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

[Narg]

Can only speak for myself but when i take 50+ losses it usually depends on if:
-my medic fell early in the battle/low medicskill
-bad troop matchup
-enemies outnumber me
-lots of enemy cav and not enough countercav from me
-bad army setup or bad decisionmaking during battle (like heat of the moment decisions)

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

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".

An exploit is just a mechanic that was probably unintended by the developers. Sometimes exploits can actually make the game better to play, especially if they require skill to pull off.
In Gears of War a lot of the movement exploits are considered part of the gameplay and almost everyone uses them, like weapon sliding. In subsequent titles the developers actually added it in intentionally, even though it was a bug in the first game. In Rome Total War there are tonnes of campaign map and battlefield exploits that raise the skill ceiling significantly.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Lol I didn't even notice any difference in actual performance. I read people say "oh they nerfed X, now Y is good" and I'm happy for them that their gameplay feels better, but 50% archer 50% HA still crushes any opponent at any stage of the game if used well.

 

[Jeffrey_Mckill]

I found the way to win 700 v 700+.losing less than 10, Uninronically 250 medic skill on everyone. I have no idea how i would ever get that because on my old save before death was added my highest medic skill was a guy with 150ish.

 

[XDaron]

you can always use cheats to make your troops more resistant if you're looking for easier gameplay

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

I found the way to win 700 v 700+.losing less than 10, Uninronically 250 medic skill on everyone. I have no idea how i would ever get that because on my old save before death was added my highest medic skill was a guy with 150ish.

Why on everyone? Only matters for surgeon.

 

[Bannerman Man]

I completely refuse to believe that anyone enjoys or even tolerates grinding for soldiers.

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.

 

[Dabos37]

Lol I didn't even notice any difference in actual performance. I read people say "oh they nerfed X, now Y is good" and I'm happy for them that their gameplay feels better, but 50% archer 50% HA still crushes any opponent at any stage of the game if used well.

you do not notice much because while archery has been nerfed for the AI, cavalry units now perform much better. So HA units are currently pretty good and units like heavy Mameluke cavalry are pretty strong.

Plus, if you have a 100% ranged army and face weaker or similar armies, you can still defeat them while taking 0 losses if flank them with HA and do some work, but this is not as bad as before where 50 Palatine Archers were able to defeat armies of 150-200 men while taking 0 losses (without any player interference) which were ridiculous.

 

[Akka]

An exploit is just a mechanic that was probably unintended by the developers. Sometimes exploits can actually make the game better to play, especially if they require skill to pull off.
In Gears of War a lot of the movement exploits are considered part of the gameplay and almost everyone uses them, like weapon sliding. In subsequent titles the developers actually added it in intentionally, even though it was a bug in the first game. In Rome Total War there are tonnes of campaign map and battlefield exploits that raise the skill ceiling significantly.

Probably just semantics, but "exploit" is specifically about unfairness/underhandedness. An exploit is, by definition, about "abuse".
If it's a "good bug" making the game fun, then "exploit" isn't the word to use.

---

Regardless, the main problem here seem to me twofold :

- The fact that lords can bounce back too easily from defeat. Maybe they should take more time to get good troops instead of having them so easily offered.
- The fact that the player need to grind to get back his own troops, from recruit to high-level units.

It seems to me that the core problem is that they removed the training skill, which would fix both problems - forcing lords to spend some time training their new soldiers instead of grabbing high-level ones right away, and allowing the players to improve their own without having to jump through weird loops to gain battlefield experience.

 

[Apocal]

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 *****

Boy, I feel called out.

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.

This is the way it works now. It isn't Warband; the AI doesn't get full-party respawns anymore. They receive a few free troops to keep from getting molested by looters or bandits and from there either drain their garrisons of high-tier troops or go around recruiting. They will almost never attack your party with their free starter pack and if for some they do it is 19 troops at most, most of them lower than T4.

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.

In Bannerlord they actually do lose their troops and drain their garrisons for replacements, along with having to wander around recruiting for awhile. If you bully their armies like a few times in a row, the next will be noticeably slower to come after you because all the individual parties are competing for recruits and spending more time below the 40% eligibility threshold because of it. If you box a few lords into a town, they'll slowly build up, but most towns are only good for about 3-6 troops daily once the initial stock is gone.

 

[Jeffrey_Mckill]

Why on everyone? Only matters for surgeon.

I may be wrong but i think it is per party. Like the way you are able to run with that amount of my is by making parties for your companions and inviting them. If it doesnt work this way then this might actually be a viable strat.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

I may be wrong but i think it is per party. Like the way you are able to run with that amount of my is by making parties for your companions and inviting them. If it doesnt work this way then this might actually be a viable strat.

Yeah that makes sense. I though you ment everyone in your own party.

What I do to alleviate the troops loss/replacement grind is I just stock pile useful prisoners and always drag around 5 or so of each type and if I need to replace a troop lost I do it from prisoners, if not they eventually get put in a garrison. This way I only really raise up troops via looters about twice in the game. Once making my initial party, second after first fief to get a garrison/back up stockpile. I'll recruit and shove em in a fief but don't really make new troops via looter grind anymore unless I really want a particular kind I didn't have before.

 

[AJAJP_Juan]

In Rome Total War there are tonnes of campaign map and battlefield exploits that raise the skill ceiling significantly.

Hmmm yes autoresolve exploits raise the skill cap by a lot.

While I agree with your original point, I hardly disagree on the exploits. By your rules they would always be a problem, as they would be ALWAYS the most effective way to play (if they weren't, why would anyone bother with them?). As you said some are good because they let you skip some tedium or add new moves, but that steers more from a game that needs to be fixed rather than exploits are good.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

cavalry units now perform much better.

I hadn't noticed but I'm glad you experience has improved

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Hmmm yes autoresolve exploits raise the skill cap by a lot.

While I agree with your original point, I hardly disagree on the exploits. By your rules they would always be a problem, as they would be ALWAYS the most effective way to play (if they weren't, why would anyone bother with them?). As you said some are good because they let you skip some tedium or add new moves, but that steers more from a game that needs to be fixed rather than exploits are good.

Autoresolve exploits don't exist in Rome Total War (2004).
The kind of exploits that do exist usually involve getting into a settlement 1 turn earlier than usual, but they are difficult to pull off and much riskier than doing it the normal way. One of them is to try and lure the enemy out and follow a routing unit inside, then lock all the doors so the soldiers outside can't get back in. Or to try and attack an army sitting right outside a settlement, and attempt to wipe out both the army and the garrison. Or to send a tiny army to a settlement so that they sally out, and try to beat them piecemeal. Or, because the first 100 or so troops to die will "heal" if you win, you can bring elephants back to life so long as you let another unit die after them.

These are all strategies that RTW speedrunners use, but regular players tend not to because of how easy they are to mess up. It's hard to argue that they don't make the game better. If someone were to "fix" these exploits, it would require shutting off some of the intuitive interconnectivity between systems with arbitrary rules like "you're not allowed to go through a gate you haven't destroyed" or "units heal in a random order". Funnily enough the later Total War games work like this, and they're boring as hell.

I can kind of understand why some people don't like exploits in games, a lot of people want a kind of "pure" experience with no mods or cheats, and the debate about whether speedruns etc should allow exploits has been raging for years. But developers aren't perfect, and if bugs and exploits make their game more interesting to play I say leave them in. Nothing is worse than a game made completely predictable and flat in the name of "balance"

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

Autoresolve exploits don't exist in Rome Total War (2004).
The kind of exploits that do exist usually involve getting into a settlement 1 turn earlier than usual, but they are difficult to pull off and much riskier than doing it the normal way. One of them is to try and lure the enemy out and follow a routing unit inside, then lock all the doors so the soldiers outside can't get back in. Or to try and attack an army sitting right outside a settlement, and attempt to wipe out both the army and the garrison. Or to send a tiny army to a settlement so that they sally out, and try to beat them piecemeal. Or, because the first 100 or so troops to die will "heal" if you win, you can bring elephants back to life so long as you let another unit die after them.

These are all strategies that RTW speedrunners use, but regular players tend not to because of how easy they are to mess up. It's hard to argue that they don't make the game better. If someone were to "fix" these exploits, it would require shutting off some of the intuitive interconnectivity between systems with arbitrary rules like "you're not allowed to go through a gate you haven't destroyed" or "units heal in a random order". Funnily enough the later Total War games work like this, and they're boring as hell.

I can kind of understand why some people don't like exploits in games, a lot of people want a kind of "pure" experience with no mods or cheats, and the debate about whether speedruns etc should allow exploits has been raging for years. But developers aren't perfect, and if bugs and exploits make their game more interesting to play I say leave them in. Nothing is worse than a game made completely predictable and flat in the name of "balance"

I love finding exploits in games! I especially love when something in a game is just bull**** and I don't wanna do it, then I figure some exploit to skip it or cheese it! I guess a good example in bannerlord would be the siege formations and AI behavior, I hate it! I hate how durpy my troops are and how spme formations just won't turn around and spread out correctly. IF they would just do what I want the siege would be easy and fun but as it is it's often very frustrating.
But the exploits of retreating the party so the infantry sallys out bypasses the whole need for a normal fight as I can kill them all alone, it also gives me lots of skill ups!. Like wise, bringing 50 men or so can make them sally out in a fields battle and skip the clunky siege battle!
And TBH it's not easy, it's much more time and effort then just letting the AI do it thing and accepting some losses. Even though I reccomend this to people complaining about siege I know full well most of them are not capable of getting through the gate and shooting down 150 archers without dying.

Likewise, I think it's crap that the AI always makes armies, I would rather it be like warband where I can intercept them a pick them off 1 by 1 before they get to siege me. So the exploit of ranged attack and retreat is great because I disagree with the game design of having to fight 800+ enemies at once, always, instead of a chance to take them in smaller packs en rout

And of course the "no good armor in stores" "no lord gear as loot"... it's crap too but hey I can just marry and hunting accident 10 lords and have all their special gear, so I will!

 

[Blood Gryphon]

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.

This is the info I come here for. I assumed that you would take a hit to relations for forcing recruitment and killing their militia. Nice find.

But yeah I feel the same way about it. Leveling up troops is stupid easy compared to how slow it was at the start of EA. Maybe because I've seen it even worse than today my opinion is skewed but leveling troops back up hasn't felt like a grind since they made those changes.

 

[CrazyElf]

The problem i have found is now that you can't take on a 1000 vs 1000 and win only losing <10 men it has made the game incredible grindy. In the old days all you had to do was set up 200 fian champions on a ledge and they would literally mow down 500 men without losing a single man. This may sound overpowered, and it is, but this pretty much meant that once you got your army set up for the first time you pretty much didn't have to grind for troops again. When you go back all you would have to do is find an army and wait for them to wipe to an enemy army then beat them and take all the troops of the friendly army and you would come back with more troops then you left with. This is clearly overpowered by imo it made for a better experience than what we have now.

TO be honest, I think losing a few dozen troops is fine considering hundreds of men are fighting.

One option is to level up one's medicine or get a companion that can do that for you.

The game isn't really meant to be won overnight. It's meant to be played for weeks on end. War means casualties and should not be "easy", so to speak.

 

[Bannerman Man]

I assumed that you would take a hit to relations for forcing recruitment and killing their militia.

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.

 

[Apocal]

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.