Have Cavalry use less valued War Horse/Horse for upgrade.... PLEASE.

[VincentNZ]

Come on, it's my first playthrough, I win my first horse trophy, and then it magically vanishes because some cataphract needed it more than me? Don't you think this is a bad engagement loop?

It's not annoying, it feels like a broken thing within the game. Things I win in tournaments shoult not be used up by unit upgrades, especially when nowhere does it say that I can lock it so that it doesn't happen.

You can shrug it off as "whoff, learn the game!", but this is already a game which doesn't tell you jackpot about how anything works. Adding another thing to the pile, when it's as avoidable as "lock any items the player wins in tournaments", doesn't seem like good game design, does it?

Sorry if I came off too harsh there. I agree that this is, like many things, not very intuitive. In EA, besides content and mechanics the game is missing polish. I fear stuff like this is to be expected for some more weeks. I do not consider it broken, the game is missing help, hints and convenience tools at the moment.
However, now you know the workarounds to these issues until they are getting fixed.
I would agree that T4 horses should not be eligible for unit upgrading, as they seem to be rather rare, however I do think that elite units needing a standard horse and then a warhorse is good design, it limits cavalry, which are the most elite troops and adds an economic factor.

 

[Narduiran]

I totally agree with OP, and I also think that it shouldn't be possible to upgrade troops outside of settlements.

 

[Nalgasucia507]

Current system is fine.

 

[Cèsar de Quart]

I do think that elite units needing a standard horse and then a warhorse is good design, it limits cavalry, which are the most elite troops and adds an economic factor.

I agree as well, it's a good concept. They need to find a way to be careful with the high tier stuff in the inventory.

I totally agree with OP, and I also think that it shouldn't be possible to upgrade troops outside of settlements.

I think that's a great idea. Another reason to visit a settlement.

 

[FkThisgame]

I really like how much harder it is to raise a top tier cavalry. It's still too easy imo. a force of 50 T5 cavalry rolls everything.

 

[black_bulldog]

I really like how much harder it is to raise a top tier cavalry. It's still too easy imo. a force of 50 T5 cavalry rolls everything.

You haven't gone against against a bunch of high level horse archers have you? I did last night let me tell you it was damn painful.

 

[Dayoll]

Current system is fine.

You can lock the horses you don't want to be used. You just need to be careful and do a bit of party management. It's not like it takes 150IQ to do. Sure, it should be like "upgrade troops -> use cheapest horse to do so for thier 2/3. Want to upgrade to Tier 4 -> Use War horses.

It prevents armies from spamming Tier 4 cavs, and snowbal on everything. It's good this way. Just think.

For the rest of the troops, it could be nice to have some sort of "goods" like :"Basic weapons" and "Elite weaponry" like stuff for you to use and upgrade your armies. And, can't upgrade outside of cities. Would make planning a little bit nicer, and make people think twice before going in the wild and fight.

It's not like it would be unrealistic. I want to see if armies were equiped out in the countryside during reforms. Would have been nice to be a Roman in Gaul, just call Amazon and new weapons and armour is being delivered right to your location. But maybe it would be too much asking for some people to spend more time planning and less time fighting..

We know that the majority of people don't like "realistic" settings and to "think too much". But eh, sometimes its for your own good. Doesn't suffer from thinking a bit.

 

[zeidrich]

I like the idea of needing horses for cavalry. It better ties the world together, in that if you have challenges sourcing horses because maybe the good stable villages are owned by your opponent, you will not have those strategic resources to build cavalry. Similarly, if you have territory with cheap horses, you can end up with lots of cavalry.

I don't like how you need horses for cavalry and war horses for heavy cavalry. What happens to the old horses when you upgrade? Is there an initiation rite where they sacrifice their old horse to the gods of the plains?

However, I think that if this were the case, it should be similar for other troop classes. I do think that it makes sense to not be able to upgrade a t5 unit to t6 without a t6 weapon and armor for instance. There's a few fundamental problems to both of these situations though, one is that supply wasn't designed around this as well as item valuation. So if you needed t6 armor, you're looking at 10,000+ gold and you'd have a hard time finding it. Warhorses are similar but much cheaper and more available.

I think having this actually happen would tie into the economy and the consumption model better, and it could stop some snowballing because rich nations would still run low on materials in a protracted war. I think though that too many systems are too different to be able to do that without being frustrating. Like armors, while armors have tiers, there's a pretty wide variability in type and value.

But I could see something like having a tradegood produced by a blacksmith that is a "Tier 6 armor set" or something, which allows upgrades to Tier 6 units, in the same way that a war horse allows upgrade to heavy cavalry. These could have different prices to differentiate them from hero clothes. It would tie it into standard production and consumption models.

There's also a bit of an issue with the trade of animals, it doesn't work quite the same as tradegoods. So if I were to make a system like this, I'd do the same for cavalry, which would be have stables generate a "Heavy Cavalry Kit" type trade good item. At the same time wood workers could make a "Tier 6 archery kit". Then traditional warhorses would be sort of a player-specific item like weapons and armor currently are.

This way you care about supply chains, caravans will move these goods around, they can be tuned to be priced according to what troops need rather than players, and you can raid caravans and villages or buy up supply to commit economic warfare to keep your enemies army poorly equipped.

So basically, I like the idea of prerequisite items. I don't like the way they're implemented with heavy cavalry especially the way that those horses are currently deposited around the map, but that it would be cool if the system was fully realized for this purpose as well as multiple unit types. It might make for some interesting troop compositions based on the resources available to various factions.

 

[FkThisgame]

You haven't gone against against a bunch of high level horse archers have you? I did last night let me tell you it was damn painful.

I've gone up against everything. I'm rolling this game with 50-75 T5 cavalry. Save the 300+armies, this game is too easy.

 

[High Risx]

To the OP, click the circle next to the item you wish to not get devoured by your party.
I like the point of returning the horse after a war horse upgrade, but i'd say at that point the horse would be old, scarred or too tired and would be suited as a pack mule and not war. Horses do get wear and tear.

Horses and especially war horses are a strategic military resource, just like metal and coal was in ww2.
Strategic military resources are limited and with good reason, you don't want your enemies to have unlimited resources.

Say you're at war with a faction. A good move would be to loot all their horse producing towns, this would limit their ability to produce cavalry.

I wish we could do the same with metal for weapons.

Horses are required to upgrade to horsemen because a horseman is worth 10 infantry, they are right to limit it.
In Warband it was easy mode when you could just run a 50 man cavalry party withing your first couple hours and bassically win every battle. Now there are significant costs.

 

[MegaYama]

You want better units, so you have to give them better equipment. That's how life works.

I am totally fine with the horse requirements, since it's pretty realistic. I would even look forward if you had to provide better weapons and armors for the units too.
That would raise the value of your unit and you will think twice before let them charge into spear wielding infantry.

It would be so ridiculous to get an Elite Cataphract that used a Stumpter Horse...

The game is so easy to master at the moment, you should swim in Gold and should be able to provide the needed horses.

 

[White Ahroun]

Here's a case of good criticism. I'm sick of losing prize warhorses to upgrades. For now I'm putting them on companions when I upgrade, but that's not a good permanent fix.

 

[MegaYama]

Here's a case of good criticism. I'm sick of losing prize warhorses to upgrades. For now I'm putting them on companions when I upgrade, but that's not a good permanent fix.

You can check the small circle on the right side of the Item in the inventory. So the units won't use it for upgrading. At least this worked for me so far.

 

[White Ahroun]

You can check the small circle on the right side of the Item in the inventory. So the units won't use it for upgrading. At least this worked for me so far.

I'll try it, but some guys on Steam were saying that only works for things like the move all arrow.

 

[Sarissofoi]

And where do you draw the line? "Oh my battanian warriors have upgraded to elite battanian warriors and used up my elite armor units - which i'd reserved for my vladian knights to use - but they're savages all running around bare chested!"
And if you don't make upgrades consistent across empires (as my facetious example above does) then you get massive economic imbalances.

Unlike horses, which are a primary resource, equipment would need to be a secondary resource - and so should be produced by cities or workshops as part of the economic simulation (if its not using the economic simulation to be produced ... what is even the point in having it? So It would have to use the Econ sim).

This will rapidly lead to snowballing if any one empire can take one extra city and increase their equipment supply non-linearly which will have big price swings, or more snowballing if its units don't need more expensive armor types to upgrade and be more effective. This goes against what the last string of patches have tried to avoid, making that a bad idea for empire balance. In scientific terms this would be called a cascading (or cascade-prone) simulation, when a complex system breaks down due to a simple change (one city/node changing hands and shocking equipment supply leading to a crash/imbalance, and/or snowball in this case).

There's also something to be said for coding the AI to actually gather these things up to upgrade their own troops (do AIs even upgrade troops?) otherwise in late-game their effectiveness will fall off sharply vs the player.

If they can upgrade, I actually wonder if the horse requirement is part of the reason why the Aserai (which have some great horse units) routinely get stomped in every game I've played, like are their generals carrying enough horses around to upgrade properly?

Some units with similar equipment would not use kits on upgrade. Some would use elite if their armor/weapon iscostly.
In the case of naked/light armored troops you could probably use no kits or cheaper ones. That would make economical aspect much interesting as tehre will be the option between cheaper lighty armored troops and costlier heavy armored.
Adding bonus multipler for autosresolve for hevaier armored units would also help AI and iin simulations.

And we already have a snowballing effect caused by winning side getting access to new teritories manpower - so loser have less troops and winner have more.
And AI upgrade troops and gather horses and warhorses so yeah it is probably possible.
Ofcourse other solution is to just make upgrading troops for some specific units much higher in cost. And increase their upkeep making for player and AI suffer the cost of fielding high tier elite armies.
Much simpler soolution and absolutly doiable I guess with our current knowledge.

 

[Sarissofoi]

I like the way it's made. The only thing that I don't understand is why when I upgrade a Vigla recruit to an Imperial Equite and I spend a regular horse and then Veteran Horseman or whatever is called and requires a War Horse I don't get the regular horse back. Did they eat the horse?

They now have two horses,
One for travel(normal horse) and one for a battle(warhorse).
Its fairly realistic and how itw as in history.
Noble and high tier cavalry units having spare horses are totally realistic and sensible.

 

[Jhaerik]

Current system is fine.

You can lock the horses you don't want to be used. You just need to be careful and do a bit of party management. It's not like it takes 150IQ to do. Sure, it should be like "upgrade troops -> use cheapest horse to do so for thier 2/3. Want to upgrade to Tier 4 -> Use War horses.

It prevents armies from spamming Tier 4 cavs, and snowbal on everything. It's good this way. Just think.

For the rest of the troops, it could be nice to have some sort of "goods" like :"Basic weapons" and "Elite weaponry" like stuff for you to use and upgrade your armies. And, can't upgrade outside of cities. Would make planning a little bit nicer, and make people think twice before going in the wild and fight.

It's not like it would be unrealistic. I want to see if armies were equiped out in the countryside during reforms. Would have been nice to be a Roman in Gaul, just call Amazon and new weapons and armour is being delivered right to your location. But maybe it would be too much asking for some people to spend more time planning and less time fighting..

We know that the majority of people don't like "realistic" settings and to "think too much". But eh, sometimes its for your own good. Doesn't suffer from thinking a bit.

And here I thought the game was called "MOUNT" & Blade 2: Bannerlord.
What we really got was Bow & Arrow 2:Vassallord

 

[Pejot]

And here I thought the game was called "MOUNT" & Blade 2: Bannerlord.
What we really got was Bow & Arrow 2:Vassallord

In end game it's more like Recruit & Peasants: Beggarlord. I still believe it will be better when they start working on balancing.