Huge battles are still chores

[mortache]

Seriously, fighting 500-700 man armies is fun but 1500-2000 man armies are just pure slogs. Even the split up smaller battles of Warband would be much better than this. Maybe use the Troop Deployment system to simulate "multiple days of fighting". Other than retreat spamming, which afaik makes the loot and prisoners vanish, fighting is STILL boring zombie hoard tower defense after the initial phase.

If our computers cannot yet handle 2000vs2000 battles, stop designing the game mechanics for 2000vs2000 battles. Maybe have the "Battle size" dictate how big armies can be, or make the cost to call parties grow exponentially?

 

[Madeloc]

Seriously, fighting 500-700 man armies is fun but 1500-2000 man armies are just pure slogs. Even the split up smaller battles of Warband would be much better than this. Maybe use the Troop Deployment system to simulate "multiple days of fighting". Other than retreat spamming, which afaik makes the loot and prisoners vanish, fighting is STILL boring zombie hoard tower defense after the initial phase.

Yes indeed.

If (it happens rarely cause hard to catch them) you catch a party like 100 and you are 2000, they have reinforcements, coming like 5 per 5 lol... totaly stupid, and useless.

Recently the pop points - in spite off a start relatively close between the two armies, so not significant movements letting spawn point behind - I found infantry poping in my archers though, or archers poping on a diagonal side, flanking the infantry...

Even in sieges, it happened the ennemy was on top of his siege tower, the wall full of my men, but they had a pop among my men ON the wall, whiping them out - nice as much as frustrating lol.

If our computers cannot yet handle 2000vs2000 battles, stop designing the game mechanics for 2000vs2000 battles. Maybe have the "Battle size" dictate how big armies can be, or make the cost to call parties grow exponentially?

Completely agree with that, I would rather prefer limited battle size than that system more or less fair, sometimes stupid, painful as hell.

And provided how the game is boring - there are only two things to do : quests and war, and at a time, only war, without any goal - I really start to think that game is not a game but the draft of the engine for a whole game including diplomacy, and many more interesting features in the different possible managements (towns, armies, relationships, trade) with also some peace times to be able to do that management (and not being permanently fighting, with furthermore, partners who are stupid [they will go to war both with Vlandia and Khuzait being NE, for example lol]).

Foot melee combat is also a pain in battles, mobs press you to prevent you hitting and block almost all.

And there is no end that seems to be planned since in a recent playthrough, we had conquered all the towns, only remaining renegate clans spending their time raiding villages... there was just a cut scene for the union of the Empire. I think the game could provide very long gameplays and that is what I'd like, but not that boring, war, war and war, AI going to siege a castle in the far depths of an ennemy territory because it knows that is the less defended one, that sucks... lol

 

[geala]

So true. It would be so nice if you could define the party size. I really dislike the battle "reinforcements" system for the units (which would of course have been present from the start of battle in reality), and would love a possibility to make parties smaller. There was such a feature in Kaoses Tweaks mod but I never tried it and currently have bad experience with the mod (crashes).

 

[Ser Jon]

Describing it as a zombie horde defense tower game is laughably accurate. They could go the Total War route...a little. If there's large armies, split it after the first loss/victory to a new screen immediately after the match that depicts a day going by or something, and then right back into it. It would also just be a lot less annoying or boring to have to constantly babysit the AI, too.

 

[Lord Irontoe]

I dunno if I want to go back to 20 round battles like Warband used to have when you had your battle size set low and were fighting huge army battles. That used to suck

 

[FireBlazinCandy]

My main issue with design of series is this:

Describing it as a zombie horde defense tower game is laughably accurate.

It really just standing on the wall whacking people off a ladder because the main gate is just 50vs50 mashed together in a tiny opening, all of which are just hitting eachothers shields or surrounds walls.

It would be nice if the attacking and army had a lot more firepower and were actually able to take down the two breakable walls and creating a new opening, thus making the player have to think on their feet, rather than just standing at a ladder with a two handed axe. The pre-seige element where you deploy trebuchets on the campaign maps just doesn't really do it for me.

This might make the player (when attacking) decide to either hold a large portion of their troops back while they wait for the walls to crumble, and leave them open to the threat of being bombarded by the defenders engines, or have them just scale the walls as normal.

Again, it just giving the player options to how to play the game when in a seige, rather than just the same play again aand again. I ALso think seiges should be far less common in the game so they don't go stale. The AI should consider a seige far more carefully before carrying one out as it really annoying having a party/army of 200 show up to each and every castle/town, only for them to run away at the first sighting of another army. They should feel like a monumental task, not just a "I'll just quickly seige this place and job done" or "uh, I've to go defend another castle over here and then move down over there to defend that one staright after".

Thats why I like RBM so much as the battles feel like real slogs and are far more rewarding when won.

 

[mortache]

My main issue with design of series is this:

It really just standing on the wall whacking people off a ladder because the main gate is just 50vs50 mashed together in a tiny opening, all of which are just hitting eachothers shields or surrounds walls.

It would be nice if the attacking and army had a lot more firepower and were actually able to take down the two breakable walls and creating a new opening, thus making the player have to think on their feet, rather than just standing at a ladder with a two handed axe. The pre-seige element where you deploy trebuchets on the campaign maps just doesn't really do it for me.

This might make the player (when attacking) decide to either hold a large portion of their troops back while they wait for the walls to crumble, and leave them open to the threat of being bombarded by the defenders engines, or have them just scale the walls as normal.

Again, it just giving the player options to how to play the game when in a seige, rather than just the same play again aand again. I ALso think seiges should be far less common in the game so they don't go stale. The AI should consider a seige far more carefully before carrying one out as it really annoying having a party/army of 200 show up to each and every castle/town, only for them to run away at the first sighting of another army. They should feel like a monumental task, not just a "I'll just quickly seige this place and job done" or "uh, I've to go defend another castle over here and then move down over there to defend that one staright after".

Thats why I like RBM so much as the battles feel like real slogs and are far more rewarding when won.

I was actually talking about the regular battles when I said "Tower Defense", the tower being your spawn lol.

 

[mortache]

I dunno if I want to go back to 20 round battles like Warband used to have when you had your battle size set low and were fighting huge army battles. That used to suck

On 500 battle size, a 1500vs1500 battle would be 6 rounds. 3 rounds if you make 50% of the troops come from reinforcement as opposed to like 90% on the current big battles.
For 20 rounds on 1000 battle size, there would have to be 20,000 troops in the fight lol. Or 40,000 with my idea of having 50% of the troops come from reinforcement

 

[Lord Irontoe]

On 500 battle size, a 1500vs1500 battle would be 6 rounds. 3 rounds if you make 50% of the troops come from reinforcement as opposed to like 90% on the current big battles.
For 20 rounds on 1000 battle size, there would have to be 20,000 troops in the fight lol. Or 40,000 with my idea of having 50% of the troops come from reinforcement

ok, but for me, more rounds means more deployment screens and more loading screens. I prefer to get it all done in one.

 

[Ser Jon]

My main issue with design of series is this:

It really just standing on the wall whacking people off a ladder because the main gate is just 50vs50 mashed together in a tiny opening, all of which are just hitting eachothers shields or surrounds walls.

It would be nice if the attacking and army had a lot more firepower and were actually able to take down the two breakable walls and creating a new opening, thus making the player have to think on their feet, rather than just standing at a ladder with a two handed axe. The pre-seige element where you deploy trebuchets on the campaign maps just doesn't really do it for me.

This might make the player (when attacking) decide to either hold a large portion of their troops back while they wait for the walls to crumble, and leave them open to the threat of being bombarded by the defenders engines, or have them just scale the walls as normal.

Again, it just giving the player options to how to play the game when in a seige, rather than just the same play again aand again. I ALso think seiges should be far less common in the game so they don't go stale. The AI should consider a seige far more carefully before carrying one out as it really annoying having a party/army of 200 show up to each and every castle/town, only for them to run away at the first sighting of another army. They should feel like a monumental task, not just a "I'll just quickly seige this place and job done" or "uh, I've to go defend another castle over here and then move down over there to defend that one staright after".

Thats why I like RBM so much as the battles feel like real slogs and are far more rewarding when won.

Imagine if the AI was smart enough to attack points intelligently. No more pressing a mob of idiots of a ladder, but having archers stick back and pelt the walls while infantry tries to maneuver effectively up the ladder. A shield bearer at the top, blocking projectiles...some sort of intelligence.

It's fun the first few times, but as the hours kick in and you realize how dumb the attackers always are and that you can just whack them off ladders or shoot them full of arrows because they stand there like sacks of rocks, whatever was fun about it wears off quick.

 

[FireBlazinCandy]

Imagine if the AI was smart enough to attack points intelligently. No more pressing a mob of idiots of a ladder, but having archers stick back and pelt the walls while infantry tries to maneuver effectively up the ladder. A shield bearer at the top, blocking projectiles...some sort of intelligence.

It's fun the first few times, but as the hours kick in and you realize how dumb the attackers always are and that you can just whack them off ladders or shoot them full of arrows because they stand there like sacks of rocks, whatever was fun about it wears off quick.

Absolutely. Which is kinda why I made my last point as I know there won't be a time where the AI will ever get to that stage, either by TW or by modders. They're hardcoded to be that predictable and dumb. So that being the case, I would prefer far fewing seiges with just larger armies invading.

When I played bannerlord many moons ago, during the mid game I just let them take the settlement and when they leave I just take it back by entering the town which is defended by about 10 recruits and take it back using RBM speed up. Rinse and repeat until I got bored constantly doing this every 5mins.

 

[Julio-Claudian]

I think a way to make large field battles better would be to make armies more likely to retreat when they are losing. If the first two or three waves are destroyed the army should be very likely to retreat, even if it has thousands left, rather than send wave after wave with the same result every time until the whole army is destroyed.

 

[Madeloc]

I think a way to make large field battles better would be to make armies more likely to retreat when they are losing. If the first two or three waves are destroyed the army should be very likely to retreat, even if it has thousands left, rather than send wave after wave with the same result every time until the whole army is destroyed.

Yes, also for the player they mixed-up defeat and punishment : loosing should open another way to the game, with several options rather than just loosing all, spending hours rebuilding, getting heroes back (this point improved with the new « recall » option).
But loosing a battle is boring as possible as it can be. Meh.

 

[LordDaem]

There is the option to limit battle size, I know its not ideal, but it is a workaround for now.

I upgraded my PC (mainly for Cyberpunk), but I have 64GB RAM and a 3090Ti - and my frames still drop if there's too many troops on the field. Only down to around 40fps, but considering I can run on 120FPS, it shows how madly intensive the battles can be. I think it's more of an optimisation issue at the moment. I'm PRAYING the full release addresses these.

 

[Ser Jon]

Absolutely. Which is kinda why I made my last point as I know there won't be a time where the AI will ever get to that stage, either by TW or by modders. They're hardcoded to be that predictable and dumb. So that being the case, I would prefer far fewing seiges with just larger armies invading.

When I played bannerlord many moons ago, during the mid game I just let them take the settlement and when they leave I just take it back by entering the town which is defended by about 10 recruits and take it back using RBM speed up. Rinse and repeat until I got bored constantly doing this every 5mins.

The problem with that is that if TW reduces the sieges, the game becomes even more stall and boring after 50 hours. A lot of people rely on the sieges as distractions from farming the same few factions sprouting back up and harassing their villages. They will never reduce it.

Also, I'm not a modder, but I don't think it's hardcoded? I could be wrong though. Hopefully a modder can confirm this.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

The dumb AI is "hardcoded" insofar as it's coded in C++ and you can't edit it. Most games do this to be fair, C# isn't as fast.

The problem with that is that if TW reduces the sieges, the game becomes even more stall and boring after 50 hours.

I don't think the campaign has to last 50 hours. A linear game with tons of bells and whistles to mix things up rarely lasts than long, and bannerlord has few of those.

 

[NPC99]

The dumb AI is "hardcoded" insofar as it's coded in C++ and you can't edit it. Most games do this to be fair, C# isn't as fast

I agree re strategy and tactics. However, on combat performance ai has been dumbed down by giving them very low XML skill levels. I suspect these levels were set to pace the game, prioritising short battles. AFAIK maximum skills are 350 whereas most troops fighting skills (onehanded etc) are between 20 and 100 - only the top tiers and Lords rise above these weak levels.

 

[Ser Jon]

The dumb AI is "hardcoded" insofar as it's coded in C++ and you can't edit it. Most games do this to be fair, C# isn't as fast.



I don't think the campaign has to last 50 hours. A linear game with tons of bells and whistles to mix things up rarely lasts than long, and bannerlord has few of those.

Well, I meant more in general. At least, I know I'd go insane if the majority of the things I had to do for about 50 or more hours is rounding up multiple factions harassing held titles. The sieges provide a reprieve from that, if only for a few minutes.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

RTS Camera and Command Mods improves them a lot, but some of the maps are still just too small for maneuvering such large forces. I think TW should consider down sizing the max forces that will be fighting to fit on the maps better and of course ad an actual consequence to the looser of a huge battle, but that's another topic.

 

[geala]

A general downsizing of the parties which would lead to smaller battles would be a great thing. But "Have 2,000 against 2,000 huge battles with our ingenious game" sounds better on paper, I think.

Then the abilities of the single soldier could be made better. It would not be necessary to change any troop in the xml, a global modifier, like in the mod "Improved Combat AI", could do it. That however wouldn't bring us better battle AI which is more about unit behavior and moral. Mostly absent in the game.