Parties seem useless now that they have taken away the the troops they auto-spawned

[Midnitewolf]

OK, I know people were using this as an exploit but now that you have to give your party leaders troops to start them out, I am finding parties pretty useless. Let me explain.

The issue is that roughly every 10-15 minutes my party will do something stupid, get wiped out and captured. They also always get captured way on the other side of the map doing god knows what. Under the old system when this happened, I would just create a new party and the party would auto-create with like 25 troops and they could start building up again wherever they were. That being the case, even though they were always getting captured, I could generally count on being able to at least get some use out of them when I called them to my army.

However with the new system they spawn with zero troops so you have to give them their initial troops which in 10-15 minutes they will lose and be back to zero troops. If you try to just respawn the party in place, he runs around for about 1 minute, maybe recruits 5 troops and gets captured again, wash rinse and repeat. That being the case, you have to go find him, again half way across the map, and give him more troops which he will promptly lose 10-15 minutes later.

Honestly, because of this I have stopped using parties all together. I mean later game where I have 2 parties, I am finding I have to recruit for 3 armies instead of just one while running all over the map just trying to keep my parties up and alive. I have to spend so much time doing this, I don't have time to actually fight and have a reason to call them to my army in the first place. Also one time my party leader ended up in a enemy city so I couldn't even go get him.

 

[kalarhan]

Well experience varies I guess. On my campaign (20-30 hours) none of my companions got defeated. I gave them some troops if they had too many loses in a army fight (I called them over after all), but otherwise they did quite well by themselves. Including a steady profit for my budget.

 

[Midnitewolf]

Well experience varies I guess. On my campaign (20-30 hours) none of my companions got defeated. I gave them some troops if they had too many loses in a army fight (I called them over after all), but otherwise they did quite well by themselves. Including a steady profit for my budget.

Yeah I guess they do. I have started two fresh games both times the parties just keep getting defeated and captured over and over and over. I even started them off with 25 or so high tiered units so they would have a solid base to work with and it didn't change anything.

It wouldn't be so bad if you could summon your companion to you or they just automatically came back to your party after some time rather than having to go pick them up from whatever town they ends up in. I could probably keep them up and running better if that was a feature but having to travel across the map when your trying to prevent your town from being captured and your villages from being raided because your at war with three factions and your fief just happens to be the closest to all three, just doesn't work. Hell having to go pick them up each and every time just doesn't work period.

 

[DocShotgun]

Lol I just re-form their party without ever going to pick them up (unless I want to update their gear) and they spawn somewhere. They may get captured a few more times by looters, but I find that they eventually get lucky and manage to recruit enough guys to not instantly wipe again.

 

[Adrivan]

Parties are still useful because it's a way to increase your troop limit. Have an army assembled with your companions in it (after you give them some troops) and continue giving them troops after you reach the limit of your own party. This way you can field a lot more troops. Cohesion is free to increase.

 

[JustinTime49]

Eh, it's obviously incomplete right now. I would think you would be able to order companions around later like patrol this settlement or focus on recruiting.

Family members on the hand like your wife(and I think children) should automatically spawn in with the base troop count since they are treated like actual lords as opposed to formed companions.

 

[M_Rat13]

Maybe a compromise would be they auto-spawn only recruits. Sure, you could use that to max out your troop capacity, but, it would be nowhere near as OP, as auto-spawning high tier units.

 

[Rconner]

Not seeing this issue. Both my parties are much bigger than what they started with, but not full.

Perhaps this has something to do with the particular skill set of the leader of the party?

 

[paladinx333]

The best use for companion parties is to join them up in an army with you. I am currently running around the map with an army of more than 300. The only downside is that you need to load them with 40% of thier max troops before you can bring them into an army. You can still invite some lords to the party for big sieges.

 

[Midnitewolf]

Maybe a compromise would be they auto-spawn only recruits. Sure, you could use that to max out your troop capacity, but, it would be nowhere near as OP, as auto-spawning high tier units.

The better compromise would be to "lock" the troops they spawn with so that they can't be transferred to your own party and make it like donating troops to another lords castle and make it so you can give them troops but not take them away. I mean lets face it, these parties ARE supposed to spawn in with troops, that is how they were designed in the beginning. They don't know only because they needed to fix the exploit people were using to recruit armies quickly. Also lets face facts here, I am not even sure why it was removed. I mean it only takes me about 5 minutes to download a mod that will let me exploit the hell out of the game in any number of fashions so if someone wants to exploit party creation in their single player game, let them. I would have rather had that, then what we have now. Guess maybe I need to find a mod that spawns the troops back in hehe.

 

[M_Rat13]

The better compromise would be to "lock" the troops they spawn with so that they can't be transferred to your own party and make it like donating troops to another lords castle and make it so you can give them troops but not take them away. I mean lets face it, these parties ARE supposed to spawn in with troops, that is how they were designed in the beginning. They don't know only because they needed to fix the exploit people were using to recruit armies quickly. Also lets face facts here, I am not even sure why it was removed. I mean it only takes me about 5 minutes to download a mod that will let me exploit the hell out of the game in any number of fashions so if someone wants to exploit party creation in their single player game, let them. I would have rather had that, then what we have now. Guess maybe I need to find a mod that spawns the troops back in hehe.

They want to make a base game that has actual progression, not things that allow you to skip progression. Gaining access to high tier troops from your companion armies, nullified you having to train up high tier troops (progression). Having them only be recruits, would benefit your companion, by not going out alone, while also meaning you can't exploit said army, to skip troop progression.

 

[D0c1]

i agree with these. they're not useless but not as useful as they could be if they weren't dumb.

Not seeing this issue. Both my parties are much bigger than what they started with, but not full.

Perhaps this has something to do with the particular skill set of the leader of the party?

The best use for companion parties is to join them up in an army with you. I am currently running around the map with an army of more than 300. The only downside is that you need to load them with 40% of thier max troops before you can bring them into an army. You can still invite some lords to the party for big sieges.