Insane amount of Bandits - very different from M&B "Classic"

[Helmut_AUT]

Hi all

I'm curious if it is just my game, or a general thing with Warband: Some areas seem SWARMING with bandits. For me, the Khanate and Vaegir lands are literally crawling with Steppe and Tundra bandits. On my way to Halma I was challenged by 6 parties of 20+ strong Steppe bandits. I killed off the first group, but then my guys were wounded and I had to pay off the other 5. The city of Halma was basically surrounded by 10 or more strong bandit parties.

I have a party of 36, a tad weak on cavalry but with some excellent Swadian Crossbow men and Nord infantry. In the "classic" M&B, that party was pretty much save when traveling. Now with certain areas being so overloaded with bandit parties, they are No-Go zones for me.

Did WB simple increase the amount (or fearlessness) of certain bandit groups? For example Desert bandits are also everywhere, but they generally run from my party.

Or could it be related to Wars going on - in my game there's a bunch of three-way wars on right now, so would that explain why certain areas have more bandits (less Lord parties to take care of them...)?

 

[Thorner]

In my current game all of Calradia has been at peace for more than a year, and I can't go from Suno to Praven without tripping over multiple bands of 40+ forest bandits.

 

[Helmut_AUT]

Aye, so it's not just me then... 40+ Bandits is something I've never seen in the previous game at all.

I mean, I like a challenge, but around certain areas you can't pay them off as fast as the next group challenges you to pay. We're talking a total of some hundred-strong bandit factions here that all hit the player who might have 40 soldiers on a good day.

Weird enough, Swadia seems pretty safe to me right now. So obviously the bandit amount varies between games.

 

[pjb3]

only a cople of kingdoms are safe other stupidly dangers A.K.A the desaert tons of warbands on horses which is stressfull

 

[Ringwraith #5]

It's due to the way bandits are spawned now, namely by bandit hideouts. These crank out bandit parties like crazy, but take out the hideout and wipe out any parties out there and the area will be safe for a while. Assaulting hideouts is something you have to do yourself, though, lords never seem to do it and I haven't seen a hideout disappear all by itself, so if you do nothing, Calradia is going to be drowning in bandits sooner or later.

 

[Helmut_AUT]

Sounds like a design feature in need of calibration. Are the hideouts all at about the same difficulty level? I managed to take out the one near Praven with no problems, so I might as well try the others if they aren't any harder. In some ways it fits the game experience that before you can trade you must make your routes safe, but I'd expect the Lords to do that job also.

 

[Dragonspawn]

tweakmb lets you control how many bandit groups spawn and how long till respawn (default is every 36 hour)

 

[rebelknight]

Warband Calradia is a Thief Realm 

my first fief on my current character was swarming with Sea Raider....

 

[Ringwraith #5]

Sounds like a design feature in need of calibration. Are the hideouts all at about the same difficulty level? I managed to take out the one near Praven with no problems, so I might as well try the others if they aren't any harder. In some ways it fits the game experience that before you can trade you must make your routes safe, but I'd expect the Lords to do that job also.

The difficulty is scaled by your level (more bandits spawn if you're higher level), and also obviously by the kind of bandit that you're fighting.

 

[Malik Faris]

Swadia and Rhodoks have it easiest bandit wise (swadia being slightly easier, forest bandits are all pushover archers) forest and mountain bandits are easy because their:
a) not mounted (like desert, steppe)
b) not well equipped (like sea raiders)
but hideouts always spawn in the same "general" area. The forest bandit hideout is always in one of the forests close to Ibrian/rybliat, and the steppe bandits are usualy near ichamur.

 

[Dent]

Swadia and Rhodoks have it easiest bandit wise (swadia being slightly easier, forest bandits are all pushover archers) forest and mountain bandits are easy because their:
a) not mounted (like desert, steppe)
b) not well equipped (like sea raiders)
but hideouts always spawn in the same "general" area. The forest bandit hideout is always in one of the forests close to Ibrian/rybliat, and the steppe bandits are usualy near ichamur.

Ugh, I found this out the hard way. I was so excited that Yaroglek decided to give me Ichamur, Sungetche, and Asugan. Yay for me, I own half the steppe! And then I discovered that 1 in 10 of my villagers was making it from the village to town thanks to swarms of 40+ steppe bandit parties  Wiped 'em out, cleared out the hideout, took my men to rest them up and as soon as I set foot outside again there were roving bands of bandits. And no one can reach Rivacheg anymore, there are just too many sea raiders. No feasts are held there as the sea raiders defeat any Vaegir party with fewer than 100 men.

 

[rebelknight]

Swadia and Rhodoks have it easiest bandit wise (swadia being slightly easier, forest bandits are all pushover archers) forest and mountain bandits are easy because their:
a) not mounted (like desert, steppe)
b) not well equipped (like sea raiders)
but hideouts always spawn in the same "general" area. The forest bandit hideout is always in one of the forests close to Ibrian/rybliat, and the steppe bandits are usualy near ichamur.

Ugh, I found this out the hard way. I was so excited that Yaroglek decided to give me Ichamur, Sungetche, and Asugan. Yay for me, I own half the steppe! And then I discovered that 1 in 10 of my villagers was making it from the village to town thanks to swarms of 40+ steppe bandit parties  Wiped 'em out, cleared out the hideout, took my men to rest them up and as soon as I set foot outside again there were roving bands of bandits. And no one can reach Rivacheg anymore, there are just too many sea raiders. No feasts are held there as the sea raiders defeat any Vaegir party with fewer than 100 men.

The Medieval Gang-banger are takin over the hood!

 

[mrdang]

you dont like bandits? the guild master quest that asks you to track down bandits pays 1000 denars and a ton of experience :O

 

[barcibus]

Back when the game first came out I'd travel for 15-30 minutes without finding a single unit to attack (unless I were a vassal with my faction at war).  Now there are always bandits.  Things have improved greatly from my perspective.

 

[TheRighteousMan]

Swadia and Rhodoks have it easiest bandit wise (swadia being slightly easier, forest bandits are all pushover archers) forest and mountain bandits are easy because their:
a) not mounted (like desert, steppe)
b) not well equipped (like sea raiders)
but hideouts always spawn in the same "general" area. The forest bandit hideout is always in one of the forests close to Ibrian/rybliat, and the steppe bandits are usualy near ichamur.

Ugh, I found this out the hard way. I was so excited that Yaroglek decided to give me Ichamur, Sungetche, and Asugan. Yay for me, I own half the steppe! And then I discovered that 1 in 10 of my villagers was making it from the village to town thanks to swarms of 40+ steppe bandit parties  Wiped 'em out, cleared out the hideout, took my men to rest them up and as soon as I set foot outside again there were roving bands of bandits. And no one can reach Rivacheg anymore, there are just too many sea raiders. No feasts are held there as the sea raiders defeat any Vaegir party with fewer than 100 men.

The Medieval Gang-banger are takin over the hood!

Yeah, get to a high enough level and no villagers or caravans seem to making it through according to the guildmaster.  All of the towns and villages teeter between average and poor prosperity at best to very poor.  We've been at peace for over two months and all factions seem to be this way...  I understand they're supposed to be there to give you something to fight in peace time, but even the 47-54 bandit parties that are spawning won't even kill a single man from my party in a fight so there isn't much of a point to me fighting them.  There are so many of them that they destroy prosperity though.

I think banditry should increase during wartime, but be heavily culled during peace to show changes in the peoples desperation and ability to provide manpower towards law enforcement.

 

[HunterAlpha1]

you know what would make the game even better?  if there were multiple bandit hideout spawn points for each faction, and one would spawn every month or so, then once there were a certain number of hideouts for that faction, a great bandit leader would appear and siege a castle or town. once they took a castle or town they would attempt to spread from there.  needless to say, faction lords would have to be able to take care of the hideouts or the map would be quickly taken over by bandits. 

EDIT:  maybe a way that could help factions to make peace would be if a city were under siege by bandits and an enemy faction came to their rescue the city, that would increase their disposition to each other and they would sign a truce.

 

[Whiteout]

  Lol that would be pretty fun! I kinda like how they pumped up the spawning of the bandits around the hideouts. It's pretty much a never ending supply of money and exp until you take out the hideout! It can get kind of ridiculous at times though; I will agree to that but I still enjoy having all the targets when you don't want to get involved with any factions yet.

 

[Helmut_AUT]

I'm generally in favor of more stuff to kill, but it's very overpowering, given how strong cavalry is now in WB, and seeing that Tundra/Desert/Steppe Bandits are all mounted.

 

[Griffinhawk]

Tundra are not mounted...well for me at least they are not...

 

[Sidus Preclarum]

Tundra are not mounted...well for me at least they are not...

Yeah, Tundra/taiga bandits are footmen.
With my all-Xbow army, I cut any bandit party on the battlefield. I usually cut them to ribbons before they get into throwing distance, let alone melee, and any horseman go down rpetty fast when voulges-spammed by sharpshooters.
On the other hand, what works with 50 vs 50+ doesn't work at all with 5 vs 3-4 packs of 5+ respawning regularly, and I ahve dificulties in clearing any bandit lair...