Kingdom policy and how it can kill enjoyment of the game

[Midnitewolf]

So I have unfortunately ran into a situation that is going to cause me to throw up my hands in frustration and quit a campaign I am about 20 hours in to. Stupid Kingdom policies.

I have played about 4 campaigns so far pledging my loyalty to a different faction each time and this time around it was the Aserai so here I am, brand new to the faction and dealing with the "Trial by Jury" and "Lawspeakers" policies. Both end up giving me a grand total of -2 Influence and I have nothing to offset that. I can't kill fast enough to keep my influence total positive and in fact I am slowly losing ground and am running around with negative influence. I can't even ask for one or the other of these policies to be repealed because it costs 50 influence to even call for a vote and more influence to actually vote. Also, both policies have 100% support in my Kindgom so even if I did manage to scrap together the influence to call for a vote, it wouldn't pass.

Now I guess this is a reason for a lord to disadvow his claims and join another Kingdom but the entire point of this campaign is to be an Aserai Lord so what the hell am I supposed to do, restart the campaign from scratch? At the very least, they should make it so your influence stops dropping at zero.

 

[ThirdHorseman]

I second. What is negative influence anyway? You are so disliked people vote against whatever you want?

 

[Kniggit]

I think that the policies are in no way even close to being considered complete or final. There's a few neat ones in there but there are some like the the ones you mentioned that just kill the game entirely. I suspect those will be adjusted/balanced in a future patch once they've quashed all the game breaking bugs/crashes.

I do wonder why policies like those have 100% support though, they ruin everything! I'm running into similar issues on my first playthrough. I'm losing influence, I can't track down and destroy enemies fast enough to stay ahead of the curve. I'm also getting crushed economically as well, I can't keep the loyalty of my city afloat and production is 0. I can't do anything with my fief because of these policies.

 

[bantad87]

Once you get a fief you should have enough influence gain to start going positive.

 

[JohannTheFirst]

I personally haven't been a vassal in any of my games and just made my own Kingdom, but as far as I know you can donate Prisoners to Castles or Towns to gain more than enough influence. Maybe this could solve your immediate issues and save your playthrough?

Otherwise I agree with Kniggit, I don't think anything is really final or truly balanced at the moment. We'll just have to wait and see and make concise and good suggestions in the meanwhile.

 

[Eyer]

It's my experience that there is a tremendous fun potential in this great game to bring econopolitical perspectives to waging war, but this is the problem. It seems like the other part of players are like "Raid villages and prosper. Join lords and kill the peasants and merchants" While others like me are like: "I can buy all the workshops and help all the locals and collect as much criminal influential people behind me, but the gates of Valhalla are shut for me damn southerner *****."

There is a thing called political power apart from influence in bannerlord, that's my perception. The lords are poked by the powerful people that are judging your every move, every reaped harvest, every killed countryman. I don't just know if most of the so called raider warlords know that they're in a simulation of these things like social policies, they just want to have a simple plank to hit on while others already have that darn simple plank to hit on but are expecting the politics and economics of the game actually function in a way, that makes the game worthwhile medieval fantasy simulator in today's expert standards.

addendum: I've followed my streamer friend play and stream privately for me and we've discussed and made these exact observations although I may put them differently than he would.

 

[The_Vlandian_Rollo]

I personally haven't been a vassal in any of my games and just made my own Kingdom, but as far as I know you can donate Prisoners to Castles or Towns to gain more than enough influence. Maybe this could solve your immediate issues and save your playthrough?

Otherwise I agree with Kniggit, I don't think anything is really final or truly balanced at the moment. We'll just have to wait and see and make concise and good suggestions in the meanwhile.

Actually it is if you donate troop to the AI garrisons. It is of course unbalanced right now so one troop = one inluence point. So now you know what to do with all those peasants you rescued in your party. Also another way to cheese the system is to join an army and bring lots of food. The armies have combined food supply and the Lords are bad at food-management. Once their supply is empty they will get food from you and you'll be awarded influence points in return. I saw it as a way to convert cash (into food) into influence.

In my playthrough I had the same problem and was let down at first. But eventually as you grow more powerful e.g. you army grow bigger and stronger you get also more inlfuence. If looks like a nice mechanic but yes it is not fully implmented yet.

 

[Pexx421]

There is actually a pretty good article on the influence effecting policies. Following it, with 3-4 specific policies it’s fairly easy to rack up 40 or so influence a day, and that’s before forming a nice army and going on a rampage which massively skyrockets influence. Honestly I just give 3-4 of my companions small armies, have them join me on rampage and in a week or two you have 500-1k influence no problem. Also, to look out for, are two policies which give +80 army size and +50 army size, for a total of +130 army size to your character.

 

[Hammer of Mawds]

I always hold it off and don't vote for it, it's still waiting to be decided on my playthrough

 

[Midnitewolf]

I think that the policies are in no way even close to being considered complete or final. There's a few neat ones in there but there are some like the the ones you mentioned that just kill the game entirely. I suspect those will be adjusted/balanced in a future patch once they've quashed all the game breaking bugs/crashes.

I do wonder why policies like those have 100% support though, they ruin everything! I'm running into similar issues on my first playthrough. I'm losing influence, I can't track down and destroy enemies fast enough to stay ahead of the curve. I'm also getting crushed economically as well, I can't keep the loyalty of my city afloat and production is 0. I can't do anything with my fief because of these policies.

Actually, in my original start, I have played to almost the endgame where the faction I am a vassal of owned almost all the map and I will say at later stages, policies like Trial by Jury and Lawspeakers start to make sense. I mean it is easy to trade of the -1 influence when you are passively getting 39 influence per day due to holding two towns and a castle plus other polices you have pushed through using the massive amounts of influence you eventually can accumulate. The issues with these policies are if you are new to the faction and have nothing to offset the loss of influence. Hell you kind of need to have at least 100 or so influence available to help influence the vote if you even want your first castle. Most of the time when my name first comes up for vote, I am the underdog and having negative (or zero) influence means I can't even vote for myself.

Also I do think this is part of the game mechanic. I mean think about it, lords defect all the time so if you are playing the game true to its underlying mechanics, if your kingdom's polices aren't working for you, maybe you should find a new kingdom? The problem is when your like me and the whole point of your campaign is to be an Aserai lord but I do sometimes wonder if the game would be more fun, playing the game as intended rather than re sculpting the sandbox into the image I want it to be.

 

[JustinTime49]

When you fight, capture and donate prisoners to your not owned settlements, you can get immense influence boosts.

As soon as you get a settlement, try and enact the council of the commons policy.

It is very very OP right now but it should suffice until they balance things out.

隐藏

 

[Midnitewolf]

When you fight, capture and donate prisoners to your not owned settlements, you can get immense influence boosts.

As soon as you get a settlement, try and enact the council of the commons policy.

It is very very OP right now but it should suffice until they balance things out.

隐藏

Didn't know about the influence gain from donating troops or prisoners to non-owned settlements so thanks for pointing this out. Still, I am early enough in the game that the gold lost from ransomed enemies would hurt.

 

[Orkmann]

I was a bit concerned about influence, even took the perk which gives plus one per day, but once I joined a faction and joined a war, after a dozen of (small) battles and two successful sieges I was sitting around 1500. A couple of inluence per day is not even recognizable. Alaso, as others suggested, farming influence is very simple via donating prisoners as well.