NERF OP KHUZAIT - after 3 months still same story

[Anushtegin]

Would be interesting to see how this impacts Khuzait. If they didnt have a horse to upgrade with would they wait to upgrade troops once they get horses or just send them down a line that doesn't need horses?

i would be more than happy if they increase the 'production' of horses in villages. war horses are already pretty rare, and i've never seen an asaligat outside of torunament prizes. you'd think i'd get one in asalig... seriously though, if the AI starts to compete with teh player for horses, the khuzaites need a lot more villages that breed horses and those villages need to be more productive in terms of high end horses too. it's already a pain in the ass finding enough war horses in a long war.

 

[Apocal]

and i've never seen an asaligat outside of torunament prizes. you'd think i'd get one in asalig...

Tournament horses (Asaligat, Tyal Horse, Destrier, etc.) are only ever found in tournaments. Or rather, let me just say I have only ever seen them as tournament prizes but I'm fairly certain that is intentional. They are the only reason to care about doing tournaments in the late game.

seriously though, if the AI starts to compete with teh player for horses, the khuzaites need a lot more villages that breed horses and those villages need to be more productive in terms of high end horses too. it's already a pain in the ass finding enough war horses in a long war.

They have about six villages that produce horses already and even low-tier, non-war horse HAs are still pretty good.

 

[Anushtegin]

Tournament horses (Asaligat, Tyal Horse, Destrier, etc.) are only ever found in tournaments. Or rather, let me just say I have only ever seen them as tournament prizes but I'm fairly certain that is intentional. They are the only reason to care about doing tournaments in the late game.



They have about six villages that produce horses already and even low-tier, non-war horse HAs are still pretty good.

i don't think it is intentional. the stuff you can win in tournaments is of varying tier levels but always within a certain prize range. so you can win the best boots and horses but only mid-tier armor and weapons. more importantly, it's always stuff you can always find in shops as well. in fact, the top tier swords were explicitly removed from the tournament prize pool in a previous patch, but they definitely made more sense as tournament prizes.

i'm pretty sure the lack of top tier horses in shops is related to the issue with other top tier gear not appearign in shops even if havign a top clan tier and prosperity beign high.

also, i know they already have many horse breedign villages, but even now i don't have the time during an active camapign lookign through all of them and the towns only to find no war horses in most of them.

 

[Alenovic]

Are you playing at 1.5.0? At 1.5.1 usually no factions are eliminated at first 500 days (6 game years) Still Khuzaits are owerpowered because of two reasons (their speed bonus + 20% cav strength bonus) but things are better and factions can stand longer aganist them. There will be more developments about these problems in next months.

I played 1.5.0. I opted out of the beta 3 months ago. Started just recently again, but before long my game lust was ruined, because I had to hastely join Sturgia as a vassal, otherwise they would be eliminated. This ruined the game pretty much. Didn't know efforts are made towards this problem, but sounds great and looks like you got the most important job currently of all your colleagues.

Maybe its an idea to change the criteria for wars and the focus of factions on what wars to start. Like for ex. add dynamics that when a faction loses a core village, they start focussing on how to regain that village. They should also plan accordingly, evade wars with other factions, or quickly make peace with other factions aside from their "prime focus". Expansion of a faction lands should only happen if that nation is ready for war.. Meaning high amounts of gold or (experienced) soldiers. Otherwise they should stay in a defensive focus -> increasing garrisons prime focus. then economy and standing army. after all these are checked then wars for reconquest or expansion should happen. Not just by means of RNG.

Yes cavalry having 20% bonus at also siege simulations has no logical background and also make game more unbalanced. However we have only one strength variable and it is calculated out of map events and cached. Also AI uses this variable (strength) while making decisions. Removing this 20% bonus only at sieges is not as easy as it seems. However I will think about solving this issue when I return. Maybe we can make AI to spend horses while upgrading to cavalry and remove their free cavalry upgrade cheat. This will reduce cavalry ratio at all npc lord parties and especially Khuzait will be effected badly. While making these changes We need to save (check) cavalry ratio above at least 15-20% to save fun factor of combats also. Maybe in this scenario Khuzait lords will spend more money for horses and they will have a new money sink.

Adding costs for horses would already balance quite a bit (For a nomad an horse was his biggest and most important investment, even more important than a wife and children) Otherwise look into possibilities of giving bigger debuffs to khuzaits when sieging (+20% then -20% = -4% of base value) . This will compensate for the strength buff. Or give non-nomads buffs when defending in fiefs (or non open fields, like hills/forest) against nomads.

Also historically nomads would be very instable due to strong lords always looking for independence in order to create their own horde. So perhaps rebellions should/could balance an OP khuzait nations. Death of the overlord should always result in rebellions by the 2-3 strongest lords. This would make khuzaits extremely dangerous when unified and as long as their leader lives. Death of Khuzait lord means 5-10 years of peace for the surrounding nations. Would add greatly to the dynamics of the game/rpg.

 

[Anushtegin]

what bugs me most: sturgia has a lot of forest. khuzaites should do best against every other neighbor but they give sturgia especially trouble. i mean i get the 20% bonus for cavalry, but when the battle is in a forest? the terrain where the battle takes place schould give a separate bonus to equalize the cavalry advantage.

 

[Apocal]

i'm pretty sure the lack of top tier horses in shops is related to the issue with other top tier gear not appearign in shops even if havign a top clan tier and prosperity beign high.

It isn't that, the tourny horses aren't actually that expensive or anything. They just aren't included in any of the horse village's AddProductions list. The only place they do appear is under GetTournamentPrize, which is why I'm pretty sure it is intentional.

 

[Old-Bull]

Yes cavalry having 20% bonus at also siege simulations has no logical background and also make game more unbalanced. However we have only one strength variable and it is calculated out of map events and cached. Also AI uses this variable (strength) while making decisions. Removing this 20% bonus only at sieges is not as easy as it seems. However I will think about solving this issue when I return. Maybe we can make AI to spend horses while upgrading to cavalry and remove their free cavalry upgrade cheat. This will reduce cavalry ratio at all npc lord parties and especially Khuzait will be effected badly. While making these changes We need to save (check) cavalry ratio above at least 15-20% to save fun factor of combats also. Maybe in this scenario Khuzait lords will spend more money for horses and they will have a new money sink.

Thanks for the feedback and connectivity to the community. I do appreciate it.

Forcing ai to buy horses would make a huge difference to the economic prowess of Khuzait. Everytime you want to upgrade a Marauder to a Raider that requires a War Horse. That's an enormous amount of money. That would definitely nerf their snowball because their territory couldn't spawn war horses(or regular horses)for all the Khuzait armies trying to level up. It would have an effect on their combat performance as well, because you would be facing lower tier troops the majority of time. An army of Horse archers and Marauders is way weaker than an army of Heavy Horse Archers and Khans Guards.

I didn't realize that wasn't in yet, but that will definitely slow the snow ball of countries like Vlandia and Khuzait.

I think little changes like this are the long term solution for the Khuzait dominance.

Levelling up the Khuzait army is financially crippling. That will make a huge difference.

I still think the Khuzait bonuses need to go away in seiges though, or like Alenovic suggested: a debuff. It might not be an easy solution, but its the right one. All cavalry armies should suffer when seiging, since they have to dismount. Historically that's how you survive a cavalry onslaught. You go to the mattresses inside your walls.

Good job so far though. Your changes make sense and they work. Keep it up.

 

[Tulor]

Maybe we can make AI to spend horses while upgrading to cavalry and remove their free cavalry upgrade cheat. This will reduce cavalry ratio at all npc lord parties and especially Khuzait will be effected badly. While making these changes We need to save (check) cavalry ratio above at least 15-20% to save fun factor of combats also. Maybe in this scenario Khuzait lords will spend more money for horses and they will have a new money sink.

I think that this is the very best possible change. Currently in 1.5.1 you don't have the Khuzait eating up the whole map even though they do slowly eat into the Sturgians and Northern Empire. I think that the biggest reason for Khuzait OP is the speed at which they can travel on the campaign map. Since they have so many horse archers they move much faster then armies of similar strength and are more likely to run down weaker enemies or escape stronger enemies then the other factions. This is what leads to their power in my opinion. If the game was rebalanced so that generally the lord that spent the most money had the fastest armies then I don't think that this would be a continuing problem.

 

[Mizza]

Are you playing at 1.5.0? At 1.5.1 usually no factions are eliminated at first 500 days (6 game years) Still Khuzaits are owerpowered because of two reasons (their speed bonus + 20% cav strength bonus) but things are better and factions can stand longer aganist them. There will be more developments about these problems in next months.

Too Better, in my game there is No war at all. two in game years. no one at all. 1.5.1

 

[mexxico]

Too Better, in my game there is No war at all. two in game years. no one at all. 1.5.1

Its weird. Can you send your save game to [email protected], I can examine it after returning.

 

[xdj1nn]

playing 1.5.4 and I still feel that this is a perfectly correct statement, sadly.

I think the execution button is a must, and that you must rush into a faction and just focus on wiping them out as early as possible. Otherwise you'll end up playing "mount&bow" instead.

 

[Baerstein]

It helps to join a Empire or Aseri, so you can focus on Khuzaits early one. I´ll made the mistake to join Battania and focus on the south, so khuzaits are really strong now, have a lot of troops/parties and there are faster then me, in wood. -_-

 

[LDominating]

Its weird. Can you send your save game to [email protected], I can examine it after returning.

It's done when he uses cheat mode to make all kingdoms go to peace in the first days.
They all will get around 11% opting for war.

I've done it in 1.4.2/1.4.3 but things changed,might be another reason.

 

[LDominating]

Its weird. Can you send your save game to [email protected], I can examine it after returning.

Also instead of waiting 2-3 months until you fix the problem.
Just remove the cavalry auto bonus from the troops until you fix it.

It's getting bothersome having to delete long save files because they dominate.

 

[Pentagathoos]

Also historically nomads would be very instable due to strong lords always looking for independence in order to create their own horde. So perhaps rebellions should/could balance an OP khuzait nations. Death of the overlord should always result in rebellions by the 2-3 strongest lords. This would make khuzaits extremely dangerous when unified and as long as their leader lives. Death of Khuzait lord means 5-10 years of peace for the surrounding nations. Would add greatly to the dynamics of the game/rpg.

I would love this. I was already thinking that splitting the Khuzait up from the start would fix their snowballing, possibly making their minor faction an actual faction that they are always at war with.

 

[KingEroc1st]

have you even considered maybe the Northern Empire and Sturgia are just weaklings that aren't fit for survival in the lands of Calradia?
who cares if they get destroyed?

like in my 1.5.3 playthrough, i worked as a merc for the first 4 years, in which time, not a single town/castle was lost by a single faction (i basically played as "referee" and made sure any siege is defended or countered later, if the Khuzaits took a town from Northern Empire, i joined NE and took it back. for every settlement and every siege)
so when i finally started my own kingdom, every other kingdom's power was relatively balanced.

then i noticed the Khuzaits dominating the NE again. and i just took those towns and kept them myself. i went to war with the Khuzaits for months, with my mercenary clans in my army. i killed 5000 of their army maybe more. captured 30 of their lords, they escaped and i captured them again. i'm talking constant spanking. decimation of their forces. using merc parties to raid 20+ of their villages. all the while the northern empire is just resting, gathering forces and recovering. After all that, i was like, maybe now the Khuzaits are weak, the NE might come and take a few of their towns. i proposed for peace and took the 2000/day tribute.

literally 1 week later i see a 1500 men northern empire army, i was like wow nice maybe they'll siege Makeb or something. later, i see notification saying that army was wiped out and all the lords got captured by the Khuzaits, i literally destroyed all the first round of army the Khuzaits had, and the second round. by then they should have only tier 1-2 recruits yet they still managed to destroy the 1500 man army led by Lucon.

when i see the Khuzaits in a losing battle, they just sacrifice a few men and escape. their map movement speed is too high

 

[LDominating]

have you even considered maybe the Northern Empire and Sturgia are just weaklings that aren't fit for survival in the lands of Calradia?
who cares if they get destroyed?

like in my 1.5.3 playthrough, i worked as a merc for the first 4 years, in which time, not a single town/castle was lost by a single faction (i basically played as "referee" and made sure any siege is defended or countered later, if the Khuzaits took a town from Northern Empire, i joined NE and took it back. for every settlement and every siege)
so when i finally started my own kingdom, every other kingdom's power was relatively balanced.

then i noticed the Khuzaits dominating the NE again. and i just took those towns and kept them myself. i went to war with the Khuzaits for months, with my mercenary clans in my army. i killed 5000 of their army maybe more. captured 30 of their lords, they escaped and i captured them again. i'm talking constant spanking. decimation of their forces. using merc parties to raid 20+ of their villages. all the while the northern empire is just resting, gathering forces and recovering. After all that, i was like, maybe now the Khuzaits are weak, the NE might come and take a few of their towns. i proposed for peace and took the 2000/day tribute.

literally 1 week later i see a 1500 men northern empire army, i was like wow nice maybe they'll siege Makeb or something. later, i see notification saying that army was wiped out and all the lords got captured by the Khuzaits, i literally destroyed all the first round of army the Khuzaits had, and the second round. by then they should have only tier 1-2 recruits yet they still managed to destroy the 1500 man army led by Lucon.

when i see the Khuzaits in a losing battle, they just sacrifice a few men and escape. their map movement speed is too high

Sturgia is literally the ancestor of the powerhouse of Warband,the Nords.
They literally should be winning over Vlandia as their army composition can't counter heavy infantry.
But again,20% mounted for some reason in auto battles.

 

[Blynjubitr]

Khuzaits are strong due to how new hitpoints and range damage wokrs in bannerlord. Right now range > everything and when you have horses combined with range you are just unstopable.

Ofc this probably won't effect auto battles but manually fighting them is plain impossible. Not with how combat AI uses their shields against arrows.

Best way i can see against them is imperial heavy cavalry and even then it is dangerous.

 

[Apocal]

literally 1 week later i see a 1500 men northern empire army, i was like wow nice maybe they'll siege Makeb or something. later, i see notification saying that army was wiped out and all the lords got captured by the Khuzaits, i literally destroyed all the first round of army the Khuzaits had, and the second round. by then they should have only tier 1-2 recruits yet they still managed to destroy the 1500 man army led by Lucon.

AI lords pull troops from their garrisons. You would have to drain most of those of higher tier troops to ensure their armies were mainly recruits.

Khuzaits are strong due to how new hitpoints and range damage wokrs in bannerlord. Right now range > everything and when you have horses combined with range you are just unstopable.

Ofc this probably won't effect auto battles but manually fighting them is plain impossible. Not with how combat AI uses their shields against arrows.

Best way i can see against them is imperial heavy cavalry and even then it is dangerous.

You can just counter-charge their circle; it scatters the horse archers and without a critical mass their inaccuracy means they don't do anywhere near as much damage.

 

[LDominating]

AI lords pull troops from their garrisons. You would have to drain most of those of higher tier troops to ensure their armies were mainly recruits.



You can just counter-charge their circle; it scatters the horse archers and without a critical mass their inaccuracy means they don't do anywhere near as much damage.

I don't think AI Lords pull troops from Castles or Towns Garrisons,they do spawn with a number of troops in their party.