How can castles be made important in your opinion?

[Lord Irontoe]

That sounds really impressive, was the pass system actually fun and balanced to play with or was it something neat that added immersion but made the gameplay worse/less fun?

I thought it made it more fun. The map was designed with the system in mind so it seemed pretty balanced to me. It could be a pain in the ass if you had to take the long way around to where you were going because the direct route was blocked, but that just made the world feel that much bigger. And it was a VERY big gameworld, stretching from China to Constantinople. Travelling to the other side of the map really felt like a voyage.

 

[geala]

I would find total zones of control in BL not very immersive. Such zones were nothing medieval. A fort of the Maginot line in France in the 1930s could hard control an area of 30 km, a medieval castle perhaps a zone of 400 m, hardly any obstacle for a bigger group of enemies. A soft control zone with reduced movement speed of the enemy army and perhaps random reductions of foot could make some sense as simulation of parties from the castle attacking logistics. Constant supply lines and overawing importance of supply is also a rather modern thing, not one of the ancient . medieval and early modern world. Except food and water old day armies needed actually very little constant supply.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Constant supply lines and overawing importance of supply is also a rather modern thing, not one of the ancient . medieval and early modern world.

True, however what made marching past a castle dangerous is that an army of 10,000+ fighting men would often be a kilometres-long column with noncombatants and pack animals, especially if there were no wide roads. Marching at full battle readiness was a tiring and hard-to-organise affair so most of the time an army would be vulnerable if attacked unexpectedly. Bannerlord doesn't simulate armies as columns, every party is just a single point, so you can't ambush the back of an army and hit-and-run stragglers or wagons, you always have to fight the vanguard.

Larger armies might also march divided or arrive at different times, but manned fortifications everywhere would force the attacker to concentrate enough force to avoid getting killed. I think abstracting this with something like "armies smaller than X can't go through here without going straight to attack castle" is an acceptable compromise.

 

[Totalgarbage]

True, however what made marching past a castle dangerous is that an army of 10,000+ fighting men would often be a kilometres-long column with noncombatants and pack animals, especially if there were no wide roads. Marching at full battle readiness was a tiring and hard-to-organise affair so most of the time an army would be vulnerable if attacked unexpectedly. Bannerlord doesn't simulate armies as columns, every party is just a single point, so you can't ambush the back of an army and hit-and-run stragglers or wagons, you always have to fight the vanguard.

This is actually a separate topic, but a very important none the less. While I doubt that there will be any changes that changes how engagements (is this the correct word?) work without overhauling the game as a whole, I think that armies' and warbands' "hitbox" shapes could technically be changed to have actual shapes depending on the number of troops and spare animals. Parties can be given the shape of columns while armies could be made V formations (like how armies look in the overworld).

Granted, without adding new systems and changing existing ones I have no idea what this would actually serve. Maybe extremely large armies could be 'engaged' from the behind and a part of the warbands on the front will be unable to reach you? Or such battles could have reinforcement times like in the new sally out ambushes? But as I said, the current implementation of parties, armies and engagements would need overhauls so I don't think it is feasible to add it into a game that has already released (though I'm not a game dev, I don't know jack **** about game development or coding, so I'm pulling all these assumptions from my arse).

 

[Rabies]

This isn't going to be a popular suggestion, probably, but I think all the problems that castles have, in terms of their actual practical purpose within the game world, stem from the fact that armies/parties on the march do not need to stop and rest.

If you were to force all parties to rest for some given period of time after every given period of activity, then lots of these things would fall into place, in my view.

Parties operating out of a castle or a town have a safe place to rest. Parties out in the field have to make camp out in the field, and are vulnerable to attack while resting. Therein lies the purpose of a castle. You remove or abstract the practical need for parties to rest, and by doing so you also remove the real, practical purpose of having castles - and then you have to introduce a load of other abstractions in order to give castles some sort of invented reason to exist, to replace the real one that you've removed, and none of it ends up making any sense.

 

[Ehud]

There could be special castles, like legendary fortresses for each faction that grant some perks, companions, some special troop or other benefit for the player or the AI.

 

[Bluko88]

Castles provide a NEW elite troop in small supply to the owner or faction ruler.

Castles should straight up be the only source of "Elite" troops.

Doesn't make sense why Castle villages are special this way. It's also rather silly that literally anyone, from any Kingdom, can come by and pick up a Culture's Elite Troops from Castle Villages. That would be like a Germanic warband going into a Roman village and then suddenly walking away with a bunch of veteran Praetorians in their ranks. Only time you should see Elite Troops in enemy armies is when they turn coat, which should be rare.


Also Castles being the only source of Elite Troops would again make the Relationship mechanic meaningful, since you can't enter Castles when you have a negative Relationship with the Clan that holds it. My guess this is probably the most likely reason TW hasn't implemented it, since the A.I. Parties wouldn't be able to go to certain Castles, etc. Also they would need to re-balance Notables, so the current ratio of Elites to Normal isn't thrown out of wack.


They'll probably implement Castle Recruitment (despite claiming it's impossible) completely out-of-the-blue 2 years from now after some total conversion mod does it.


I think everything else about Castles is fine as is. They are good place to store large quantities of troops due to wage reductions. The problem is unlike a Towns, you can't hunker down and recruit units safely from within the walls. About the only other positive aspect of Castles is they don't rebel, but they effectively shut down at low loyalty, so is that really better?

I do find it annoying if you snipe a Castle your villagers won't trade with nearby Towns. Like really? You basically got two options for forming a Kingdom nowadays; snipe a bunch of fiefs as an independent Clan or get a bunch of Fiefs as a Vassal then break away. Also make sure you got lots of cash. I mean it's not impossible to defend a Castle/Town against a 1000+ Army with a couple hundred of your own, but the trial and error is not worth it. Also some Castle/Town scenes are more or less impossible to defend with small numbers, so yeah.

 

[saittam]

Castles could offer training of troops.
Ai attacks castles first of a reason no doubt. Maybe something planed in the future.

But they could make it like this. 3 different sizes of town. 1 town should just be a step bigger then a village, wooden palisade, low income and no castle. second town should have one castle and better income, third town should have two castles and best income. And that castles gave security to the town in form of patrols. The castles should be under siege to be able to raid the villages.
Say one recruit in the town and go to the castle to train them. And it cost money. Way more then training them with battle. Different castles should offer various expert training. So there is a reason to take that castle over another.

 

[sh1ny4]

Ideally castles would block a path to the inside of a faction until taken, for example the ones on the borders of battania should block any ennemy from entering. For that purpose they should be on chokepoints though.
For a change that is feasible - Hayster did it partially after all - I would like to have elite troops recruited solely from castles and not from villages.

 

[Flesson19]

I made this suggestion over a year ago. Bigger garrison, reduced wages and more xp training. They added a small one with a reduced wage project but it's still not enough. People should want a castle but right now for me they are just fiefs to give away to vassal to get some relation or make companion clans. Another thing that is very disappointing

 

[five bucks]

I made this suggestion over a year ago. Bigger garrison, reduced wages and more xp training.

Simple solutions are good solutions, imo, because they're the most likely to be implemented. +1.

 

[Cullam]

You shouldn´t be able to siege towns that are "behind" castles.

 

[DavetheDavestDave]

While the addition of the castellan building and the change to trade bound settlements have helped castles a good deal, there's still little purpose in owning one over a town. In my opinion, to make castles actually worth it to own, both castles and fief ownership in general needs several changes:

First, and most importantly, you shouldn't even be considered as a candidate for owning a town unless you have a lot of renown and influence within the faction. Being able the own a town on the first day we pledge allegiance to a faction as a tier 2 clan is immersion breaking (unless we had a significant amount of relations & influence beforehand) and it badly affects the progression of the game. Owning towns should of course be better than owning castles, but the fact towns are given out to any rando like candy makes it pointless to own a castle.

Secondly, castles are mostly defensive fortifications rather than a proper settlement. It's theoretical purpose is to provide security to the nearby domains of it's holder. Castles shouldn't even have loyalty and security since they can't even rebel (and therefore no fairgrounds and no loyalty boosting daily). But more importantly, castles should have unique buildings that provide bonuses to its villages. A village with a castle a building should make villages harder to raid (by having more militia and/or it taking longer to raid), another building should increase hearths or village production, and another should for example increase the size of the villager party, etc..

What do you think? What would you suggest to make castles better than they currently are right now?

have castles create patrol groups that hunt down bandates
and they increase the surcuraty of towns arround them

 

[CrazyElf]

I made this suggestion over a year ago. Bigger garrison, reduced wages and more xp training. They added a small one with a reduced wage project but it's still not enough. People should want a castle but right now for me they are just fiefs to give away to vassal to get some relation or make companion clans. Another thing that is very disappointing

Yep. There need to be incentives to capture castles.

I would also advocate for making higher tier units recruited more at castles and a special smith that has higher tier weapons and armor of that culture exclusively at castles.

 

[mangalore]

Pondering this a bit more I really believe castles should be an inbetween of a town and village.

In essence it should have all functionalities of a village which, as fortified, will not be easily raided and maybe have some boost to be richer than villages. It should also contain notables and quests and produce something. Elite units should be mainly gotten from castles, not villages. Access to castles probably should be tied to relationship of owner. Thus you cannot get elite troops/knights from a clan that dislikes you.


That way you would like to foster relationships with castles insteads of villages aka actually go there, but may face problems when the owner slams the gate in your face because he dislikes you.

 

[black_bulldog]

have castles create patrol groups that hunt down bandates
and they increase the surcuraty of towns arround them

This idea was proposed some time ago and Taleworlds doesn't want to do it. Why? Who knows, all we heard from them was "not our vision" whatever that means. I guess Taleworlds thinks that a king or lords job is to suppress ever looter spawn in the area.

 

[DavetheDavestDave]

This idea was proposed some time ago and Taleworlds doesn't want to do it. Why? Who knows, all we heard from them was "not our vision" whatever that means. I guess Taleworlds thinks that a king or lords job is to suppress ever looter spawn in the area.

or if you have high securaty they spawn at a lower rate

 

[Cadeyrn Arluin]

Castles should provide security right? Then they should have frequent patrols out fishing for bandits and other threats to trade routes.

 

[sir Gregor Clegane]

To begin with, the income from fief possessions must be increased at times, that's what. AI lords simply do not have enough money to maintain castles, after a year the garrisons of AI castles are 20-30 people. No matter how attractive the AI castles are, there is no money to keep them corny, but this does not reach the TW developers in any way, everyone is afraid that the players would not get a big advantage from an extra couple of hundred coins ... And the fact that 90% of the players receive 90% of the income from blacksmithing and the fact that AI lords cannot maintain garrisons of castles is not clear to developers ...

 

[five bucks]

To begin with, the income from fief possessions must be increased at times, that's what. AI lords simply do not have enough money to maintain castles, after a year the garrisons of AI castles are 20-30 people. No matter how attractive the AI castles are, there is no money to keep them corny, but this does not reach the TW developers in any way, everyone is afraid that the players would not get a big advantage from an extra couple of hundred coins ... And the fact that 90% of the players receive 90% of the income from blacksmithing and the fact that AI lords cannot maintain garrisons of castles is not clear to developers ...

Yeah, I support raising fief income. If battle loot has to be reduced a bit to make it balanced, that's fine too.