Hideouts need an overhaul

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The entire way you have to fight hideouts is tactically speaking very dumb. By the time you reach clan level 2, you can have a massively larger force of more highly trained troops than the hideout and you have the element of surprise; if your only objective is to kill everyone you have a clear and distinct advantage. Instead you choose to... sneak in with less than 10 randomly selected fighters which could be your companion healer who's not great in combat and the rest peasants/recruits despite they're being almost no cover (and the game is rather brutal on the eyes when fighting at night and the AI seem to still see like it's broad daylight). Oh and you can't withdraw at any point despite the fact that no enemy still alive know you're there.

Maybe General Custer thinks that's a great strategy but a smart person wouldn't give away near every tactical advantage they have for no reason; the hideouts needs some tweaking.
 
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I agree if you have a huge army you could just steamrolled them. But it gives you a challenge at least. As long as there is under say 20-25 bandits I'll attack a hideout without any issues. I just bring in 8 legionaries with me.
 
I agree if you have a huge army you could just steamrolled them. But it gives you a challenge at least. As long as there is under say 20-25 bandits I'll attack a hideout without any issues. I just bring in 8 legionaries with me.

How do you pick who you get to bring; if there's a way the game failed to mention it.
 
Honestly, I just wish we could choose to attack the hideouts during the day, element of surprise or no. It's ridiculously hard to see anything in those night time hideout battles.
 
Granted it is early access, but what an earth was TW thinking by not allowing the player to select his own bodyguards?
I would also ask what in the world was TW thinking by making these raids only at night. How the hell do you avoid projectiles if you can't see them? If you've got a shield great but my character is using a 2 hander and throwing weapons.
 
I say this every time the subject comes up; mini-sieges. This would be so much better as you can use all your men and it will introduce the player to sieges earlier in the game, allowing them to better level engineering.
 
Hideouts need to be at least 2 tiers. Basic Hideouts similar to how they are now but never more than 45 capacity- way too many Hideouts have 60+ and that takes more time to clear than to claim a castle for far less reward. You have to sit over the Hideout for days chasing nearby bandits and attacking once per night and the bandits inside seem to heal exceptionally fast- faster than my part with a healer does.

After having done Hideout fights exclusively for the past two days I can reliably clear 25-40 in a single rush at level 12 with level 10-15 companions and afford two small mistakes in how I deploy my party or not seeing an arrow/javelin being the difference between 25 and 40. You have to tell your guys to move into a position where the big groups of enemy can't all rush as a mass, tell your guys to raise their shields not to get picked off from 100 yards away by ranged weapons, tell them to charge at just the right time, kill a huge number of enemies via headshots mostly to conserve ammo and limit enemy DPS quickly(there are barrels to replenish arrows and plenty of javelins to pick off the ground) and definitely ALWAYS bring a shield or even two shields if you prefer throwing over archery.

The most difficult parts are the random nature of your party other than companions and how to gauge where the AI enemy are patrolling at night because if you don't see someone they can bring a rush of 5+ and overrun you or hit your party before you gave any commands/positioned the small raiding party you brought in the right spot.

I usually have them wait a bit behind me because if they follow they always get in my way and alert the enemy before I have picked off a couple on the edges of a group. Look for higher ground with a structure/tree/log chair/table in the way- that breaks up the oncoming enemy and if you can stand on one side with your shield blocking and your group just behind the obstacle when the first enemy round the corner order a charge- the first 2-3 enemy go down almost instantly and you need your party to be waiting with shields up behind the obstacle but not in melee range of enemy weapons until the leading enemy is nearly around the obstacle.

The enemy still trying to find a way to use their ranged weapons can't aim thru the obstacle then have to run to join the melee which gives your party 5-10 seconds of nearly even numbers or even an advantage for your side depending on size of the bandit parties in the Hideout and how well you picked off some earlier. Bringing mostly heavy infantry with good shields with a couple of archers and 1-2 companions with polearm skill seems to be the best mix but the only way to absolutely control it is to leave most of the party in a castle and only take the exact type of units you want.

Hideouts have a huge amount of potential- some of the maps are really good! I expect being able to take over a Hideout with a character with sufficient Roguery or Charm and eventually some mini-siege mechanic especially when TW adds Bandit Chief Hideouts as allowing horses or chokepoint defence vs full armies in the corridors of those maps could be really fun.
 
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1a. Player needs to select his own body guards when attacking.
1b. Player needs to be able to select Day or Night attack.
1c. Day or Night attack should result in different scenarios. IE: Night attack less defenders .. but unable to take as many body guards. Day attack more defenders .. but can bring more body guards. Etc Etc.
2a. Player should have option to set up on hideout if roguery skill is high enough ( Allow player to store items? Acts like a smaller version of a castle )
2b. Give player the option to role play as a bandit lord :smile: perhaps % cut of passing trade caravans based on roguery skill / companion parties etc.
 
It's definitely a grind, you've got to attack the hideout multiple times, allowing your troops to take the brunt of the damage for you while slowly wearing down the hideout. I think I saw a suggestion the other day that would convert a hideout to a palisade type siege, which I think would be a great idea.
 
Use mods to allow u to use your whole army.

Hideouts are FKing boring. I just spawn with 100 troops and tell em to charge while grabbing something to eat.
 
The whole point of an ambush is SNEAKING. You can't really sneak with an army. That's why you use a smaller force.
It also break up the monotony with different kinds of battles.
Attacking Sea Raiders camps is the best.
Bandit camps are difficult because of OP archers ATM.

Also, you CAN attack the camp when it's not full of bandits. The groups DO leave to pillage eventually

The only thing that really needs changing is that you can select which troops you bring with you. I guess the number of troops with you could be variable, depending on your rougery/tactics skills?

Also, the option to retreat. Perhaps have an exit zone like on normal maps?
 
But the game doesn't seem designed to sneak as there's no cover mechanic and the enemy can see you behind trees, bushes, etc. Plus they don't seem to suffer any vision/accuracy penalties at night and apparently all of them are awake 24 hours a day (at night some of them should be sleeping, sitting around the fire, etc. so you can catch them off guard.

And indeed not turning them into mini siege events indeed seems to be a missed opportunity to make them far more amazing experiences.
 
Yep, feels weird to "sneak" with a bunch of randoms, and mountain or forest hideouts are a pain, archers do are OP, for my taste the weirder part is that their camps are so spread out, as Ichon said there should be different tiers of camps, ones that are tents and so, and others fortified, but not spread out. With lower lvl bandits.
 
I say this every time the subject comes up; mini-sieges. This would be so much better as you can use all your men and it will introduce the player to sieges earlier in the game, allowing them to better level engineering.
This is genious. Would make them fun, something to look for, instead of a chore. And maybe make them not obsolete in the middle/late game.
 
But the game doesn't seem designed to sneak as there's no cover mechanic and the enemy can see you behind trees, bushes, etc. Plus they don't seem to suffer any vision/accuracy penalties at night and apparently all of them are awake 24 hours a day (at night some of them should be sleeping, sitting around the fire, etc. so you can catch them off guard.

And indeed not turning them into mini siege events indeed seems to be a missed opportunity to make them far more amazing experiences.
I have to agree. If they're going to insist on this scenario as an "ambush" attack, there needs to be large improvements to the way the AI detects you and your pals. They also need to be less stretched out, because sneaking around over that large an area in this game would be woefully time-consuming.
 
I can tolerate a lot of the bugs because it's Early Access and I see that the devs are putting in a lot of effort to correct those, but I have a huge hatred for the whole concept of how they implemented hideouts. Nothing about it makes sense, and it's extremely frustrating.

If I have a superior force, I'm not going to wait until nightfall to try to sneak in and murder them. This isn't Splinter Cell, it's Mount & Blade: I want to lead my entire force and crush these fools.

Here's some suggestions I have on how this could be more interesting and engaging:

1. Fortify the hideout: Add a barricade or makeshift gate that we have to break down. Could be like a mini-siege without siege equipment, provide vantage points for enemy ranged to fire upon us to add some challenge. (A real challenge if it's a Forest Bandit hideout!) No bandit hideout is going to leave that narrow chasm unguarded.

2. Allow us to attack whenever we wish. If we want to wait for nightfall we can, but it shouldn't be a requirement.

3. Since Roguery skill seems a little lacking, add some usefulness here. Maybe you can negotiate/trade with the bandits or recruit bandits. Or perhaps allow the player to disguise themselves and walk in, freeing captives and starting a fight internally as your force attacks.

4. In the intro quest where Rado-whatever-his-name-is tries to challenge you to a duel after monkey-stomping his cronies, seems like some work was put into that. I could see that being expanded upon to provide some unique and memorable experiences with bandit leaders. Perhaps they return from a raid as you're attacking and strike from behind at your flanks.

Just some ideas, at this point I'm of the opinion that anything is better that what is currently in place for bandit hideouts.
 
This is what I'd like to see for hideouts, beyond the sorely needed rebalancing (especially forest bandits)

1. Attack with your entire party. All-out assault on the hideout. You barely gain loot with this option, as they knew you were coming and hid everything they could.

2. Sneak attack. You choose who accompanies you (this is important! They need to implement this) and it works like it does now. Loot and rewards are normal. Major rebalancing needs to happen to make this viable though.
 
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