My Thoughts After 780 Hours of Playtime

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They have the best weapon for cavalry in the Glaive and 260 Polearm to crush anything in their way. Like i said these guys and the Fians are busted. they aren't even fun to play with after a while.
They will make you more than enough money to pay for themselves. even if you go down these guys just bulldoze any army.
Which I agree, currently they are OP/'easy' to steamroll with and get that head start but also, it's not like they falloff late game either. Infantry need some love so they have more relevance.
Party speed changes from 2.3 to 2.6 when switching the entire 450 party from infantry to cavalry. that is a bare 0.3 and considering it's likely we have some 100 cavalrymen anyway it can only be a difference of just 0.2 .it's there sure. but we aren't gaining 1 or even 0.5 difference. Other thing is that we can release 1 party from our army and they will pursue the enemy for us. Speed while in an army becomes less important. it's as simple as that. For your single party sure but the late game is all about this, big army, take over town, leave 50 to 100 troops in there.
Ok, yes 0.3 difference not that big a deal from your point - but if I can use ~200 HAs which would have a comparable combat power as a 450 infantry, you can't deny the difference in speed there is further advantageous.
And party size is king, you have control over what that guy is. you shouldn't go around in an army with less troops.

Only time i drop to 150 is when i want to hunt someone: future vassals & mercenary leaders. but now we can convert them from the prison so i don't even do that very often anymore.
Subjective to each player's own playstyle, I like using smaller parties as a handicap - but again, my small party of HA can go a long way to get my party# maxed just from freed/prisoners which is not as efficient using other troop-types; given the amount of spammed battles involved too vs attrition.
Medicine "Veterinary" perk will give you more cavalry than you can even count. i often have to butcher or sell them. All you need to do is not loosing. The war horses are still a bit tricky to get but you will be drawing in normal mounts.
I thought we weren't going to account this perk but yes, same thing, just as how 'free' horses here benefits the infantry, it also does so with HAs.
Some perks apply to infantry other to archer other again to cavalry. yes there are general perks but there are also specialized ones. One of the last crossbow perks cuts the wages of archers down by 50%. not really worth getting to but once again you can make units way cheaper than you think.
I haven't played the recent patches to know where those wage perks land but I still think the cost of infantry to cavalry/HA needs to work better in their favor than what it is currently (being cavalry/HA too cheap).
not in any situation. no. There are many reasons as to why that's not possible. but if the right map or the imbalances in troop level were to play a role you can swing the result one side or the other. of course a troop with projectile will always be more impactfull than one who doesn't. that's the simple nature of having a ranged option.
Yes, but I'm trying to say that by comparison, HA/range are much too OP vs infantry, both in battle and in costs.
The thing is that we are both being carried away now when all of this discussion started for an entire different reason.

i am perfectly fine with that too. normal horse archers are strong but you can deal with them. the Khans are busted and you can do little to nothing against them. Even when they run out of arrows their armor and glaives are absurd to deal with.
This entire discussion only started because of somebody calling out someone else effort. that's all it was.
Of course we both play how we want. i have no problem with that. as long as nobody calls out others for no reasons. i am in favor of all playstyles, efficient inefficient i don't care. i am in favor of broken mechanics like the smithy for players that don't want to deal with the economy side of things and such. i just can't stand when someone calls others out, especially when it's effort we talk about.
Yes, not arguing that point, HA are OP/'easy'/less effort than a more mixed group; but likewise, even if infantry can be used effectively, the amount of effort required is too much of a difference as it is now where they need some sort of buff.
Only problem is that the player will always have the advantage over the AI, if the patch notes are true now lords will bring even less trained troops to the fights and that only makes the player stronger. When was the last time you've seen a lord bringing 100 Legionary or any T5 troops in triple digits to a fight? in vanilla that is.
Yes, and there is still some fixing/balancing required overall from TW. But to that point, for party compositions, there should be a higher ratio # of top tier infantry vs # of top tier HAs of an opposing lord's party.
 
I haven't played the recent patches to know where those wage perks land but I still think the cost of infantry to cavalry/HA needs to work better in their favor than what it is currently (being cavalry/HA too cheap).
Wage cost doesnt matter becouse main limiting factor for player is party size preety much always. If it is not early game looter hunting of course.

About infantry - the main problem of infantry is their purpose. There are two - charge baits and arrow sponges. For that purpose you can have cheap replaceble t2 trash

In warband and PoP despite heavy cav domination infantry factions atleast was beasts in sieges. In bannerlord Sturgia looks like the worst faction in sieges.
 
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In bannerlord Sturgia looks like the worst faction in sieges.
One thing I notice in bannerlord is that infantry defenders on the walls don't actually square up to defend against ranged attackers and they also move around too much in front of the ladders (pushing ladders down) and as units are lost, so they are easily wiped out by a ranged attackers. Where as in warband infantry would do it's best to have shields against ranged fire and need the shields to be blown off to kill them.
 
I was wondering why Sturgian Spearmen seemed so bad as Tier 4 infantry when compared to that of the other factions, so I took a look at their gear in the encyclopedia and may have found out at least part of the reason. Their 1h sword's slashing damage is 54, while that of most other same-tier infantry is in the low-mid 70's. Sure, their sword is a fair bit faster, but I don't think that makes up for it. Units also don't seem to have quite the same issue with weapons being too long to be effective, as happened in Warband (and I think was a big part of the reason that Nord infantry was so strong when compared to others), so I don't think it's shorter length is any benefit.

While I'm sure I'm not the first person to notice this damage-gap in weapons, and there may also be other reasons that they have issues, this one really stood out to me.
 
I was wondering why Sturgian Spearmen seemed so bad as Tier 4 infantry when compared to that of the other factions, so I took a look at their gear in the encyclopedia and may have found out at least part of the reason. Their 1h sword's slashing damage is 54, while that of most other same-tier infantry is in the low-mid 70's. Sure, their sword is a fair bit faster, but I don't think that makes up for it. Units also don't seem to have quite the same issue with weapons being too long to be effective, as happened in Warband (and I think was a big part of the reason that Nord infantry was so strong when compared to others), so I don't think it's shorter length is any benefit.

While I'm sure I'm not the first person to notice this damage-gap in weapons, and there may also be other reasons that they have issues, this one really stood out to me.
That is certainly a major contributing factor, but the biggest issue is that they simply don't use their primary weapon! As spearmen they should be using their spear first and foremost rather than their sword, but they don't because Bannerlord AI will only use spears if they are fighting cavalry or have no sidearm.

And even when they DO use spears, spears themselves are a laughably terrible weapon in Bannerlord: they only have two attack angles, they stab at about half the speed they would in real life, they deal mediocre damage in their best case scenario and they deal very low damage if you get close to the user. They are also liable to get caught on allies in the backswing when winding up to attack, which interrupts the attack.

The AI does not understand these last two downsides and will allow enemies to get very close when attacking with spears, they will also stand close to allies so their spear attacks get caught up on them.

All of these downsides combined make spear and pike infantry worse across the board than all other types of infantry.
 
That is certainly a major contributing factor, but the biggest issue is that they simply don't use their primary weapon! As spearmen they should be using their spear first and foremost rather than their sword, but they don't because Bannerlord AI will only use spears if they are fighting cavalry or have no sidearm.

And even when they DO use spears, spears themselves are a laughably terrible weapon in Bannerlord: they only have two attack angles, they stab at about half the speed they would in real life, they deal mediocre damage in their best case scenario and they deal very low damage if you get close to the user. They are also liable to get caught on allies in the backswing when winding up to attack, which interrupts the attack.

The AI does not understand these last two downsides and will allow enemies to get very close when attacking with spears, they will also stand close to allies so their spear attacks get caught up on them.

All of these downsides combined make spear and pike infantry worse across the board than all other types of infantry.
Mechanics/AI prevent spears from being all that useful, outside of stopping horses if stabbed from the front (and given how terrible melee cavalry is in Bannerlord right now, that benefit of spears is currently of dubious value). Warband was the same way; Rhodok infantry was terrible until their top tier - Sergeants were extremely good precisely because they didn't use spears in melee. I wish the AI was more effective with spears, but the only time I've seen them not be terrible was in Viking Conquest.

The way I see it, the primary issues with battles in Bannerlord are:
1) Infantry needs more survivability. Melee fights between opposing infantry forces + some ranged support are over entirely too fast.

2) Ranged weapons are probably a bit too accurate (especially horse archers), and some may be too damaging (at least against decent armor). If accuracy comes down + infantry are made a bit more survivable, quivers should probably carry more arrows/bolts than they do now.

3) Melee cavalry can't seem to aim their attacks properly at all, especially with spears and lances (they also won't couch them the vast majority of the time). Some heavy cavalry units can be absolute killing machines if dismounted, but are borderline worthless when on horseback.

4) Sturgian Spearmen need to be improved a bit, to be more competitive with other factions' tier 4 infantry. I haven't tested their other infantry enough to say if I think tweaks need to be made there, but the top tier units at least seem mostly fine. And on the topic of Sturgia...their archers may need better bows if #2 above gets addressed.

5) I'd like to see spears be a bit better than they currently are for footmen. The AI likes to face-hug a lot, and that really limits their ability to utilize them in melee. If/when melee cavalry gets some improvements, proper usage of spears will become much more important. As I said above, Viking Conquest seemed to do a pretty good job with spears, so whatever they did to achieve that may help with Bannerlord.
 
Mechanics/AI prevent spears from being all that useful, outside of stopping horses if stabbed from the front (and given how terrible melee cavalry is in Bannerlord right now, that benefit of spears is currently of dubious value). Warband was the same way; Rhodok infantry was terrible until their top tier - Sergeants were extremely good precisely because they didn't use spears in melee. I wish the AI was more effective with spears, but the only time I've seen them not be terrible was in Viking Conquest.

The way I see it, the primary issues with battles in Bannerlord are:
1) Infantry needs more survivability. Melee fights between opposing infantry forces + some ranged support are over entirely too fast.
Agree 110%.
2) Ranged weapons are probably a bit too accurate (especially horse archers), and some may be too damaging (at least against decent armor). If accuracy comes down + infantry are made a bit more survivable, quivers should probably carry more arrows/bolts than they do now
I would actually say that horse archer accuracy is in a good spot, and foot archer accuracy actually needs minor improvements.

If you take an individual horse archer and a foot archer, and the horse archer circles around the foot archer, both of them will take ages to kill each other, because both of them are highly inaccurate and will miss like 30 shots at each other, but the horse archer will eventually win. Because the foot archer does not lead the target, so they cannot hit the horse archer.

If you take a group of 50 horse archers and 50 foot archers, the horse archers will rapidly win because now they have a bigger group of targets to shoot at which makes missing less of an issue, but the infantry archers still have the same problem of not leading their targets and always shooting at where the horse archer *was*.

Infantry archers were the real-life counter to horse archers, so I would like to see foot archers become more accurate.

What archers need is:
* More accuracy at hitting/leading moving targets
* Armour protection against arrows to be increased so it takes 3 more chest shots or head shots on average to kill an armoured unit by a same tier archer
3) Melee cavalry can't seem to aim their attacks properly at all, especially with spears and lances (they also won't couch them the vast majority of the time). Some heavy cavalry units can be absolute killing machines if dismounted, but are borderline worthless when on horseback.

4) Sturgian Spearmen need to be improved a bit, to be more competitive with other factions' tier 4 infantry. I haven't tested their other infantry enough to say if I think tweaks need to be made there, but the top tier units at least seem mostly fine. And on the topic of Sturgia...their archers may need better bows if #2 above gets addressed.

5) I'd like to see spears be a bit better than they currently are for footmen. The AI likes to face-hug a lot, and that really limits their ability to utilize them in melee. If/when melee cavalry gets some improvements, proper usage of spears will become much more important. As I said above, Viking Conquest seemed to do a pretty good job with spears, so whatever they did to achieve that may help with Bannerlord.
Agreed with all of this! I do wonder why they didn't just copy the implementation of spears from Viking Conquest.
 
I had never been keen to the idea of the heir system, not on the day of the reveal announcement, not when I played the game on release, and certainly not now. But at least, like, they have always been things they could have done to make it work in a single-player game that provides an enjoyable experience to the players.

The wanderer system, for example -- I don't get why it's so hard to just implement a system that spawn new wanderers periodically. Like, the maximum player clan size -- surely that's an easily accessible variable -- and the total number of free wanderers -- a completely trackable sum, just do that. Let's aim for 10 + maximum player clan size as the goal, subtract the number of current clan memebers and total of free wanderers from it -- perhaps even do an age check so characters who are too old are not subtracted from it -- that's the number of free wanderers that should be spawned. Then, if said value is greater than 0, simply generate a number of free wanderers between half that value (rounded up) and the total amount. Done. The game can check it every seaon or year, depending on how scarce one wants wanderers to be.

And clans -- first, don't like the heir system -- if I could I'd mod it out and have a 360-day year mod implemented too. But, if said system is to stay, Clans should have some sort of a system that force add new clan members. Just, plump, boom, pow! There, a new lord. Maybe not even a new lord, just don't show clan notables below a certain age, so there's a chance for a severely low pop clan to get one young heir force-fed to them periodically. It'd help with marriages too to have candidates of breed age -- let it be reminded the "Heir" in the "Heir System".

For players, adoption or distant relatives, I don't care, either get fresh bodies in the clan or have a minimum relative count to aim for in the player clan, and get a chance to just take them in.
I love the hire system the two things is warband that always got on my nerves was you didn't age and you were a one man or woman god you couldn't die there was no real danger just how long it took to get power . The hire system for me a least removes that issue. you can turn of aging and player death and that sorts out your dislike of the hire system really .
 
Agree 110%.

I would actually say that horse archer accuracy is in a good spot, and foot archer accuracy actually needs minor improvements.

If you take an individual horse archer and a foot archer, and the horse archer circles around the foot archer, both of them will take ages to kill each other, because both of them are highly inaccurate and will miss like 30 shots at each other, but the horse archer will eventually win. Because the foot archer does not lead the target, so they cannot hit the horse archer.

If you take a group of 50 horse archers and 50 foot archers, the horse archers will rapidly win because now they have a bigger group of targets to shoot at which makes missing less of an issue, but the infantry archers still have the same problem of not leading their targets and always shooting at where the horse archer *was*.
I don't think increased accuracy (in terms of straight bow stat accuracy) would solve this though, and it's probably the exact same reasoning cavalry (stabbing) is so poor; AI can't really lead the target.
Which is why HA always wins (speed tanking), because we know foot archers are accurate enough against any other target otherwise. Same reason why throwing weapons really suck as I assumed they would be particularly good counter to mounts.
And why cavalry always seem to miss as they only release the spear stab when in it's actual range (hence why you see them always poking perpendicular to their mount), not the 'predictable' range as the players have the sole advantage of.
Infantry archers were the real-life counter to horse archers, so I would like to see foot archers become more accurate.

What archers need is:
* More accuracy at hitting/leading moving targets
* Armour protection against arrows to be increased so it takes 3 more chest shots or head shots on average to kill an armoured unit by a same tier archer
I prefer archers/bows having ****tier stat accuracy, but better AI aiming calculations however that can be done.
 
I don't think increased accuracy (in terms of straight bow stat accuracy) would solve this though, and it's probably the exact same reasoning cavalry (stabbing) is so poor; AI can't really lead the target.
Which is why HA always wins (speed tanking), because we know foot archers are accurate enough against any other target otherwise. Same reason why throwing weapons really suck as I assumed they would be particularly good counter to mounts.
And why cavalry always seem to miss as they only release the spear stab when in it's actual range (hence why you see them always poking perpendicular to their mount), not the 'predictable' range as the players have the sole advantage of.

I prefer archers/bows having ****tier stat accuracy, but better AI aiming calculations however that can be done.
I agree, I think ranged need to made to lead the HA formation somehow. I think if TW test it like 100 V 100 they will get a false impression of ranged effectiveness on HA because with that many, some shots are goin to land (basically accidently leading the HA), Where as if it was 100 V 30(ha) they could see the problem of stationary ranged being very bad at hitting any circling HA, even with a much higher fire power. Some kind of volley aim and command for the player to manually lead the HA would be fun too, but they AI's default firing should be improved as well.
 
Having foot archers/crossbowmen lead horsemen would be fine - I agree that foot archers should be the primary counter to horse archers - but I think they're probably a little too accurate against footmen right now. Even relatively spread-out infantry can get decimated pretty quickly against ranged units (unless they're turtled up behind shields at the proper angle and not engaged in a fight). Perhaps just having armor be somewhat more effective against bows would serve the same purpose well enough.
 
I don't think increased accuracy (in terms of straight bow stat accuracy) would solve this though, and it's probably the exact same reasoning cavalry (stabbing) is so poor; AI can't really lead the target.
Which is why HA always wins (speed tanking), because we know foot archers are accurate enough against any other target otherwise. Same reason why throwing weapons really suck as I assumed they would be particularly good counter to mounts.
And why cavalry always seem to miss as they only release the spear stab when in it's actual range (hence why you see them always poking perpendicular to their mount), not the 'predictable' range as the players have the sole advantage of.

I prefer archers/bows having ****tier stat accuracy, but better AI aiming calculations however that can be done.
Oh, I do agree, what needs to happen is archers need to lead circling horse archers and shoot at where the horse archer is on track to be in the next few seconds. Even if TW needs to make the archers shoot at the horse's center of mass to accomplish that.
Also, horse archers should have less horse armour.
Even relatively spread-out infantry can get decimated pretty quickly against ranged units (unless they're turtled up behind shields at the proper angle and not engaged in a fight). Perhaps just having armor be somewhat more effective against bows would serve the same purpose well enough.
I think so. In tests I've seen and also tests I conducted myself, 100 Palatine Guards in a spread out formation, on a flat, open map, can kill 100 Heroic Line Breakers before they even get within melee range. Same goes for 100 Master Archers vs 100 Voulgiers, and similarly when I conducted the test the other way around (with me commanding the attacking infantry against a defending AI who did not use spread out formation). Same goes for using Pikemen. Archers basically counter all types of infantry that aren't shielded.

If the protection of armour against arrows was doubled, then those Heroic Linebreakers or Voulgiers or what have you would be able to get in melee range before being killed. Thus, that would be sufficient to balance archers.
 
Oh, I do agree, what needs to happen is archers need to lead circling horse archers and shoot at where the horse archer is on track to be in the next few seconds. Even if TW needs to make the archers shoot at the horse's center of mass to accomplish that.
Also, horse archers should have less horse armour.
Yes, the armor changes were great, but with it, HA became more OP than they already are since even when they do manage to get hit, they now take even less damage. They only really take damage from cavalry or archers which both struggle with aiming as aforementioned.
IICR, while back, their armor tier was buffed months ago (along with a bunch of other troops) because they were too 'soft' and made combat too fast but with this armor adjustment, maybe we should bring their armor back down to a lower tier set.

I think so. In tests I've seen and also tests I conducted myself, 100 Palatine Guards in a spread out formation, on a flat, open map, can kill 100 Heroic Line Breakers before they even get within melee range. Same goes for 100 Master Archers vs 100 Voulgiers, and similarly when I conducted the test the other way around (with me commanding the attacking infantry against a defending AI who did not use spread out formation). Same goes for using Pikemen. Archers basically counter all types of infantry that aren't shielded.

If the protection of armour against arrows was doubled, then those Heroic Linebreakers or Voulgiers or what have you would be able to get in melee range before being killed. Thus, that would be sufficient to balance archers.

Tricky to balance with other troops but maybe have their foot speed be their sole advantage (unfortunately they don't do zigzags). I'm not sure how a troop's armors are determined for their tier but would think each tier has a certain threshold/cap weight total? So those with shields (which should be heavier), means they 'lose' out on protection elsewhere as a balancing effect. So shield-less troops can withstand more damage, while shield infantry protect against damage.
 
I love the hire system the two things is warband that always got on my nerves was you didn't age and you were a one man or woman god you couldn't die there was no real danger just how long it took to get power . The hire system for me a least removes that issue. you can turn of aging and player death and that sorts out your dislike of the hire system really .
Not good enough. The year and day is too short because of the stupid heir system.
 
Not good enough. The year and day is too short because of the stupid heir system.
I disagree It works perfectly. Plus there is a mod where you can alter time speed and already in the game is the option to turn of deaths which stops aging too. So that would suit you more i think. I would find it very boring playing this way but its each to there own isn't it .
 
I disagree It works perfectly. Plus there is a mod where you can alter time speed and already in the game is the option to turn of deaths which stops aging too. So that would suit you more i think. I would find it very boring playing this way but its each to there own isn't it .
Mods, no. Make it in game.
 
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