Just let the AI skip the recruitment

[icedlemon]

While the idea of letting the AI play under the same rule as the player does is nice, it's going to be messy. Especially when the territories of kingdoms become fragmented later in the game. In my opinion, it just does not worth the effort to fine-tune the system to work.

Just give the AIs some templates to generate & upgrade troops over time; and cap clans overall army strength (quantity+quality) base on the number and quality of settlements they own (prosperity + hearths). We can still let them pay for those recruitment and upgrades so it doesn't impact the barter system and overall economy system. In my opinion, in this way a lot of problems would be fixed without the AI programmers pulling their hair out. And even if ultimately you make it work, it is such a minor thing in a strict single player campaign mode, it won't improve anyone's experience by large margin.

 

[ShotgunJed]

No, there is always mods for something like this, if you want to give the AI a bit of a helping hand. Developers should stay true to their vision of not giving the AI any unfair advantage, and should play on the same ruleset as the player.

 

[icedlemon]

No, there is always mods for something like this, if you want to give the AI a bit of a helping hand. Developers should stay true to their vision of not giving the AI any unfair advantage, and should play on the same ruleset as the player.

What for though? This just hampers the flow of the game and puts AI at a disadvantages position without actually making the player's experience any better. Who even notice the AI lords recruiting around when playing?

 

[ShotgunJed]

What for though? This just hampers the flow of the game and puts AI at a disadvantages position without actually making the player's experience any better. Who even notice the AI lords recruiting around when playing?

Obviously, as long as the AI is dumb, then the player will always win if they are smarter, given an equal footing.
Your argument is that to achieve balance, we must then give the AI some cheats.
My argument is that to achieve balance, we must make the AI more smarter.

Yes from a developer viewpoint, and if they want something that's just "good enough", 80% of results for 20% of the effort, they can just give the AI a bit of a helping hand. Most other games do this. But the developers strive to make Bannerlord a really great game, with none of this surprise bull**** going on. I hope they stick to their vision, and improve the AI to make it realistic.

Other game developers choose to do "good enough", since all they care about is money, 80% of results for 20% of effort. I hope TaleWorlds strives to make this really great, pushing through the bare minimum that everyone else out there and their dog is doing, getting 100% of the results, with of course, 100% of effort. It's about pushing yourself to do 80% more, to get only merely 20% extra results. They have the money to do this anyway, and besides once modding tools are supported, the community will more than gladly provide this effort.

And besides, the player isn't really just competing against another AI party, 1 on 1. Sure, the player will win, given enough time to accumulate an elite army. But the player is more so, competing against the world, being a player in it, choosing their own path, having their own goals, fighting against other AIs in groups, fighting against clans, etc.

Also, if you want to give the AI a benefit, like I said earlier, I'm sure there are mods on the nexus that do this. I personally installed a militia mod that made Calradia safer (probably a bit too safe, since with the original settings it was really hard to find looters). This was a mod that gave benefits for everyone, player and AI, not just the AI. And it did it in a way that didn't remove immersion nor make the game braindead for the average player.

 

[ThirdHorseman]

While the idea of letting the AI play under the same rule as the player does is nice, it's going to be messy. Especially when the territories of kingdoms become fragmented later in the game. In my opinion, it just does not worth the effort to fine-tune the system to work.

Just give the AIs some templates to generate & upgrade troops over time; and cap clans overall army strength (quantity+quality) base on the number and quality of settlements they own (prosperity + hearths). We can still let them pay for those recruitment and upgrades so it doesn't impact the barter system and overall economy system. In my opinion, in this way a lot of problems would be fixed without the AI programmers pulling their hair out. And even if ultimately you make it work, it is such a minor thing in a strict single player campaign mode, it won't improve anyone's experience by large margin.

No. You can make a mod or work with someone else to modify the game you want.

 

[Mountainhorse]

AI lords when spawn (after being defeated) already get free 30-40 units (half are elite, half recruit). I decided to follow a lord around after his defeat and it only took him 3-4 days to recruit to near max party.
Also probably new in 1.3 beta, but I think lords now passively training the troops. The rate is about 1 unit trained to the next tier a day. Usually a T1 recruit.

 

[Sarissofoi]

So the training skill is still mostly useless?

 

[crewsk8200]

Having a army is great. But half the battle in a war is supply. Food,troops,income. These are all things that make or break a army. Having the simulation of recruiting is what gives us, the player, the option to take that away from them by raiding their lands and such. That's what the simulation gives us. I know for one fighting in a area where all the surrounding villages are raided severely limits replenishment of troops and food to the point I have to completely leave the front lines to make ends meet. And that doesn't only count for me but the AI as well.

 

[Depressinho]

While the idea of letting the AI play under the same rule as the player does is nice, it's going to be messy. Especially when the territories of kingdoms become fragmented later in the game. In my opinion, it just does not worth the effort to fine-tune the system to work.

Just give the AIs some templates to generate & upgrade troops over time; and cap clans overall army strength (quantity+quality) base on the number and quality of settlements they own (prosperity + hearths). We can still let them pay for those recruitment and upgrades so it doesn't impact the barter system and overall economy system. In my opinion, in this way a lot of problems would be fixed without the AI programmers pulling their hair out. And even if ultimately you make it work, it is such a minor thing in a strict single player campaign mode, it won't improve anyone's experience by large margin.

what for? to have people complain that the AI cheats like in civ for example?
being lazy never pays off anyway, having the same template for the AI lords would bring other ways of exploiting them. (ex. you know what template they'll use and you build up the exact counter for that)

 

[Icaurs]

Having a army is great. But half the battle in a war is supply. Food,troops,income. These are all things that make or break a army. Having the simulation of recruiting is what gives us, the player, the option to take that away from them by raiding their lands and such. That's what the simulation gives us. I know for one fighting in a area where all the surrounding villages are raided severely limits replenishment of troops and food to the point I have to completely leave the front lines to make ends meet. And that doesn't only count for me but the AI as well.

Am i the only one who literally NEVER runs out of food? i constantly have 1000's of days worth of food as i just never sell any horses or food goods and before i even start to run low im getting more food just by fighting and doing whatever im doing

 

[Pejot]

Am i the only one who literally NEVER runs out of food? i constantly have 1000's of days worth of food as i just never sell any horses or food goods and before i even start to run low im getting more food just by fighting and doing whatever im doing

It was the same for me until I started to get every single fief taken from enemy and to ensure that I can go out of there without losing it I'm selling excees food after siege. Also the more You have in inventory the more You get speed debuff (no matter what your capacity) and this plays a huge role when leading army composed of 1000+ units cause it's moving slowly just cause of numbers.

Another thing is I don't carry excees food cause in case I made a mistake (go to the wrong place) and lose a battle a huge amount of food goes to the enemy.

 

[crewsk8200]

Am i the only one who literally NEVER runs out of food? i constantly have 1000's of days worth of food as i just never sell any horses or food goods and before i even start to run low im getting more food just by fighting and doing whatever im doing

If I am just running my own party then yeah it's no big deal. But if you stat running armies or are in armies then at some point you are bound to share food with other nobles to the point you run out.

 

[Floyd]

No. I really like this feature. AI should be same as player. Just more efficient on upgrading his troops as soon as they level up.
Some kind of balance need to be implemented tho, they usually have tons of infantry, some horses and some archers. They should choose how to upgrade troops according on what they need to have a more balanced army.

 

[imgran]

AI lords when spawn (after being defeated) already get free 30-40 units (half are elite, half recruit). I decided to follow a lord around after his defeat and it only took him 3-4 days to recruit to near max party.
Also probably new in 1.3 beta, but I think lords now passively training the troops. The rate is about 1 unit trained to the next tier a day. Usually a T1 recruit.

NOBODY. TRAINS. SOLDIERS. ONE. AT. A TIME.

Half the things they seem to be doing in this game involving recruitment balancing seem to be a desperate effort to refuse to admit they need to permit PROPER, LARGE SCALE MASS TRAINING into the game!

 

[crewsk8200]

NOBODY. TRAINS. SOLDIERS. ONE. AT. A TIME.

Half the things they seem to be doing in this game involving recruitment balancing seem to be a desperate effort to refuse to admit they need to permit PROPER, LARGE SCALE MASS TRAINING into the game!

I agree there needs to be mass trainning. A garrison boot camp of sorts. But it should only get you past the 1st tier with a small chance to get to the second. After that battle experience is a must.

 

[RavenMount]

I'm gonna offer my 0.02$ for people who keep insisting of for the AI to "play the same rule as the player". There is no such thing, and it has nothing to do with the dev being lazy or taking the easy way out. Because we - as the player - never have a set rule to begin with. For example ask yourself these very simple questions:

- How often you wipe an AI's lord party?
- How often your own party got wiped?
- How long does it take you to train up that elite army you're so proud off?

Answer those questions and you'll see the issue with forcing the AI to "play the same rule as the player". As human we merticulously choose our battles, often we don't fight battle we can lose, while we chase down AI's parties and force them into battle they have no hope of winning. Most of us roll in a mountain of money from either constant sure win battle for loots, selling prisoner, or trade caravan. And that's even before you factor in attrition the AI has another AI. Forcing the AI to play the same rule as the player without some abtracted help is perpetually sentence them to mediocrity.

 

[eddiemccandless]

I'm gonna offer my 0.02$ for people who keep insisting of for the AI to "play the same rule as the player". There is no such thing, and it has nothing to do with the dev being lazy or taking the easy way out. Because we - as the player - never have a set rule to begin with. For example ask yourself these very simple questions:

- How often you wipe an AI's lord party?
- How often your own party got wiped?
- How long does it take you to train up that elite army you're so proud off?

Answer those questions and you'll see the issue with forcing the AI to "play the same rule as the player". As human we merticulously choose our battles, often we don't fight battle we can lose, while we chase down AI's parties and force them into battle they have no hope of winning. Most of us roll in a mountain of money from either constant sure win battle for loots, selling prisoner, or trade caravan. And that's even before you factor in attrition the AI has another AI. Forcing the AI to play the same rule as the player without some abtracted help is perpetually sentence them to mediocrity.

Agreed. What people here are asking for is basically for Taleworlds to create an actual artificial intelligence (and by that I mean something that is as good as a human).

That is not reasonable for a game like this one, and if it was actually done I promise you, you would not enjoy it (try playing chess against Alpha Zero and let me know how fun that was for you).

The system that we had in Warband worked just fine. We should be improving upon that, not throwing away the good game design done in the past completely.

 

[Pejot]

Agreed. What people here are asking for is basically for Taleworlds to create an actual artificial intelligence (and by that I mean something that is as good as a human).

That is not reasonable for a game like this one, and if it was actually done I promise you, you would not enjoy it (try playing chess against Alpha Zero and let me know how fun that was for you).

The system that we had in Warband worked just fine. We should be improving upon that, not throwing away the good game design done in the past completely.

I don't care if the AI cheats just make it so it's not so obvious.

 

[eddiemccandless]

I don't care if the AI cheats just make it so it's not so obvious.

Right. I think we can all agree that the system we have in place right now is worse than what we had in Warband (where the AI did indeed cheat, but it wasn't blatantly obvious that it did).

 

[RavenMount]

I don't care if the AI cheats just make it so it's not so obvious.

Yes. That has always been the point of gaming, ANY game, not just this. It's a simulation that on the surface give the player an illusion of proper challenge (mimicing our behaviour) while at the same time stimulate the AI to help it acheving similar result to an actual human. It's a balance act to maintain proper game-play as well as not breaking the 4th wall (spawning stuffs out of thin air for example).

BUT, what is your standard of "not so obvious". Because if you want to make the point of looking for cheating behavior, you will find it, period.