I think I found the major fundamental problem with Bannerlord's balance (and it's stupid)

[sh1ny4]

The map is too dang small. It's too small! And there's too few factions. And the faction's territories are distributed completely wrong.

what's funny is that I came to the exact opposite conclusion : considering the depth of the game, the map is too big, and we have too many factions. I do agree on the distribution though
The three empires combined are almost at the size of the entirety of warband (19 towns vs 22), but we didn't get much in terms of new mechanics, and even worse the progression is badly distributed :

• Without even optimising you can have a full stack of top tier troops before you get a town and still be wealthy, where it was unthinkable before having at least a town in warband.
• You go straight from homeless hobo to castle lord, without the villages struggles in between as a stop gap
• By the time you've conquered two towns you already went through everything the game had to offer since every feature is available at clan level 2, while in warband you wouldn't even be the marshal.
• Towns are too easily besieged due to the size of parties (btw removing the clan level troop gain instantly improves the game, strongly recommended). You no longer need to bring half of the lord of the kingdom to take one, so they keep falling and you always need to go back and defend them.
• Since there are so many of them, none of them really matter. I have ten time as many hours in BL as in WB, yet while I have no issue placing rivacheg, dhirim or praven on WB's map the only town I remember in BL is Charas. And that's because I use it when debugging a mod I'm working on.
• When warband was getting repetitive you only had one or two factions left to conquer, whereas in bannerlord you still have two thirds of the map left
• Outside of the look of the map/armours, factions are too similar : gameplay wise sturgia and vlandia are the same, and aserai and the empire are also very close. The three damn empires whose reason they split up is how the empire should be ruled have the exact same political system...

Sure you are not forced to conquer the whole map, but exhausting all the gameplay available before conquering one faction when there are 8 is pretty bad, and I won't be going over what other mechanics we've lost that were in WB or it's DLCs

Worst thing is the devs wanted it to be great, there are many traces of what could have been in the code ranging from jousting tourneys to faction preferences when chosing the troops

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Bannerlord attempts to make all the factions the same size with roughly the same amount of cities to start. And in theory, you would think that contributes to the balance of the game.

Yeah It was massively disappointing after years of the developers saying "there is a crumbling empire being invaded by barbarians!!!" and they just made an even more uniform map than Warband.

Asymmetry in strategy games is half of what makes them interesting. If they had literally two factions, Empire and Barbarians, and made the Empire large and weak while the Barbarians were strong and small at the start, I think even this most basic implementation of asymmetry would be far more compelling than what we have now.

 

[drivegol]

what's funny is that I came to the exact opposite conclusion : considering the depth of the game, the map is too big, and we have too many factions. I do agree on the distribution though
The three empires combined are almost at the size of the entirety of warband (19 towns vs 22), but we didn't get much in terms of new mechanics, and even worse the progression is badly distributed :

• Without even optimising you can have a full stack of top tier troops before you get a town and still be wealthy, where it was unthinkable before having at least a town in warband.
• You go straight from homeless hobo to castle lord, without the villages struggles in between as a stop gap
• By the time you've conquered two towns you already went through everything the game had to offer since every feature is available at clan level 2, while in warband you wouldn't even be the marshal.
• Towns are too easily besieged due to the size of parties (btw removing the clan level troop gain instantly improves the game, strongly recommended). You no longer need to bring half of the lord of the kingdom to take one, so they keep falling and you always need to go back and defend them.
• Since there are so many of them, none of them really matter. I have ten time as many hours in BL as in WB, yet while I have no issue placing rivacheg, dhirim or praven on WB's map the only town I remember in BL is Charas. And that's because I use it when debugging a mod I'm working on.
• When warband was getting repetitive you only had one or two factions left to conquer, whereas in bannerlord you still have two thirds of the map left
• Outside of the look of the map/armours, factions are too similar : gameplay wise sturgia and vlandia are the same, and aserai and the empire are also very close. The three damn empires whose reason they split up is how the empire should be ruled have the exact same political system...

Sure you are not forced to conquer the whole map, but exhausting all the gameplay available before conquering one faction when there are 8 is pretty bad, and I won't be going over what other mechanics we've lost that were in WB or it's DLCs

Worst thing is the devs wanted it to be great, there are many traces of what could have been in the code ranging from jousting tourneys to faction preferences when chosing the troops

Eh, having put easily 1k hours into Warband, I have to say that your points seem very biased. It seems that you complain about Bannerlord being too easy relative to Warband, but don't seem to realise that you seem to just be more learned with Bannerlord relative to Warband. Let me explain what I mean by going over your points:

• Without even optimising you can have a full stack of top tier troops before you get a town and still be wealthy, where it was unthinkable before having at least a town in warband.
  • This simply isn't true. It was very easy in Warband to earn money doing a few tournaments (3k per tourney) or killing sea raiders (1k-4k per fight), and then using that money to buy workshops and using bandits to train a party of 30-40 troops. As opposed to Bannerlord where your main source of passive income outside of settlements would be caravans, which are difficult to abuse if you can't fight armies to increase your clan tier for more companions, in Warband there was a snowball effect where you could simply wait in towns to buy more workshops once you've already purchased 3/4 of them, where you're already earning 2k denars a week doing nothing.
• You go straight from homeless hobo to castle lord, without the villages struggles in between as a stop gap.
  • Fair, I suppose. I often hear people talk about the village struggle but I feel this is just a result of lack of experience with the game, the minute you go on a warpath against a kingdom the king often ends up giving you more fiefs than you can handle. Which is to say that the "village struggle" is imo more the player's fault for not having prepared to become a vassal, and I think this same trap is still something people fall for in BL, it's just harder because there are more requirements to becoming a vassal so you're forced to prepare more.
• By the time you've conquered two towns you already went through everything the game had to offer since every feature is available at clan level 2, while in warband you wouldn't even be the marshal.
  • Being the marshal is about the only feature you haven't been able to explore yet at the same point in Warband. Once I take the second town in Warband the gameplay loop doesn't really change much for the rest of that playthrough.
• Towns are too easily besieged due to the size of parties (btw removing the clan level troop gain instantly improves the game, strongly recommended). You no longer need to bring half of the lord of the kingdom to take one, so they keep falling and you always need to go back and defend them.
  • If you mean player parties, it was very realistic to besiege a town with only 40 troops in Warband. It wasn't particularly easy, but it was very doable, even if you don't take advantage of low difficulty settings and the more op troop types. If you mean npc lord parties, I don't really see it. The average clan can muster about 300-500 troops spread across 2-3 parties relative to a castle/town that has defenders ranging from 200 all the way to 700, in Warband the average lord would carry 50-150 troops (300 if they were very strong) relative to castles and towns having 50 to 300 defenders. Keeping in mind that the garrison has a considerable advantage when defending in both games, I don't find there to be a big gap.
  • What I do think is a problem is the rate at which lords and settlements recover. In Warband it wasn't uncommon for a castle to remain at 30/60 defenders for a few weeks because they'd been recently besieged and remained a target, and vassals also needed at least 2 weeks to recover from being defeated. In Bannerlord both a town and vassal can recover the majority of its losses in the span of days.
• Since there are so many of them, none of them really matter. I have ten time as many hours in BL as in WB, yet while I have no issue placing rivacheg, dhirim or praven on WB's map the only town I remember in BL is Charas. And that's because I use it when debugging a mod I'm working on.
  • Not untrue I suppose, but then I also don't know the majority of towns that make up the province I live in. BL could've put a little more effort in making the towns feel like they're steeped in history to counter this though, even though it already does relative to Warband.
• When warband was getting repetitive you only had one or two factions left to conquer, whereas in bannerlord you still have two thirds of the map left.
  • I don't really have a problem with that personally. I always felt annoyed because it was too easy to take over the map in Warband, I usually took the last fief before I'd even feel satisfied in building up my character. In Bannerlord I at least get a chance to actually enjoy all the perks I've been building up for over half of the game.
  • Anyway I suppose this is more of a personal preference.
• Outside of the look of the map/armours, factions are too similar : gameplay wise sturgia and vlandia are the same, and aserai and the empire are also very close. The three damn empires whose reason they split up is how the empire should be ruled have the exact same political system...
  • The Vaegirs, Swadians and Sarranids in Warband were practically the same as well outside of aesthetics. Yeah, swadians were a little more armored and used crossbows instead of bows, but that's about it. Khergits were unique in having horse archers, and the nords and rhodoks were ground troops focused on berserkers and crossbowmen respectively.
  • However, this also made it so that the nords were effectively the weakest faction in the game because they had no cavalry outside of their king (ironically), and the khergits were the most annoying to fight because all of their horse archers would always run away on the fastest horses until they ran out of arrows. It's probably why all factions have horse troops this time around. I often dread fighting the khergits in Warband not because they're difficult, but because I don't really like spending a minute chasing every horse archer because they don't want to get in melee range.

Don't take this the wrong way, Bannerlord definitely has some flaws but I don't agree that these are where the heart of the problem lies.

 

[JunKeteer]

Simple reason, they didn't really listen to player feedback over early access or the 2 years since their official release to the multiple suggested reasons. The lack of any meaningful update as well didn't help.

Giving a unit +20 to some skill, only to reduce it to by -10 in a patch a year later doesn't fix it. That's all they've really been doing.

They can add all this flavour text in their patch notes of "AI more aggressive, etc..." but the in-game experience doesn't actual prove anything changed; as "useful" as picking between Aggressive/Balanced/Defensive for your companion's party.

 

[Selphie Nutter]

Don´t think it will help much. Either fix the half done stuff or remove them from the game. The game was alot better before the console release so that is an alternetive that should be given.

It would make a huge difference for console players. We have the short end of the stick since we dont have access to mods and the aggression of the AI forces us into a speed run, even if we dont want to rush.

Where as the PC players havecaccess to mods like The Banner Kings mod which adds some awesome content that makes me wish my pc worked. The diplomacy mod which adds the option to make extended peace treaties, which slows down game progression a lot. Experience mods which remove the cap on leveling up your skills and makes the lowest experience value 5, so all skills get experience all the time. Which in itself counters the aggression of the AI by not forcing you rmto rob peter to pay paul which mean the AI doesn't end up with a huge advantage due to it spamming war declarations. Smithing mods, that add the option to craft armour and bows, which means no relying on loot drops or hoping good armour is added to the shop. So many quality of life mods that work and add so much more depth to the game, but us console players have no access to them. So we are stuck with a game that we cant even earn all the achievements for because they are broken and don't unlock when you do them. The ones that do unlock, are often at the mercy of wether or not the game works,or wether or not the AI is willing to make peace.

In my case, i still haven't gotten the achievement for playing as my heir. Because the AI is so super aggressive that im forced to wipe out factions just to have some peace. Which doesn't last long because the campaign has a 2000 day time limit, so if you play the story like i do, then you inevitably end up permanently at war with the empire/barbarians. If we had access to the PC mods, console players would have a lot more fun playing this game.

Not all PC plsyers use mods, but thats out of choice, we dont have a choice.

 

[sh1ny4]

Don't take this the wrong way, Bannerlord definitely has some flaws but I don't agree that these are where the heart of the problem lies.

Oh yeah I'm definitively biased, but the 'wide as an ocean, deep as a puddle' doesn't come out of nowhere and for me it's not only the pure mechanics
I'm not saying these are the main issues either, but taken over a few playthrough and added to the rest they become glaring and make the other issues worse

 

[Lokey7800]

I will go ahead and correct my behavior and offer an apology for not being aware of your rules and correct my behavior accordingly. But you forget that moderators can also misbehave. And suggesting my posts "pointless, stupid and annoying" is way over the line. I've certainly had my fair share of moderators "who make up rules off the bench" as we say.

Again. I apologize for not being aware of the rules and have edited my previous posts accordingly so they are compliant. I think you owe me an apology for what can be interpreted as a personal attack.

I will go ahead and correct my behavior and offer an apology for not being aware of your rules and correct my behavior accordingly. But you forget that moderators can also misbehave. And suggesting my posts "pointless, stupid and annoying" is way over the line. I've certainly had my fair share of moderators "who make up rules off the bench" as we say.

Again. I apologize for not being aware of the rules and have edited my previous posts accordingly so they are compliant. I think you owe me an apology for what can be interpreted as a personal attack.

Sounds like you were rude to the mod after being advised with no ill intent behind it then became but hurt afterwards

 

[Lokey7800]

It would make a huge difference for console players. We have the short end of the stick since we dont have access to mods and the aggression of the AI forces us into a speed run, even if we dont want to rush.

Where as the PC players havecaccess to mods like The Banner Kings mod which adds some awesome content that makes me wish my pc worked. The diplomacy mod which adds the option to make extended peace treaties, which slows down game progression a lot. Experience mods which remove the cap on leveling up your skills and makes the lowest experience value 5, so all skills get experience all the time. Which in itself counters the aggression of the AI by not forcing you rmto rob peter to pay paul which mean the AI doesn't end up with a huge advantage due to it spamming war declarations. Smithing mods, that add the option to craft armour and bows, which means no relying on loot drops or hoping good armour is added to the shop. So many quality of life mods that work and add so much more depth to the game, but us console players have no access to them. So we are stuck with a game that we cant even earn all the achievements for because they are broken and don't unlock when you do them. The ones that do unlock, are often at the mercy of wether or not the game works,or wether or not the AI is willing to make peace.

In my case, i still haven't gotten the achievement for playing as my heir. Because the AI is so super aggressive that im forced to wipe out factions just to have some peace. Which doesn't last long because the campaign has a 2000 day time limit, so if you play the story like i do, then you inevitably end up permanently at war with the empire/barbarians. If we had access to the PC mods, console players would have a lot more fun playing this game.

Not all PC plsyers use mods, but thats out of choice, we dont have a choice.

This is what PC players forget, some body said this was a game made for console and that just doesn’t make sense. I literally fight to keep factions alive at this point. Foolishly I did the main quest thinking it would spice things up. I did not realize the conspiracy strength doesn’t need to be even halfway full to start which also make's no sense because if I restart from an earlier save it goes right back to the level it was before it activated which is no where near complete. Console players need diplomacy more than buying for peace or armistice. Why do I have the option to let people go but the AI never does. Until they update the game or do PC I can no longer role play my way out the never ending cycle of war which then becomes a never ending cycle of rebellion from clans that will never form factions

 

[Selphie Nutter]

This is what PC players forget, some body said this was a game made for console and that just doesn’t make sense. I literally fight to keep factions alive at this point. Foolishly I did the main quest thinking it would spice things up. I did not realize the conspiracy strength doesn’t need to be even halfway full to start which also make's no sense because if I restart from an earlier save it goes right back to the level it was before it activated which is no where near complete. Console players need diplomacy more than buying for peace or armistice. Why do I have the option to let people go but the AI never does. Until they update the game or do PC I can no longer role play my way out the never ending cycle of war which then becomes a never ending cycle of rebellion from clans that will never form factions

Yeah, i saw that post. How they think this game was made for consoles is beyond me. The tactics system of issuing orders is better suited to a keyboard and mouse. Changing formation and issuing orders on console is a lot slower, a pc player only has to point and click.

They think PC players are down trodden, well I've got news for them. They aren't at all down trodden. Mods fix most issues in this game, and there are even mods to let you earn the achievements while using mods.

Us console players though are stuck with sh*t like this

Xbox Series X, Sandbox, 16th of Winter Year 1.Clan Level 1 mercenary phase, and because we can't access the diplomacy mod, Battania is half conquered

 

[drivegol]

Yeah, i saw that post. How they think this game was made for consoles is beyond me. The tactics system of issuing orders is better suited to a keyboard and mouse. Changing formation and issuing orders on console is a lot slower, a pc player only has to point and click.

They think PC players are down trodden, well I've got news for them. They aren't at all down trodden. Mods fix most issues in this game, and there are even mods to let you earn the achievements while using mods.

Us console players though are stuck with sh*t like this

Xbox Series X, Sandbox, 16th of Winter Year 1.Clan Level 1 mercenary phase, and because we can't access the diplomacy mod, Battania is half conquered

What exactly did you do in this playthrough? You joined battania like a couple ingame days after starting the game and already have 34m before 1085, 351 troops, 35 sight? You're clan tier 6 as well.

I have to assume you used cheats, which could be why this is happening, kingdoms are more eager to declare war based on the player's threat level. It could be unrelated too, but I've never really seen this happen in my game, except when I started a kingdom and that was only because I had no vassals. Once I accumulated about 5 vassals and had appropriate total strength, other factions were very reluctant to declare war.

It also happens during the campaign quest but that's intentional.

 

[Lokey7800]

Even when I used cheats it didn’t get this crazy but then my older brother is also immortal as he is 145 in my first play through. I think half the realm is related to me through him at this point so cheats do have varying effects

 

[Julio-Claudian]

This is what PC players forget, some body said this was a game made for console and that just doesn’t make sense. I literally fight to keep factions alive at this point. Foolishly I did the main quest thinking it would spice things up. I did not realize the conspiracy strength doesn’t need to be even halfway full to start which also make's no sense because if I restart from an earlier save it goes right back to the level it was before it activated which is no where near complete. Console players need diplomacy more than buying for peace or armistice. Why do I have the option to let people go but the AI never does. Until they update the game or do PC I can no longer role play my way out the never ending cycle of war which then becomes a never ending cycle of rebellion from clans that will never form factions

The PC game was degraded in order to make it functional on consoles.

 

[Selphie Nutter]

What exactly did you do in this playthrough? You joined battania like a couple ingame days after starting the game and already have 34m before 1085, 351 troops, 35 sight? You're clan tier 6 as well.

I have to assume you used cheats, which could be why this is happening, kingdoms are more eager to declare war based on the player's threat level. It could be unrelated too, but I've never really seen this happen in my game, except when I started a kingdom and that was only because I had no vassals. Once I accumulated about 5 vassals and had appropriate total strength, other factions were very reluctant to declare war.

It also happens during the campaign quest but that's intentional.

I've been going atound each kingdom bankrupting them, because I'm tired of not having enough time to do things like tournaments.

So I decided to start a sandbox game and use the cheats menu to power up my clan. I then decided to use the cheats to bankrupt every kingdom in Calradia so that none of them could afford to wage war and conquer eachother.

As Result I now have plenty of time to do tournaments and focus or raising my family. I refuse to keep being rushed into starting a kingdom due to the AI being so bloody aggressive.

 

[drivegol]

The PC game was degraded in order to make it functional on consoles.

Source or bull****.

 

[Selphie Nutter]

Source or bull****.

Bull****, most of the changes to the PC where requested by the players themselves. The console version is so riddled with problems that is was just a basic copy and paste from PC. Even then it's an extremely downgraded copy and paste.

Pc have bigger battlefields, and they are able to move their units into positions the want them to be in prior to starting a battle (during the preparation phase, which console players can't do since the battlefield isn't big enough to accommodate the size of the army).

PC players can use tactics that console players can't use because the combat system doesn't work properly and never has. Ordering units is also too slow to use tactics due to the battlefield being so small. We rarely have enough time to move our Archers into position before Cavalry are on them. Which is why i don't use infantry anymore. On pc it would be amazing but on console the battlefield is too small to use most tactics.

For him to say the PC version was downgraded for console is complete bull****, the console version was a downgraded copy and paste, that wasn't even made to work properly.

 

[drivegol]

Bull****, most of the changes to the PC where requested by the players themselves. The console version is so riddled with problems that is was just a basic copy and paste from PC. Even then it's an extremely downgraded copy and paste.

Pc have bigger battlefields, and they are able to move their units into positions the want them to be in prior to starting a battle (during the preparation phase, which console players can't do since the battlefield isn't big enough to accommodate the size of the army).

PC players can use tactics that console players can't use because the combat system doesn't work properly and never has. Ordering units is also too slow to use tactics due to the battlefield being so small. We rarely have enough time to move our Archers into position before Cavalry are on them. Which is why i don't use infantry anymore. On pc it would be amazing but on console the battlefield is too small to use most tactics.

For him to say the PC version was downgraded for console is complete bull****, the console version was a downgraded copy and paste, that wasn't even made to work properly.

I know. He keeps saying it, stops replying if someone calls him out on it, then just repeats it on another thread.

I've asked him to back up his claims but he never does.

 

[Julio-Claudian]

I know. He keeps saying it, stops replying if someone calls him out on it, then just repeats it on another thread.

I've asked him to back up his claims but he never does.

Lol what "calls him out". idc about debating you over this nonsense.

Battle AI was degraded for the sake of console performance, countless features were abandoned because it would have been more difficult to implement them and have it work on consoles. If they never spent time and energy making it a console friendly game before even completing it as a pc game it would have been a much better pc game.

 

[drivegol]

Lol what "calls him out". idc about debating you over this nonsense.

Battle AI was degraded for the sake of console performance, countless features were abandoned because it would have been more difficult to implement them and have it work on consoles. If they never spent time and energy making it a console friendly game before even completing it as a pc game it would have been a much better pc game.

I'm not asking for a debate, I'm asking you to show you didn't pull it out of your ass. Contrary to popular belief, that's a common practice on this forum.

 

[Julio-Claudian]

Whatever man. Completely pointless discussion like 99% of what is said on this forum

 

[drivegol]

Whatever man. Completely pointless discussion like 99% of what is said on this forum

"You don't believe me so I'm pretending you don't exist and that I'm still right."