Mount&Blade II: Bannerlord Developer Blog 7 - Imperial Declines

Users who are viewing this thread

Give me my gorram roads!

I want roads that give speed boosts but make one vulnerable to ambush unless waystations and guard stations are in vicinity.

I want caravans and armies taking them as priority and only splitting off when it's faster to get somewhere off the road.

I want to be able to build roads between cities of my choosing. I want to be able to upgrade them. I want to be able to put watch towers or some such on them.

I want roads.
 
Roads are a very nice thing to have. And none of those fake polygon-hack roads from warband (contrary to common belief warband roads don't make you go faster).

The ai actually bothering to use roads would also allow you to force an opponent into an attack, rather than having to ask around to find the confused and rambling enemy army (historically accurate but tedious). It might even give castles a purpose if you could use their garrisons to raid nearby roads, indirectly blocking the AI from moving into a certain area without first capturing the castles controlling their potential escape routes.
 
Speaking of that, I think castles need to give some type of area of control effect. What I mean, is that if you are an enemy to a faction that has a castle in a narrow mountain pass, a bridge over a river, or any other type of chokepoint, the party trying to go past the castle can be intercepted by the garrison, can't go through the bridge/pass, and/or lord and guard parties get bonuses to catching enemy parties near the castles.

Give them more of a use then just places to dump troops into and one or two tied villages.

Edit:Basically an expansion of what Jacobhinds said.

Roads also make maps look much nicer than the kind of bland majority green plain and hills and maybe some snow and sand that were in the original.

Another thing:Make maps more interesting to look at.
 
Strategically important towns and castles sound nice, with the roads thing sounds good too, "Whats that faction a I'm at war with, your economy depends on rich exports of resource b with faction c? well looks like I just took castle d and now control the route to your capital!, brb charging caravans 10x on this road diverting trade to my faction and raiding all of your caravans."
 
Kadoken said:
Give me my gorram roads!

I want roads that give speed boosts but make one vulnerable to ambush unless waystations and guard stations are in vicinity.

I want caravans and armies taking them as priority and only splitting off when it's faster to get somewhere off the road.

I want to be able to build roads between cities of my choosing. I want to be able to upgrade them. I want to be able to put watch towers or some such on them.

I want roads.
jacobhinds said:
Roads are a very nice thing to have. And none of those fake polygon-hack roads from warband (contrary to common belief warband roads don't make you go faster).

The ai actually bothering to use roads would also allow you to force an opponent into an attack, rather than having to ask around to find the confused and rambling enemy army (historically accurate but tedious). It might even give castles a purpose if you could use their garrisons to raid nearby roads, indirectly blocking the AI from moving into a certain area without first capturing the castles controlling their potential escape routes.
Kadoken said:
Speaking of that, I think castles need to give some type of area of control effect. What I mean, is that if you are an enemy to a faction that has a castle in a narrow mountain pass, a bridge over a river, or any other type of chokepoint, the party trying to go past the castle can be intercepted by the garrison, can't go through the bridge/pass, and/or lord and guard parties get bonuses to catching enemy parties near the castles.

Give them more of a use then just places to dump troops into and one or two tied villages.

Edit:Basically an expansion of what Jacobhinds said.

Roads also make maps look much nicer than the kind of bland majority green plain and hills and maybe some snow and sand that were in the original.

Another thing:Make maps more interesting to look at.
Carlos Danger said:
Strategically important towns and castles sound nice, with the roads thing sounds good too, "Whats that faction a I'm at war with, your economy depends on rich exports of resource b with faction c? well looks like I just took castle d and now control the route to your capital!, brb charging caravans 10x on this road diverting trade to my faction and raiding all of your caravans."

Very good ideas. This is what would make Mount and Blade better, not some silly stealth mechanics.
 
Agreed on the army-stealth thing. I really like having the option of pulling a Hannibal Barca and invading Italy. I also wouldn't at all mind a sort of supply-line system where you can be in, say, different logistics stances or something. Your faction may influence how your army deals with logistics, but the commander has the final say. Perhaps you have all of your soldiers carry their own gear and additional stuff, much like the Romans did after the Marian reforms. You might also go with the sort of traditional supply train thing where you also have camp-followers and whatnot. I feel like you should also be able to procure supplies in the field, perhaps by doing small-scale raids or through foraging. This would seriously aid your soldiers, provide a morale boost, make them march faster, etc. You might not even worry about bringing much food, if you go out purely to raid. Additionally, you ought to be able to get food from a defeated army, if it works with a supply train and didnt tactically withdraw.

But yeah. Logistics should be important, but not altogether necessary. There should be nothing wrong with just piling food into your inventory (which takes up valuable loot space), but there should also be better options, each with their own drawbacks. Having your soldiers carry their own food may require better foraging and procurement, and thus make you need to send soldiers to go and find food for everyone else. Supply lines may be able to get raided or cut off if you don't invest in protecting them. Raiding is risky as it takes lots of time and makes people really hate you. You may even get tribute from surrounding areas, if you establish a more permanent fortification. This may, however, impoverish the surrounding areas, slightly.

Or you could use airplanes, I don't know. That stuff would be vulnerable to anti-air batteries. Then you'd have to get mechanized infantry and tanks to support them and..

Wait we're in modern era, right?
 
ThatCamel104 said:
Agreed on the army-stealth thing. I really like having the option of pulling a Hannibal Barca and invading Italy...

Stopped reading there.
 
A simple way of representing supply lines is making caravans travel to your party, on and back to the nearest city or castle. That's a way to give strategic importance to them and making useful minding to keep your "back coveted" unless you're out there just to ride risking for profit... :cool:
Edit: make possible to build one campaign camp only. You will have to demolish in order to build a new one somewhere else.
. The caravans travel to it from your faction nearest castle or city.
  . You can buy and sell goods and prisoners there in a market or directly to the caravan master.
  . The caravans belong to the camp and not to the nearest settlement.
.    you can deside the composition of the caravan guards .
 
jacobhinds said:
The problem is that you've got to balance it so
Quick reply, yes but this must be seen as a game in a post roman society. Part of the game will be reconstituting that old glory, therefore armies are intended to have the capacity to be as impressive. Roman armies of course needed large supply lines which could be undermined. That being said, I agree about annoying mechanics not adding to the game and scorched earth could be good but I thought it was used less in the pre modern era. Nonetheless, if they could make night raids fun on both giving and reviewing end u feel it a worthy eneavour( of course among others as well ). Mechanics where you only feel like you are out if any kind if control are of course purely for the birds.
 
Nah, scorched earth was a favorite of premodern conmanders. I recall vercingetorix destroying entire towns and their harvests to halt the romans, and the mamluks going around dismantling crusader castles to absolutely nothing after they'd captured them.
I doubt they'd put such a permanent feature in, though. Like killable lords it'd be easy for the player to exploit it unless they balanced it really well. And the stupid ai would probably end up scorched-earthing all its own land while you were already retreating. :razz:
 
Even if not killing, there should be a small change of critically wounding a lord which would halt his recover for extra time.
 
Meevar the Mighty said:
The Rhodoks seem to be the faction that hasn't showed up so far, except through various mentions of "mercenaries", which we know from M&B, the Rhodoks probably were at this point.
cause even in Warband they were a fairly new split-off from the Swadians, weren't they?


Byamarro said:
Caladria Empire looks like mix between Eastern Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire :razz:
yeah gorsh wow :razz:

Why is everyone so desparate for side-by-side comparisons of the Warband and the Bannerlord factions? Was sixth century Goth-held Spain so similar to thirteenth century Spain? Were the 7th Century Franks a one-on-one model for 13th century France? Of course not, names change as their cultures do.
 
I agree, I don't think we should expect each faction to be a clearly direct ancestor to each of the current ones. Some of the Bannerlord factions might be conquered, migrate somewhere else or be subsumed into a greater faction by Warband times, or some of the Warband factions may begin from mere clans of the Bannerlord factions.
 
First, cant wait; awesome graphics, good time period :grin:

I wanted to say though that more character building would be great. Playing, I keep track who I want my people to be in the decisions I have them make. Id like to see a mechanism that does this in game. Characters should develop a personality based on their choices (or it could be chosen in character selection), and this could affect how they interact with npcs. Maybe a character could also gain a certain reputation, which also alters interaction with villagers, people walking in the street, or your own troops. Warband felt meaningless in the sense that each character felt like playing the same guy in a different situation.

There should also be a better system for keeping time. Id like to be able to age and die, continuing as one of my kids. (btw- there should be kids walking around in cities and part of the royal courts). How short the timespan was in warband was always disappointing.

Another thing- occupations. Like others have said, a more in-depth trading system is needed, but why stop there? How about making money off the instability by making weapons and armor? You could say you were a blacksmith in character creation, but that meant nothing except useless tools in your inventory.

Anyways, just some suggestions that would be awesome to see.
 
character building

I'm all for more NPC interaction depth, but i dont see the point in having a morality slider or other outdated D&D mechanics. The only "character type" should be yourself, making decisions based on what you think of the NPCs. An example would be the crazed hate some people have for specific lords in the game; the player doesn't need gameplay mechanics to tell them how to act.

occupations

Why's everyone want to be a blacksmith? It's one of the dullest jobs in the world! :mad:
I could see this working if you could do such things indirectly (maybe more interactive enterprises), but singlehandedly manipulating a market with nothing but an anvil and a furnace sounds sort of ridiculous.
 
On the topic of making castles important, they really ought to have castellans who govern in the lord's place while he's out doing other things. A big part of this should be that they will grab a portion of the garrison and ride out in defense of villages when they get raided, which would prevent the very annoying situation of lords with tiny parties running around raiding everything with no opposition. They could also handle recruitment, training and feeding of the garrison, all subject to preferences laid out by the lord. Food should no longer magically remain at 30/100 days worth until a siege occurs but actually consist of stocks that are depleted according to the size of the garrison (and perhaps rationing policies, with garrison morale also being a thing) and replenished via the castellan sending out caravans with a guard drawn from the garrison. This would make location actually matter a whole lot more; trying to feed the garrison of a castle stuck deep in enemy territory would be a nightmare as the caravans are continually intercepted, resulting in a loss of part of the garrison and the funds provided for purchasing food every time. There could also be the option to harbour peasants when a village can't be defended, which would mean further depletion of food stores but quicker restoration of village prosperity when they return.

Managing a castle you own would mean sitting down with your castellan and sorting out budget constraints on food, recruitment and training, rules on how much of the garrison can be taken out for defending villages, ration policies, limits on harboring peasants, etc instead of just "hmm, do I want a prisoner tower?" Furthermore, there'd be extra strategic options like pulling a Theon; drawing out part of a castle's garrison with a raid and then besieging the castle while it's weakened. For this reason, many lords may elect to never defend their villages because they deem the safety of their personal household far more important than those filthy peasants.
 
Back
Top Bottom