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

[bestguy]

If this snowballing happens without player intervention, then it is purely regression in terms of game play. In my more than 3,000 hours of playing Mount and Blade and myriad mods I never saw this happen in any of them.

The game shouldn’t rely so much on player intervention. Remember that one of the unique and brilliant selling points of mount and blade is that you get to feel like a small cog in a large machine. Shifting of balance should however take place over a much longer period of time.

 

[Vairly]

I examined situation. There are several reasons for this :

1-There were so many defections. Today with new patch defection probability is decreased and defections are rare now. Do not forget during defection lords also take their settlements with them to new faction. Weak factions were losing their lords and settlements to strong ones this was not so frequent but even 1-2 in a year this was effecting huge.
2-There are lords going in financial crisis stay with no money and they cannot recruit men. (will be examined tomorrow)
3-There were big starving penalty for starving castles and towns. For each 4 missing food 1 garrison were dying. This effect is now for 8 missing food with today's patch. Because they were dying they were making sally out and losing their defensive bonus.
4-There were so many sally outs and during sally out garrisons were losing their defensive bonus. This probability is decreased with today's patch now sally outs are rare compared to previous versions.
5-Currently there is no war decleration mechanic to a very powerfull kingdom or making peace mechanic to get unite aganist most powerfull kingdom. (will be added in next months, not quick one)

I continue searching for other reasons. However do not forget in Bannerlord there is no stable world even we fix these problems one faction can rule all the world without player interaction but this should take more time like 20 years maybe. We are working on that. If you want to show you effect on world is much conquer all world earlier than 1090.

Thanks for your reply. Even in early access, the game is already great.
I want to play for my child, but so far the game ends too quickly.
I hope in the future, there will be an opportunity to play for more than 15 years and see a generational change.
I hope the mechanics of "aging and children" was introduced for a reason. And the game will be long enough to reveal these mechanics.

 

[rugbpro5]

Agreed, I saw 3 major cities (not settlements, not castles, but the largest cities) be taken over at the same time. Like, I visited one, and it said it was under seige. OK, fine, I left, and as soon as I left, it and 2 others immediately switched to the seiging party's banner.

 

[LeChat]

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.

I have noted that, just after (like seconds after) attacking and destroying a hideout, the hideout was recreated.
Maybe having a minimum duration before an hideout can respawn could avoid having so much bandits and looters.

 

[MountainBladesMan]

I criticized them for it when they arbitrarily capped workshop income to deal with woodcoin, but I'd actually be more than happy if they did a similar thing to keep factions from snowballing. I don't want to play the game as long as its inevitable one or two factions will dominate before I get a chance to really influence the world.

I wonder if all the feasts we used to complain about in Warband was actually a method to stop this sort of thing by calling off lords so the enemy could recover.

 

[stevehoos]

The game shouldn’t rely so much on player intervention. Remember that one of the unique and brilliant selling points of mount and blade is that you get to feel like a small cog in a large machine. Shifting of balance should however take place over a much longer period of time.

It should not I agree, but factions taking over the whole map has never happened before in any warband mod I have played.

 

[stevehoos]

I criticized them for it when they arbitrarily capped workshop income to deal with woodcoin, but I'd actually be more than happy if they did a similar thing to keep factions from snowballing. I don't want to play the game as long as its inevitable one or two factions will dominate before I get a chance to really influence the world.

I wonder if all the feasts we used to complain about in Warband was actually a method to stop this sort of thing by calling off lords so the enemy could recover.

It should never happen. Look at a paid mod like Viking Conquest, there were preventative measures put in place that mitigated this from ever becoming a reality.

 

[MountainBladesMan]

The game shouldn’t rely so much on player intervention. Remember that one of the unique and brilliant selling points of mount and blade is that you get to feel like a small cog in a large machine. Shifting of balance should however take place over a much longer period of time.

Nah, the devs should balance the game so that its more or less a stalemate until the player can intervene. There is no point to playing the game if its just going to finish itself.

 

[phillies6f]

Have to stop playing due to this, as others have said it feels pointless when the map is completely painted one color after a few years.

 

[bestguy]

It should not I agree, but factions taking over the whole map has never happened before in any warband mod I have played.

I think warband wasn’t perfect either it went in the opposite direction and it relied too much on player intervention. There has to be a middle ground somewhere. A faction should be able to eventually unite the lands even without player intervention, but it should take place over a very very very long time.

I trust that devs will find a fix but it will take them time to get it right.

 

[Marcquez]

Same, not going to spent time in creating another game until this is fixed as it is game breaking for now.
Confident they will fix it though. It is just quite a difficult one to master I guess and quite complex.

 

[Mirilliux]

My entire discord bought this game on release (a pretty reasonable control size) thus far it seems around half of us are experiencing kingdom imbalances similar to what's posted here. I've restarted twice and both times I've had issues with Kingdoms disappearing before I've had any meaningful interaction with them. it's really the only gamebreaking thing I've encountered and I hope it's something they'll look to fixing quickly!

 

[MountainBladesMan]

I think warband wasn’t perfect either it went in the opposite direction and it relied too much on player intervention. There has to be a middle ground somewhere. A faction should be able to eventually unite the lands even without player intervention, but it should take place over a very very very long time.

I trust that devs will find a fix but it will take them time to get it right.

Why tho? What exactly does the player get out of the AI eventually being able to unite the world without them?

 

[bestguy]

Why tho? What exactly does the player get out of the AI eventually being able to unite the world without them?

For being a smart AI. It should learn to take advantage and progress. Like I said, we’re meant to feel like one part of a large machine this is by design. It’s a unique selling point of m+b. It’s not a hack and slash where everything is dependent on the player.

 

[deermark]

I thought it was pretty funny how all I did was run around trading and get my smithing to about 60, then realized that the northern empire took over the whole map.

 

[MountainBladesMan]

For being a smart AI. It should learn to take advantage and progress. Like I said, we’re meant to feel like one part of a large machine this is by design. It’s a unique selling point of m+b. It’s not a hack and slash where everything is dependent on the player.

Pretty sure the main selling point of the game is to command big battles where you fight a bunch of different diverse factions to make your own lasting mark on the world. A game where the AI provides you no room to do so cause one faction swept up everything of note doesn't deliver that.

Ideally, the wars between AIs would be a tug of war between a settlement or two fought with big armies with smaller scale engagements and raids fought with single lords in between these conflicts. Not a total conquest of half or more of one factions realm. Balancing should keep the equilibrium between factions to preserve them more or less in one piece so the player can fight them somewhere down the line.

 

[stevehoos]

Pretty sure the main selling point of the game is to command big battles where you fight a bunch of different diverse factions to make your own lasting mark on the world. A game where the AI provides you no room to do so cause one faction swept up everything of note doesn't deliver that.

Ideally, the wars between AIs would be a tug of war between a settlement or two fought with big armies with smaller scale engagements and raids fought with single lords in between these conflicts. Not a total conquest of half or more of one factions realm. Balancing should keep the equilibrium between factions to preserve them more or less in one piece so the player can fight them somewhere down the line.

Agreed. Good post, they need to fix this.

 

[Nordmann]

Wars are constant and unending, that's the problem. I haven't seen peace once.

 

[stevepine]

So this is what people are referring to as the snow balling bug then?

It seems like more of steam roller or juggernaught lol

 

[bestguy]

Pretty sure the main selling point of the game is to command big battles where you fight a bunch of different diverse factions to make your own lasting mark on the world. A game where the AI provides you no room to do so cause one faction swept up everything of note doesn't deliver that.

Ideally, the wars between AIs would be a tug of war between a settlement or two fought with big armies with smaller scale engagements and raids fought with single lords in between these conflicts. Not a total conquest of half or more of one factions realm. Balancing should keep the equilibrium between factions to preserve them more or less in one piece so the player can fight them somewhere down the line.

It shouldn’t be an infinite equilibrium. There should be slow and gradual shifts in power. Again, I mean taking place over many many years. Point is that if I was to time jump 100 years into the future without doing anything myself I should expect to see a changed map with factions that have become stronger and others that have become weaker. And if I time jump considerably longer into the future I should see a faction on the verge of winning.
Otherwise, what’s the point of an AI in the first place if they can’t do anything on their own?