Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord Developer Blog 13 - Weekending

<p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;">Greetings ye faithful and thank you for coming to read the, somewhat belated, thirteenth of our here Bannerlord blogs. As promised, we're giving a rundown of what we showed at the PC Gamer Weekender (video below) in March, with some added detail, guided by the questions we received on the forums. Thanks to everyone who got involved whether directly asking questions or just discussing in general!</p>
<p><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bbrnPtybNd4" frameborder="0" width="560" height="370"></iframe></p></br> Read more at: http://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/15

 

[Wulfric]

You people are being way too harsh and it's obvious you expected too much of this blog. Lust even said that the blog would be about answering questions regarding confusions about the previous video update if I remember correctly, which is exactly what he did. He also said there might be an actual big Q&A later on so there's your hope. 

Then why the hell did it take him over a month to explain these "added details" and put 3 screenshots? I honestly think that people are being way too kind. This is simply unacceptable, at least for my standards and expectations in spite of being told that it was going to be a summary. This is not worthy of being called a blog, if we compare it to the other ones.

 

[Brendan13]

So can you capture villages by themselves? Also can you garrison a village without a fort?

 

[DanAngleland]

Here is an interview:

https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2016/04/28/mount-and-blade-2-bannerlord-interview/

Noteworthy:

RPS: And finally, how close are you to release, will you consider Early Access, and have you been building foundations for the future as well as for this one game?
Yavuz: We’re still not too close to release unfortunately. We are considering Early Access, or perhaps an open beta of some sort. We definitely want to involve players at some point so they can dig in and help with final touches and game balance.
And, yes, the big challenge was to make a platform for the future with this game. That’s one reason that it took so long. At the beginning, some of the choices that we made – technological and design – were suboptimal. They became limiting factors when we wanted to add more things, which led to having to do things two or three times. We’ve improved in that regard.

Urgh, not good to hear that. so a relaease at the end of the year seems very unlikely. could be more an alpha.

What brings you to that conclusion? What Armagan says there is consistent with what Lust has told us.

So can you capture villages by themselves? Also can you garrison a village without a fort?

Yes and yes. The blog says that we can capture a village if it has a castle; villages without castles can only be captured when their town is captured. We know from Gamescom videos that villages have garrisons (both because the cursor went over a village and a pop up overlay showed the garrison, and because one of the sliders in the village management screen is for a militia), so unless they have changed that since Gamescom, villages do have garrisons.

 

[Brendan13]

No new screenshots.    I think thats what everyone wants the most.

 

[DanAngleland]

Did you even look at the blog?  There were three new screenshots. You don't see them, you don't see the thing about which villages can be captured...

 

[The Welsh Pickle]

Is this a place where I could slip in a suggestion for bannerlord and what I've seen so far.. If not, Someone link me a place if there is!

And be hopeful for Christ Sake!

 

[Gandalf_Gandalfian]

Holy **** this game is so in depth in everything. I will probably spend another 2k hours in bannerlord as I did in Warband, so long as there is multiplayer + mods

 

[SenorZorros]

I actually find myself a bit disappointed that you can't capture villages without castle. to me that seems like it would even be a great reason to not build them. I hoped we could occupy a village and build something like a camp or a palisade to serve as temporary castle.

also, I don't understand why they post the blog and the interview at the same time. not only does this mean that the spread of information over time is a lot lass smooth. the disappointment over the blog makes people less interested in the interview.

 

[DanAngleland]

If you don't build castles, then your villages can be raided by any party that can take on the village garrison. Since they don't have to besiege a castle, they might be able to raid your village and be safely away before you or an allied lord can reach the village, whereas a siege would delay them. A siege costs an attacker time and men, and leaves them in one place for longer, so defending armies can come to relieve the siege. So building castles is a deterrent to smaller enemy armies to even try raiding your village, plus makes it more likely that you will catch them doing it. If an army that is big enough to easily take a castle comes along, when castles aren't there it might go straight to a town instead, so you risk losing all the villages in one go rather than one at a time.

But let's put aside the possibility of the town being the target in the absence of local castles, and say you are either too weak to defend your village or plan to be very far away from it for a long time, and would rather it get raided incessantly than lose it to the enemy faction. You would lose the manpower of the village, lose the tax income to help pay their wages (a double whammy to your potential army size) and the town that depends upon your village's goods will be poorer when it is raided. That last point is bad news for the prosperity of your faction, and bad news for you personally if you own the town.

 

[Wojciech Bator]

You are quite informative Dan, thanks for your effort. You keep morale of the forum members at reasonable level, cheers and beers for you!

 

[usnavy30]

I can hardly wait for some new game-play of a full siege.

 

[sidious]

It is really worth waiting this game, very good !!

 

[DanAngleland]

You are quite informative Dan, thanks for your effort. You keep morale of the forum members at reasonable level, cheers and beers for you!

Thanks  *raises tankard of beer*

 

[SenorZorros]

If you don't build castles, then your villages can be raided by any party that can take on the village garrison. Since they don't have to besiege a castle, they might be able to raid your village and be safely away before you or an allied lord can reach the village, whereas a siege would delay them. A siege costs an attacker time and men, and leaves them in one place for longer, so defending armies can come to relieve the siege. So building castles is a deterrent to smaller enemy armies to even try raiding your village, plus makes it more likely that you will catch them doing it. If an army that is big enough to easily take a castle comes along, when castles aren't there it might go straight to a town instead, so you risk losing all the villages in one go rather than one at a time.

But let's put aside the possibility of the town being the target in the absence of local castles, and say you are either too weak to defend your village or plan to be very far away from it for a long time, and would rather it get raided incessantly than lose it to the enemy faction. You would lose the manpower of the village, lose the tax income to help pay their wages (a double whammy to your potential army size) and the town that depends upon your village's goods will be poorer when it is raided. That last point is bad news for the prosperity of your faction, and bad news for you personally if you own the town.

I do recognize your points about villages being easy to raid though I do have to say that at least for the player historically money never has been the reason his party size was limited. In Warband the limits mostly come from party size restrictions as well as the fact that you simply don't need more than 300 men per fief and a bit for future conquest.
My main problem with this system however is that there may very well be villages which are quite a distance from their town and probably can't be protected. Ghism is a good example of this. In this case it might be better to have a village which is raided constantly over a castle you will lose. I am not sure about your point on prosperity. From what I have read a town's prosperity is technically independent from nearby it's villages though there is a lot of interplay. Therefore a city which has a villages which is raided from time to time would probably be better of than a town that cannot trade with nearby villages. In other words, one will still give a bit of income and will still bring a bit of prosperity where bring none and might even end up forming the ideal jump-off point for further raiding.

Also, now I realize is that what I really want is to stop seeing the kingdoms simply attacking places at random without strategy and losing two villages to a country that picked the right numbers in the process. Yes I am talking about you Vaegirs. Do you know how annoying it is when I am a mercenary for you because my enterprises are in your towns and then see Curaw and Rivacheg fall to the Nords?

On another note, does one have a time machine and a tank+equipment to keep it running for a month?

EDIT: typos and capitalization

 

[HedgeKnight]

On another note, does one have a time machine and a tank+equipment to keep it running for a month?

I do have a time machine, however, I cannot provide you with a tank, unless you give me details. (What do you need it for?)

 

[CaptainLee]

Ease up! We have no idea what their dev timeline is like and blogs are probably entirely based on internal milestones

Hahahahahaha holy christ I hope not. Taleworlds... really... I just...

 

[SenorZorros]

On another note, does one have a time machine and a tank+equipment to keep it running for a month?

I do have a time machine, however, I cannot provide you with a tank, unless you give me details. (What do you need it for?)

well... there is this certain mister Yargolek who I would like to give a little lesson in military tactics. I'd like to take a very direct approach and hope his son knows to pick better marshals.

 

[The Welsh Pickle]

I'd love a new system to the game where prisoners have more of a choice and you as a Commander/Lord have to consider who you take to be in the "Prisoners" slot.

What I mean is this; If you have a garrison of, lets say 20 men and you can hold a maximum of 10 prisoners which are forest bandits for example. Now these prisoners will randomly have a choice of 3 options: stay quiet the whole time they are your prisoner, attempt to run (which will take you into a little mini chase off type battle) or they can rally up against you to try an kill you and your men (Taking you into an instant battle) where you and your men aren't fully prepared. These mini battles could be optional like normal battles where you can just ask your men to deal with it.

But... If you've captured 10 veteran warriors then this would be able to change a style of gameplay as their intelligence would be higher, giving them more equipment they've stole to fight this rallying battle. The HP would be much higher (than the bandits) as well adding more of a challenge. This raises the banner when coming to recruiting/training troops as the better your troops, the better they'd handle these things and the less it would happen.

I'm suggesting this because if troops have been captured, they wouldn't just keep quiet while you travel around the map. They would start to become agitated of being someone's 'slave' or ending up 'dead'.

One last thing that would be beneficial from having this feature is if this was to happen to you. Everyone's been captured by an enemy lord or even bandits a some point in their M&B campaign, right? It isn't great to watch! So instead of being captured by the opposing opponent and waiting until "you escape", why not try to rally the other prisoners in the party. Of Course this wouldn't be easy to do and that's where I thought the new "Influence System" would help out. By using this new system, the other prisoners may have faith in you and trust you to stand by your side. Maybe if you were to work your way out of this "uprising", some of them once known "prisoners" will become your troops.

Thanks!

Pickle

 

[DanAngleland]

I do recognize your points about villages being easy to raid though I do have to say that at least for the player historically money never has been the reason his party size was limited.
It sounds as if that will be different in Bannerlord- they said that the AI will need money to pay and raise troops, and that after his defeat Ecarand might need to increase his tax rate or start a criminal gang, so money should be a factor for all characters including the player.


My main problem with this system however is that there may very well be villages which are quite a distance from their town and probably can't be protected. Ghism is a good example of this. In this case it might be better to have a village which is raided constantly over a castle you will lose.
Well that supposes your castle will be the focal point for repeated attacks by large armies. It will be more common, surely, for small raids to occur than large ones, and small ones will struggle to take castles. In Warband, the marshal has objectives such as take a castle or a town, but enemy lords can act independently outside of marshal led campaigns and raid any time they want, which is more often than the campaigns occur. I know my problem in Warband is usually repeated raids by tiny lord armies of my villages, whereas castle sieges are much rarer. If a settlement is in an area of interest to the enemy, being unprotected by a castle is only going to make it a more regular target for attack. When there are campaigns looking for settlements to capture, if there are no castles in the neighbourhood, where will they look instead? The nearest town, which would be worse for you.

I am not sure about your point on prosperity. From what I have read a town's prosperity is technically independent from nearby it's villages though there is a lot of interplay. Therefore a city which has a villages which is raided from time to time would probably be better of than a town that cannot trade with nearby villages. In other words, one will still give a bit of income and will still bring a bit of prosperity where bring none and might even end up forming the ideal jump-off point for further raiding.
Town prosperity will depend on the villages, they said that in blogs. I don't know if there is any other factor, but they stressed that this is an important one- the raw materials of villages are processed and sold in the towns and to caravans, which gives towns money via taxation (unless I've misunderstood).

I suppose the essence of this debate is whether the villages will have the importance that they should, and that TaleWorlds say they will have. If we don't need their income, then maybe castles would be less important, but even then there is the manpower they provide. With villages having castles, both become more important. In Warband villages tied to castles could still be raided regardless of the nearby stronghold, but not anymore; a village with a castle will (I presume) not be able to be raided, or if it is then there is a garrison that can come out and attack at any time. That makes the castle more important because it provides direct protection for a village, and it makes the village more important because it is not just a source of income and soldiers but a place to safely garrison a large force.

 

[SenorZorros]

1. I hope so but I am cautious. especially since players tend to be defeated a lot less.
2. you know... I think taleworlds should really do something about how much lords like to raid. it tends to become a bit preposterous.
I am not sure though if it is bad if your towns are extremely attractive to sieges because it is easier to defend one town than to defend one town and three castles. also, while your point about castles being besieged a lot less is true in warband it might be more common in bannerlord if the ai is written well.
3. a village taken by the enemy provides less than one raided by the enemy.

but maybe my complaints also come from my hope that even if we don't build a castle we will still be able to reinforce the village with things like a wall and a militia barracks so it can still protect itself without sacrificing production (but less efficiently and at greater cost)

now I wonder if it would be useful if fiefs actually had their own territory over which the lord can rule and demand toll or deny access to people he doesn't like. I already imagine a neighboring lord you don't like who locks your fief in together with another kingdom denying access to the path to the capital when you are summoned which would mean you either have to disobey him (a grave insult). go through the other kingdom(a very aggressive move). or not go( an insult to the ruler).