My thoughts on the Faction Snowball effect. Campaigns should go on forever!

[Marcquez]

Would love to see kingdoms work more on their borders etc
my 2 cents:

• Stamina: Attacking armies should be exhausted after an attack on a castle/city (increased food consumption) and would require to resupply/rest first before continuing the invasion
  • Besieging could be the opposite and an attempt to starve the city out
• Borders: Factions should protect their borders more instead of running through the whole country.
  1. The game should recognize a border
  2. Each faction should have an idea what armies are required per castle/city to be able to defend (lords to stay and defend border cities that are next to an enemy or bad neighbor)
  3. Borders are being patrolled and armies don't just run around like a chicken without a head
  4. Players could get quests to patrol, protect border towns etc
  5. When an enemy army is spotted by a border patrol/castle/city, a message is sent to support that area
• Casualties: Sieges should be more taxing on the attackers (siege AI might need to get fixed first)
  • A castle should be able to defend against a bigger army
• Border patrolling: If an enemy army passes by a fortified castle/city to go siege somewhere else, the defenders should intercept and/or surround them (spawn defenders in center of the map and have the attackers spawn on opposite sides)
• War decision: Based on enemies/allies, financials and size, factions should have to make a decision if going to war is a good or bad idea
  • If they cannot defend their borders sufficiently (based on finances, bordering enemies/allies), going to war/invade another faction would be a bad idea
  • Have a specific reason (princess got kidnapped, important lord got murdered, more land required because of financial reasons or because border is easier to protect...) to increase the possibility to start a war.
• Attrition on conquered lands: Conquered lands that are surrounded by enemy territory should have high attrition rates as they can not supply easily (might already be the case)

 

[ahrenos]

great points, couldn't agree more

+1

 

[brognar]

Balancing is something that will constantly be worked on and improved through the Early Access period. It might be that the AI is currently pressing its advantage when their opponents are on the back foot and not giving them any respite. In theory, I guess that's what it should do, but it does have a negative effect on gameplay.

The devs are definitely aware of this issue and it will be looked in to.

Maybe giving individual factions certain goals aside from genocidal world domination would help. Some could be defensive, some could fight for trade routes or even have a desire to conquer a certain region of the map. That way it gives enough spark to create interesting conflict, but each conflict has an endpoint AND an interesting story rather than just being war for war's sake.

The main practical issue right now (in my opinion) is the fact that armies seem to only be raised for offensive campaigns and once raised, they never seem to disband- they just rove around enemy territory defeating individual lords (leaving them to be captured repeatedly by looters and bandits after release) and stomping over castles. Never is an army mustered to meet an attack, only to make one. Taking an army into enemy territory (or recently conquered territory) should erode the leader's influence over time, eventually dispersing it as lords tire of campaigning. Capturing settlements and raiding villages should also satisfy lords' thirst for war and make them head for home to count their loot or celebrate. Armies in friendly territory would not face this penalty to put attackers at a disadvantage, as they quite often are in war.

This would at the very least slow down the change in territory by making it harder to sustain the blitzkrieg the Battanians and Empire factions seem to wage every game.

Ultimately the political system in Bannerlord is in need of expansion for a true fix to this and I'm sure that's in the works.

 

[Asvaldir]

Hearsties, I agree with almost all your points. Armies steamrolling across the map and making one faction dominate makes the game absolutely unplayable long term, which sucks because I really want to devote a long playthrough to one character.

On the army system, I don't think the concept as a whole is bad and needs to be nixed, I like it more than a roving band of lords following a marshal. The issue however, is armies function like well drilled and organized machines, not a band of squalling nobles who shouldn't all be so happy working together. Lords should break off from armies more often. Army cohesion should be more difficult, and armies should require larger food stockpiles to feed men as well as all those massive amount of horses lords no doubt have, making it much harder to keep an army in the field for weeks on end smashing castle after castle. Implementing all those changes would help fix the army steamrolling issue.

 

[velimirius]

amen, nicely said.

 

[broadsword050]

+1

It's really unfortunate.... Was having a blast playing this game, despite the many bugs and missing elements. It is early access after all. But I never experienced anything that ruined the game for me, until this happened.

Zoom out, look at the map and realize, "Oh, the Southern Empire is doing very good, that's a little worrying"

A month or two later, zoom out again and realize, "Oh ****.... they've taken out the vast majority of their enemies and are now an unstoppable power house...."

Game Over... Thanks for playing...

All that hard work building up my clan score, influence, and wealth and even get my first dinky little castle, but all to no avail. The Southern Empire has become an unstoppable juggernaut and rather than the few remaining factions banding together to stop this juggernaut, they decide it would be better to war among themselves, while the Empire steamrolls all opposition.

It stings extra deep when you realize just how much you were enjoying your adventure all to be cut tragically short by a powerhouse of a faction. Tragic....

 

[Maul47]

 

[Maul47]

The western empire is starting to take over my map and I have been fighting while taking lords as prisoners but they just have way too many lords to push us.

 

[Pickingupmyteeth]

Yep this is one of my concerns with the game, as mentioned above, once a faction begins to lose it seems to be on an inevitable downward spiral for them, understandably some have to win and some have to lose, but it's happening far too quickly. I'm only into the second year, and the western empire faction is completely gone, while the horse-riding step-peoples (sorry forgot their name, Kermits or something), are taking over the entire map.

 

[missionAvs]

Well said OP. I agree pretty much completely with what you said.

 

[Rawrzor]

I have done 2 different playthroughs. Both ended pretty much in +/- 1 years since 1 faction pretty much took it all already. First game i was just f'ing about and the second i was aiming to take down the biggest fish in the sea or atleast slow them down. Even with pushing it as fast as i could i can't stop them to the point where the other factions can catch up a bit.

Overall i will cut the game some slack, but generally speaking i'm not all that impressed so far. I just seems like a graphical update to warband and thats it. I hope they add ALLOT more features which will indeed make it a upgrade over warband.

 

[Tathas]

Sieges definitely progress way too quickly.

I joined the Southern Empire, and they were at war with both Khuzait and Western Empire. I was helping on the Western front. In the time it took to chase down a couple people on the map, three castles fell. I was awarded Jogurys Castle north of Syronea. In the time it took me to travel from Poros to Jogurys Castle, an army of 210 Khuzaits showed up and started sieging it. I raised an army and was waiting for parties to join up, but 1 day later the assault started.

The siege only failed because I walked onto it, snuck into the castle, and was on the defender side while pathing glitched out. 50 minutes (and 30 Bow skill) later, I was "victorious."

2-3 days to assault a castle is a far cry from Europa Universalis IV's sieges that can sometimes take upwards of a year.

 

[Lorik]

The issue is potentially explained by a player on reddit here:

隐藏: Link to reddit post

https://www.reddit.com/r/MB2Bannerlord/comments/ftiwee

TL;DR: Bannerlord lords cannot recruit men after they lost them in a defeat because they are overwhelmed by the infinite wave of bandits whose size and strength scales with the player character.

 

[High chief Kieran]

The issue is potentially explained by a player on reddit here:

judgeing from that post this could be an easy fix by makeing sure that lords who are defeated do not respawn on the map but at a castle with a few good troops. to balance this they could add in a respawn timer or something like that (maybe set the timer lower for kings because they are needed if you want to join a kingdom and stuff like that).

 

[Benisfug]

judgeing from that post this could be an easy fix by makeing sure that lords who are defeated do not respawn on the map but at a castle with a few good troops. to balance this they could add in a respawn timer or something like that (maybe set the timer lower for kings because they are needed if you want to join a kingdom and stuff like that).

It looks like Talesworld wanted to make the world feel more alive since alot of players used to complain that lords in Warband only needed to stay in a castle for a few ingame days to recuperate their armies while the player needed to go around villages and training them constantly. I like that system where lords also have to go around recruiting but the bandits scaling to players should've just not been a thing. Mid game and late game have plenty of ways to make money for the player in Warband so we don't need giant bandits to hunt in Bannerlord. Just add normal ways to get money in mid to late game and leave bandits as a threat to villagers who don't scale to players. Scaling in games is almost never a good thing.

 

[JustinTime49]

The issue is potentially explained by a player on reddit here:

It's a lot more than just that though. Bandits are certainly a factor and need to be looked at, but it is overall the army system which is fundamentally broken.

To quote me in another thread, this should also explain a reason.

The restriction in Warband was that there would be one Marshal to lead the realm, and this worked as every main battle would be THE battle, the determination on whether or not you gain a huge upper hand or lose it. In Bannerlord, with multiple armies everywhere, no one battle ever feels like a victory, because as soon as its done, another army shows up with similar numbers. This is terrible when considering how there is no limitation on armies.

Essentially as soon as one faction becomes even slightly powerful, they can run around with 4-8 MASSIVE armies blitzkrieging the rest of the map.

Currently, I consider it a BIG downgrade to Warband, but it has major potential.

 

[xavire94]

Maybe adding an army cap, like 1 army max at start, 2 or 3 at the same time only if the faction is really strong. Also nobles with a lot of influence will be the ones that lead this armies.

 

[mcmonxp]

I think that there's an incredible thin line for Tale Worlds to hit:
It is a sandbox game so the fun is in the unpredictability. If there are many stalemates and little movement on the map it seems kinda dead. If there's too much it seems ... unbalanced. But if it was too balanced it would feel dead again.
I think the problem may be a bit more in the mechanical options the player has to react to certain situations: If there were a diplomacy and civil war mechanic it would be no problem if one power took over because it would shatter after some time. Just like in CK2 for example.

 

[Benisfug]

I think that there's an incredible thin line for Tale Worlds to hit:
It is a sandbox game so the fun is in the unpredictability. If there are many stalemates and little movement on the map it seems kinda dead. If there's too much it seems ... unbalanced. But if it was too balanced it would feel dead again.
I think the problem may be a bit more in the mechanical options the player has to react to certain situations: If there were a diplomacy and civil war mechanic it would be no problem if one power took over because it would shatter after some time. Just like in CK2 for example.

Dynamic factions? This could be a fun solution, having one lord defect and creating a splinter faction of the current kingdom. The lord that defects takes all his lands and his troops will be the same culture that the lord originally came from.

 

[Kwakx]

The problem with my save was that the lords left the kingdom after a few defeats and then there was no one to fight back.