How to make castles matter

[Lord Irontoe]

Around 200, assisted by the Caravan Master (30% extra cargo for the party) perk at Trade 50. Since then, they've added another perk, Filled to the Brim at Riding 75, that gives another 20% cargo for pack animals specifically, so you can do it with less now

The herd penalty is barely being triggered because the party in that picture only barely as more horses and livestock than men.

I didn't realize those perks were so strong. Thats an awful lot of freight to be hauling

 

[Tawny]

I could swear this is what happened in warband but i haven't played it since bannerlord came out, i remember chasing enemy lords there and if they were faster than my party they always took refuge in an allied castle or town.

It happened in warband, at least in Prophesy of Pendor. A lot of good stuff is still missing, lets hope they fix it.

 

[TechnoSarge]

In peacetime there's little for your companion parties to do. Basing them on a castle and having them hustle out to whack bandits and enemy caravans that come within sight distance would be useful.

O' course, that would require substantial change elsewhere in the program. Hmmm, not likely.

 

[MinhTien]

I really don't understand Taleworlds' thought process sometimes... What do they think castles are for? **** and giggles?

I think they really ought to remove the AI's cheat of always knowing enemy garrison strength. That's the reason why they go deep into enemy territory to attack defying all reasons and logic. There need to be some sort of fog of war.

It's maybe a pipe dream, but I think a zone of control mechanic would be a great addition to the game. For example, friendly fiefs would serve as a scouting base and reveal the strength of nearby fiefs in a certain radius. That's way, factions will conduct war close to their border to serve as staging ground for further expansion. In addition to that, friendly parties would also serve as scouts and reveal information about fiefs that they come across, so deeper attack can still happen just rarer.

I just don't have the confident that Taleworlds will actually add anything that matters...

Maybe just add distance from friendly fiefs as a factor in the calculation of target choice?

 

[Antaeus]

I think a Total War style area of control would do the trick, where if you're at war, you can't go within so-close of a castle without directly engaging it.

This would allow castles to do their job by blocking choke points in the geography, like valleys, rivers etc.

 

[Cowbbebop]

I think a Total War style area of control would do the trick, where if you're at war, you can't go within so-close of a castle without directly engaging it.

This would allow castles to do their job by blocking choke points in the geography, like valleys, rivers etc.

and it will bring a deeper strategy systeme. Castles also need to be relocated ..

 

[Apocal]

I really don't understand Taleworlds' thought process sometimes...

Making it somewhat risky to completely drain a settlement's garrison, even in the safe interior. I already played around with Captain Oct's fix for it, where the AI focused on closest settlements, and you could cheese the AI pretty hard by jam-packing a frontline castle with about 300 garrison + militia, while running your interior holdings with minimal (or no) garrisons.

 

[vonbalt]

Making it somewhat risky to completely drain a settlement's garrison, even in the safe interior. I already played around with Captain Oct's fix for it, where the AI focused on closest settlements, and you could cheese the AI pretty hard by jam-packing a frontline castle with about 300 garrison + militia, while running your interior holdings with minimal (or no) garrisons.

But that's how it was in RL too, border lands had tons of defenses while it was less and less so the more away you got from it with some places don't even troubling themselves with building castles preferring just a manor for the resident lord or having only a token garrison (both of which took lots of money from a seasonal economy system so i can see why they would priorize things).

They simply knew the enemy couldn't ignore the frontiers with more than raiding parties because of supply lines and used that knowledge to their favor.

In peacetime there's little for your companion parties to do. Basing them on a castle and having them hustle out to whack bandits and enemy caravans that come within sight distance would be useful.

O' course, that would require substantial change elsewhere in the program. Hmmm, not likely.

A simple list of commands you could give to your clan parties would help a lot in solving that like patrol x settlement area, stay in this settlement until called, chase bandits in our kingdom or just your are free to do as you please.

Right now i also find assigning governors to one of your fiefs completely and utterly useless, you are giving up a party leader or fighting companion for one who makes barely any difference, i think it would be much better if you assigned one of your party leaders as a governor/lord of a particular castle or town and they would base their party around it treating it like their own, taking care of it and also visiting the fief from time to time to manage it on your behalf.

 

[deshara218]

very simple, very lightweight way to make castles REALLY matter; villages bound to a castle can't trade with or give recruits to parties outside the faction (without a rogue skillcheck or raiding). So, while the free towns on the outskirts of an enemy/neutral city will give up its recruits or supplies to hostile/non-allied forces making them empty to their faction should their own armies show up in need of reinforcements, villages under the umbrella of a castle will hold their stock for their own faction to use. Which would very heavily mirror the IRL dichotomy of feudal societies relying on cities & free trade to generate coin, but going out into the countryside to rally levies of footmen from the landed nobles

 

[CasualGamer]

very simple, very lightweight way to make castles REALLY matter; villages bound to a castle can't trade with or give recruits to parties outside the faction (without a rogue skillcheck or raiding). So, while the free towns on the outskirts of an enemy/neutral city will give up its recruits or supplies to hostile/non-allied forces making them empty to their faction should their own armies show up in need of reinforcements, villages under the umbrella of a castle will hold their stock for their own faction to use. Which would very heavily mirror the IRL dichotomy of feudal societies relying on cities & free trade to generate coin, but going out into the countryside to rally levies of footmen from the landed nobles

This approach could be added with a 'not so complex' mod, right? Do you know if it has been done before?
Castles could also spawn parties to raid nearby trade caravans, though it's not a priority at all.

 

[Apocal]

But that's how it was in RL too, border lands had tons of defenses while it was less and less so the more away you got from it with some places don't even troubling themselves with building castles preferring just a manor for the resident lord or having only a token garrison (both of which took lots of money from a seasonal economy system so i can see why they would priorize things)

They simply knew the enemy couldn't ignore the frontiers with more than raiding parties because of supply lines and used that knowledge to their favor.

IRL a bunch of border castles wouldn't stop an army 12,000 to 20,000 strong from prancing across the countryside for months on end. People just don't like the way it looks or plays out in Bannerlord.

 

[vonbalt]

IRL a bunch of border castles wouldn't stop an army 12,000 to 20,000 strong from prancing across the countryside for months on end. People just don't like the way it looks or plays out in Bannerlord.

Yeah they wouldn't prevent that but unless you took the castles you wouldn't be able to hold that land without diverting large amounts of soldiers that could be used elsewhere, the garrison would also make your supply lines a living hell raiding it whenever possible so you wouldn't be able to reliably feed your army depending on it's size (if it couldn't live of the land by raiding and foraging like smaller parties can for example).

In a perfect world TW would program their AI to recognize all those things and more but since i think it's too much for the scope of the game they could do with other alternatives presented by people here like control zones, raiding parties sallying from castles, making the AI focus on border fiefs during wartime etc

 

[black_bulldog]

Making it somewhat risky to completely drain a settlement's garrison, even in the safe interior. I already played around with Captain Oct's fix for it, where the AI focused on closest settlements, and you could cheese the AI pretty hard by jam-packing a frontline castle with about 300 garrison + militia, while running your interior holdings with minimal (or no) garrisons.

In reality this is what happens in wartime. The border towns/villages are the ones most heavily fortified. It's a waste of resources and manpower to stock up men in places deep in your own territory.

 

[Magello]

They should also move all of the noble troops to castles and have them fill out parties to screen in an area around the castle. You should be only able to recruit noble troops from the castle or tavern so the more castles you own the larger pool of noble troops.

 

[vonbalt]

They should also move all of the noble troops to castles and have them fill out parties to screen in an area around the castle. You should be only able to recruit noble troops from the castle or tavern so the more castles you own the larger pool of noble troops.

This would be a good incentive to take care of your castles if they were the source of noble recruits, a few warband mods had this and it was awesome.

 

[Reiksmarshal]

How about starting with a freaking stash!

1. They should be easier to defend with tiered walls and better kill zones.

2. Military center and better at training and recruiting troops.

3. Have a stash so that you can store your things. This is the biggest problem with them imo.

 

[NLCRich]

I think a big part of the problem lies with the AI more than the castles themselves. The A.I. do not use these castles in a strategic way. Part of the problem is actually the army system that has become so integral to the game. These armies can suck up almost all the lords to march to some far away fief, leaving the borders utterly defenseless. Lords do not defend fiefs, a tie in with the issue of not being able to enter beseiged fiefs. Instead the A.I. will just waste their time standing outside the castle looking on and not being able to do anything. And when the battle starts, they just wander back off into the wilderness, their effectiveness during the time of the siege being nill. Nothing defended, no siege hindered, literally nothing accomplished. It's not efficient in any way. Lord's should hang out around border castles and instead of ridiculously tailing armies they are never going to fight, they should enter the border fiefs to try and deter the invading army or provide additional defense, in the least.

 

[Apocal]

I think a big part of the problem lies with the AI more than the castles themselves. The A.I. do not use these castles in a strategic way. Part of the problem is actually the army system that has become so integral to the game. These armies can suck up almost all the lords to march to some far away fief, leaving the borders utterly defenseless. Lords do not defend fiefs, a tie in with the issue of not being able to enter beseiged fiefs. Instead the A.I. will just waste their time standing outside the castle looking on and not being able to do anything. And when the battle starts, they just wander back off into the wilderness, their effectiveness during the time of the siege being nill. Nothing defended, no siege hindered, literally nothing accomplished. It's not efficient in any way. Lord's should hang out around border castles and instead of ridiculously tailing armies they are never going to fight, they should enter the border fiefs to try and deter the invading army or provide additional defense, in the least.

They jump in sometimes to attack armies. That's the usual cause of besieging armies getting massively stackwiped; if the army is just losing to the garrison/militia, they will break off before loing. It is only when the shadowing parties/armies jump in that you see the whole army get deleted.

If they were individual parties, they'd get rolled by armies, same as the garrison. That said, you're right that armies can suck up way too many parties.

 

[Mad Vader]

Everything would have been better if castles had wheels and moved very slowly.

 

[black_bulldog]

They should also move all of the noble troops to castles and have them fill out parties to screen in an area around the castle. You should be only able to recruit noble troops from the castle or tavern so the more castles you own the larger pool of noble troops.

They really should and only you and your clan can recruit those troops from castles. It makes getting and keeping castles much more desirable.