Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord Old Discussion Thread

[Count Delinard]

Its pointless in mount and blade none the less. Once you got the walls you have essentially won. We havnt seen anything suggesting the contrary.

While I agree on your doubt as to why would you need a ram if you can simply open the gates from inside once you take them, capturing the walls does not necessarily mean you've "essentially won".. I've had many lost sieges where I had taken the walls but the sheer number of defender reinforcements pushed me back from the courtyard  to the walls and ultimately outisde of the castle

Also, I remember some sieges where archers in the courtyard would take 50+ of my men while we trying to make it from the top of the captured walls to the courtyard since the inner side of the aformentioned walls had no merlons for protection

The 10 guys that are left after you slaughtered everyone on the walls will only be a problem if you got too few men. Using a ram will just cost you ~6 more men with whom you could clean up the rest of the keep.
Not to mention that to actually lower the drawbridge you would need to be, atleast mainly, in control of the walls anyways, so being pushed back is no concern here.

How about the rest of the men the enemy chooses to leave in the courtyard (it could be more than 50, or whatever the AI chooses to leave by the main gates) or who spawn as reinforcements and then rush the walls to meet you on the staircases?

 

[MrMundy]

That would require the AI to be able to react intelligently in sieges. Which is almost the opposite of what we have seen so far.

 

[DanAngleland]

I wonder if it's possible to pull down a castle at some point in a village. Sure they may be great at the border, but later on as your kingdom expands they will no longer be at the edge and the slot would be better put to use as farmland. Unless they have some other passive effects like reducing local bandit spawns or something.

Yes they can be changed to other land use, that goes for all four of the village plots.

 

[Shidan]

That would require the AI to be able to react intelligently in sieges. Which is almost the opposite of what we have seen so far.

Not really. It happens on its own due to defender archers spawning with "Hold Ground" active. When there are archers in the reinforcement waves they just stay in the courtyard where they spawned, while everyone else rushes up to defend the wall. Once you take the walls there can often be several dozen archers standing around down there, which can be devastating to your forces on the walls depending on where the stairs down are.

It's even worse when there were enough of them to hold back more reinforcement waves. Nothing like having a few dozen Nord Huscarls spawn in the midst of your weakened army. 

 

[MrMundy]

That would require the AI to be able to react intelligently in sieges. Which is almost the opposite of what we have seen so far.

Not really. It happens on its own due to defender archers spawning with "Hold Ground" active. When there are archers in the reinforcement waves they just stay in the courtyard where they spawned, while everyone else rushes up to defend the wall. Once you take the walls there can often be several dozen archers standing around down there, which can be devastating to your forces on the walls depending on where the stairs down are.

It's even worse when there were enough of them to hold back more reinforcement waves. Nothing like having a few dozen Nord Huscarls spawn in the midst of your weakened army. 

Where would the difference between your men getting shot at while standing at the gates then? If you got the walls there wont be any firing into your flanks since your men will be facing the archers. Focusing on one, either the ram or the walls seems a lot more reasonable. And if you cant get the ram to use immidiatley, why would you waste your time with it?

 

[SirMairaki]

Where would the difference between your men getting shot at while standing at the gates then? If you got the walls there wont be any firing into your flanks since your men will be facing the archers. Focusing on one, either the ram or the walls seems a lot more reasonable. And if you cant get the ram to use immidiatley, why would you waste your time with it?

Because time doesn't win sieges. Men do. If you have control of the walls but can't gain control of the courtyard with who you have on the walls, why not just hold until you can break through the gate and get a rush of reinforcements into the courtyard?

 

[Count Delinard]

Besides... Do not forget reinforcements do not only include archers, but infantry too.. Sometimes even elite infantry!

This reinforcement infantry rushes your forces who are trying to get to the courtyard often clashing with them on the stairs down or the wall itself.. If your army is fighting against these newly spawned infantry there, chances are their sides will be exposed to the archers down below on the courtyard thus experiencing a very heavy and expensive "second stage" of the siege which occurs after having successfully stormed the walls.

Usually, you want to order your archers to climb the walls so they can shoot the enemy archers down the courtyard, thing is: in Warband you only had this one narrow ladder which meant archers coming up had to compete for space with infantry reinforcements, often ****ing up the path-finding and wasting valuable time while your infantry fighting the enemy on the stairs to the courtyard kept being exposed to archer fire from below

 

[kalarhan]

Besides... Do not forget reinforcements do not only include archers, but infantry too.. Sometimes even elite infantry!

well you are assuming that Bannerlord will work like Warband, with multiple waves of reinforcements. That may not be the case, at least for most sieges, as this time around we will have a battlesize of ~700 + (who knows, maybe even 1000 or 1500 with a top PC).

VC is a good example. With battlesize at 750 you don't see many reinforcements in battles, if any at all.

 

[SirMairaki]

well you are assuming that Bannerlord will work like Warband, with multiple waves of reinforcements. That may not be the case, at least for most sieges, as this time around we will have a battlesize of ~700 + (who knows, maybe even 1000 or 1500 with a top PC).

VC is a good example. With battlesize at 750 you don't see many reinforcements in battles, if any at all.

I believe VC could only properly handle around 300 without risking any issues or surpassing the engine's capabilities. (Although it allowed you to raise the limit past this.)

Also, where did you get the projected size of Bannerlord? Was it a guess or did they say a specific number or ballpark somewhere?

 

[MrMundy]

I believe VC could only properly handle around 300 without risking any issues or surpassing the engine's capabilities. (Although it allowed you to raise the limit past this.)

300 is quite a bit below the maximum if you got a decent PC.

Also, where did you get the projected size of Bannerlord? Was it a guess or did they say a specific number or ballpark somewhere?

They did give us that number themselfes. I would give you a link, but I dont remember when they did and I can frankly not be botherd to search it.

 

[kalarhan]

I believe VC could only properly handle around 300 without risking any issues or surpassing the engine's capabilities.

300 is a safe number for old machines, it is the recommended setting. Very old machines can set it to 150. New gamming PCs can handle 750 if properly built, but you won't get 60+ FPS in the combat phase (when the agents are swinging swords at each other), as that phase is very CPU intensive and will drop your FPS to 20-35 ish.

Bannerlord is not Warband. So we hope it will have better code to handle big armies (Warband engine is very old, and doesn't play nice with multi-core CPU and newer GPUs features).

Also, where did you get the projected size of Bannerlord?

They said (and showed us) that in one of the event videos (go watch them all, it seems you are missing some!). Of course they are still doing the optimization, so it will vary until the release, and it will also depend on the player's PC.

 

[Rollo.TheWarrior]

THey re doing MOCAP now from what i have seen on Steam forums.  It will be nice for the game, but will enlarge the waiting for a long time xD

 

[DanAngleland]

Also, where did you get the projected size of Bannerlord?

They said (and showed us) that in one of the event videos (go watch them all, it seems you are missing some!). Of course they are still doing the optimization, so it will vary until the release, and it will also depend on the player's PC.

I think the largest battle size we saw was in one of the siege videos, when there were about 500 soldiers.

THey re doing MOCAP now from what i have seen on Steam forums.  It will be nice for the game, but will enlarge the waiting for a long time xD

It's feasible that they might want to update some animations, but what is this idea based on please? They do have their own MOCAP studio in the office (they covered this in blog 5, March 2014: https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/6), so doing more MOCAP would be quite simple and not take very long (as opposed to booking an external studio for a set amount of time).

 

[SenorZorros]

on the topic of intensive hacking, could we get the option to let different troops count in different ways. e.g. let top tier-units and cavalry count for two and top-tier cavalry for three or something like that.

Why should that make sense? Each unit counts as one person, why should one count as three?  You of course could say that a top tier cavalry is as strong as 5 mid tier infantries, but I don't think that this transformed into a real differing count system suits the gameplay of Warband/Bannerlord.

my apologies for the late reaction. I didn't have time to go onto the forums yesterday...
there are two reasons I would like to see this.
1. lore,
I regard the troop limit as the amount of people one could supply. since a recruit only needs a bit of (cheap) food and basic shelter they should be pretty easily supplied. men-at-arms, need to have their equipment and will be a bit more picky about their treatment. elite soldiers will probably be even more demanding. a sawdian knight would probably require a squire, a servant and the best of the best when it comes to camping gear. furthermore horses also have needs.

gameplay:
implementing this would make the kerghit a feasable faction. their whole concept is that they have lots of professional but lower-tier troops. In warband the best tactic is to get a couple dozen swadian knights and pulverise anything at barely no losses at 100% damage. If three knights would require about as much space as five pikemen things would be a bit more balanced.

could we get the option to let different troops count in different ways. e.g. let top tier-units and cavalry count for two and top-tier cavalry for three or something like that.

you can do that with Warband (modding), so I don't see why you wouldn't be able to do it with Bannerlord as well. Just visit the Steam workshop and pick a mod to customize this option, or create one yourself

I haven't yet found a mod that does this. Gekoyuko does have the samurai count for two thing but it is implemented by lowering the troop cap. not by having them count for more.

 

[Ki-Ok Khan]

https://youtu.be/6O2Avz_siA4?t=169
"Here we have 500 total but we can push that a little bit further in the final game we think." Frank Elliott.

 

[kalarhan]

I haven't yet found a mod that does this. Gekoyuko does have the samurai count for two thing but it is implemented by lowering the troop cap. not by having them count for more.

? Not sure what you want to do with your mod (and the Forge is the right place to talk about it, if you want this for Warband mod)

you have 200 slots for troops. That number is a result from things like your renown, skills, etc.
Samurai = 2 slots
Rest = 1 slot

You hire 50 samurais. You have 100 slots left.

Warband: easiest way is to reduce your party size limit (start with 200, now it would be 150). You have 50/150. Put that information on a report (camp reports) and on game notes -> concepts. Done 
                alternative: if it makes sense to your setting you can include fake troops. Hire 50 samurais and you also hire 50 servants. Servants won't join battle. The 200 limit is still visible on world map (you have 100/200).

 

[Rollo.TheWarrior]

It's feasible that they might want to update some animations, but what is this idea based on please? They do have their own MOCAP studio in the office (they covered this in blog 5, March 2014: https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/6), so doing more MOCAP would be quite simple and not take very long (as opposed to booking an external studio for a set amount of time).

Hope you re right! I really dont want them to stuck 5 more months doing new animations for all. 

 

[SirMairaki]

Spoiler

https://youtu.be/6O2Avz_siA4?t=169
"Here we have 500 total but we can push that a little bit further in the final game we think." Frank Elliott.

Thank you sir! I had forgotten about that video.

 

[cherac]

The game is fine, all we need is a few screenshots or blog , I doubt we would get the game anytime soon though , and those of you talking about troop slots , and high tier units taking more than 1 slot , its a very wrong idea and goes against a lot of things mount and blade stand s for , we don't want a changed game ,we want an improved game.  Acquiring high tier troops should be hard and every troop type should have a counter , however we all know heavy knights had no equal in medieval times ,so the swadian knights butchering everyone was quite realistic in some ways .

2. 500 man battles is also good and realistic , medieval battles were mostly this size or a little more , lords rarely had armies over 200 this amount standing and ready to fight , they brought farmers and serfs during large campaigns but they returned them after the war ,so 500 is okay ...Taleworlds is doing a wonderful job , the only thing that I'm itching to hear more about is the family system( if any)

 

[Pilum]

Agreed.
They could show some screenshots once in a while though, could be a single scene from different angles.
They have their own way of carrying out the development of the game, making new screenshots for the fans is not part of that, at least at this stage, which is ok.

I hope they are nearing the end of developing the main game, and I hope to hear something in March for no particular reason.