I think if the game just adds a blanket bailout to a factions that's be reduced greatly from its original seize every once in and a while that can give the factions a boost to come back. But that shouldn't be too much nor too often, otherwise the players will be frustrated by the enemy armies popping out from nowhere.
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SP - World Map My thoughts on the Faction Snowball effect. Campaigns should go on forever!
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They did a ton of testing for the multiplayer mode. The single player mode feels like an after thought.
And yeah, not playing until my investment of time won't be cut off at the knees by the snowballing problem.
Totally agree with opening post. I hate to see that when I play fairly, slowly grinding my player, building economy and somewhat competent army, suddenly half of the map belongs to one faction and then it just stomps over map like it is Golden Horde.
IMHO, main problems are:
1)Recruitment system
Now it's impossible for lord to restore his army after one defeat, he has to roll around the map, getting low quality recruits while winning faction continues to take castles and cities from losing side.
Current recruitment system makes sense from the perspective of a new clan, trying to establish itself, where it has no holding of its own and people, who join its army are desperate enough to risk their lives for a couple of coins, so player has to manually collect them from all over the map.
But it does not make any sense from the perspective of a liege lord, where he has to do the same thing to get t1 troops. Instead he should be able to collect/rally them at the major area holding (castle or city) from his adjacent villages.
2)Troops upgrades
IDK, maybe it is a bug, but t1 recruits even with perk from leadership (which is very hard to attain because of Army system) with medium bonus take too damn long to upgrade to t2. In my latest campaign it takes about two days for 1 recruit to get his upgrade, making replenishing army after lost almost imposible, because instead of fighting invading army you have to chase looters around the map in hope of your recruits getting enough exp to upgrade.
Again, it makes sence from the perspective of a new clan, but:
1)There should be mechanic for player to train his low-tier troops in some sort of camp, which he sets in main map
2)As liege lord you should be able to automatically train your levies during some time and spending some money in your holding at least to t2-3.
3)NPC army focus
In my playthroughs, after initial confrontation in the beginning of the war, when it is almost decided who is going to win the entire war and who is going to be steamrolled, many times allied NPC armies instead of doing something useful like cutting of enemy reinforcement, are rolling around the map, possibly trying to restore their troops, but failing due to point 1 and 2. Some exceptions are when they are chasing invading armies with two-three times larger troop numbers than theirs.
With enough influence(which is also hard to obtain for a player) I think it is possible to collect all the lord to some corner of the map and just sit there, doing nothing, which is ridiculous.
It must be harder to muster large armies, harder to make them staying together.
IMHO, main problems are:
1)Recruitment system
Now it's impossible for lord to restore his army after one defeat, he has to roll around the map, getting low quality recruits while winning faction continues to take castles and cities from losing side.
Current recruitment system makes sense from the perspective of a new clan, trying to establish itself, where it has no holding of its own and people, who join its army are desperate enough to risk their lives for a couple of coins, so player has to manually collect them from all over the map.
But it does not make any sense from the perspective of a liege lord, where he has to do the same thing to get t1 troops. Instead he should be able to collect/rally them at the major area holding (castle or city) from his adjacent villages.
2)Troops upgrades
IDK, maybe it is a bug, but t1 recruits even with perk from leadership (which is very hard to attain because of Army system) with medium bonus take too damn long to upgrade to t2. In my latest campaign it takes about two days for 1 recruit to get his upgrade, making replenishing army after lost almost imposible, because instead of fighting invading army you have to chase looters around the map in hope of your recruits getting enough exp to upgrade.
Again, it makes sence from the perspective of a new clan, but:
1)There should be mechanic for player to train his low-tier troops in some sort of camp, which he sets in main map
2)As liege lord you should be able to automatically train your levies during some time and spending some money in your holding at least to t2-3.
3)NPC army focus
In my playthroughs, after initial confrontation in the beginning of the war, when it is almost decided who is going to win the entire war and who is going to be steamrolled, many times allied NPC armies instead of doing something useful like cutting of enemy reinforcement, are rolling around the map, possibly trying to restore their troops, but failing due to point 1 and 2. Some exceptions are when they are chasing invading armies with two-three times larger troop numbers than theirs.
With enough influence(which is also hard to obtain for a player) I think it is possible to collect all the lord to some corner of the map and just sit there, doing nothing, which is ridiculous.
It must be harder to muster large armies, harder to make them staying together.
Something like that might work, but these things are very hard to balance. Other people have suggested a system like in the Paradox games where you must spend some kind of influence point on making claims on particular areas, which might work as well. Looking to 4X games is probably the best bet as this is not an uncommon problem.
Agreed, singleplayer is in a rough state. Quit my third game earlier after a game breaking dialogue bug prevented me from talking to anyone anymore. Battanians were already steamrolling and we were making our last stand anyway. At this point ill probably wait until the next major patch to start a new game.
LordCesare
Recruit
YES! I registered just to reply this
Thank you, dear developer.
I am sure that you and your team are working on this now.
On the flip side, I just bought M&B Warband (after buying Bannerlord).
Will play Warband in the meantime while waiting for things to settle in Bannerlord. I do know the one-year EA timeline you guys gave so I'll just wait for a bit. I'll use the one year to play warband which i first played as a kid years ago.
Bump.
The snowballing is a constant issue. I keep restarting my game because of it. Luckily, the Character Trainer mod helps me to maintain my perks and levelling progression. But it gets irritating having to start a new game because a faction completely conquered every location within 5 game years.
A good mechanic for both the PC and AI is adding some elements which make larger kingdoms harder to manage. Rebellious lords, influence reduction, things like that.
The snowballing is a constant issue. I keep restarting my game because of it. Luckily, the Character Trainer mod helps me to maintain my perks and levelling progression. But it gets irritating having to start a new game because a faction completely conquered every location within 5 game years.
A good mechanic for both the PC and AI is adding some elements which make larger kingdoms harder to manage. Rebellious lords, influence reduction, things like that.
PenisMightier
Recruit
A TW developer came out and said that it was a bug. They also said that in theory it should be a feature, but it should take something like 20 years to accomplish without any player intervention.
PenisMightier
Recruit
Sadly optimization and overall game performance is usually one of the last things I see get fixed from games in Early Access. I don't know why though. I presume it's because it's a lot of tuning with the engine. That, and math.
I really hope they address this as quick as possible. As it is, the game is unbeatable. In order for me to be able to afford enough companion parties or work up enough relation for people to follow me into a siege I need to grind for several in-game weeks to afford workshops/caravans and by that time if I haven't allied myself with someone that is directly beating back whatever kingdom is snowballing then it's basically GG.
I feel like the only way to have a shot at succeeding in making your own kingdom is to constantly switch allegiance as a mercenary throughout the early-mid game until you've worked up enough relation & wealth for you to slowly claw in a victory somewhere. Gaining money isn't terribly difficult, just a little time consuming; it's the relation that is killer.
I feel like the only way to have a shot at succeeding in making your own kingdom is to constantly switch allegiance as a mercenary throughout the early-mid game until you've worked up enough relation & wealth for you to slowly claw in a victory somewhere. Gaining money isn't terribly difficult, just a little time consuming; it's the relation that is killer.
Thing with this is that from my understanding, every time you leave as a mercenary, you take a relation hit with the lords of that faction.
PenisMightier
Recruit
Great post. 100% agree with the bit about the intrigue. It's what makes Paradox games so much fun and replayable for me. To have seemingly insurmountable odds against you and to have to be creative and attentive enough to try to break up alliances and cause enough infighting to give yourself the opportunity you need to take down the bigger opponent. I LOVE that stuff. Chaos is a ladder after all ; )
Agree with the post and with other suggestions on here.
Faction snowballing I think is a key issue currently which can't be fixed by a bandaid patch, which is something Paradox Interactive does every single time there's an issue with a mechanic.
Does anyone notice that nearly every town and village is on hard times? Something I don't think has been written into the game yet is a way for lords and kings to prioritise prosperity, which goes back to the currently abysmal buildings and management system. In Warband it was incredibly easy to make a town prosperous but it took a considerable amount of time and resources. In Bannerlord that doesn't happen at all and because of how long buildings take to build the game can be over by the time you finish building something.
Another thing I noticed was morale and how very uncomplicated it is. Big army battles should be demoralising and devastating for everyone including the victors. Historical battles of such large scale took years to recover from in multiple ways which goes back to my previous point.
Lord's have no incentive to hold back from trying to conquer the entire map and as pointed out in the OP there's no intrigue either. There's no scheming or intelligence, just war. War all the time, every time.
For this to be thoroughly improved upon and to extend the length of the campaign considerably is to bring back faction events like feasts,economical events like famines and poor harvests, lord-against-lord backstabbing and unique goals or a set of preset personalities that dictate how a lord behaves.
Armies on the other hand, I would agree with others that it seems like a great foundation much better than the marshal feature from Warband which for me, was incredibly annoying, trying to get groups of idiot A.Is from point A to point B. Obviously armies need work and there needs to be much more depth added, going back to my previous points, it should be costly in multiple ways to move hundreds of armies at once and there should be a specific goal in mind other than "hey, wanna hang out?". This should tie into what each lord has a goal towards and if it's tactically and economically advantageous for them.
Example; Boyar Jim wants to take Sargot from Lord Turnip. Boyar Stephen's nephew's cousin's roomate is being held prisoner there. Boyar Fred has his eye on the neighbouring castle. Boyar Jeff really wants to execute Lord Turnip and his family for their wrongdoings and war crimes. All four of them decide to start a mini-campaign because their immediate goals currently align in some way. This could collide with what other members of the same faction want or what their predispositions are, which would in turn create intrigue and a route for other lords to backstab.
On top of this, the economical impact would be an army of 400+ trying to siege a town of at least 200+, so while it would be tactically advantageous it's still going to hurt the attackers and kill half their manpower worst case scenario which could be enough of a reason for other lords to decline. Adding on top of this some more, if the leading lord has had a history of bad campaigns or engagements with the other lords then they might decline on this basis as well.
To summarise, I hope TW is reading this thread
Edit: What others have also suggested is a bailout for factions that are being purged.
In my opinion I think this is a terrible idea. If a faction is losing that badly it should be because of a multitude of factors not going their way, not because they are being snowballed. Instead of treating the issue, we should be focusing on treating the cause. This is exactly why I don't play Paradox games.
Faction snowballing I think is a key issue currently which can't be fixed by a bandaid patch, which is something Paradox Interactive does every single time there's an issue with a mechanic.
Does anyone notice that nearly every town and village is on hard times? Something I don't think has been written into the game yet is a way for lords and kings to prioritise prosperity, which goes back to the currently abysmal buildings and management system. In Warband it was incredibly easy to make a town prosperous but it took a considerable amount of time and resources. In Bannerlord that doesn't happen at all and because of how long buildings take to build the game can be over by the time you finish building something.
Another thing I noticed was morale and how very uncomplicated it is. Big army battles should be demoralising and devastating for everyone including the victors. Historical battles of such large scale took years to recover from in multiple ways which goes back to my previous point.
Lord's have no incentive to hold back from trying to conquer the entire map and as pointed out in the OP there's no intrigue either. There's no scheming or intelligence, just war. War all the time, every time.
For this to be thoroughly improved upon and to extend the length of the campaign considerably is to bring back faction events like feasts,economical events like famines and poor harvests, lord-against-lord backstabbing and unique goals or a set of preset personalities that dictate how a lord behaves.
Armies on the other hand, I would agree with others that it seems like a great foundation much better than the marshal feature from Warband which for me, was incredibly annoying, trying to get groups of idiot A.Is from point A to point B. Obviously armies need work and there needs to be much more depth added, going back to my previous points, it should be costly in multiple ways to move hundreds of armies at once and there should be a specific goal in mind other than "hey, wanna hang out?". This should tie into what each lord has a goal towards and if it's tactically and economically advantageous for them.
Example; Boyar Jim wants to take Sargot from Lord Turnip. Boyar Stephen's nephew's cousin's roomate is being held prisoner there. Boyar Fred has his eye on the neighbouring castle. Boyar Jeff really wants to execute Lord Turnip and his family for their wrongdoings and war crimes. All four of them decide to start a mini-campaign because their immediate goals currently align in some way. This could collide with what other members of the same faction want or what their predispositions are, which would in turn create intrigue and a route for other lords to backstab.
On top of this, the economical impact would be an army of 400+ trying to siege a town of at least 200+, so while it would be tactically advantageous it's still going to hurt the attackers and kill half their manpower worst case scenario which could be enough of a reason for other lords to decline. Adding on top of this some more, if the leading lord has had a history of bad campaigns or engagements with the other lords then they might decline on this basis as well.
To summarise, I hope TW is reading this thread
Edit: What others have also suggested is a bailout for factions that are being purged.
In my opinion I think this is a terrible idea. If a faction is losing that badly it should be because of a multitude of factors not going their way, not because they are being snowballed. Instead of treating the issue, we should be focusing on treating the cause. This is exactly why I don't play Paradox games.
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This. If any one faction becomes too powerful it should start to splinter, at least once the leader is weakend, although this is well justified in lore for most of the factions already, since the empire is already in a civil war and the other factions have at least one signifigant internal rivalry or opposition. For the Empire if one of the factions starts to become too powerful the other two should probably gang up on it. This way the empire is perpetually weak without player intervention, and non-imperial factions can't become too strong without suffering signifigant infighting.
thebear007
Recruit
So i played a game on very easy and had a kinda good troop and own kingdom with 1 city when southern empire already owned the complete eastern part of the map. since i saw they would kill all the remaining factions i invaded them took 2 citys and 2 strongholds and after that only roamed around killing off 500-men armys of them for 3 hours. since i needed a break to fill up my troops i made peace with them and went on a 1 week recruiting trip. when i came back i was already surrounded by them cause they also ate battania that was already snacked up with the western empire and some stuff of the desertlands. i didnt really understand how this happend because at some point battania and SE had both 8k strength but battania declined with time although they didnt had much war or something going on because i held SE off of them. it should be patched that lords start with a 25 men army to fight off bandits after they got out from capture, they should get constantly a bit gold per day to recuit new troops and they should take these troops from any faction on the map. i saw in my own games that my clanparties only gathered men from my own towns while they left villages that didnt belong to us for no reason without recuiting something there although they were on only 30 partymembers.
Also the AI should make armies to fight off enemie armies and there should be some sort of exhausting after a army took over a town or castle. you could maybe think about countries making peace with their enemies after 2-3 settlements took over too.
Also the AI should make armies to fight off enemie armies and there should be some sort of exhausting after a army took over a town or castle. you could maybe think about countries making peace with their enemies after 2-3 settlements took over too.
thebear007
Recruit
I´d say wait 200 more days and northern empire took over at least 2/3 of the mapDay 350. nothing change
