Lords and Garrisons should have a chance to surrender

[Totalgarbage]

As per the title, I really think that Lords and Garrisons should have a chance of surrendering if the player's (and only the player's) party/army heavily outnumbers them. Currently, the threshold for bandit, villager & caravan parties to surrender is to outnumber them roughly 8-to-1 if I remember correctly, and having the same rate, or something like a 6-to-1 should work fine in the case of lords & garrisons. A rate of 8/1 or 6/1 would make the process of capturing small parties less tedious, but it wouldn't be overpowered, as you already are practically guaranteed to dominate them. If the lord surrenders, they would be taken prisoner, but their troops would move to their clan's nearest fief to reinforce its garrison (and they could be attacked while they're on the way, which would result in a penalty in relation with the clan & a decrease in Honor trait points). Additionally, if lords are unwilling to surrender, they should be offering to pay for free passage (with the barter menu) to be let go and be given permission to leave a fief that's under siege.

One thing that would work great with the surrender system is the traits mechanic that is currently rather underutilized. For simplicity's sake, if we say that the chance for an outnumbered lord with no traits to surrender is 50%, each level of the Valor trait could increase or decrease the likelyhood of the lord to surrender by 20%, which would make the most courageous lord only 10% likely to surrender whilst the most cowardly one would be 90% to do so. Similarly, a lord with a positive Calculating trait could have a 20% higher chance per trait level to offer payment for passage whilst a lord with a negative Generosity trait could have -20% per trait level.

It's not fully related to the subject of surrender mechanics, faction rulers should always be able to barter for peace. We don't have different government structures in the game, all factions are effectively elective monarchies, which results in rulers having less power and the "ruler stage" of the game feeling overall very similar to the "vassal stage". This change would help differentiate it a bit.

 

[archaicwarrior]

yes, good point and historically accurate. Governors must consider the well being of their towns folk as highest priority.

 

[SudianX]

I can successfully defend a siege if I'm outnumbered 10-1, so... I think the odds should require a much greater threshold than bandits. I also think the current bandit threshold is silly high, all things considered.

 

[Totalgarbage]

I can successfully defend a siege if I'm outnumbered 10-1, so... I think the odds should require a much greater threshold than bandits. I also think the current bandit threshold is silly high, all things considered.

You can, but the AI definitely can't (also the outnumber thing should probably be based on the relative power levels rather than troop counts). 8-to-1 should imo be a large enough power discrepancy for the enemy to have a chance to surrender (but should happen only when the player is the one leading the siege) and not so small that it invalidates too many sieges.

I agree that the current threshold for bandits is too high, but if the way how the surrender threshold is changed from troop number to power level, it would probably be fine, if not, changing it to a 4-to-1 is reasonable.

 

[Crisagon]

In MB 1 it could be done

 

[Piconi]

Noble parties having a surrender chance when heavily outnumbered could be interesting, we`ll bring this up for discussion.
Garrison surrendering, however, has been brought up before as a community suggestion and we`ve decided against implementing it.

 

[Totalgarbage]

Thank you for bringing up lord surrender. Garrison surrender being rejected is disappointing to hear, it could be great if you could suggest it again.

In my opinion, the game's main problems are: the lack of character interactions, extremely grindy late-game & lacking diplomacy features coupled with bad war/peace mechanisms. The surrender chance dependent on traits would improve character interactivity (also kings being able to make peace among themselves without a vote would improve it too), while surrendering lords & garrisons would cut down on the late game grind.

 

[Tabbot]

soldiers should mutiny depending on how bad the situations get and either kill their leader or simply imprison him before surrendering.

haivng your men reject the terms of surrender, or go back on your word and executing the mutineers should earn you points with nobility but be seen as a merciless and hurt your ability to make similar deals in the future. Because why would future mutineers or non-nobility?

 

[Piconi]

bad war/peace mechanisms

Could you expand on the issues you are having with the current mechanisms?

 

[Totalgarbage]

Could you expand on the issues you are having with the current mechanisms?

Basically there is very little peace time, lords often vote for new wars (even when the faction is only medium sized and the kingdom is already at war with multiple enemies) and then attempt to peace out almost immediately due to being in too many wars. And while I only understand how the tributes are calculated in broad strokes, in my opinion, raided villages should contribute a bit less, and captured lords & fiefs should contribute a bit more to tribute payments.

Honestly, votes, policies and basic diplomacy in general have too many issues:

- Most lords always vote the same regardless of traits or relationship with the person who started the vote (for example forgiveness of the debts is always unfavourable).

- The AI very rarely start votes for new policies (and when they do it might be a policy chosen randomly?), never attempt to seize another clan's fief and never attempts to kick a clan out from the kingdom.

- The AI doesn't even vote for their own interests most of the time, and many policies are unbalanced in the way that some of them are always good like forgiveness of the debts & castle charters, and some of them are almost always bad, such as debasement of the currency.

- Rulers cannot be forced to abdicate their throne or have their fiefs seized (hopefully this gets addressed in patch 1.3 with the addition of claimants & civil wars).

- New fief ownership votes favour proximity to other fiefs too much (I don't mind fiefless clans being prioritized though) and castles are given the same value as towns (low clan tier clans should not be on the ballot for town ownership votes).

- Rulers should always have the option to take a new fief for themselves for a high influence cost (e.g. the combined total of influence on all votes + 100 influence) and a relationship penalty (-10 or -20 sounds good) with all 3 people on the ballot.

- Rulers should be able to make peace among themselves through the barter menu without the need for a vote (this would be balanced by the rulers having to pay for the peace deal from their own coffers immediately rather than spreading the cost of making peace to the other clans being paid over time).

- Rulers should have the ability to barter for fiefs with the lords of the same faction or the rulers of different factions.

 

[Tabbot]

Basically there is very little peace time, lords often vote for new wars (even when the faction is only medium sized and the kingdom is already at war with multiple enemies) and then attempt to peace out almost immediately due to being in too many wars. And while I only understand how the tributes are calculated in broad strokes, in my opinion, raided villages should contribute a bit less, and captured lords & fiefs should contribute a bit more to tribute payments.

Honestly, votes, policies and basic diplomacy in general have too many issues:

- Most lords always vote the same regardless of traits or relationship with the person who started the vote (for example forgiveness of the debts is always unfavourable).

- The AI very rarely start votes for new policies (and when they do it might be a policy chosen randomly?), never attempt to seize another clan's fief and never attempts to kick a clan out from the kingdom.

- The AI doesn't even vote for their own interests most of the time, and many policies are unbalanced in the way that some of them are always good like forgiveness of the debts & castle charters, and some of them are almost always bad, such as debasement of the currency.

- Rulers cannot be forced to abdicate their throne or have their fiefs seized (hopefully this gets addressed in patch 1.3 with the addition of claimants & civil wars).

- New fief ownership votes favour proximity to other fiefs too much (I don't mind fiefless clans being prioritized though) and castles are given the same value as towns (low clan tier clans should not be on the ballot for town ownership votes).

- Rulers should always have the option to take a new fief for themselves for a high influence cost (e.g. the combined total of influence on all votes + 100 influence) and a relationship penalty (-10 or -20 sounds good) with all 3 people on the ballot.

- Rulers should be able to make peace among themselves through the barter menu without the need for a vote (this would be balanced by the rulers having to pay for the peace deal from their own coffers immediately rather than spreading the cost of making peace to the other clans being paid over time).

- Rulers should have the ability to barter for fiefs with the lords of the same faction or the rulers of different factions.

the clan and fief system is kind of sparse anyway. think there's a lot of room to make clans and fiefs more numerous, maybe even implementing some kind of "feudal" heirachy where some clans are branches or vassals of more major ones.