'Protect the caravan' mission SUPER annoying

[BarnardStar]

So I took a mission to protect a caravan as it travelled around a couple of cities. I had 20ish tier 3+ troops, so with the 30 or so caravan guards, it seemed like a bit of easy money.... nope.

First problem, the caravan got just out of visual range as I was crossing a forest and slowed down a little... Boom. Army of bandits!. I'd heard this happens, so I save scummed (I know, but it was my first time trying the mission) and made sure I kept closer to the caravan.
Second problem. The caravan is faster than me... a lot faster. So After the first city, heading to the second, it starts pulling away from me. I save scummed again and talked to the caravan master, hoping for a 'slow the hell down' command, but nope. So the caravan gets further and further ahead. This time though, no message about bandits. Third problem. The caravan's destination is need-to-know, and apparently I don't... So even though the caravan is out there somewhere, I have no idea where and no way to find out.

Long story short. I gave up. Sometime later I got a message that the caravan had been destroyed by bandits. Now my contact is mad at me.

TL;DR:

1. Caravans are too fast and can't be told to slow down or follow.
2. The quest doesn't tell you the destination, so if you lose the caravan it's almost impossible to find it again.
3. Auto bandits seem unsporting in a game that's meant to be emergent.

 

[Abelardo]

1. make your party faster by having a bunch of spare horses for the foot troops
2. mouse over the caravan and it will tell you where it's going
3. I have no idea what you're trying to say here

These missions pay a lot, because you'll get paid for every day it takes for the caravan to make the 2 settlement stops, sometimes said caravan will travel to a town on the other side of the map, then it will pay REALLY well, one of those missions I got almost 10k.

That said, yeah, it doesn't involve anything more than just following the caravan around and protecting it from bandits(which is not hard since it doesn't take long for all bandit parties to start running away from you), some might say that's boring, but then you don't HAVE to do them.

I'd actually like for the game to have a chance for a forced encounter with a stronger bandit force that plans to strike said caravan.

 

[Adrivan]

I had the opposite problem, I found the caravan too slow in that mission. I had to move ahead and then wait for them constantly to catch up.
Caravans are normally fast, but i think the caravan from this mission is intentionally made to be slower.

 

[PepeTheFrog]

You are just a noob. That mission is really easy and it's free money. I gues your party totally sucks, when you can't even catch a caravan.

 

[Demoulius]

1: Honestly I havent had problems with that mission. The speed issue can resolved (somewhat) by having more horses in your iventory. They help with carry weight and by letting people who dont have them already to ride on them outside of combat.

I think having a lower iventory weight also increases your speed but im not to sure on that one.

2: This is true, but like Abelardo said if you mouse over a unit on the sandbox it tells you where they are heading.

3: Im not to sure what you mean here but im guessing its the bandits that ambush the caravan? Once you reach the first town they get auto ambushed. You dont get ambushed half way (or at the very least I have NEVER experienced that and ive done it like 5 times) This ambush can be tricky the first time if you get caught off guard but once you know this will happen its also very easy to protect them from it. Then once you beat those you move to the 2nd town and once it reaches that the quest is complete.

 

[VincentNZ]

1. If they are too fast, you need horses for your men, or get rid of some stuff slowing you down that much.
2. Yeah, I see the frustration, but escorting a caravan means, well, escorting it.
3. Yeah these bandits can spawn right in the caravan and you might not even really notice or come too late so save them.
.
So this needs updates, also it really does not pay well, since, the daily wage is not enough. Yeah it gives you 10k when moving across the map. However it also takes 10 days or so, where you can not really do a whole lot else, so you are better off doing whatever yourself like trading and questing or whatever.

 

[ltcem]

I think the real annoying part of the mission is that you have to escort them to 2 towns. They can lead you go across the entire Calradia. It just make the money not worth the time. And the follow party command is gone, so I have to manually move my band in circles around the caravan. To top the pain, sometimes if they are attacked, they may change destination after the fight. There is once they are going to Revyl, which is the second town. I got distracted a bit to the village, and they got ambush by sea raiders just at the door gate of Revyl. After I rush to and save the caravan with their last one standing, they suddenly decide they should go to Argoron (or may be it is Amprela, I don't remember). Oh come on, it is one-third across the world! And I am stuck to the party for another week, moving at 1.0 due to lots of wounded people.