Ideas how to make Pendor harder

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Plasquar

Plasquar

Grandmaster Knight
Old Guard
I'm curious if there are any methods you use in order to make Pendor (or any other Warband mod) harder.
Is there anything you do other than:

- playing on max. difficulty settings
- locking yourself to certain troops (infantry, females etc.)

With the new PoP version incoming I'm thinking about another playthrough with a greater challenge.
 
Harder doesn't mean more interesting. Which should be the goal. And for different people "more interesting" means different things.
 
There are a few things you can do.

Don't savescum.... ever.  This one on the face of it is so easy but think back to games you have played.  Is it the case that you never loaded a previous save?

Don't use a bow.  That will make the game quite a bit harder.  As using a bow, especially as a horsearcher, makes the game much easier.

When knocked out, let your troops finish the fight.  Don't retreat.

Obv play on realistic damage to yourself and allies.

I think the above rules make the game quite hard.

No save scum means you can't be sure you will all tournaments.  You can't reload in case you don't capture a unique spawn.  You can't load when you are defeated.  So all your decisions will have consequences.

not using the bow will make you much less useful as a fighter.  As a horse archer, you can easily solo small-medium bands.  without a bow, it's much harder.  you can still do it as a lancer, but not against everyone. 

When knocked out, you have to let your troops finish the fight.  Which means you can't get knocked out in sieges and then retreat to replenish arrows.

These rules above are ones I will use in my next playthrough.  I have used them in the past and they are not super restrictive.  You don't have to artificially not do something.  I suppose the only thing is you can't use a bow but you can always use a fireram or an Xbow or throwing or none at all.


Edit:  forgot one more.  Don't autocalc unless you have huge advantage and the only reason you are doing it is to save time.  Sometimes I find that certain sieges are much easier to autocalc then to actually try to fight.  Also, some battles are easier when you autocalc.

Also, make your battlesize as large as possible.  The more soldiers in battle, the less you matter.
 
What I do is to restrict myself to never recruiting nobles.  I also am not allowed to recruit knighthood troops other than the ones that naturally appear in my garrison.  I cannot hire mercs in taverns either.

I think the difficulty of the game has actually decreased from 3.8 to 3.9.  Most of the mods aren't challenging enough, especially in mid to late game, which makes the game boring after you reach a certain point.  So far PoP remains interesting to play for the longest period of time.  I'm playing Perisino right now, but that mod also has become easier thanks to the developers reducing garrison sizes for all towns and castles.  It was already pretty easy. 

I hope the developers of PoP will ignore user demands to make the game easier and if they add something to make the player more powerful or gain easier access to resources, balance it out by also giving the AI factions more power by way of more troops or higher end troops.
 
azxcvbnm321 said:
What I do is to restrict myself to never recruiting nobles.  I also am not allowed to recruit knighthood troops other than the ones that naturally appear in my garrison.
Click to expand...

Sounds like a good idea. I might use that rule for my next playthrough.

I'm also thinking about limiting my party's surgery skill to 5 (or 5+2). I think 10-14 Surgery is a bit OP.
 
My personal recommendation @Plasquar: you should indeed in general get to know the infantry and crossbow units of PoP better! Therefore:
- don't use bows (this includes you, your companions and your troops)
- don't use horses (same)
- join a KO and create a CKO later that meets both of the previous criteria. Which means that you can join either Ebony Gauntlets, Empire Immortals, Scorpion Assassins or Kraken Cultists (can't use sergeants of the latter obviously as they are cavalry)
- don't reload (but backup your savegames manually just in case) and don't retreat ever
- play on highest settings (already planned)

That' all! :wink: I would probably suggest a setting as well (e.g. only western-style/knightly units), but then again, you haven't used the infantry and crossbowmen of PoP much. So overall the above are enough imo.
 
Pacific_Salmon said:
Don't savescum.... ever.  This one on the face of it is so easy but think back to games you have played.  Is it the case that you never loaded a previous save?
Click to expand...



Ack, I always load saves when I happen to fast-travel into an enemy party. It's become habit, after being spoiled by Floris and the scouting system.
 
Thank you for the suggestions. I saw a few good ones.  :wink:
Hardest settings, realistic saving, never retreat and no horses sounds like a good idea.
 
Not a big thing, but a tweak I made that changed the mid-game somewhat:
Adventurers (male&female) do not upgrade to hero(ine)s (or maidens).

No more flood of personal almost-noldors, and you fight on a lot more even odds against other lords.

No bows would ofc include this and more.

For what it's worth, I'm not seeing crossbows instead of archers that restrictive. At least when you play with no retreat.

An army composed of 20% infantry, 20% cavalry and 60% crossbowmen seems in my game even more lethal than archers instead of the xbows. You got the shooting power to kill the first few waves either way (as long as terrain is not totally flat), and the xbows last longer. Mercenary sharpshooters ftw. The exception could be spawns with very heavy starting waves (eyegrim, maltise).
 
Siege defense is definitely harder and it's an actual restriction when you avoid using archers. Because with infinite ammo, archers win hands down. That's one point. Then, there are quite a few army compositions that have strong units in the first one or two waves, and then the rest is garbage. Heretic and Mystmountain armies are like that for example. In such cases, if you play on higher battlesizes (300+), your crossbowmen might not fire fast enough to stop the 1st or 2nd wave before they reach your lines and you would suffer some heavy casualties (from Demonic/Heretic Magni and Bearclaw Berserkers). Whereas having archers could've saved your units with their quick burst fire. And then the rest of enemies are ez-pz to beat either way.
 
Plasquar said:
Has anyone tried using no archers in a siege?
It does sound challenging but maybe to a point where it's just "unfair" challenging.
Click to expand...
I did. Siege offense is actually easier with crossbowmen as they bend over upon reloading and the defenders often miss them upon doing so. Then the damage per shot on average is higher for crossbowmen and they can penetrate shields easier too. And then they can maintain their firing for much longer than archers, and due to the slower rate of fire, less shots are wasted (as less units are able to shoot at the same enemy at once). So yeah, crossbowmen are made for siege offense when retreat is not an option :iamamoron:

Siege defense however is clearly harder with xbowmen as opposed to having elite archers. Much more enemies will be able to reach the walls.

For maximum efficiency and for the best of both worlds, I settled down to a 1:1 ratio of archers and crossbowmen. I find it to be a good balance overall when there's no restriction towards these units in my game setup. Around 60-65% of my army is composed of such ranged units when I exclude the use of cavalry.

I did a Mettenheim-style playthrough twice in PoP (no mounted units and no archers). It was fun for sure. One was with only western/knightly units allowed, the other one was an all-around infantry fest. For reference, @Mordred also did one back in the days. Although he did allow cavalry units, he just always dismounted all of them at the start :lol: Knights of the Ebony Gauntlet, Empire Immortals, Empire Armored Crossbowmen and Mettenheim units ftw! :party: And now there are Kraken Riddari as well to hold the lines like demigods. I like to think of them as a bunch of mini Gandalfs: "You shall not pass!" :grin:
 
Go for manual blocking and stop using shields for anything other then missile protection.

Noldor tournaments especially are damn hard if you go for manual blocking and no savescumming - but if you win, it feels all the more rewarding.

Then, you could not take the best noldor lordly armor, but just regular plate - good, but not invincible.
Same for weapons.

Fight on foot, too - this makes it much harder to deal with enemys.
 
Another challenge lover here.

I played several difficult runs. My favourite was the one with an imported ridiculously weak hero ( 0 stats, skills and profs at lvl 8 ) with no starting items or gold and instant war with Sarleon. Early game was a survival horror, trust me. But Little Girl did it.

Another interesting one one was the run with no regulars in army or garrisons. Only companions. This one's difficulty actually scaled up as the game progressed. Being a king with no army isn't the best idea in Pendor, but it's fun to play and offers some good challenge.

Female-only run. Also only female lords in your kingdom if you have some big balls. TIP: Valkiries are OP.

My next goal is to play the game as a lonely wolf. No troops or companions at all. Perhaps not impossible but gonna be a grindfest at some point.
 
One last thing:
Dont raise certain skills to high.

These are: surgery (makes troops literally immortal), cap it at 5.
Then, training - dont put to many points in that either, or you can train elite armys over night.
 
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