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

[Lord Grindelvald]

I couldn't agree more, and I really think a lot of the people kneejerking this post should reconsider what they mean by "challenge", and what makes a game enjoyable. I completely refuse to believe that anyone enjoys or even tolerates grinding for soldiers. This is a video game, not work.

Bannerlord has the AI spamming armies at you like crazy. <-This is the thing that need to be nerfed first, not the ability of the player to counter it. In games where enemies can regenerate infinitely like bannerlord or warband, the worst possible thing you could ever do is to take away the tools the player has to gain an advantage. I don't care if it's unbalanced or unfair, I'm playing a singleplayer game and I should be allowed to cheese the enemy if I want. Giving everyone shields when they take forever to break and cavalry and archers are useless is incredibly boring. I don't know why anyone has the balls to defend this crap, because all it does is remove any semblance of tactics and reinforce the ugly infantry moshpit that is the current meta. The only skill it "challenges" is your irl patience. I've played idle games with more engaging and tactical gameplay than the battles in bannerlord.



How many wars have you heard of where both sides routinely get their armies annihilated but carry on recruiting new armies?

You're steering away from the issue. OP has a problem with losing a miniscule amount of troops when fighting an enemy. His proposed solution? Nerf the enemy.

You ARE allowed to cheese the enemy if you want. Its called easy mode. The AI is slow AF in regenerating troops. If I'm at war with a kingdom and I want to befriend a lot of enemy lords to later get them to join my kingdom, I'll beat them (which is easy and fun because im not a twat) and release them again in order to gain relation.
But how often do I see lords with 30-40 troop armies existing for 75% out of recruits.

Oh so battles arent easy anymore, boehoeh. Good, start valueing the life of your troops and pick battles you can win.

Just change your tactic and adjust that shtty attitude if you want to win (in anything).

 

[Dabos37]

Uhmmmmm what? I am going to give you the best tip for what you need. Just enable cheats, open the game console and use the cheats to fill your party with elite troops.

I personally find playing hard battles and losing some men in even battles where the strength bar is 50/50.

I really do not understand why people find funny to wreck the AI without losing a single. Seriously, this thread is absurd.

 

[Kazzan]

You're steering away from the issue. OP has a problem with losing a miniscule amount of troops when fighting an enemy. His proposed solution? Nerf the enemy.

He is reframing the issue. The game has a multitude of systems that impact the other systems, and considering one in isolation is flawed. The fix to one may come from one or several different system.

That said, I think OP's solution would continue to make the end game boring. If there is little fear of loss to battles, then it is just a matter of going through the motions every battle. Some warband mods definitely suffered the same gameplay issue once you got a high tier army.

 

[Lord Grindelvald]

He is reframing the issue. The game has a multitude of systems that impact the other systems, and considering one in isolation is flawed. The fix to one may come from one or several different system.

Oh jee, thanks Kazzan. But could you explain to me what the recruitment of AI-troops has to do with providing them with shields? In the context of the problem stated in the OP?

 

[Kazzan]

If the AI isn't able to instantly replenish and recruit a new force after a defeat, battles could be fewer and more meaningful. I assume Kentucky James wanted the individual battles to matter more. That means that even if you lose some troops during the fighting, the victory still gives you an advantage over the enemy faction, be that freedom to raid or to siege, or to stave off their raids or sieges for a more significant period of time. An advantage that isn't just time enough to visit a few villages for new recruits before the next army shows up.

It isn't just about the shields.

 

[Akka]

Bannerlord has the AI spamming armies at you like crazy. <-This is the thing that need to be nerfed first, not the ability of the player to counter it.

Then it seems to me the important point is to nerf this point, not to provide an exploit for the player to counter it ?

 

[ceprast]

How many wars have you heard of where both sides routinely get their armies annihilated but carry on recruiting new armies?

Quite a few actually.

Seriously Though how bout OP just downloads the machine gun crossbow mod and let everyone else actually enjoy what challenge there is. Battles already get old and stale as it is. I cant imagine how horrible it would be if Archers were un-nerfed which is basically what people are asking for here.

Mind you I do agree the nerf shouldn't have been just giving everyone shields, but it should have been making Arrows cutting damage and making armor matter, still would have had similar effect cant just rely on archers to cheese the game. I mean seriously if you want to kill entire armies without losing anyone just do the retreat exploit.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

If the AI isn't able to instantly replenish and recruit a new force after a defeat, battles could be fewer and more meaningful. I assume Kentucky James wanted the individual battles to matter more. That means that even if you lose some troops during the fighting, the victory still gives you an advantage over the enemy faction, be that freedom to raid or to siege, or to stave off their raids or sieges for a more significant period of time. An advantage that isn't just time enough to visit a few villages for new recruits before the next army shows up.

It isn't just about the shields.

Yes, this is what I meant. I don't necessarily like the fact that battles are super easy, but holy crap does it come across as smug and annoying when people just say "get gud" "download cheats then noob" "guess you don't like challenge then" to a game that has no challenge as it is. I would much, much rather have an easy game that I can be ridiculously overpowered in with exploits than an easy game with no exploits and the veneer of challenge (which is what bannerlord currently is). The only real fun I've had in bannerlord SP so far is downloading the multi-kill mod and running around with a glaive killing 5 people in a row. Calling people out for not being epic hardcore gamuurs in a fundamentally casual game is a weird kind of pathetic.

Then it seems to me the important point is to nerf this point, not to provide an exploit for the player to counter it ?

There is nothing inherently wrong with exploits. Some of my favorite games are full of them. It's just a side effect of having a game with lots of interconnected systems.

Exploits only become a problem when the following are all true:
1. The core mechanics rely so much on boring, linear grinding that exploits are the only way to save yourself time
2. Exploits are the most efficient way to play
3. The exploits require no skill.

 

[Lord Grindelvald]

If the AI isn't able to instantly replenish and recruit a new force after a defeat, battles could be fewer and more meaningful. I assume Kentucky James wanted the individual battles to matter more. That means that even if you lose some troops during the fighting, the victory still gives you an advantage over the enemy faction, be that freedom to raid or to siege, or to stave off their raids or sieges for a more significant period of time. An advantage that isn't just time enough to visit a few villages for new recruits before the next army shows up.

It isn't just about the shields.

You're right, you absolutely are. But from my viewpoint Kentucky James does not want the battles to matter more. He wants them to matter less, to be less meaningfull, to be a quick and cheap victory with no pain and losses on his side. He wants to do quick battles, ignore tactics all together, mow down the entire enemy army with a couple of Flan Archers and is now upset that that's not possible anymore.
He calls meaningfull battles a grind, because they're too difficult. And they are too difficult because the only strategy he knows how to implement is the one where he mows everyone down with arrows.

What you're suggesting in the post above me is to put quality above quantity. Put higher tier troops in the game, instead of more. But again, the OP does not want this. Because that'd require him to think.

 

[Akka]

There is nothing inherently wrong with exploits. Some of my favorite games are full of them. It's just a side effect of having a game with lots of interconnected systems.

Mmh, yes, there IS something wrong with exploit, and that's their very existence. Obviously a good game can still be had despite them, but by definition an exploit is bad. That's the entire reason why it's called "exploit".

 

[redmark]

The only skill it "challenges" is your irl patience. I've played idle games with more engaging and tactical gameplay than the battles in bannerlord.

The OP's complaint doesn't address any of that - he just wants it to be easier (and even less tactical and engaging).

 

[Lord Irontoe]

I'll go out on a limb and guess that OP used to play with 100% Swadian Knight armies in Warband

 

[HugoTheFrenchMan]

I'll go out on a limb and guess that OP used to play with 100% Swadian Knight armies in Warband

Basic swadian ***** or basic nord huscarl *****

 

[black_bulldog]

If the AI isn't able to instantly replenish and recruit a new force after a defeat, battles could be fewer and more meaningful. I assume Kentucky James wanted the individual battles to matter more. That means that even if you lose some troops during the fighting, the victory still gives you an advantage over the enemy faction, be that freedom to raid or to siege, or to stave off their raids or sieges for a more significant period of time. An advantage that isn't just time enough to visit a few villages for new recruits before the next army shows up.

It isn't just about the shields.

The problem is if you do that then wars would grind to a halt and we'd be watching time pass by till troops can be replaced and if there is a lopsided win it most likely will lead to steam rolling which is something no one really wants. I see a lot people ask for battles to matter more but this isn't a game like Battle Brothers where individual battles or soldiers matter it's about how a kingdom does over time.

 

[Jeffrey_Mckill]

Why the are you so hung up about losing men? You're gonna war, ofcourse you're gonna lose men.

Ask yourself what the point of your game is. Is it to conquer Calradia as fast as possible without any hassle? Or is it to enjoy the journey rather than the destination?

If you want to conquer Calradia as fast as possible, put everything on Easy mode, cheat yourself a couple million and kill every lord in sight.

The problem you have is how you look at it. Its a sandbox game. You can make of it what you want. But dont force your playstyle on others just because you are unable to enjoy yourself.

Ok but this is exactly what I'm talking about. When more and more of my journey through the game is now being dedicated to farming up troops from noteables, from a list of troops that is getting smaller and smaller, that makes the experience less and less fun. A lot of people are taking this to mean I want archers to be returned to what they were, I don't. I liked the archer meta better because it got rid of a lot of that grind but it was also silly. I've referenced the type of meta i would want in another reply if you want to see what my idea of a good meta would be.

 

[Jeffrey_Mckill]

You expect to have a fight between hundred of people and lose less than 10 men ?
Seriously ?

/facepalm

Right now i have it down to about 20 and unless I have the single best strat in the game 10 is likely achievable. This is half the reason I made this thread, to hear how other people have been dealing with it.

 

[Jeffrey_Mckill]

I hate to be the barer of bad news, but this game is all about grind. You grind for money, xp, troops, relation... You get the picture. Even the difficulty does not make the game more challenging. You dont have to come up with new stratgies to beat a fight, you just loose more units. And if you really want to loose less units, just trick the AI. Since they mostly do the same its not really difficult. As a little hint. You can order your archer around and most units dont have shields on their back. The AI cant handle attacks from multiple directions very well. Thats cheesy ofc and I do understand when you dont want that, but then you have to live with the grind for now.

It doesn't have to be a grind though, as we saw with the archer meta. I of course don't think that is what we should go back to as i have said in a previous reply what i think the meta should be.

As for your strat I think maybe there is something there. The idea it puts in my head would be to have a main stack of fians that they charge then wrap around another stack on one side when they move in and move your horse archers in on another. This would have the problem of respawns coming behind but I could see moving them back into a line after that and then using the cav to handle the move spread out respawns. Will test later

 

[Jeffrey_Mckill]

I don't know. Perhaps you're not supposed to be strong enough to slaughter an entire army of a thousand men without taking an 1% loss or more?
How many battles have you heard off where one army annihilated an equally big army without taking noticable losses?

I'm not sure I should take you seriously or not.

If you are expected to lose 50+ in a fight as it seems you are intended to then you should have recruitment methods to more suit that. Or as I would like it you only take those losses on the first few battles until their noteables run out of t4s. In which case a kingdom would have to pay tribute or have their perpetual respawn armies be destroyed.

 

[Narg]

I don't really see the problem. Use the rest of the game mechanics available to you. Use a garrison as a troop-stash for larger refills of your army (preferrably with a governor with some perk/perks for better xp growth on them) and simply have 70+ lvl4+ prisoners to recruit from while in the field. prisoners you can refill from fights easily and i rarely manage to outrecruit my prisoners. More like 50% of them are always available for recruitment.

Try to use more unit-types than mostly archers with a bunch of meatshields. Time when infantry meets with when your cavalry hits them to disrupt their line and your inf. will avoid more losses.

You want an OP army with 200+ Fian champs and never take losses, look up some mods.

 

[nyarlathotep1975]

It doesn't have to be a grind though, as we saw with the archer meta. I of course don't think that is what we should go back to as i have said in a previous reply what i think the meta should be.

As for your strat I think maybe there is something there. The idea it puts in my head would be to have a main stack of fians that they charge then wrap around another stack on one side when they move in and move your horse archers in on another. This would have the problem of respawns coming behind but I could see moving them back into a line after that and then using the cav to handle the move spread out respawns. Will test later

Thats also an approach. What I do is: I send archers in the back, when they are in position, just charge and infantry can kite them around. or cav if you need more speed. Khuzait always approach from your left side, keep that in mind and addept. but shieldwall + square does the trick. Its really cheesy but it works.
Personally I went for normal or easy mode. Realistic just doesnt feel challenging for me. And I dont need to add more grind then there already is. I wish the AI would come up with more strategies, but thats probably asking too much.