I think making money in Bannerlord is too easy

[Apocal]

The whole game has been massively nerfed lately .. to help Console gamers I assume ? " ..make it simple, make it easy, make it kiddy ! .. and you get your $$$$$$$$$.." Playing Realistic, use to mean realistic, now it means wrapped in cotton-wool with seat belts.

One of the most consistent complaints prior to release (therefore consoles) was people not being able to manage their money.

Most people who play this game are actually complete **** at it and just want the power fantasy aspect of growing in strength until they either paint the continent or get bored.

 

[Totalgarbage]

One of the most consistent complaints prior to release (therefore consoles) was people not being able to manage their money.

Most people who play this game are actually complete **** at it and just want the power fantasy aspect of growing in strength until they either paint the continent or get bored.

Yes, this is the exact reason why money and many other things are relatively "easy" in this game. Because most people who buy the game are casuals, and therefore the devs have to somewhat cater it to the casuals so that they can turn a profit. And the game is not even that easy, it can be incredibly punishing, just not hard. The game at its core also gives the player the satisfaction of a power fantasy as you've said, and therefore has to let the player become successful without too much difficulty (but the trade grind is horrendous, the devs really should improve the profitability and the levelling speed of trade).

Not that it can't be improved, money for example definitely can and should be, such as by reducing the amount of money given for completing successful smithing orders at high skill levels to 35k max from 80k, increasing the stamina requirement when smithing depending on the type of the weapon that is created (high value item types like 2h swords requiring higher stamina), but balancing it out by enabling the player to restore stamina while travelling, and unlocking crafting recipes faster (and also unlocking things like pommels in 1 category should unlock the exact same pommel in all categories).

The game really needs higher stakes with higher death chances, because it's actually very rare for a character to die in a battle. The devs don't need to worry about casual players' moans and cries, since there already is an option to disable death and aging. If they're too worried of it, they can add a slider for the death chance.

 

[archaicwarrior]

Simple fix , difficulty modes

(1) Easy
(2) Normal (default)
(3) Realistic
(4) Iron man

Let the kiddoes have their easy mode, let the Console causal gamers have Normal, and the serious people get the rest.

Done.

 

[Totalgarbage]

Simple fix , difficulty modes

(1) Easy
(2) Normal (default)
(3) Realistic
(4) Iron man

Let the kiddoes have their easy mode, let the Console causal gamers have Normal, and the serious people get the rest.

Done.

Honestly, after thinking about it, yes it is actually simple-ish. There is already a parameter that affects gains from loot. Fix the income from smithing, increase the profit from trade maybe, and add a difficuly option that just straight up halves the loot gain from battle. I mean sure finding items with positive modifiers will be harder probably, but I've also been asking for them to give the vendors in towns the ability to improve item modifiers for money (while also providing another reason to actually visit towns) for a while now.

Fix smithing & trade, add a game option to decrease loot, add another game option to increase the death rates, add item upgrades to town vendors, bada bing bada boom the game is both harder and better with relatively small tweaks. Especially if they also increased the speed of time or shorten years/months so that we can have our children grow up at reasonable times, the game becomes soooo much better overall.

 

[Apocal]

Simple fix , difficulty modes

(1) Easy
(2) Normal (default)
(3) Realistic
(4) Iron man

Let the kiddoes have their easy mode, let the Console causal gamers have Normal, and the serious people get the rest.

Done.

I've said before that the smartest thing Warband did compared to Bannerlord was hiding its difficulty settings with the defaults being easy.

 

[archaicwarrior]

Bannerlord is set to Easy, no matter what you select so maybe it's akin to warband ?

 

[Ginger00103]

Since I also feel that it is easy to get gold, I found this post

I usually start with a bow and a horse, put together small bandit squads, 2-5 at first, with listener levels, then up to 15-20 per squad, and I find that I make a lot of money simply because I level up in the first place .
With this strategy, I usually have around 400,000 to 600,000 before I hire my first troops. Since I also do a lot of detection, I find enough equipment for my character.

Since a friend always plays with me on Discord at the same time and he has more trouble getting to that point, I can understand the other camp.

I think a well-made mod with adjustable values could be quite interesting. PS: I'm already playing on the hardest level -.-

 

[saittam]

People who have problems with money in this game can´t be using rougery for loot and buy all the equipment.

In the first start it can however be a little challange with money. Especially if one gets a few defeats against looters. And one don´t find any looters to attack after.

I do find the medicine to be a worse problems. Needs to be nerfed like 90%.

 

[SudianX]

People who have problems with money in this game can´t be using rougery for loot and buy all the equipment.

In the first start it can however be a little challange with money. Especially if one gets a few defeats against looters. And one don´t find any looters to attack after.

I do find the medicine to be a worse problems. Needs to be nerfed like 90%.

My problems with money are mainly due to me having expensive tastes. I like spending it, and boy does this game give you the opportunity to spend it all.

Between spending 4 to11 million to peaceably take a town, 1 to 2 million for a castle, and at least half a million to bribe a lord to join my kingdom... My last play through I never felt like I had enough money and when I finished and I had less than a million in cash.

Spoiler: Finished?

My kingdom was really an empire and we had every fief. (Black flags everywhere, whoo!) When are we getting more flag color options?!?!?

Every other kingdom ceased to exist (thanks new patch!) except for the Aserai, for some reason... Yeah. Was that a bug? When I stopped playing this character the old named-bandits-declaring-war-on-me thing is apparently still around. Gross.

 

[Hero07911010]

I always play legit. I sell weapons for money. I'm a weapons dealer. I supply towns with weapons. I supply lords with weapons. Everyone gets weapons. You get a weapon and you get a weapon and you get a weapon!

 

[saittam]

My problems with money are mainly due to me having expensive tastes. I like spending it, and boy does this game give you the opportunity to spend it all.

Between spending 4 to11 million to peaceably take a town, 1 to 2 million for a castle, and at least half a million to bribe a lord to join my kingdom... My last play through I never felt like I had enough money and when I finished and I had less than a million in cash.

If you use caravans and workshops to build that fortune i understand your frustration. Me as a smasher I find that fun. I find it abit annoying one need to travel to 5 towns after one battle to sell the loot. Those towns where the shop keepers have 100k is rare after some ingame years.

 

[anoddhermit]

With smithing: Yes.

Without smithing: No.

If you're straight grinding battle loot it's kind of in the middle, but I don't find that an engaging play style compared to more mixed approaches.

What I do find is that maintaining T5/6 troops is too cheap. I think the game would be better if they were more expensive and you couldn't just steamroll everyone with a doomstack that barely costs more than dramatically weaker troops.

I'm around 1000 days in my current campaign and have around 2 million, but I have 25 clans in my kingdom so I've spent maybe ~10 million on that. My money came from battle loot, town and workshop passive, and smithing orders(Mainly for getting +rep/charm XP, I don't sell crafted weapons direct but it's still a lot from just orders). Some trade just to get up to 125 for renown gains, but trade money is minimal. At this point world conquest is guaranteed and money is trivial.

 

[SudianX]

What I do find is that maintaining T5/6 troops is too cheap.

Am I correct in thinking that cavalry, archers, and infantry all have the same upkeep cost as long as they are the same tier in Bannerlord?

I think I saw this in game and was surprised (when I first started and did not know how to make money). I could swear cavalry cost more daily in Warband, and maybe even archers were different from infantry, when comparing the same tier. I always thought those differences made sense.

Maybe those old cost differences were tossed when it was decided we had to pay for the horses of our cavalry in this one . I found myself hoarding horses on my last playthrough (loot from every battle, never sold) and had developed quite the herding speed penalty once my cavalry stopped dying so much and needing replacements. Oops. (I think I sold 300+ war horses at once )

 

[JunKeteer]

Am I correct in thinking that cavalry, archers, and infantry all have the same upkeep cost as long as they are the same tier in Bannerlord?

Yeah, it's very basic being tier-scaled. IIRC, WB had a bit more of a wage 'balance' even between the different upper tiers between factions; maintaining a party of 100 Swadian knights was not that easy but was easier holding 150 Rhodok sergeants/huscarls/marksman. BL, I can hold 200+ elite whatevers (usually just T5+ prisoner recruits) with about that same wage hit.

I think I saw this in game and was surprised (when I first started and did not know how to make money). I could swear cavalry cost more daily in Warband, and maybe even archers were different from infantry, when comparing the same tier. I always thought those differences made sense.

Maybe those old cost differences were tossed when it was decided we had to pay for the horses of our cavalry in this one . I found myself hoarding horses on my last playthrough (loot from every battle, never sold) and had developed quite the herding speed penalty once my cavalry stopped dying so much and needing replacements. Oops. (I think I sold 300+ war horses at once )

Cavalry are a bit harder to get mainly due to horses in BL, as early on, you're juggling between getting your income (workshops/caravans) set up, upgrading armor, hit of companion wages (equivalent of T9+ costs nearly), etc...but eventually, I'm sure everyone has more horses than they can hold.

 

[xdj1nn]

I believe that making money in Bannerlord is far too simple. With so many trade caravans running rampant, it's easy for even a capable novice to rake in coin by taking advantage of the opportune economic climate - a situation which should be more closely monitored to ensure that it remains balanced and fair. It may be necessary to make some adjustments to the current system if we are to stop those who wish to exploit this feature and hoard wealth beyond what is deemed acceptable.

weak argument for it does not reflect the root of the problem:
making money in the game's too narrow, there's only 1 path to do so efficiently, and said path blocks alternative playstyles completely killing roleplaying and consequently destroying replayability and "fun-factor" due to lack of variety.

In fact, the lack of variety's what hurts the game the most, perks are fashioned in a way that there are clear "Best in Slot" choices vs "useless" "useless 4 player" "useless 4 companion" and "gimmick". - If we were to have perk trees (which they've shoehorned upon us) said system needed to be either as vast and complex as what we see in Path of Exile (that because we're talking about an open-world sandbox game primarily dependent on customazation depth / player control), or at bare minimum, structured under a proto-classes system where perks complement each other and branch into logical differences between class archetypes. We got, instead, this ridiculous thing that hurts the gameplay and can completely ruin the experience of playing the game.

Anyway, I've detracted hardcore there, thing is that caravans and workshops which would fill a trader playstyle are utterly useless vs battle looting, even "slavery" (not sure we can call it that, but it is what it is on the "ransom" thingy) doesn't even cover a fraction of profits made through equipment looting and selling from battles. The game lacks any source of viable steady income, instead relying on loot caravaneer tactics. This destroys pacifist playstyles or playstyles that avoid nobility or focus on "helping the people" (mercenary that goes questing) True caravaneer, burgoise capitalist with caravans and workshops, etc are all invalidated by the game's rigged system and overtime they tend to also affect negatively when you go for the primary and "only" supported playstyle which's forming a kingdom / being a vassal and owning lands. That because you can only really finance all upgrades and expenses through, again, vulturing loot from battles and spreading those across towns.

BL should've gone in a totally different direction where all playstyles would be viable and fun, it should've also adopted the "castle settlement" system seen in WIth Fire and Sword WB's spinoff expansion, where castles are economically useful and viable. As is, owning one sucks as much as it did back in WB vanilla, and more often than not it hurts character's economy instead of being a "good thing".

So in sum, no, it's not "too easy", it's just boring, as such increasing difficulty on that regard would only make the game even more boring, borderline unplayable.

 

[froggyluv]

Another thing that makes the game too easy is the way you can farm relationship by not taking prisoners, this is the same problem that warband had where you always become best friends with enemy lords rather than your allies. And then once you make a kingdom you have a bunch of maxed out relations to farm for vassals.

Yeah very true. The game sorely needs more grudges, resentment that cant be mended and downright mortal enemies. Feels like even down to the cartoonish Asterix like looks of the characters, its all meant to be in good jest and No !! Heavens No - we'd rather be friends than fight !! A Major flaw in Vision.



should have been more like

 

[eritchie]

It is too easy to make money once you have your first fief. Big battles also pay out a lot. I feel like your fiefs should come with problems too, perhaps things need to get rebuilt after a riot or weather event, the garrison demands a wage rise, merchants refuse to pay taxes. In general as another poster said the mid to late game has no real challenge and is far too grindy. For me settlement management, diplomacy and politics would be the main ways of making this part of the game more interesting.