In Progress Militia not defending town

[Doofus]

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So...I just lost Danustica. I expected the defending force of just under 300 to do enough damage to the besiegers that I would be able to take them out with the force I mustered outside. Instead, when the battle started, it showed about 140 defenders. I didn't understand it. I will say the town has been starving pretty much since I owned it. I have an empire culture governor and I have regularly been selling it food, but it doesn't matter. Its losing food because of prosperity and its losing prosperity because there is no food. Seems like no way to fix it. I've been trying to build up the granary (or whatever the food producer is), but even paying money construction is at 0 because of low loyalty (which was slowly increasing but was also being hurt by the lack of food). Just before the siege army arrived I had stuffed another 250 food in there.

About 5 minutes after they took it, maybe a day later, I besieged Danustica. This is what I found. You can see from the screen shot that there are 210 defenders, all healthy. This includes 135 militia. That of course is strange in itself, since they couldn't have recruited 135 militia in 5 minutes. Next, you will notice that the militia aren't even counted as part of the defenders (at the top). My belief is that this is the militia I had built up in Danustica. They didn't fight for me and they don't fight for the Khuzaits. Apparently all they can do is eat food.

Fix this XXXX.

 

[D0c1]

it's a feature

As the loyalty of the town drops below a threshold, the populace gets angry and starts to take up arms. When this happens the number of militia in the town starts to increase rapidly and as they see the owner as their tyrant they will not join to defend against sieges.

 

[Doofus]

Some feature. Particularly when you can't do anything to improve loyalty.

 

[Zorion_no]

Some feature. Particularly when you can't do anything to improve loyalty.

its a feature as he said + um.. cant do anything to improve loyalty?

1. over time if you gain enough influence with the "noteables" in a city -> they will boost loyalty "supporters".
2. put the city and its production to "Festivals etc" instead of prosperity, militia or hearth growth etc.
3. Do quests for the noteables in the city if they have some that influence loyalty and or security(caravan ambush)
4. defend the villages if being target for raids -> haveing raided villages is -1 loyalty so that suffer.
5. Assign a governor from the same culture as the one the city have +1 loyalty on that(in this case it would be Empire background)
6. have enough security -> if its overall high it also grants relations with the noteables etc.
7. Make sure the city isnt starving(read if you know you are gettting a town soon -> bring 1000 units of grain, some meat + fish and other stuff.
Haveing grain do help quite abit tbh(use mules to boost capacity for cargo if you think 1000 units is abit much)
Haveing +x from grain alone helps.
Ideally always have a wide variety of foods, so you can dump it in starving towns of your factions, then go to nearbye non-hostile but not your faction towns, and buy more food etc.

There is several things you can do, but when you get a fief "too early" it can be abit challengeing at times.

You should have a "small army" of your own before you accept your first city or "accept it to be lost".
You can give back fiefs you dont want, like if they give you one you know you'll loose give it back, vote for another lord to get it and gain relations instead with the lord.

 

[Doofus]

I appreciate it, Zorion, but...(1) & (3) I do whenever possible anyways, (2) pretty sure I had it on the loyalty thing, (4) I almost always defend my cities and we had actually been out of war for a bit after I took this city, (5) I did assign a governor of the same culture, (6) If the damn militia did something I would have had close to 300 in it, but because of the food situation I didn't want to throw too much military in there to just eat more food we didn't have, (7) I never understand this. Why is the city starving if I can buy 400+ grain and 150+ fish (& other stuff) from it? I'll admit I didn't take 1k food to it all at once, but at least 3 times I took 200+ grain to it on top of what they already had sitting there. Its like the village quests where they ask for food when they are selling some, then you give them more & they put that up for sale, then you buy it from them, & they are happy. Doesn't make sense. Probably what I did wrong with the town was I should have bought 400 food from them, sold it to them, bought it again, sold it again, bought it a third time, sold it again...then they would have had their 1k food. Stupid programming.

 

[Zorion_no]

I appreciate it, Zorion, but...(1) & (3) I do whenever possible anyways, (2) pretty sure I had it on the loyalty thing, (4) I almost always defend my cities and we had actually been out of war for a bit after I took this city, (5) I did assign a governor of the same culture, (6) If the damn militia did something I would have had close to 300 in it, but because of the food situation I didn't want to throw too much military in there to just eat more food we didn't have, (7) I never understand this. Why is the city starving if I can buy 400+ grain and 150+ fish (& other stuff) from it? I'll admit I didn't take 1k food to it all at once, but at least 3 times I took 200+ grain to it on top of what they already had sitting there. Its like the village quests where they ask for food when they are selling some, then you give them more & they put that up for sale, then you buy it from them, & they are happy. Doesn't make sense. Probably what I did wrong with the town was I should have bought 400 food from them, sold it to them, bought it again, sold it again, bought it a third time, sold it again...then they would have had their 1k food. Stupid programming.

As for the 7th and how the bonus to food is.
So for each unit you have of "abundance" it adds to the + food.

When you own a town you can look at its consumption.
So it will say like x grain, x beer, x wine, x fish etc.
So if x grain is 50 units pr day, and there is 45 in the market that means its -5 units which means that part of the need of the town isnt met.
Should however you have 500 units of grain there and the consumption is 50 you get like +x food pr day in total for excessive food.
Thats why a cheap food item and basic/must have resource like grain is so useful to have and dump in the cities to counter starvation.

Note that all theese numbers is just examples and not the correct values.

Specific example from ingame my town of Maruanth consume 66 grain pr day, its prosperity(population) is 6000.
However atm I have 600 units of grain in the market, which give +66 food pr day.

Basically the grain alone covers the city from starving.
I also have 4 villages with 400-600 hearth which is like +6 food pr town.
Then there is other food stuffs I have in the market in execssive so overall the town have like +42 food pr day.

Thats why dumping tons of food in a newly conquered town is "so vital" imo.
Granted if you lead an army there, you can bet that they take their share of that grain so their army dont starve(but if that was the case, they most likely would help you rebuff that siegeing army?).

As you say dumping too much Garrison also hurts as it consumes "a fair" share of food, but on the other hand, if you had dumped alot of food, it would last for abit.
Also it may take 1-2 days or so for the "Starvation" to go away.

Thats why if you get a town like that abit of an "Uriah's" post prime frontline for the enemy, be sure to have clanmembers lead armies aswell to boost your overall party(aka form an army with'em).

On the pic it only shows the milita and garrison and 75 is imo for a town "too low" regardless, should def be 100 units or more there, below that its likely to hurt your security aswell.

I dont know the size of your party, but if you are below 150 units I would pass up on accepting cities or give them back, or you'll end up with similar issues.

Now thats why you want to have your party of 150 + 3 clansppl leading thier own 100 unit or so strong parties, and form and army so you have 450 units of your own, which would leave them not so intrested in attacking you, or atleast you can repel their attack with "relative" ease.

 

[MArdA TaleWorlds]

Do you have a save file of session that you experienced this issue? With your save file, we can reproduce the issue much easier and faster. For more information regarding how to send us your save files, you can check this thread out. You can find your save file here:
C:\Users\username\Documents\Mount and Blade II Bannerlord\Game Saves

You can send your save files to us via upload.taleworlds.com site. Please write your username and this threads URL into the description box so that we can find it easier. Thanks for reporting and sorry for any inconvenience!

 

[Zorion_no]

Do you have a save file of session that you experienced this issue? With your save file, we can reproduce the issue much easier and faster. For more information regarding how to send us your save files, you can check this thread out. You can find your save file here:
C:\Users\username\Documents\Mount and Blade II Bannerlord\Game Saves

You can send your save files to us via upload.taleworlds.com site. Please write your username and this threads URL into the description box so that we can find it easier. Thanks for reporting and sorry for any inconvenience!

This isnt an issue, this is a "feature" that was introduced in 1,59? or so(my memory on which patch it was is abit vague?)
As the other guy said.

When loyalty of a town is too low, 25 or below only the loyal garrison will join the defense, the milita will not(as its about to rebel, and thus see the besieger as "liberators")

Part of the "Rebellion" mechanics.

See the 2nd post in the thread it even links to the the post informing about the change.

My wall of texts was just to help the player who suffers from the feature, and how to counter it.
So that you keep the city loyal.

 

[Doofus]

Uploaded save anyways so they can see how hopeless their 'feature' is and how stupid it is that a starving town is willing to sell you over 400 food (not sure how much was there at the time of that particular save). I can't do anything with it short of emptying the whole empire of its food. I'm 2 days from completing workshops & then I have the food production thing queued, but it will never happen because for the past month the construction queue is zero. The people aren't even willing to work for their food. They need to stop having starving towns and villages sell food to parties and armies. At least that would add realism even if it wouldn't fix the problem.

 

[Zorion_no]

Uploaded save anyways so they can see how hopeless their 'feature' is and how stupid it is that a starving town is willing to sell you over 400 food (not sure how much was there at the time of that particular save). I can't do anything with it short of emptying the whole empire of its food. I'm 2 days from completing workshops & then I have the food production thing queued, but it will never happen because for the past month the construction queue is zero. The people aren't even willing to work for their food. They need to stop having starving towns and villages sell food to parties and armies. At least that would add realism even if it wouldn't fix the problem.

Good on you, I just wanted to point out to Marda that its working as intended by design.
And that it such isnt a bug, but feature -> prolly better suited in the "suggestions".
As you kind of point out how "hopeless" (imo) the loyalty/rebellion issue is.

As for the production I can provide some insight into that aswell from my experience.

While rebellion is below 25, thus as you see milita wont join fight, since they are preparing their own take over lol.

However for production loyalty below 50 will give high penalty to production(think of it as corruption etc).
Thats why when you get a city with low loyalty, you should if you intend to keep it for yourself focus on getting loyalty boosted up as much as possible as fast as you can.
So set it to be "festival & games" until you hit 50.
Then you can set it to produce the building that gives + food.
Typically you will micromanage this abit aswell(in terms of keeping the loyalty above 50).

Imo that the penalty for production is at 50 or below is too high, should be same as with Rebellion 25.
(Read when the game is out of EA I will mod this myself if no one else does, as I'm thinking its got to be an easy "fix")

As for the stop selling food from starveing towns I totally agree, and or that they have a threshold/ai make better decisions in terms of where they stock up.
Example my towns Marunat and Pen Cannoc both have +30 to 40 food typically, so the surplus is stored in the granary.
But when the army with 1800 units came along to buy from Pen Cannoc it was several days where the production was -50 food!
However it did take some time before it started being positive went from full granary of 700 to 400 so about 300 units so 6 days until it was starting to fill up with +5 pr day, then +10 etc for each after.

Imo the town should have cut down on the sale when the net production of food was 0 so it wouldnt lead to starvation, the purpose imo of the granary is to be able to "outlast" a siege not to be drained cause of armies tanking up.

 

[Doofus]

Agreed, Zorion. Honestly, I think the biggest problem with this is the loyalty -3 thing you get with a different culture. Even if I put a governor in who is same culture its still -2. That would be OK for the first month or so, but after you've brought them food, done various quests, kept them from being raided, etc, it should then drop, at least to -2 and at some point get it down to -1 so you can offset it with a governor. I'll also mention that this town is on the border of traditional (starting) Aserai territory, so they should be pretty used to having Aserai around all the time anyways & at most should only be minorly hostile.

In this particular situation, someone mentioned I shouldn't even have taken the town, but right now I only have 2 towns (both empire culture) and 1 castle. I need what holdings I can get. I am Aserai culture. The other town, at least the prior owner had built a food production upgrade, but this had none and the way the game is now I have no hope of building one.

 

[Zorion_no]

Agreed, Zorion. Honestly, I think the biggest problem with this is the loyalty -3 thing you get with a different culture. Even if I put a governor in who is same culture its still -2. That would be OK for the first month or so, but after you've brought them food, done various quests, kept them from being raided, etc, it should then drop, at least to -2 and at some point get it down to -1 so you can offset it with a governor. I'll also mention that this town is on the border of traditional (starting) Aserai territory, so they should be pretty used to having Aserai around all the time anyways & at most should only be minorly hostile.

In this particular situation, someone mentioned I shouldn't even have taken the town, but right now I only have 2 towns (both empire culture) and 1 castle. I need what holdings I can get. I am Aserai culture. The other town, at least the prior owner had built a food production upgrade, but this had none and the way the game is now I have no hope of building one.

Well I've been active in another thread about the loyalty bonus etc, and that its abit "too rough" tbh.

Granted over time, you will get "supporters" in the town and those will provide loyalty +1 if you have 1(I dont think you get more than that though).

I agree sort of with the sentiment that you shouldnt have taken the city quite yet most likely sort of, as its abit overstretching perhaps?

But overall the game is in EA so things can improve based on our feedback, if not well then you can find mods that do it for you or maybe the modding tools will be simple enough to do some modding yourself.

 

[Doofus]

Tbh, while I see the sense in playing with mods, I never play with mods unless I'm in a multiplayer game that someone else is hosting with mods (such as minecraft). I have the mindset that if I am going to succeed at the game then I should be able to succeed based on how the company making the game thinks it should be played (using my own style, of course). I think that is part of why I've been showing so much attitude in my posts. In addition to severe lag since just before May I'm getting tired of too many things in the game not being logical. I understand the 'early access' thing, but I've been playing for a year now and although they've added a lot of new content in that time, I don't see the things that don't make sense being fixed and lag is worse than it was a year ago, at least on my end.

 

[Zorion_no]

Tbh, while I see the sense in playing with mods, I never play with mods unless I'm in a multiplayer game that someone else is hosting with mods (such as minecraft). I have the mindset that if I am going to succeed at the game then I should be able to succeed based on how the company making the game thinks it should be played (using my own style, of course). I think that is part of why I've been showing so much attitude in my posts. In addition to severe lag since just before May I'm getting tired of too many things in the game not being logical. I understand the 'early access' thing, but I've been playing for a year now and although they've added a lot of new content in that time, I don't see the things that don't make sense being fixed and lag is worse than it was a year ago, at least on my end.

Mods let you customize things that you and the developers dont agree on is "the right design descion".
Then you have other mods that add totally different types of content like new maps, new weapons/armor, mechanics you name it.

As for the lag issue, I think thats something to be expected *sadly* as there is so many configuartions, and something that tweaks it for the better, may get it worse for others etc, which is something that cant be "ignored" but expected.
Thats where you need to post more in detail in other posts, but I sort of think you have?.

I'm on the other side of the scale - there is much better performance now since launch, and not to mention that dreaded release where I did get ctd'ed all the time.

Try downscaleing some of the changes you have in the settings, small adjustments can have significant impact.
Also sometimes if you've put it on low etc, it may not be ideal either, and you should bump it up, as the low settings isnt optimized in some games(I dont know if this is the case with Bannerlord, I just remember it being an issue in SWTOR during development, ppl with low-end rigs putting settings on low, which was a nitemare, but they bumped it up to medium and it was fine/better).

Problem with it though is that EA is perhaps takeing longer time than desired, or changes that would fix alot of the issue with the some of the mechanics take to long to implement(reference the snowballing issues back in the day vs now, and how it will become even better when what they are working on is comeing).

Overall alot of the issue is that we are generally being met with alot more silence on topics that do matter, than we should.
Lack of roadmap, or goals(even if the goals arent put in stone in date, it would be nice to see what they actually are working on that will add more depth and flavor to the game(Diplomacy etc).

 

[MArdA TaleWorlds]

Got the file. Forwarded to QA. Thanks!