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

[stevehoos]

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

It seems like more of steam roller or juggernaught lol

Avalanche!!

 

[Syndan]

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.

This.
It doesn't need to be truly balanced and is allowed to go out of wack after 100 ingame years, but anything before that just makes any and all playthroughs meaningless. Especially for those that want to join a specific faction and have it either be steamrolled before or after they joined it and/or make use of the inheritance system.
Nothing worse than knowing that if you don't hurry and play in a very specific way the game will end with or without your intervention.

 

[Jbar9769]

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.

I think Taleworlds should take the Paradox route here with varying systems like cassus bellis, civil wars, alliances, and a revolting. Those systems help limit wars to being over a single region or civil wars starting if an empire gets too big. In my game the Khuzait pretty much took over my world but I noticed that almost all the lands were concentrated into 3 clans, that kind of thing alone should spark a civil war.

Artificially balancing it like giving factions free money or something would kind of kill some of the games charm for me.

 

[Nordmann]

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?

It should be possible for factions to come back, even if they have lost all settlements.

 

[stevehoos]

This.
It doesn't need to be truly balanced and is allowed to go out of wack after 100 ingame years, but anything before that just makes any and all playthroughs meaningless. Especially for those that want to join a specific faction and have it either be steamrolled before or after they joined it.
Nothing worse than knowing that if you don't hurry and play in a very specific way the game will end with or without your intervention.

That right there hits the point exactly.

 

[Isidoros97]

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.

Personally i think that without the player interaction no faction should rule all the map or factions being destroyed it makes the game looks dead and empty and there is no point in the aging and heirs system that is my opinion as a fun thought.Thanks for looking into those problems.

 

[Jbar9769]

It should be possible for factions to come back, even if they have lost all settlements.

Yeah like mass revolts or something.

 

[Isidoros97]

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.

Couldn't put this better myself the game ending itself.

 

[stevehoos]

Couldn't put this better myself "The game ending itself".

Empires should struggle back and forth for control of territories, not wipe each other off the map in 15 hours.

 

[MountainBladesMan]

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?

But what is the point of one faction eventually winning, whether its in 1 year or 20 years? You're still essentially placing a time-limit on the player to get their act together before its too late and the steamroller starts. What is the point of having 'realism' in the form of one faction eventually dominating all? It can only detract from the game.

 

[Nordmann]

Empires should struggle back and forth for control of territories, not wipe each other off the map in 15 hours.

+1

If one faction conquers all of the others, then the game is over, whether the player wants it to be or not. That doesn't seem right for a sandbox.

 

[bestguy]

But what is the point of one faction eventually winning, whether its in 1 year or 20 years? You're still essentially placing a time-limit on the player to get their act together before its too late and the steamroller starts. What is the point of having 'realism' in the form of one faction eventually dominating all? It can only detract from the game.

Because you are in a fictional, warring world that doesn't revolve around you.
Have you ever played a real time strategy game? A paradox game or even a total war game for example?
Granted, mount and blade is on a smaller scale but things should still move on with or without player interaction and AI blobbing should be a thing, albeit being a very gradual process.

 

[stevehoos]

Because you are in a fictional, warring world that doesn't revolve around you.
Have you ever played a real time strategy game? A paradox game or even a total war game for example?
Granted, mount and blade is on a smaller scale but things should still move on with or without player interaction and AI blobbing should be a thing, albeit being a very gradual process.

I have never seen this in any Total War game (I own them all) or my 3 paradox games.

 

[bestguy]

I have never seen this in any Total War game (I own them all) or my 3 paradox games.

Blobbing goes on in all those games. In EU4 for example , say you’re in Asia and haven’t touched Europe.. Europe never looks the same 200 years later because some of the stronger countries will have blobbed a bit and started eating some of the other stronger countries.

 

[stevehoos]

Blobbing goes on in all those games. In EU4 for example , say you’re in Asia and haven’t touched Europe.. Europe never looks the same 200 years later because stronger countries will have blobbed a bit.

I am talking about snowballing.

 

[Jhaerik]

I don't know, factions in my game are still quite balanced. Was i super lucky? I suspect lots of players don't have issues with it, but they are not gonna go to the forums and write "my game is normal". What you see here are the people complaining, which creates a skewed view of a problem that might not even exist.

I doubt taleworlds hasn't made at least 999 test runs, I would be surprised if they let something this big slide.

I'm honestly starting to doubt they did a single test run, let alone a thousand.

There is just no way you can miss some of these things they did if you actually play the game for more than 15 minutes.

 

[bestguy]

I am talking about snowballing.

I wasn’t. I was saying it shouldn’t be a constant equilibrium that entirely depends on player intervention like the other guy said.

 

[MountainBladesMan]

Because you are in a fictional, warring world that doesn't revolve around you.
Have you ever played a real time strategy game? A paradox game or even a total war game for example?
Granted, mount and blade is on a smaller scale but things should still move on with or without player interaction and AI blobbing should be a thing, albeit being a very gradual process.

Interesting that you bring up Paradox and TW games, because people there have the exact same complaints about AI blobbing. It makes the game a grind and completely diminishes the diversity of the game by removing factions the player would have liked to interact with.

You have to understand, the whole 'the world doesn't revolve around you' point isn't something that M&B has ever sold itself on. Its a game that expects you to go out of your way to become a king or at the very least a powerful lord and to fight a bunch of diverse factions along the way. This becomes less satisfying when one faction comes to dominate. It is good that some things do not rely on the player, such as the economy, but serious world conquest definitely should.

 

[bestguy]

Interesting that you bring up Paradox and TW games, because people there have the exact same complaints about AI blobbing. It makes the game a grind and completely diminishes the diversity of the game by removing factions the player would have liked to interact with.

You have to understand, the whole 'the world doesn't revolve around you' point isn't something that M&B has ever sold itself on. Its a game that expects you to go out of your way to become a king or at the very least a powerful lord and to fight a bunch of diverse factions along the way. This becomes less satisfying when one faction comes to dominate. It is good that some things do not rely on the player, such as the economy, but serious world conquest definitely should.

You start off the game as a relative nobody in a sandbox game. You should therefore be able to go many many years as a nobody and the world shouldn’t just stop for you.

I believe in a strong AI that’s capable of making intelligent decisions for itself without the need for any player interaction.

 

[MountainBladesMan]

You start off the game as a relative nobody in a sandbox game. You should therefore be able to go many many years as a nobody and the world shouldn’t just stop for you.

Yes, thats what I'm saying. Balancing the game so that one faction eventually gets the upper hand and takes over ruins the sandbox experience because if you want to take your time and not rush to doing late-game stuff you'll be stiff out of luck cause one faction rules everything. You won't be able to carve anything out for yourself after that.