Infinite Armies

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Nothing to do it's a game feature, the only way to prevent it, is executing the nobles, you can conquer a entire enemy kingdom, and them, without any city or castle, still recruiting troops, in your cities and towns, and eventually will declare war on you.
 
Nothing to do it's a game feature, the only way to prevent it, is executing the nobles, you can conquer a entire enemy kingdom, and them, without any city or castle, still recruiting troops, in your cities and towns, and eventually will declare war on you.
As more you play the game it becomes more obvious that everything is though to keep the player in an infinite loop of battles, I don't know why they developed economy, relationships, etc if in the end they didn't want to provide us anything else than a battle simulator...

Well, to be honest after reading the comments of TW employees in glassdoor.com I have some clues how could happen.
 
Agreed that there's eventually 2 solutions. Short term, execute the nobility entirely. Long term, always hang out as a single party and hope they'll die in battle. As long as they live, have all the AI bonuses and war/peace declarations remain as is, they'll keep coming. Even when you beat them in the field and try keeping them imprisoned, they get ransomed or escape in a few days and build up faster than your army replenish it's loses.
 
i read somewhere that the ai lords have cheat recruitment slots of 2 per notable, and they all can recruit from the same notable while you share an arbitrary pool with them. meaning if you go by a village and recruit all the troops, ai lords that go by after you will still be able to recruit as many as they want. whereas if they swing by a village first and recruited, then you'll have nothing left.

Ai lords also spawn with a fix number of retainers after being released from prison.

after being released from prison, the ai lords will also take some of their garrisoned troops into their party.

and the fact that there are 2-4 parties per clan going around at a time. they are all recruiting. and more lords as back up sitting in towns/castles as governors that will leave with a party the moment their relative get captured.

basically, each kingdom can have 2 total armies. their parties combined and their garrisons+spawned free retainers. but if you beat a single lord twice in a row. he's only got recruits left and will take months before gathering another party.

and nowadays i seperate my party into 2 groups. the elites and the fodders. out of about 400 people only 100 are the elites tier 5-6 troops. and the rest are cannon fodder tier 1-4. of course i send them into the most dangerous placed in battles and frankly i rarely if ever lose troops from my elite group. i never end up having replenishment issues due to battle loss. and i play on realistic
 
i read somewhere that the ai lords have cheat recruitment slots of 2 per notable, and they all can recruit from the same notable while you share an arbitrary pool with them. meaning if you go by a village and recruit all the troops, ai lords that go by after you will still be able to recruit as many as they want. whereas if they swing by a village first and recruited, then you'll have nothing left.
They do play on Easy Recruiting (+2 free slots) but they don't get privileged access beyond that. If you strip all the recruits from a town or village, AI lords will still go there and wait until new ones become available.
 
Agreed that there's eventually 2 solutions. Short term, execute the nobility entirely. Long term, always hang out as a single party and hope they'll die in battle. As long as they live, have all the AI bonuses and war/peace declarations remain as is, they'll keep coming. Even when you beat them in the field and try keeping them imprisoned, they get ransomed or escape in a few days and build up faster than your army replenish it's loses.
Yeah I was pretty furious when the response to "the lords we gank keep coming back five minutes later with hundreds of recruits" was "well we'll just cheat them a cadre of high-level troops every time they respawn".

Giving the AI arbitrary buffs and freebies is the pumpkin spice latte of game design balancing.

The really frustrating thing for me late-game (not that I've had enough fun to even GET to the lategame in months) clans will psychically change their allegiance from hundreds of miles away when it's the AI - but you have to manually run down clan + minor faction leaders and manually persuade them and bribe them in order to do it yourself. And then, a few minutes later, the clan you bought goes right back to their original faction... also the mercs you hired go neutral or even switch sides immediately at the end of their contract with no opportunity for renewal.

Having lords show up at your hall in WB asking to join you was a great QOL feature and - right now - Diplomacy Fixes messenger feature is just a band-aid on that bullet wound.
 
Yeah I was pretty furious when the response to "the lords we gank keep coming back five minutes later with hundreds of recruits" was "well we'll just cheat them a cadre of high-level troops every time they respawn".
That wasn't a response to the lord's coming back with hundreds of recruits. It was a response to the lords never coming back because they were repeatedly beaten down by looters.
 
That wasn't a response to the lord's coming back with hundreds of recruits. It was a response to the lords never coming back because they were repeatedly beaten down by looters.
I think it was both but I don't know the dev's exact thinking. It was at least presented as fixing both complaints, along with passive exp to train troops, which may or may not have been removed or adjusted since..
I think they need to be changed to HAVE to pull from garrisons for thier respawn party, if Clan own fief, spawn party IS taken from biggest garrisons, no if and or butts. If Clan had no fiefs then they should spawn alone like the player character at the game start, since that's all they are, a landless lord who needs to go villages to village at the mercy of bandits and looters.

Bottom line for me, they need to SPEND TIME doing more non-war things after defeats and really in general. There is no simulation or living world if the lords don't s spend noticeable time rebuilding parties and maintaining thier areas. Noticeable time is like a full season. How long does it take you to make a war party at the start of the game. 20 days? 15 days? That's the minimum it should be before we see the same defeated lord returning to war activities.
 
That wasn't a response to the lord's coming back with hundreds of recruits. It was a response to the lords never coming back because they were repeatedly beaten down by looters.
I think it was both but I don't know the dev's exact thinking. It was at least presented as fixing both complaints, along with passive exp to train troops, which may or may not have been removed or adjusted since..
Hahaaa I don't remember that being an issue, but I wouldn't be surprised if I missed it.

I remember having a convo with mexxico about it specifically being a response to the "army full of recruits" problem where I expressed my concerns and he assured me that they'd be gentle and not overbuff them. Next patch I saw guys I defeated come back minutes later with a full roster of T4-T6 troops so....

I think they need to be changed to HAVE to pull from garrisons for thier respawn party, if Clan own fief, spawn party IS taken from biggest garrisons, no if and or butts. If Clan had no fiefs then they should spawn alone like the player character at the game start, since that's all they are, a landless lord who needs to go villages to village at the mercy of bandits and looters.
100% this. If the players can't respawn with a cadre of mid-to-high tier troops, then the AI shouldn't be able to either. Worst case, they should respawn in a friendly settlement and stay there until they've recruited enough mercenaries or locals to survive on their own.

An entire army being wiped should be something that has a lasting impact on the game. The campaign AI in a losing war should be focused on breaking sieges and taking back poorly-defended home fiefs.

Also if lords kept getting capped by looters - then bandits shouldn't scale on player level FFS... they should scale based on things like raids and security and prosperity. That might have been part of the problem.

Bottom line for me, they need to SPEND TIME doing more non-war things after defeats and really in general. There is no simulation or living world if the lords don't s spend noticeable time rebuilding parties and maintaining thier areas. Noticeable time is like a full season. How long does it take you to make a war party at the start of the game. 20 days? 15 days? That's the minimum it should be before we see the same defeated lord returning to war activities.
110% this. The degree to which nobles are constantly raiding and sieging and fighting is ridiculous.

I got a close-up look at the campaign AI while playing Freelancer over the past couple weeks.... and it's pathetic. When not at war, nobles either patrol their fiefs in parties too large to catch up to bandits or join armies for long, pointless maneuvers that are likewise too large to catch up to bandits.

Outside of wartime, they should ditch the majority of their armies into garrisons and do things like feast and recruit and go to tournaments and duel and complete quests and visit family/friends as well as patrolling - with different choices based on their personalities.
 
Also if lords kept getting capped by looters - then bandits shouldn't scale on player level FFS... they should scale based on things like raids and security and prosperity. That might have been part of the problem.
Good idea, it would make sense if there are more raiders in more prosperous lands. Instead the current way where the entire land gets more and more bandits despite nothing changing at all.
 
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At 27:50 minute mark, does anyone remember Lust's responses to defeating even SINGLE lords. Nothing as natural or strategical as his explanation in-game really exists. If a clan has one village raided, it really doesn't matter because they can (and WILL) just travel to the next village and recruit troops, you know, without consequence. Would the clan of that village not be upset that another clan is relying on THEIR men, which could cause quarrels within the kingd... why do I even bother.
@mexxico since you are still active and have the energy to be in the forum - I want to ask, did this feature ever existed in Bannerlord before? Or it was just Lust's random PR strategy?
Starts around 27:30 and Lust gives a lot of information about things that are not in the current game in continuing two minutes - including things JustinTime49 mentioned, Marshal role within factions, revolt system based on villages/AI Taxes etc
 
@mexxico since you are still active and have the energy to be in the forum - I want to ask, did this feature ever existed in Bannerlord before? Or it was just Lust's random PR strategy?
Starts around 27:30 and Lust gives a lot of information about things that are not in the current game in continuing two minutes - including things JustinTime49 mentioned, Marshal role within factions, revolt system based on villages/AI Taxes etc

I do not think Lust can tell something without information and just for PR strategy. Probably these days some of these are implemented / planned and then given up. Also Lust had more information and focus on combat side of game and he was our best multiplayer player. He had less information about campaign side compared to combat side. As you know design and UIs changed too much during development.

Also additional extra information we still talk Lust via social media even its rare. He is a good guy and returned England 3 years ago.
 
I do not think Lust can tell something without information and just for PR strategy. Probably these days some of these are implemented / planned and then given up. Also Lust had more information and focus on combat side of game and he was our best multiplayer player. He had less information about campaign side compared to combat side. As you know design and UIs changed too much during development.
I also don't think he could say those things out of thin air - however, it could be that he slipped some information without that mentioned information/feature implemented in the game yet. But UI was outside of the scope of my question, and other things - I know that they are changed and subject to change. What I wanted to know is simple ( if you are allowed to say ) - since none of these things are in current Bannerlord, have you worked on these things, implementation-wise, and witnessed that these things are dropped/left out with some decisions or are they still holding in TW's "We somewhat promised but we won't add it into the game but we won't publicly deny that it's not taken out either" list?
You can also only talk about the things you worked on as well - like if being a Marshal was on the table but then removed for some "complexity" issue, that information is more than enough for us for not to expect it anywhere soon.

Also additional extra information we still talk Lust via social media even its rare. He is a good guy and returned England 3 years ago.
I can also +1 to that extra information. He was a nice guy. Wasn't a good CM person though but I'm not sure if that's his fault. Since TW acts like it's keeping national secrets nowadays but all we get is a sheep texture and barber "feature" :lol:
 
This is why I still prefer Warband's marshal system over BL's system where anybody can form an army whenever they want, provided they have some influence to spare. In Warband you could capture the marshal and force the enemy's entire war effort to grind to a halt until they went through the process of voting on a new marshal, and that could take a few days or even up to a whole week sometimes. That gave you a nice breather from major sieges so you could prepare for the next attack or go on the offensive.

I wonder if it would be an improvement if there was more of a process involved in raising an army. What if lords (player included) needed to get approval from the king with a vote by the vassals before raising an army? This would at least force a pause between the back to back armies coming again and again. It would also make it less trivial to create your own companion armies, but I don't think that's such a bad thing.
 
This is why I still prefer Warband's marshal system over BL's system where anybody can form an army whenever they want, provided they have some influence to spare. In Warband you could capture the marshal and force the enemy's entire war effort to grind to a halt until they went through the process of voting on a new marshal, and that could take a few days or even up to a whole week sometimes. That gave you a nice breather from major sieges so you could prepare for the next attack or go on the offensive.

I wonder if it would be an improvement if there was more of a process involved in raising an army. What if lords (player included) needed to get approval from the king with a vote by the vassals before raising an army? This would at least force a pause between the back to back armies coming again and again. It would also make it less trivial to create your own companion armies, but I don't think that's such a bad thing.
That is a nice point I hadn't thought about.

Right now, I feel like the easiest solution would be that making armies is more costly in influence, including for the AI. Otherwise, lords should just decide that they need a breather, a few days/ a week to reorganize and fill their party. Though for that to work a rebalance of lord recruitment might be needed. I for one actually enjoyed the fact lords recruited from the same pool as the player, it meant having good relations was important. I don't bother with quests now, I don't need to: there are dozens of villages for each faction with multiple notables that almost always have available troops... which also makes victories seem inconsequential, as even armies made mostly of recruits can take castles, towns, etc.

I kind of wish lords would respawn in their castle with an elite retinue, would send recruiters (or hire troops in the castle, which could be a nice function), muster their forces and move out once they feel safe. This would also reduce their disponibility, including for armies.

It would also reduce the chances of facing a lord attacking you with 50% recruits. Parties with many recruits should be used on the offensive only when the faction is in a dire situation and needs to make something happen, or when they are being attacked on their land (IMO, at least).
 
I spend part of the game training the troops against looters, even in the intermediate stages of the game, my troops have undoubtedly higher ranks then any enemy party, normally these AI parties are well balanced in infantry , archers and cavalry units ,but with lower levels, I barley find more than one or two elite soldiers in a 100-man party.
 
This is why I still prefer Warband's marshal system over BL's system where anybody can form an army whenever they want, provided they have some influence to spare. In Warband you could capture the marshal and force the enemy's entire war effort to grind to a halt until they went through the process of voting on a new marshal, and that could take a few days or even up to a whole week sometimes. That gave you a nice breather from major sieges so you could prepare for the next attack or go on the offensive.
I agree with the problem but not the solution.

I mostly solve these issues by using Diplomacy Fixes (or was it Bannerlord Tweaks?) to increase the minimum incarceration time of captured lords so - at the very least - a cap actually has a meaningful effect on the opposing army. This also, theoretically, should make rescuing captured nobles something that actually matters. It would be REALLY nice if we could refuse to accept ransoms for them and if AI would do this automatically when losing a war.

I also bump the minimum non-aggression pact and ceasefire duration to something like 60 days... maybe 120? Really cuts down on the whole perma-war-with-everyone thing. It would be nice in general if, like we've talked about, respawning lords actually have to pick up troops themselves or start playing defensively.

One thing that would be REALLY cool is if player rulers and nobles could spend influence to get armies to complete specific tasks... or if AI rulers would reward vassal players with influence for completing specific objectives when running an army. That way, there could be some actual collective rather than individual strategy to the way wars work.

So you could strategically siege multiple locations at the same time... target an incoming army... relieve a besieged town... You know, stuff that actually happened IRL because it made sense.

I kind of wish lords would respawn in their castle with an elite retinue, would send recruiters (or hire troops in the castle, which could be a nice function), muster their forces and move out once they feel safe. This would also reduce their disponibility, including for armies.
Snowballing issues would definitely be less of a problem if recently-defeated armies holed up in strategic castles or towns to heal + recruit + train etc.

Also, for that matter, I'd love it if AI and player armies had the option of retreating at all - maybe after a certain kill count against the aggressors. At this point, there's no reason to fight while grossly outnumbered since your only option for retreat is to sacrifice some soldiers or sacrifice ALL soldiers - because fighting almost always only worsens the cost of the sacrifice option.

I could have sworn this exact feature was implemented in either WB or a WB mod, so getting caught with your pants down wasn't the end of the world. You could take a defensive position, massacre enough enemy troops to make a clean getaway, then retreat under fire.
 
Snowballing issues would definitely be less of a problem if recently-defeated armies holed up in strategic castles or towns to heal + recruit + train etc.

Also, for that matter, I'd love it if AI and player armies had the option of retreating at all - maybe after a certain kill count against the aggressors. At this point, there's no reason to fight while grossly outnumbered since your only option for retreat is to sacrifice some soldiers or sacrifice ALL soldiers - because fighting almost always only worsens the cost of the sacrifice option.

I could have sworn this exact feature was implemented in either WB or a WB mod, so getting caught with your pants down wasn't the end of the world. You could take a defensive position, massacre enough enemy troops to make a clean getaway, then retreat under fire.
Well, for the sacrifice to make sense, units to have an actual worth: elite units hard to get but efficient and men hard to recruit after some time (lack of available men because... well, they don't grow on trees). With that system, retreating would make sense: losing so many men just to lose or retreating and saving some of them is much better, in this hypothetical situation.

Right now though? There is no incentive to surrender: just hurt them, escape after a few days and make a new army... In a weird way, the lack of consequences is partly to blame.

It might have been, I really don't remember, I have grown a bad habit of save scumming :razz:
 
I feel like the easiest solution would be that making armies is more costly in influence
Or change how player get influence. Is it really sad to see that if I farm 30 party of looters, I get to call a party from the ruler clan and it does not matter where I farm these looter parties. Hell, I can be a vassal of Khuzait and I could farm looter parties in Vlandia. This does not make any sense. The way to get influnce should reflect our status quo in our kingdom.
 
I think it was both but I don't know the dev's exact thinking. It was at least presented as fixing both complaints, along with passive exp to train troops, which may or may not have been removed or adjusted since..
The dev posted his exact reasoning, multiple times:
I am not fan of AI cheats and try to remove as much as possible but we have to give passive XP to NPC parties because player party and NPC parties so different in lots of terms. Player make more battles compared to an average lord party (average lord party life (time between spawned - prisoned) is less shorter than player party) and if we do not give passive XP as AI cheat 80% of troops at Npc parties be tier-1 or tier-2. This damages gameplay so badly, we have tons of troop variety but we cannot show them to player. With passive XP cheat this ratio (tier-1, tier-2 troop ratio) reduces to 50%. I want to reduce passive Xp more but I fear to damage gameplay especially at combat side.

How long does it take you to make a war party at the start of the game. 20 days? 15 days?
If I already have money, like most clans? Around three days. If it takes me a full season to develop a party I'll quit playing the game because that is too long to be anything like entertaining.
 
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