Hideouts are easily one of the most frustrating mechanics on the campaign map. You have a large army, capable of conquering ones larger than it with a line of shields, spears, swords, arrows, crossbows, etc...
When you go into a cave or clearing, it's a roulette whether you'll get those shields needed against forest bandits spam, sea raider javelins or your worthless peasants that always come out wounded versus a gang of looters.
It sucks losing due to this RNG. It doesn't seem to care much about your party positioning, and just sends in whatever it feels. There needs to be a button to allow yourself to MANUALLY choose a selection of troops to go with you into hideouts, as then you can actually plan ahead and go in with a considerable, well-thought out force of troops. I refuse to believe out of my 20 shielded infantry units, only 1 of each type is "able" to follow me into an infantry based scenario.
The looting system isn't too bad though. Sometimes you get a handful of good stuff (food/weapons/horses/etc.), or maybe a block of cheese and a mail coif. I'm not entirely sure if this is tied to the size of the hideout, as it's certainly a RNG-based event when looting bandits on the field (got a 18K+ denars worth of javelins from 8 mountain bandits, cheese and a pitchfork from 20+ looters).
And please, if you do get killed/wounded in these hideouts, please have your troops charge. I got hit by an arrow during the final part of a forest bandit encounter, had 5 shields who stood there because I asked them to initially stay as a shield wall beforehand. I ended up losing 2 of them to 2 forest bandits, who used up all their ammo on said shields, then walked in and began stabbing.
When you go into a cave or clearing, it's a roulette whether you'll get those shields needed against forest bandits spam, sea raider javelins or your worthless peasants that always come out wounded versus a gang of looters.
It sucks losing due to this RNG. It doesn't seem to care much about your party positioning, and just sends in whatever it feels. There needs to be a button to allow yourself to MANUALLY choose a selection of troops to go with you into hideouts, as then you can actually plan ahead and go in with a considerable, well-thought out force of troops. I refuse to believe out of my 20 shielded infantry units, only 1 of each type is "able" to follow me into an infantry based scenario.
The looting system isn't too bad though. Sometimes you get a handful of good stuff (food/weapons/horses/etc.), or maybe a block of cheese and a mail coif. I'm not entirely sure if this is tied to the size of the hideout, as it's certainly a RNG-based event when looting bandits on the field (got a 18K+ denars worth of javelins from 8 mountain bandits, cheese and a pitchfork from 20+ looters).
And please, if you do get killed/wounded in these hideouts, please have your troops charge. I got hit by an arrow during the final part of a forest bandit encounter, had 5 shields who stood there because I asked them to initially stay as a shield wall beforehand. I ended up losing 2 of them to 2 forest bandits, who used up all their ammo on said shields, then walked in and began stabbing.