there's plenty to do if you know where the working quests are.
I could use some testers for the new fix to the Iniau quest that I posted last night.

 

[Cracka]

Cool, thanks for the suggestions guys. I was reading about the Repolished mod here and it seemed people had some problems with it so I am just playing the base Mod. I think all it really needs is some tweaking to the spawns and it would be great, especially for people who aren't into questing.

Seeing as though my army is only 29 strong and full of lvl 1-3 companions and base level archers, ideally I would want to fight groups of 20-35 Theow, but there just aren't any. Trying to level pathfinding so as to catch those smaller groups, but the Franks just beat me down every time lol. More importantly is that I can't keep them from zerging my army.

I have held off recruiting high-tier troops because I'm trying to level my core troops, even then I am only lvl 8 so I can't carry them. I'll try to tinker with the existing Theow spawns and beef them up a bit.

 

[gdwitt]

In my submod (as well as repolished), they will come after you if you have a loot wagon. There's a script for it that makes it almost as high a priority as running away from a noble. The downside is that they will dogpile you near spawn points if you don't cheat.
For ex, if you spend 3 hours looting, you will be attacked as soon as you come out of that loop several times.
Small groups will even run at you from nearby.
I added 1 more bandit party and widened the possible spawn point radius.
Do you really think we need more. I recall there should be up to 40 bandit parties of different types at any one time.
When one dies, they respawn at midnight.
Making more will slow the game down and cause more pauses for those with old computers.

 

[Cracka]

I don't think the problem is the amount of spawns, just the spawn densities. The lack of low-mid tier numbers makes the pacing quite slow. Of all the Theow spawns, 80% of them are no larger than 6 or 8- which means by day 20'ish you have a 20-30 strong army that can't catch them (as well as everything else) so they linger indefinitely and subsequently aren't replaced by a variation of that particular spawn.

I'd like to remedy this by leveling Pathfinding, but again the only XP I can get is from Franks and Dena which make the whole process counter-productive. Bottom-line for me is that there's not enough low-mid tier spawns, but there seems an overkill of elite spawns in high number spawns relative to game days.

I've gone back to PoP right now in which there is a radical difference, as you are spoiled for choice. There are so many different spawn types and ALWAYS something to fight. The main attraction for me is the games combat. I have always thought that the questing feature-sets are too primitive and unrefined to be enjoyable in M&B.

Brytenwalda is an incredible mod, it's just the pacing and spawn balancing is way off for me.

 

[gdwitt]

Can you find the source or module_system files for Prophecy of Pendor?
What submod are you playing for this version?
I read that Bruj made bandit parties smaller than normal for Repolished.
You can easily fix that if TweakMB is running.
Even better use Morgh's editor and upgrade the party_templates.
You can change the danger level of bandits in Troops, but I've already increased them slightly.
You can also change bandit party speed in troops with pathfinding and in scripts with movement penalty.
I think their speed is about right because they need to outrun the Lords. Maybe we should decrease speed for Lord parties, but that's a big project.
Again, a "supply wagon" is a bandit-magnet in this mod.
I never touched that file and would be happy to include your changes.
You can control bandit spawn points in simple_triggers and increase the number of bandit parties in scripts.
Scripts also controls the attack priorities of bandit parties. Right now it's set at "60" for loot wagons.
I don't have time for that until May with all the bugs I'm chasing and other work to do.

 

[Evelyn]

Can you find the source or module_system files for Prophecy of Pendor?

It's not released.

 

[gdwitt]

I think the best solution for bandit parties is also the best solution for item_kinds and troops (and possibly several other files).
The mod starts off with a default easy setting that gives new players or players playing on high difficulties a decent shot at beating most bandit parties in the first 2 months.

I would then recommend creating another set of text files that were useful for mid-game with larger parties and higher-level enemies with better loot.
I get so much bandit loot by mid-game that I purposely try to run away from the weaker units.

I think the Masterless men and Scoti raiders are excellent party_templates for mid-level bandit groups.

This would require that the player know how to change file names in the module folder.

I would also ask that someone volunteer and upgrade the loot items and troops you encounter in quests. I can easily plug this into module_dialogs or simple triggers to make it work.

It is easy to do and something that I would prefer to hand off to a beginner modder who knows how to use Morgh or MBBarracks.

 

[Vesku]

Cracka, have you thought of changing the composition of your force? Like taking for example 5-6 heavy mercs or cav making you move much faster and making short work of the small theow parties when you catch them? Also south is not a good part for such early game, move north for easier and more plentiful light bandit parties.

 

[Cracka]

Yeah, those are some good ideas, some of which will take a bit of work, something that i'll have to get back to as I'd really like to play this mod in its entirety.

I don't want to mutate this mod that much if I can help it. It has been, so far, the most punishing mod I've ever played.

Thanks again, and hopefully my feedback has been useful in some way.

 

[Vesku]

Another thing that slows you down is the number of items in your inventory. Horse type items in there negate five other items but otherwise they slow you down. The more troops the slower you move, the poorer their tier the slower they are and also, the lower the morale the slower the force.

 

[Cracka]

Oh wow, I never knew morale affected movement speeds!

My troops typically had poor morale because I took half the loot even though I got all the kills lol.