Nerfing bows by giving everyone shields was one of the worst changes ever made to this game / share your best battle strategies with me

[HalfMetalJacket]

Really, I've said it before, but ultimately TW would do a lot of good for itself by burying the difficulty settings under two or three menus and having them default to the easiest. Many of the issues people have with the game being grindy or less have been TW closing off certain mechanics that made Warband fairly trivial towards the late game:

• Stacking Trainer skill
• Untouchable high-tier armor
• 2000-man T1 garrisons
• Power differential between low-tier and high-tier troops
• Unlimited enterprises
• Being able to direct your friends' parties

So maybe just bring them back in the form of easier difficulty settings for the people who want them.

You mention those features as though they're bad things.

 

[Apocal]

You mention those features as though they're bad things.

No, I didn't...? I thought it was clear I was in support of them when I said "default to the easiest" and "bring them back."

edit: Actually, maybe the line about trivializing the late-game threw you off, but for the record, I've always thought Warband's late-game and end-game were the weakest part of the experience.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

No, I didn't...? I thought it was clear I was in support of them when I said "default to the easiest" and "bring them back."

Reading the post again and again... I can see that I've misinterpreted your words. The idea that these features made the game easier (which they do) kind of implied that they're all crutch features. My bad.

 

[nyarlathotep1975]

At what point is it considered "grinding" though, and are we sure it's actually necessary? Is it considered grinding if you autoresolve a handful of looter/bandit fights every so often?

In my experience, it doesn't really take all that long to bounce back from a total party wipe. What I do is grab all the mercenaries I can from towns (including armed traders), and pull as many troops as I can from a pass of my faction's settlements, autoresolving any bandits I catch along the way. Then, once I reach the enemy's borders, I run around to a couple villages and force them to give me recruits, which triggers a battle with the militia, but doesn't result in relations losses unless you proceed to actually raid them. Militias are good troops to cut your party's teeth on, and after a few of those I can usually return to fighting lords. As others have said, if you own a fief you can also puill some garrison troops out to supplement your forces. All of that takes around 15-25 minutes, and it usually doesn't even feel like grinding to me.

That said, does the gameplay loop eventually get tedious? Sure, but to me the game is still fun in moderation.

I understand grind as something you have to do repeatedly to achive a certain goal. BUT grind is not necesserily bad. Every fight in BL is basicly gind and they are fun. So who cares when you do something funny more then once? The problem starts when you have to grind to avoid being punished. Like running after a caravan or bringing cows to certain towns. Being punished to avoid being punished even more you have in your RL more then enough. No need to play a game for that. And for my liking BL has a little bit too much of that "no fun grind". I think the biggest issue for most people is the "carrot on stick". If they could find a way to reward people for replenishing their troops for example. Like minor relation increase or leveling leadership to a more signicant amount then now for example. ( these examples are not thought through, so dont take it too serious)

 

[Tawny]

I agree with OP that there is a high level of grind in the game with lords coming back in no time after a defeat. As others have suggested, the situation would improve if losing an army would truly set a faction back for a while. At the very least it would be nice if lords that lose their parties would not raid or join an army before they have a certain party strength (Warband mechanic). That way armies would present more of a challenge to beat due to higher quality, but not bounce back immediately, meaning that losing an army would have real consequences for a faction.

Either way, recruitment could be made much more convenient for the player. A great start would be to make it easier to raise notable relations (I'll grab that mod that was mentioned in an earlier post for now). Stopping a raid should give relations, they just haven't got around to it I imagine. Auto recruiting from villages bound to our fiefs controlled via the clan management screen would be great too.

 

[Dabos37]

Even if captured lords would be prisoners for a bigger time, the clan party replacement system means that we will be fighting some armies before the enemy gets considerably weaker. This is ok IMO but I just hope that lords have a harder time to scape while snowballing gets totally fixed, so capturing tons of lords after big battles could mean something once we defeat 3 or 4 armies.

I do agree with adding menu settings for making the game easier/harder. The game is currently pretty easy, but somehow some people complain because they want to make it even easier. I hope that once TW finish the game, these difficulty settings get implemented to everyone’s tastes.

I just hope that devs do not make the game easier for everyone because it could be really bad for players who enjoy playing challenging games and I think it will be really bad for replayability if the game is too easy.

 

[Kipsta]

I have a feeling some people want to play a Bannerlord world conquest in one evening.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

No penalties to any traits either, so there really are no downsides. Maybe they'll change it in the future though, who knows.

Also, if you want to maximize the recruits you get out of it, target villages that have as many troops available as possible. You can get 1-3 troops from each notable, and your chances of getting 2 or 3 from a notable go up the more slots they have filled.

You can also save after force recruit, and re-load and do it again and again, if there's that many troops. You can clean them out this way getting the high slotted units too!
Haven't done this is some time some there's a small chance they patched it..... however I doubt it.

 

[TheWitchIzalith]

If by heat you mean grinding for troops with notables then ill admit im kinda over it. I enjoy the fights well enough but you can't tell me that spending more and more time grinding out troops through notables is fun, engaging, or anything other than boring. Doubly so now that 90% of the t5 troops alone aren't even viable. Imo infantry as a whole is a non viable class, this is based on replacing them with cav units and seeing far better results from it. Then we move on to throwing cav and two handers. Neither of these types of units have any business being used anymore. Throwing cav were already on the edge of non viable but now that everyone has shields their javelins are far less effective. Two handers were always an accessory and now that it takes a lot more to come out of a fight losing minimal men there isn't a good reason to bring them anymore. Then we get to the actual viable classes. In all of these except cav their is pretty much one good option and the rest are extremely sub par. Most cav units are good, the only exception is the battanian horseman is miles lower than all the others. As for archers and horse archers, it is pretty much khan guard and fian champion or you are sandbagging your men. Now you could bring them in anyway, but the problem with that is the battle size of 1000 men. This means that any non optimal unit on the battlefield is taking a slot away from an optimal unit which is going to get more guys killed because they were unable to kill the enemy quick enough because you have 50 two handers where fians or khan guards should be. Alternatively you could just take everything as I stated in the original post, but I feel as though this will make the combat much less entertaining because it would turn your fights in human wave battles, but maybe this is the optimal way to play the game.

It doesn't sound like you enjoy fights at all, rather you just tell archers to sit on a hill and AFK for the duration of the fight then come back and pat yourself on the back for the Victory that the Elite AI Archers got on an AI lords recruit army.

You are complaining about not being able to mow down T1/T2 Units with elites.

It takes almost no effort, and even less brain cells to have 2 Archer groups and just put them on the flanks once the main lines charge. Thus shooting into the sides, rendering shields wholly useless. It's literally 2-3 commands to achieve the same result that you are too lazy to do yourself. Not to mention the fact you just want to bully the AI recruit armies, rather than fight a proper one by the sounds of it.

You even call Infantry a "Non-viable" class, but want to further nerf them, so that the already broken Archer Meta gets worse? Where is the logic in that.

Most medieval combat, and even modern combat was "Human Wave Battles". World war 1 was literally just wave after wave of soldiers, trying to overwhelm and take positions. There are plenty of ancient, and modern history battles where both armies were decimated, and yet more man power was scrounged up. Most of Germany's battles with Russia end this way, either as a sweeping victory for one side, or both sides taking huge losses.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Most medieval combat, and even modern combat was "Human Wave Battles". World war 1 was literally just wave after wave of soldiers, trying to overwhelm and take positions. There are plenty of ancient, and modern history battles where both armies were decimated, and yet more man power was scrounged up. Most of Germany's battles with Russia end this way, either as a sweeping victory for one side, or both sides taking huge losses.

Not at all, medieval and ancient battles typically had fairly low casualties. Prior to the invention of gunpowder it was extremely rare for an army to lose more than 30% of its numbers, even in a defeat. Battles like Cannae and Carrhae get a lot of attention because they're the exception. Unless one side had way more cavalry, or was way larger, it was very difficult for one army to annihilate the other. Nothing like the "wave after wave of men sent to overwhelm positions" really exists before the invention of the musket.

It's funny how you mention the battles between Russia and Germany (I assume in WW2) because that was the most devastating conflict in human history by a huge margin. It doesn't compare to medieval warfare at all.

 

[Apocal]

I have a feeling some people want to play a Bannerlord world conquest in one evening.

This was the state of Warband in native and most mods. You could absolutely chain-stomp the enemy into the ground and the only thing holding you back was the need to occasionally (not every time) top up troop number after a siege. That you can't do it nearly as easily in Bannerlord probably contributes to the sense of grind some people complain about, because Warband was far more forgiving (and a lot of people legit didn't notice they were playing on the easiest difficulty settings on top of that) whereas Bannerlord pushes you towards doing certain things you "should" be doing just because if you don't do those things, the AI can hit you in the face with a shillelagh.

 

[AJAJP_Juan]

Not at all, medieval and ancient battles typically had fairly low casualties. Prior to the invention of gunpowder it was extremely rare for an army to lose more than 30% of its numbers, even in a defeat. Battles like Cannae and Carrhae get a lot of attention because they're the exception. Unless one side had way more cavalry, or was way larger, it was very difficult for one army to annihilate the other. Nothing like the "wave after wave of men sent to overwhelm positions" really exists before the invention of the musket.

It's funny how you mention the battles between Russia and Germany (I assume in WW2) because that was the most devastating conflict in human history by a huge margin. It doesn't compare to medieval warfare at all.

I will say it is more that two armies fighting each other implied to much risk to both parties involved, leading to constant succession of smaller skirmishes and raids that were a lot safer. Archeology shows that battles and sieges left a lot casualties, it just that in a whole war armies maybe only collided once, if at all.

 

[a_ver_est]

I agree with OP that there is a high level of grind in the game with lords coming back in no time after a defeat. As others have suggested, the situation would improve if losing an army would truly set a faction back for a while.

As far as I understood defeated lord take troops from garrisons to refill their parties... it seems a right mechanic to me. The problem for me is being able to have this garrison reserves without going bankrupted.

 

[Apocal]

As far as I understood defeated lord take troops from garrisons to refill their parties... it seems a right mechanic to me. The problem for me is being able to have this garrison reserves without going bankrupted.

Eh... they used to go bankrupt all the time. It wasn't really fun.

 

[Tawny]

As far as I understood defeated lord take troops from garrisons to refill their parties... it seems a right mechanic to me. The problem for me is being able to have this garrison reserves without going bankrupted.

They probably do take from garrisons when defeated, but my point was that they come back very soon with lots of recruits, joining armies and raiding lands. I was suggesting that they could make the decision not to go on the offensive before they reach a certain party strength. By party strength I was really thinking of quality as well as quantity.

I think this was a Warband mechanic, maybe it was only in Viking Conquest though.

 

[Apocal]

They probably do take from garrisons when defeated, but my point was that they come back very soon with lots of recruits, joining armies and raiding lands. I was suggesting that they could make the decision not to go on the offensive before they reach a certain party strength. By party strength I was really thinking of quality as well as quantity.

There is. Parties can't join armies until they have at least 40% strength and I'm pretty sure they don't consider offensive acts (not including beating up bandits or piling onto sieges) until they are around that strong.