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

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Tybalt_ said:
Stopped reading there.

Gee, thanks. In reality, the only stealth armies could have was to use terrain. I ought to have clarified and said that it could be a line-of-sight based system, where you can't just see your enemies over hills.
 
Eske said:
Dancers or turners?

Seriously though, first time I've heard that term. The shame.

FrisianDude, were soldier's wives very common? Popular culture always led me to think of prostitutes following soldiers around, not their spouse (if they were likely to have one).
I'd imagine that maybe they'd be left behind before a campaign, but otherwise they would often march with the army afaIk. Also I mainly knew 'poleturner' from the Stronghold game. :razz:
 
FrisianDude said:
Eske said:
Dancers or turners?

Seriously though, first time I've heard that term. The shame.

FrisianDude, were soldier's wives very common? Popular culture always led me to think of prostitutes following soldiers around, not their spouse (if they were likely to have one).
I'd imagine that maybe they'd be left behind before a campaign, but otherwise they would often march with the army afaIk. Also I mainly knew 'poleturner' from the Stronghold game. :razz:

Yeah, that lazzy guy with a red hood who always been crossed in the wood store by the crippled fletcher.
 
  Nothing gave me as much pleasure when playing Warband, nor was as important to me as was engaging in business and enterprise. In my mind there are few thing that can compare to the grandeur of being a fat, opulently wealthy Sarranid man enjoying traveling back and forth and spending his great wealth on ways to increase it. Fighting a few bandits along the way being simply the order of the day, after all with wealth such as his, hiring more mercenaries would hardly be difficult.
  This leads to my one major wish for Bannerlord. Originally I had wished for more "lively" cities, but that seems to have already been accomplished.  :eek:
My wish is for more ways to spend my Denars, especially in the business and enterprise sense. The way you could deposit funds in a "bank" city in Fire & Sword was a great development, but it felt very inorganic (probably due to the fact that there was no actual "Bank" building to enter), as well as being a "fire and forget" kind of thing. I want a very involved new business mechanic to be added.
  My suggestion may be overlooked, perhaps it is too late in the development of the game to be added but I will suggest it anyway. With the advent of these new "sub-factions" (the clans mentioned in the blog) would it not be possible to add the ability to "bet" on these clans, or to "invest" in them in such a way that if their political agenda played out as they planned I'd get a hefty return on investment? Or perhaps the particular clan in which I invested falls into ruin through bad business/political/military planning I could lose my whole investment.
  This is my wish for Bannerlord.
:mrgreen:

Note: Theoretically this would allow me to invest in clan "A"s political rival clan "B", and then take down clan A and profit (for those more interested in the combat).
 
rohtvak said:
  Nothing gave me as much pleasure when playing Warband, nor was as important to me as was engaging in business and enterprise. In my mind there are few thing that can compare to the grandeur of being a fat, opulently wealthy Sarranid man enjoying traveling back and forth and spending his great wealth on ways to increase it. Fighting a few bandits along the way being simply the order of the day, after all with wealth such as his, hiring more mercenaries would hardly be difficult.
  This leads to my one major wish for Bannerlord. Originally I had wished for more "lively" cities, but that seems to have already been accomplished.  :eek:
My wish is for more ways to spend my Denars, especially in the business and enterprise sense. The way you could deposit funds in a "bank" city in Fire & Sword was a great development, but it felt very inorganic, as well as being a "fire and forget" kind of thing. I want a very involved new business mechanic to be added.
  My suggestion may be overlooked, perhaps it is too late in the development of the game to be added but I will suggest it anyway. With the advent of these new "sub-factions" (the clans mentioned in the blog) would it not be possible to add the ability to "bet" on these clans, or to "invest" in them in such a way that if their political agenda played out as they planned I'd get a hefty return on investment? Or perhaps the particular clan in which I invested falls into ruin through bad business/political/military planning I could lose my whole investment.
  This is my wish for Bannerlord.
:mrgreen:

Basicly:

Arena system, to bet on your best fighter
Market manipulation. Hire some guy or ask companion to oversee the prices in certain cities, and mulitple, to compare for profit.
Quality of items (quintillius system).
Overall betting.
 
Can't wait to mod the new editor system! I just ask you make a roofless version of 12 french_tower_b and put it in a different color.
I love the insane protection it offers, but troops also have a bad habit of spawning on the roofs, forcing me to make ladders to the roofs, and that's just unsightly :/
 
Hopefully they take some tips from Chivalry and the Clash of Kings Warblade mod. Until then, I'll have to be content with Life is Feudal and the CoK mod
 
Matiss_Veinbergs said:
rohtvak said:
  Nothing gave me as much pleasure when playing Warband, nor was as important to me as was engaging in business and enterprise. In my mind there are few thing that can compare to the grandeur of being a fat, opulently wealthy Sarranid man enjoying traveling back and forth and spending his great wealth on ways to increase it. Fighting a few bandits along the way being simply the order of the day, after all with wealth such as his, hiring more mercenaries would hardly be difficult.
  This leads to my one major wish for Bannerlord. Originally I had wished for more "lively" cities, but that seems to have already been accomplished.  :eek:
My wish is for more ways to spend my Denars, especially in the business and enterprise sense. The way you could deposit funds in a "bank" city in Fire & Sword was a great development, but it felt very inorganic, as well as being a "fire and forget" kind of thing. I want a very involved new business mechanic to be added.
  My suggestion may be overlooked, perhaps it is too late in the development of the game to be added but I will suggest it anyway. With the advent of these new "sub-factions" (the clans mentioned in the blog) would it not be possible to add the ability to "bet" on these clans, or to "invest" in them in such a way that if their political agenda played out as they planned I'd get a hefty return on investment? Or perhaps the particular clan in which I invested falls into ruin through bad business/political/military planning I could lose my whole investment.
  This is my wish for Bannerlord.
:mrgreen:

Basicaly:

Arena system, to bet on your best fighter
Market manipulation. Hire some guy or ask companion to oversee the prices in certain cities, and mulitple, to compare for profit.
Quality of items (quintillius system).
Overall betting.

I know that this game is supposed to take place on a rural enviroment (between 600 - 1100 an insignificant number of people lived in cities and the Italyc Peninsula had more cities than the rest of Europe), but like me there are more people who wants Bannerlord to give some life to cities. The player simply can't live in them. Obviously you can't move the hole game to towns, and we are not asking for such, but I believe it would be awesome if this game could give us oportunity to actually live in the cities as a trader or a shop onwer not only resting in taverns, but be able to walk around and do cool things! Spend money, get money, be surprised by hired assassins or complete quests inside the walls.
Also it would be very fun to sack the city after the siege, slautering everyone and taking their stuff.
 
Read the entire thread, so I thought it be neat to re-post my fave posts.  :mrgreen:


Hello and congratulations for the wonderful graphics. First of all, I apologize for the English, which is google-translated. I state that I am a longtime player of M&B and Warband, which I consider the game more intelligent/innovative as ever, and that I would try to do some reflection.

It is obvious that the suggestions could go in any direction and every aspect of warband can be improved and expanded, but to avoid confusion I would like to start with a part of the game that is very important for me: the strategic map and tactical map. Apart from an obvious graphics redesign, which I'm sure will be done, there are many improvements that can be made in this section, in my opinion.

In the strategy map could be interesting to have a more realistic scale size. To be clear, do not cross a continent in a day and a half. This could be easily achieved by simply slowing down the characters, but this would undoubtedly increase the boredom; this should be a lot more things to do on the map, for example, provide food for the troops if in short supply, or gather material to build siege equipment or, build a small outpost for the night (the Romans built a fort every night) (might be interesting to put the rest in the movements, it could affect the morale).

In short, it would be intriguing to enter the tactical map and always have something to do, a sort of minigame. This would be possible, however, to the condition that there is a topological correspondence between the strategic and the tactical, which would not only be an aesthetic accessory but would have a huge impact on the fight, as the choice location on the strategic map that would then end up at tactical. A bit like it was in the Total-war series. The topography should still be more realistic and less perlin noise and absolutely eliminate the "climber horses." Personally I prefer flat terrain, if the fight takes place in the mountains should be designed better.

I do not know if you know Outerra (of course, at that level would be a dream, but a small step in that direction would be great).

It would be interesting also access to special locations just by visiting the tactical map, a kind of exploration range, and then things get discovered as icons on the strategic map.
They should also be made 窶銀€久isible on both maps, the changes to the structures, fields etc.
Finally, it would be great to find in the tactical map all the events of the strategic, such as moving troops, peasants, caravans etc.

In practice a greater integration between the two maps, in fact, the real game map should become the tactical and use the strategic map as a kind of fast travel. Last example: you need to make camp for the night? Choose the area on the strategic map but organize it on the tactical map, so use the natural defenses of those particular rocks ...

ok I'm sick ...

I've said too much, but the fact is that M & B is so unique that I expect it to be more RPG, more simulated, more sandbox, more more ...
Many of these things are already partly explored by the community of modders, but it would be nice to see them implemented in a consistent manner.
Even though I'm dying to have it, I say to developers: Put us all the time you need, not a minute less. Viva Turkey
Baci da Pisa
Alino3d

Completely off-topic, but this was the very biggest issue to me in native warband, and something I feel very few mods even tackle:

Fief incomes. They're too low.

You're telling me that one dyeworks, producing a few rolls of velvet every week, is making me more money than聽the rents of an entire goddamn countryside?

Potentially thousands of people are paying me money for the privilege of my not beating them to death, and even the very richest fiefs in all Caladria can't even scrape together enough money to outmatch the incomes I receive from a few of my dyeworks?

This isn't greed on my part: it seems like a huge problem for a game where the player's main goal is to capture land. There was absolutely no incentive to own a castle or town, when the cost of having one properly defended vastly outstripped the profits it made you. In Native, I often just let the enemy take my castles, so I only had pure money-making fiefs [ which just got raided all the time, no matter how hard I tried to protect them ].

It was even worse with mods like Floris, where you could simply buy land without having to fight for it. It completely threw me out of the medieval immersion to be able to make more money as a common mercer than as a lord owning a castle and huge swathe of countryside. As well, there were very few ways to improve a fief to make it more wealthy and desirable than a very basic one.

The only mod that handled this appropriately in my book is Anno Domini 1257. No buying land, you had to fight for every scrap of it. The most you'd ever see from a business operation was 250 denars, and that would be with dyeworks in the best possible town to sell velvet. Fiefs, on the other hand, got you assloads of money, even if they were very poor. What's more, they provided you with lances. You couldn't just go from town to town recruiting *****es: you either bought some professional mercs from a town or tavern, or you captured land so you could have a ready supply of recruits. Plus, there were tons of ways to upgrade your fiefs, and you could ask your peasants to provide you payment in good instead of just pure money, allowing a shrewd lord to potentially make vast incomes.

It truly made capturing land important purely for the sake of owning land, as opposed to 'it's just what you're supposed to do in this game.' And it made fiefs that you spent a great deal of time and money investing in all the more worthwhile to defend. That, and it allowed you to grow a bond with the land and people you ruled. I found myself truly caring for the smelly little peasants, instead of just seeing them as a useless burden.

I apologize for the random outburst, but I couldn't continue my days knowing that potentially no-one was thinking about this. M&B is currently my favourite game of all time, and I absolutely cannot wait for Bannerlords. Bless your souls, devs; you're doing the Lord's work.

EDIT: I thought the Rhodoks were supposed to be the Italians, while the Swadians were supposed to be German. The latter, I believe, was named after an old Latin tribe, while the former was named after the Duchy of Swabia, which was the dominant power in the early HRE, as it was the seat of the prestigious House Karling.

If the Vlandians are meant to be the proto-Swadians, they have my sword in the coming conflicts
FloobyBadoop

Hello taleworlds. I would like to thank you for all the awesome games you provideus with. Keep up the good work guys. I can hardly wait for the awesome game you design for us. It looks really amazing and unique. If you don't mind I have some questions based partially on the previous games. So, here I go:

1) In battle, will you be able to have greater flexibility and more options in the management and distribution of your forces than in warband?

2) When you capture a village, city etc will you gain some actual dynamic managerial privilleges over it except for collecting taxes and building structures you will never see?

3) When a city advances in prosperity, will this progress be reflected in its buildings, markets, commercial activity, jobs availability, clothes and mood of the residents?

4) Will there be a variety of political regimes and legislatures depending on the faction you are? Will you be able to customise your own preferable system? Is there a chance you add religions, or they will make things too complex?

5) Will there be unpredictable quests and random missions, and if so will it be the standard "you were attacked by 60 bandits" or there will be more creative and interesting adventures and variations?

6) Will the AI be able to support you more effectively in combat and sieges. Will each troop be able to give an organic, productive feel in its position? Will attacking become more complex than cattle gathering up the wooden ladder?

7) Will the marriage mechanic be present in bannerlord? If so will you be able to bear offsprings?

Will the honor, morality, and reputation systems be present in the game? Will they be improved? changed? increased in complexity?

9) I read somewhere you plan to give somewhat of a unique character to some npcs. Is that true? If so to what extend is possible that the peculiarity of a character (a powerful lord for example) will be able to affect your progress pacing? Will that character individuality affect only the things they say or they extend to practical applications as "strategiccapabilities"? Could we see a lord being a great strategist that stands out from the average npc and whose tactics and armies are a force to be reckoned with?

10) How much customization will be available for your troops and gear? Will there be any kind of crafting systems? banner crafting?! how about jewlery and stylish additions like tiaras, rings, bracelets, pendants, earrings etc to add to the player's uniqueness?

11) Will the classic, wrold renown mount and blade combat system change? Will you do some tweaks and additions or revamb it completely?

12) Will there be sidequests and minigames to add to the fun? special npcs with whom you will be able to engage in special activities like bet fights, darts throwing, gambling, bras de fer etc?

13) As a lord or a king will you be able to hold feasts and organise festivals in cities and villages? If you return as a victor from a hardwon campaign will there be the analogous welcoming celebration?

14) Will the character's advancement in power and abilities be felt as the game progresses or it willl remain almost the same? Any plans to add combo attacks? (hords of hardcore fans coming after me )

15) Are there going to be some "parkour" mechanics and effects? not anything much, we don't want to make it assassin's creed, but basic jumping off a ledge or over a handrail or fence with smooth realistic animations would be pretty cool. and some basic climbing maybe?

16) Will there be features like swimming, fishing and hunting?

17) Will the game encourage the use of the player's creativity in any other areas except for the strategic choices in diplomacy and warfare?

Ah, I finally finished! Thanks for everything guys and i hope you will manage to answer to my message one day
NataliaVon

My personal wishlist for M&B consists of the following:

Better sieges (Multiple paths of assault, siege weaponry, defense weaponry, options while starving out the garrison to do things like fire rotting corpses/sacks of filth into the castle to try and induce sickness in the defenders, sap the walls, try to send one or two troops in at night to raise the front gate, etc)

Sea travel and sea battles. Pretty self-explanatory, maybe even allow assaults from the sea when sieging shoreline cities.

Thrusting polearms (2H and 1H with shield) not useless compared to every other weapon. Multiple directions of thrusting so the AI doesn't just hold down the entire time and casually stroll into spearman blocks without a single casualty. Rhodok infantry really suffer thanks to this. In Warband, I can kill up to mid-tier units with a dagger that can't block more easily then I can kill them with a spear and shield just because the dagger has more than one attack.

City/Village/Castle Growth. As a lord, I'd like to be able to invest heavily in my property, and see it grow accordingly. Being able to add additional farms to villages to up productivity, a garrison that can defend itself against bandits or generate a patrol that can take out small enemy forces, institute weekly/monthly militia training at the cost of some profit that results in my recruitments turning up low-tier soldiers instead of fresh recruits reliably and makes the garrison/patrols stronger (instead of the current high reputation, random chance system with no self-defense capabilities right now). Similar actions for castles and cities. I'd ask that the locations physically change with your upgrades, but that might take way more resources then necessary, so holding off on that would be completely understandable.

Not stealth. The focus of Warband has always been on commanding troops and raising armies. Certainly, players fighting alongside their army is a core part of the game, which is what draws me to it over pure RTS games. However, a stealth system would be meaningless in regards to armies, given you can already maneuver out of the range and sight of enemy armies so long as you invest in Pathfinding, Spotting, and tracking. And no commander would be dumb enough to send themselves in as reconaissance or scouting, since getting captured or killed would mean the immediate loss of the command structure for their troops, as well as a major morale boost for the enemy. Adding stealth for the sake of "individual" activities like pickpocketing or assassinating would just result in more time being taken away from the core gameplay: recruiting troops to build armies, conquering kingdoms, and building up an empire, as well as unnecessarily complicating combat. I also refer to jacobhind's post here for further support

This combined with a stealthy /army mechanic would allow for resourceful commanders to take on larger forces if played correctly.

The problem is that you've got to balance it so that the AI does it as well, which (in games) usually means an annoying popup saying you've lost x amount of troops to an unavoidable logistics sabotage. It's one of the reasons why I hate the agents in the total war series so much; they're unavoidable and you/the AI can just churn them out and deal nation-destroying damage for practically zero risk.

Given that in warband (and in the middle ages) most armies wouldn't have supply lines that were very long, a scorched-earth mechanic would make more sense. There are plenty of occasions when the enemy would be able to utterly screw me over by siphoning off the food in nearby villages (even with the ability to feed an entire army for weeks from an impoverished village's dregs). At least that way, there'd be a huge risk involved with sending the regional harvest up in flames.

Battlefield awareness of the A.I. It'd be good if we could maneuver using terrain in the field to slip around the enemy without them rotating in place and being hyperaware of our location even when we're completely out of sight in an area that provides multiple hiding places like hills or ravines. This is the one form of stealth I'd be okay with, since it's less about "You are a super awesome ninja that can kill entire armies by hiding behind trees and popping out every so often", and more about good combat tactics and positioning your forces.

Bigger battle sizes, while preserving the size slider. I sympathize with the people who want giant battles, and it would certainly allow for more engrossing combat. At the same time, one of the draws of Warband is that it can run on "toasters", so to speak. Keeping the size slider would allow both parties to be satisfied.

I am ambivalent about dual wielding. As long as its weaknesses are properly represented in that you don't have the same strength behind your blows as holding a weapon with two hands, you can't defend yourself from arrows like you could with a shield, and blocking attacks takes more precision and maneuvering then with a shield, making it more troublesome to use in anything other then small scale battles against mostly close-combat opponents, I'd be fine with it. But given how most games (especially Skyrim, the game most people who suggest stealth and dual-wielding seem to want Bannerlord to turn into) make people who fight with two weapons into some sort of superhuman tornado of blades, there's a sense of unease about the entire thing.

I don't give a **** about romances, and to be frank, romances draw writers away from stuff like lore, backgrounds, and quest plotlines just so people can get their jerk on. The current romance system is fine as it is, especially since it's fairly close to what feudal courting was like anyways. Maybe named companions can get more intimate romance systems, but I don't really see how making them your bed buddy would provide any benefits in battle or commanding armies that would counter the drain of time and resources from core gameplay
Pallanza

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.
MitchellD

Really, I think you either have a frantic RTS game like Command & Conquer, or an in-depth RPG like M&B with some strategy elements. Sure, Bannerlord could have in-depth strategy too, but not at the cost of sacrificing its RPG side. You can't have some players micromanaging their character, villages and troops, or leisurely exploring a town - while others are frantically laying waste.  And as above, I don't see how constantly slowing down or pausing gameplay for the faster players would be anything other than infuriating.

The best shot at campaign multiplayer IMO would be pure co-op, meaning players coexist in the same party and same battles. Like a traditional party-based RPG. There's some serious depth to be explored there with M&B's unique battle system. Your best fighter leads his heavily armoured infantry through the centre, occupying the enemy while your best horsemen leads his cavalry around for a charge into their exposed flanks. Your best archer and his skirmishers circle the battle, picking off the unwary.

Outside of battle... In a lord's hall, let the silver-tongued player conduct diplomacy. At the market, let the savviest player barter for supplies. On the world-map, hand control of the party to the most-skilled pathfinder. Until your talented tracker alerts you of the bandits ahead - and you relinquish control to him for the chase.

Competitive RTS with a tenuous alliance - we've seen that a hundred times before. Why not play to the game's strengths and make something unique and properly co-operative?
Eske

Please can the shaft of a pike be a physical thing. Phalanxes and pike blocks are ineffective when the enemy can walk through the wall of pikes to just hit you.
Willhelm

Yeah, plundering and slaughtering rebellous peasants and burn down their hovels would add sooo much immersion. I mean that's what lords did back then, it should definetly be in the game, with modification of your karma and morale malus to ennemies because of your cruelty, if you cut down an old guy or a chick and so on.

I did this as a lord on Persistent World module, back on Union Server: We repelled an uprising from the Richfield's peasants that called a powerfull Lord to their help because I used to tax the village and use their ressources (as a Lord do ). Then I called my host and raided those villagers *****es chasing them in hay stack and cutting them as they tried to hide in their homes. That feel was so awesome after that rebellion  I want this in SP
Manu_La_Canette

Also it would be very fun to sack the city after the siege, slautering everyone and taking their stuff.
joei160.



My wish is for more ways to spend my Denars, especially in the business and enterprise sense. The way you could deposit funds in a "bank" city in Fire & Sword was a great development, but it felt very inorganic (probably due to the fact that there was no actual "Bank" building to enter), as well as being a "fire and forget" kind of thing. I want a very involved new business mechanic to be added.
  My suggestion may be overlooked, perhaps it is too late in the development of the game to be added but I will suggest it anyway. With the advent of these new "sub-factions" (the clans mentioned in the blog) would it not be possible to add the ability to "bet" on these clans, or to "invest" in them in such a way that if their political agenda played out as they planned I'd get a hefty return on investment? Or perhaps the particular clan in which I invested falls into ruin through bad business/political/military planning I could lose my whole investment.
  This is my wish for Bannerlord.
rohtvak
 
Moppy771 said:
Read the entire thread, so I thought it be neat to re-post my fave posts.  :mrgreen:


Hello and congratulations for the blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah bleh blah blah blah...

Wow...I wonder if anyone will actually read all that.  :shock:
 
I know, just joking a bit  :oops:

For sure you release 1.161 patch tomorrow and that miterious DLC. Or maybe a gameplay video of Bannerlord?

Wow, you have some kind of fetish with the 27 number, haven't you?  :mrgreen:
 
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