I'm slowly starting to hate the Vlandians

[Dionaea]

They are the only faction that uses tactics in battle that really frustrate me,

Was fighting a big battle against them with my army of 700+ versus their 1000+ and things where going well at first with my sturgian infantry holding their own against the Vlandian infantry and cavalry alternating between square and shieldwall and backed up by supporting archer fire, but then Vlandians started doing what they always do against me: retreat their infantry and have their crossbows have a shoot out with my infantry and archers and I got impatient and marched my infantry forward and charged my cavalry in. When their reinforcement wave came, their infantry partially bypassed the shieldwall and ran straight for my archers now that my formations where slightly different due to my impatience.

And it always happens against Vlandians, they will charge, pull back frustrate me with their lack of suicide charging and I'll start making mistakes and they'll get behind me with a good chucnk of infantry, rush my archers and encircle my shieldwall whilst I'm losing oversight because I'm seeing too many white and red skulls and am too busy trying to read if any of my favorite troops are among the fallen and what type of casualty they are...

When I saw the first red skull next to a fian champion* I exited the battle to main menu so I can save scum, but I don't really want to fight this battle again as it was quite lengthy so I guess I won't be playing bannerlord for a while until I'm mentally ready to play a lengthy battle again against a frustrating non suicide charging enemy, if I suffer red skull casualties of troops I'm attached to in that battle I'll savescum and temporarily turn on cheats and ctrl alt f4 cheat win the battle. I'm tired of seeing my men die because the AI is denying me my hollywoodian victory


* my army is very diverse I started out as a bandit lord only recruiting mountain and forest bandits and sea raiders. After joining sturgia, I started recruiting sturgians, and then during the many battles because the AI can just spam attacks I had to recruit from prisoners and rescued troops. of my original 40 forest bandits only 17 are left, supplemented with sturgian, battanian and imperial archers, of my highwaymen only few are left, and my once mighty sea raider chief shieldwall is almost exclusively Sturgian now.

 

[brewergamer]

So you're basically getting owned by superior tactics.

 

[brognar]

What's the point of playing campaign if you're just going to savescum any time you lose a single soldier? Why not just play custom battle at that point

 

[Dionaea]

It's the type of soldier, I don't mind losing recruits or weaker troops but not the veterans who've been with me for a long time, it kills my role play fantasy

 

[fuze]

Savescum & cheats don't kill your roleplay fantasy?

 

[Aeddes]

I have the opposite with Vlandia.
The cavalry is very "dumb", charging on archers.

Archers at top terrain, hold arrows.
Infantry at front and low terrain, shieldwall.
Wait for horses at 150/100 distance (meters?), release arrows and charge with arches.

If u have any horse archers, better yet. Use it to pull enemy cavalary.

Boom.

Ps. Using mostly Empire troops.

 

[flavior flavius]

You didn't lose because the enemy outsmarted you or because the vlandians do anything vastly different in their tactics. You lost because you challenged a 1000+ stack with 700 men and no archer or cavalry superiority. The only way to win that battle is if your infantry were vastly more experienced than the enemy's or you did something tricky with the terrain.

 

[Delinard]

Meanwhile Empire seems to have no tactics at all, they always mindlessly charge with 0 formations, but i haven't fought them in a long time maybe it's changed.

 

[mserhatbalik]

Come on, you can always outsmart the AI in this game.

Create a circle formation with your shielded infantry and put your fians in the middle. Slowly move all units to the enemy. If your fians can't outrange their crossbow due to terrain, then harass them with your mounted arhers. If they charge with cavalry then retreat back into your circle. They will charge into circle most of the time and wither away slowly.

Keep harassing with mounted archers until they are left with no cavalry and forced to attack.

 

[shades_o_grey]

What I got from this post is that, yet again, the respawn mechanic has made tactics and strategy a liability rather than an asset. Reinforcements should NEVER just appear out of thin air behind enemy lines. It's been a problem throughout the entire series history.

 

[Apocal]

And it always happens against Vlandians, they will charge, pull back frustrate me with their lack of suicide charging and I'll start making mistakes and they'll get behind me with a good chucnk of infantry, rush my archers and encircle my shieldwall whilst I'm losing oversight because I'm seeing too many white and red skulls and am too busy trying to read if any of my favorite troops are among the fallen and what type of casualty they are...

You can force the enemy to charge by killing a few of them with ranged weapons.

 

[Aggrobiscuit]

Don't chase into their spawn, force them to chase you into yours. Seeing a lot of green in the kill feed is a sure sign a respawn is coming to eat you.

Archers are your VIPs. Make sure you have a lot of good quality archers. The rest of the units are just there to support and protect them.

Turn forest bandits into Fians. When your forest bandits are ready to level up, put them in a castle and that'll do it. If that's a bug and has been fixed, work on your leadership to get Disciplinarian perk by winning battles while outnumbered. Keep morale at 100 and your leadership will eventually go up. Til then you can get by with a LOT of forest bandits, but you have to protect them.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Hmmmm that same tactics of trying to re-group the infantry behind the ranged gets' them slaughtered by my superior fire power. You should ride behind their ranged to make then turn around and shoot at you, oldest trick in the M&B book.

When your forest bandits are ready to level up, put them in a castle

Really? That's an amazing exploit!

 

[Aggrobiscuit]

Hmmmm that same tactics of trying to re-group the infantry behind the ranged gets' them slaughtered by my superior fire power. You should ride behind their ranged to make then turn around and shoot at you, oldest trick in the M&B book.


Really? That's an amazing exploit!

Possibly, and I hope not lol. It might just be a function of the training fields or whatever the castle upgrade is that trains troops. I haven't noticed it level anything else up, so it may just convert bandits into troops.

 

[dannazgu]

You answer yourself many times.. You were impatient, if you were winning why charge mindless in the heart of the enemy? just provoke them enough to come at you and that's your "hollywoodian" victory... If you have time to read, search for a tactics called Fabian... You can easily adpt that to a fantasy video game and don't be afraid to lose troops, if you think and don't behave like an AI then you can win easily, the same goes for many factions. Of course, don't head into abattle where you're heavily outnumbered

 

[Dionaea]

You didn't lose because the enemy outsmarted you or because the vlandians do anything vastly different in their tactics. You lost because you challenged a 1000+ stack with 700 men and no archer or cavalry superiority. The only way to win that battle is if your infantry were vastly more experienced than the enemy's or you did something tricky with the terrain.

I didn't lose, I quit when my impatience made me maneuver my shieldwall in a position allowing the Vlandian infantry to have a section of their infantry bypass my shieldwall and reach my archers, and even then I still would have won, but they killed one of my precious troops, and it was a red skull next to the units name, meaning a real permanent death and I rage quit, but in general I was at that point winning the battle. And I have defeated empire armies 2 or 3 times my size using the same tactics, the difference being that every faction aside from Vlandia and Khuzait is suicidal and will charge anything it has at you head on. Whereas Vlandia will always take the cautious slow, patient approach in our battles and I'll get impatient and in my impatience I'll make these tiny mistakes, which not disastrous still leading to the death of forrest bandits/ fian champions that needn't have died if I just had it let play out and went to go and make some coffee and come back instead of rushing it.

Did you read my description of the battle?

Savescum & cheats don't kill your roleplay fantasy?

Yeah when I resort to that I also take a time out from playing until I'm in the mood again, but I save before every fight, I've always done that since the days of saving whenever I saw dark knights appear in my periphery on the map in Mount&Blade. After reloading, and then using a cheat, I save, quit again and don't play for a day or 2 until I'm mentally in the mood again, or, I switch to my Khuzait playthrough where my horse archer only army no matter the circumstances is pretty much invincible and where battles are over pretty fast.

if you were winning why charge mindless in the heart of the enemy?

impatience I figured only weak crossbows where left and I didn't want to have the archer shootout where they waste their bolts on the shieldwall whereas my archer pick them off. I wanted to get back to the campaign. Weirdly in all my games it's only Vlandia that takes this approach all others charge suicidaly allowing me to soften them op with my ranged units and hammer and anvil them with the cavalry and shieldwall.

oh and Khuzait charge tactically, I usually try to avoid fighting Khuzait unless near a village. or very forested area

If you have time to read, search for a tactics called Fabian...

I know about Fabian tactics, the idea of fighting the enemy by not fighting him is difficult to translate to a game though

 

[Flavius Belisarius]

Its a strategy game! Use some strategy against them!
You are actually crying that the infantry AI is not crap!
There are some time where you lose it all, its not satisfying if you just save scum every time.

 

[flavior flavius]

Did you read my description of the battle?

By losing that Fian and being angry enough to quit, you "lost" the battle without literally losing it, if that makes sense.

And I have defeated empire armies 2 or 3 times my size using the same tactics, the difference being that every faction aside from Vlandia and Khuzait is suicidal and will charge anything it has at you head on. Whereas Vlandia will always take the cautious slow, patient approach in our battles and I'll get impatient and in my impatience I'll make these tiny mistakes, which not disastrous still leading to the death of forrest bandits/ fian champions that needn't have died if I just had it let play out and went to go and make some coffee and come back instead of rushing it.

Every faction uses the same AI. It is your imagination. The AI might use SLIGHTLY different tactics because of the differing unit compositions between factions but it is the exact same AI that does the exact same stuff.

 

[black_bulldog]

Its a strategy game! Use some strategy against them!
You are actually crying that the infantry AI is not crap!
There are some time where you lose it all, its not satisfying if you just save scum every time.

Yeah it sucks to lose but in Warband when I started played on Realistic setting it made the game so much more fun. I knew I had to be a bit more cautious and had to use strategy in close battles, but without risk there's no real reward.

 

[TFK_Ted]

with my army of 700+ versus their 1000+

I got impatient and marched my infantry forward and charged my cavalry in

and they'll get behind me with a good chucnk of infantry, rush my archers and encircle my shieldwall whilst I'm losing oversight

I'm tired of seeing my men die because the AI is denying me my hollywoodian victory

Eh
Maybe try patience and tactics, especially when at a numerical disadvantage?