Pyrrhic victory

Users who are viewing this thread

I have declared war. Gathered an army. I won all the battles, won the war and made a lot of influence and money. When I return home, I will see that all my villages have been plundered, there are hunger in cities and castles. Prosperity, garrisons, militia are decreasing. The income from the fiefs too. Did I win the war for sure? What do I do with money and influence? How can I help my villages recover quickly? Victory in wars should lead to economic growth and development. Now the opposite is true. What do you think?
 
Well, what did you expect to happen when you let them raid your territory? It's also as much of warfare as conquest. You allow your peasants to die and their farms get burnt, they can't bring food to your towns, your people starve, production stops, they become poorer and so are you.
Max out building levels etc on city management menu. They're quite useful.
 
Unfortunately, there really isn't anything you can do to help your villages. There isn't any projects you can construct like in Warband, and giving them food only does so much. Best you can do is try to give them food, guard villager groups, and wait. I do wish there was things we could do to encourage growth and prosperity more directly. In fact that's one of the top things I want for this game.

Does completing quests for villages impact their prosperity at all? I know in Warband keeping villager groups alive as they went to and from different villages and towns affected prosperity, but I don't know if that is still the case in bannerlord. Can anyone answer that?
 
Well, what did you expect to happen when you let them raid your territory? It's also as much of warfare as conquest. You allow your peasants to die and their farms get burnt, they can't bring food to your towns, your people starve, production stops, they become poorer and so are you.
Max out building levels etc on city management menu. They're quite useful.
Declare war to sit on the defensive? Several villages are plundered at the same time(10+). You will chase them endlessly and your villages will be robbed anyway. It's about something else, we need a mechanic that helps villages recover faster (money, influence)
 
I have declared war. Gathered an army. I won all the battles, won the war and made a lot of influence and money. When I return home, I will see that all my villages have been plundered, there are hunger in cities and castles. Prosperity, garrisons, militia are decreasing. The income from the fiefs too. Did I win the war for sure? What do I do with money and influence? How can I help my villages recover quickly? Victory in wars should lead to economic growth and development. Now the opposite is true. What do you think?
I cannot say that I have tested it, but it seems in my games if I let enemy lords go after a battle they raid less. It could be the increased relations so they think better of you and raid less. Maybe someone can confirm this?
 
Declare war to sit on the defensive? Several villages are plundered at the same time(10+). You will chase them endlessly and your villages will be robbed anyway. It's about something else, we need a mechanic that helps villages recover faster (money, influence)
This raiding-mania actually doesn't take very long even if it's annoying as hell. It's some sort of an idle time until enemy forms armies. If you beat a few parties, even if some of your villages get raided, the rest will probably get called to an army and leave so you'd have less raided villages compared to not defending at all.

Well, settlements aren't great money makers for player anyway compared to selling loot, trading or that one exploit no one abuses. AI suffers from this way more as they suck managing towns.

Friendly enemies also usually choose other villages to raid rather than yours as mentioned above but may be coincidental since I can't prove code-wise.
 
I have declared war. Gathered an army. I won all the battles, won the war and made a lot of influence and money. When I return home, I will see that all my villages have been plundered, there are hunger in cities and castles. Prosperity, garrisons, militia are decreasing. The income from the fiefs too. Did I win the war for sure? What do I do with money and influence? How can I help my villages recover quickly? Victory in wars should lead to economic growth and development. Now the opposite is true. What do you think?
For sure, I agree we should be able to do more for our fiefs, but too repair them and proactively to protect them.

It's pretty silly that with all your wealth and manpower you have to just sit and wait for everything to slowly recover and then NEW WAR SAME :poop:.
 
I agree with OP, there should be some kind of investment mechanic to help villages or towns, and that could also add to the kingdom's policies and roleplaying aspect of it. Being a king or a lord that actually cares for his citizens and tries to help the lower classes by investing into policies, like creating non profit organizations that give food and shelter and make that have an effect on prosperity and security, etc. Also there could be policies about how to distribute the weight of war. You described it, you got rich from all that loot, you and your men, and your people got poor because of the war and because you didnt do enough to protect them as their lord (roleplay point of view of peasants). Makes sense to bring up how this unfair situation should be settled, this could be some kind of political dilemma to face as a ruler or a kingdom policy forcing lords to invest a % of their profits on raided villages. Etc.

On the other hand you can also roleplay a lord that is a **** and doesnt give a ****, maybe bringing revolts or other negative events later on by denying help

This is actually an idea that could bring a few cool mechanics and events if a modder gets interested in this.
 
OP just experienced first hand the horrors of chevauchee warfare used to terrible effects in the hundred years war :lol:

But for real though, there should be a way to coordinate your forces better to defend your lands or atleast to rebuild quicker after a devastating war if you spend resources and money to help the villages, there was a quest for this in warband no? to help a nearby raided village to recover quicker.
 
Boost irrigation in the connected town to help boost villager numbers.

Also, make sure all their issues are settled to balance loyalty.

And yeah... protect your villages when you're at war. Pick your time to go on offensive - particularly when you have half their nobles captive.
 
If I choose irrigation, then the buildings will not be built for a long time, which slows down the growth of the economy. It turns out that victory or defeat in the war leads to the decline of the faction. The only difference is that the winner has more money and influence that he cannot use to help his faction. The solution is to add a mechanic to villages to rebuild and attract new peasants for money and influence. This can be done from the village menu or in the quest format (preferably from the menu). Quests are random, it will be difficult to catch the right one.
 
I definitely would like a way to invest into villages to improve their recovery pace/growth pace. I also believe if a village is raided all the villagers should flee to the nearest castle/fortification. Then they can return to the village and rebuild, perhaps rebuilding could be achieved quicker if you provide items like tools/wood/iron.
 
Victory in wars should lead to economic growth and development. Now the opposite is true. What do you think?
I think if you conquered a few settlements, you would still be ahead.

edit:
And yeah... protect your villages when you're at war. Pick your time to go on offensive - particularly when you have half their nobles captive.
Personally, I measure it by army composition instead of nobles captured because you can take on someone like the Aserai who have huge garrisons filled with T3-T5 troops. So the remaining half of the nobles just strip them out and remain really dangerous in the field. But if you watch their armies and start seeing armies of 75% or more infantry, with more than half that infantry being tier 1, you know they are scraping the bottom of the barrel in terms of manpower. That's when it is safe to flip over to offensive and start taking settlements from them.
 
Is it possible that war currently takes too long to recover from or that there should be more investment mechanics? Yes.

Should war boost the economy of a realm other than through the acquisition of new territories? Not really. Having the war drain and weaken a realm makes sense, especially if lasts a long time.

Strategically what should work is conquering a region of territory that functions as your front line and is expected to be devastated, while your safer territories to the rear remain prosperous.
 
A big part of the problem lies in the fact that village defense seems to be very low on the AI's list of priorities. Any lord who isn't in an army is either off raiding the enemy or riding around gathering troops, weak and unable to help much. Relief armies for besieged cities and castles are common but it seems like the only time they defend a village is when they happen to see one under attack on the way to something "more important."

I miss the Warband ability to suggest that a friendly lord go and defend a particular village. They'd usually listen if you had decent relations and you could coordinate an effective defense without needing to personally be everywhere at once.

Also, we should be able to donate food/draught animals/money to raided settlements to get them back on their feet. Hell, we can choose to donate looted equipment to our troops for XP, why not also allow us to donate gear to settlements to produce more and/or stronger militia?
 
A big part of the problem lies in the fact that village defense seems to be very low on the AI's list of priorities. Any lord who isn't in an army is either off raiding the enemy or riding around gathering troops, weak and unable to help much. Relief armies for besieged cities and castles are common but it seems like the only time they defend a village is when they happen to see one under attack on the way to something "more important."
That's true.
 
Back
Top Bottom