I admit it now, it's immersion breaking for me that my recruits mostly just die...

[Doktor Barber]

and thats exactly why you need a medic

 

[Lord Irontoe]

The main difference for me is that it is slower and harder to become powerful in Bannerlord. Whereas in Warband I could do it a bit quicker and easier because the party sizes in general were much smaller, which meant I and my companions had a much bigger impact on the battle.

As with the thread topic, the recruiting of troops is mostly the same, with the only significant change being a la mode selection. There is still the same interaction of Do Village Quest --> More Access to Recruits, with the same ability to recruit from neutral standing and similar breakpoints for unlocking more/better troops. There was no morale mechanic tied to losses that made them reluctant to join if they thought you were going to throw their lives away. You didn't even have to return them at any point, ever.

Like I said, troops are expendable and they'll probably never change it because most people who play wouldn't find it as fun as crashing their troops into other troops.

Again, its similar on the surface, but it plays out differently because there's next to no passive XP gain to level up your recruits quickly and they even removed the after-battle shared XP, so the only way to level troops is to feed them into the meat grinder and hope a few survive or spend way too much time fighting looters in boring repetitive battles.

 

[Apocal]

Again, its similar on the surface, but it plays out differently because there's next to no passive XP gain to level up your recruits quickly and they even removed the after-battle shared XP, so the only way to level troops is to feed them into the meat grinder and hope a few survive or spend way too much time fighting looters in boring repetitive battles.

Players do that to themselves. It doesn't actually require very many battles between looters or bandits to get troops trained up to a decent (tier 3) level capable of taking on other parties. 20 looters is good for leveling about 15-25 recruits to tier 2, I could see the issue if you're recruiting 100 dudes at once (don't do that) but if you've just got 20-50, that's like two or three battles, four tops, and you should be good to hit bandits or exceptionally weakened lords. You're meant to accept a few losses and a constant churn of recruits.

The only reason to grind on looters is because you want to do it 100% safely. Otherwise you shouldn't. Other than RP reasons (like the OP) why do you care if you recruit 40 guys and only 25 or so make it to tier 4? Recruiting new ones is dirt cheap.

Alternatively, you just hit up a few quests in a handful of towns -- Caravan Ambush is currently amazing for this, BTW -- and you can get a drip-feed of high-tier troops to keep yourself topped off constantly. Obviously, as long as you don't get wiped out entirely or stashed some troops in garrisons.

 

[ShakenSpeare]

I haven't played in a long time, but I bet that the AI armies are still mostly just recruits, correct me if I'm wrong. Pretty much every T2 infantry should have shields, and it should be very fast to level up recruits, as well as easy to get archers, at least for the AI. But please do away with the necessary looter grind. Otherwise, I don't think it's wrong to have recruits be crappy and die easily, the formula has always been like this and it works.

 

[MostBlunted]

so the only way to level troops is to feed them into the meat grinder and hope a few survive or spend way too much time fighting looters in boring repetitive battles.

 

[Apocal]

I haven't played in a long time, but I bet that the AI armies are still mostly just recruits, correct me if I'm wrong.

As long as you're not taking on an AI army that just finished a recruiting surge after respawning or a meatgrinder battle, this isn't the case. If anything, you run into an issue with the exact opposite: because of their daily XP bonus, if they've spent any length of time at peace, you'll be facing a huge, high-tier army with minimal recruits.

 

[ShakenSpeare]

As long as you're not taking on an AI army that just finished a recruiting surge after respawning or a meatgrinder battle, this isn't the case. If anything, you run into an issue with the exact opposite: because of their daily XP bonus, if they've spent any length of time at peace, you'll be facing a huge, high-tier army with minimal recruits.

Wait, really? Damn, compared to before that's much better. Some of the updates have looked promising, specifically that and the block delay removal. Should I install this game again or still wait a while? I'm not that overly eager to jump back into it but if it's worth it, I'll do it.

 

[Apocal]

Wait, really? Damn, compared to before that's much better. Some of the updates have looked promising, specifically that and the block delay removal. Should I install this game again or still wait a while? I'm not that overly eager to jump back into it but if it's worth it, I'll do it.

Wait awhile.

 

[ShakenSpeare]

Wait awhile.

Thank you for your input, dear sir.

 

[TheWitchIzalith]

I get your point, but Looters... you're fighting looters. Even bandits makes it much worse. And "training" in that way is just busy work in this game after about 60 days. It's just. IDK. The way it works now takes sooooo much nursing it's just not flowing.

You can use this tactic onany bandit faction really, so long as you have a good frontline. Use the Shield Wall command, and shorten the unit, so that you've got 2-3 Rows of shielded men infront, and have them gaurd the Recruits in the back line, when you tell the Archers to hold fire, back them off, so they arent at risk of return fire, and when the frontline clashes, tell them to charge, so the recruits come help the sheild wall.

Works the same, and runs a bit more risk, but not by much unless it's a larger number of forest bandits who can shoot your backline.

 

[paladinx333]

Giving them even the most basic shields makes a big difference. It's weird to me that they don't have them.

The shields exist in the game too. There are several makeshift shields that look as if they were cobbled together from scrap. They definitely look like something recruits should be using.

 

[Julio-Claudian]

The shields exist in the game too. There are several makeshift shields that look as if they were cobbled together from scrap. They definitely look like something recruits should be using.

Exactly. I used to use a mod which gave all recruits the makeshift kite shield (or whichever type for their culture). This didn't make them OP but it meant they weren't all wiped out by arrows and could actually make it to the enemy.

 

[Stromming]

I was fighting a decently well trained Battanian army (same size or larger) as the empire, well i was khuzait mostly but lords were empire, and each lord in my army had at least 50% recruits, and having archers on a slope hammer down on the enemy infantry, and just charging with infantry when they were just a few feet away, then retreating to position worked pretty well, rinse and repeat. The overwhelming amount of troops slaughtered the enemies that actually made it to the line. Sure I took a lot of casualties too, but was well on the way of winning (phyrric or close victory) but whenever i inevitably get knocked unconcious, the garbage AI takes over, and loses the battle.