Recovering from casualties almost impossible in this game?

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orgat

Recruit
Hi everyone,
I am not sure if this has been discussed before. So far I have been really enjoying the game, I honestly think it's one of my favorite games.
Nevertheless, I want to bring up this issue that has been bothering me for some time, and it's actually something that by all means ruins the fun in the game for me.

The issue is, it's almost impossible for the player (not the AI though), to recover after suffering a substantial number of casualties.
Why?
Because unlike other games where your troops are recruited and managed in stacks or blocks, and when a block suffers casualties, as long as it wasn't completely wiped out it will slowly recover and regain its numbers, in Bannerlord every unit is individual and so when that unit dies its gone for good.

So what's the issue? Please bear with me for a few minutes.

The issue is that after a painful bloody siege or a 1000vs1000 bloodbath (without teleporting your archers via tab+retreat which I don't even know why is allowed, or save scumming or a combination of both), you are inevitably going to suffer a staggering number of casualties and many of your tier 5 or 6 troops you worked so hard and for HOURS to train from filthy farmers into knights in shiny armor, are going to die and be gone for good.
And here is actually where the problem is, after playing so many playthroughs I realized you just can't recover from this, because when you go back with your bleeding army to your cities and towns you are going to find for the most part pathetic tier 1 farmers that you have to train again all the way up to tier 5 or 6, and you are effectively starting again from scratch like in the first hour of your playthrough.

So unless I am missing something, why is there not a reliable system that allows you to upgrade your city barracks or something so it will only spawn say tier 3 or 4 troops and above?
I know there is the option of putting troops in your garrison and they will gain XP but I tested it and it takes too long.
So long that you wont be able to keep up with the constant waves of AI controlled armies filled with top tier cataphracts, top tier infantry, endless hordes of horse archers and what not, that just keep coming back.

Why do you have to go back and find miserable tier 1 farmers in your cities while the AI on the other hand magically comes back with high tier troops as if nothing had happened?
I wont even discuss a completely separate issue of lords escaping from your dungeons or being ransomed ridiculously fast that your only option is to execute them if you don't want to deal with what I have just mentioned...

So after playing for many hours in different playthroughs, the way I see it, you have a few options to deal with the lack of a reliable system that lets you recruit high tier troops, and none of them are really what I would consider a solution to this problem.

1) Cheese the HELL out of the game.
Recruit 100+ archers, train them to be Fian champions or Vlandian sharpshooters or whatever, massacre the enemy troops and when they get too close with their 800+ troops, hold tab and click retreat and rinse and repeat.
Still took too many casualties to your liking? reload the save and try again!

2) Suffer the casualties and try and fill the gaps with prisoners you just freed and recruited.

3) Base your party on bandits that have decent gear to begin with, decent stats and most importantly, always available almost anywhere on the map AND 100% free.
(and you can later upgrade them to elite troops after you reach level 150 in leadership)

So
option 1) completely breaks the game and I don't see why someone would want to continue playing the game like this (not even sure why the game lets you do it in the first place, teleportation that is)

option 2) doesn't always work, you are not always going to free prisoners that you can recruit, and even if you are successful in this, your army is going to end up as a nasty mixture of troops from all kinds of cultures, and that's not something everyone would want. If I chose to play Vlandians, its because in that playthrough I want to have my archers as Vlandian crossbowmen, my heavy cavalry Champions and Vanguards. If I play Sturgia I want to have nice Viking-like/Rus Axemen with large shields etc etc.. I dont want after a few hours into the game forget what culture I am playing, its understood.

option 3) is the only way I have been able to survive on realistic difficulty and deal with all the issues I have mentioned.
This is exactly how I have played my recent playthroughs. When I played Khuzait, I only recuirted steppe raiders and upgraded them to Khan's guards.
When I wanted to form a Viking like kingdom I solely relied on Sea raiders for infantry and some forest bandits as archers etc etc...

Please let me know what you think about this topic
 
I'm sorry, but it's not "impossible to recover from losses in this game."

It's "impossible to recover from losses because of my fatal mistake."

And I don't see anything wrong with a disastrous pyrrhic victory being very difficult to recover from -- which is the whole point of tactics and strategy in the first place.
 
I'm sorry, but it's not "impossible to recover from losses in this game."

It's "impossible to recover from losses because of my fatal mistake."

And I don't see anything wrong with a disastrous pyrrhic victory being very difficult to recover from -- which is the whole point of tactics and strategy in the first place.
Wrong.
Even if you win by a DECISIVE victory, some of your elite troops WILL DIE.
There is no victory without a cost.
The AI wont stop there, you still have to defeat waves after waves of his parties, and if you are to fight a huge battle, many more will die, even if you win decisively, and so all these wins will take a toll on your troops and you just can't keep up with these "minor" losses.

If by "fatal mistakes" you mean not cheesing and teleporting or save scumming, then yes I agree with you.
 
Its a part and has always been a part of the mount and blade gameplay loop


waves of AI controlled armies filled with top tier cataphracts, top tier infantry, endless hordes of horse archers and what not, that just keep coming back.
The AI deals with the same recruitment and training as the player after suffering casualties they come back with professional armies because they deplete their garrison instead of recruiting (They can however upgrade cavalry without the need of horses)
 
Its a part and has always been a part of the mount and blade gameplay loop



The AI deals with the same recruitment and training as the player after suffering casualties they come back with professional armies because they deplete their garrizon instead of recruiting
I dont think you are correct.
When an AI lord spawns, they spawn with a few dozens of troops, and as far as I know, those troops are not tier 1 farmers.
 
They spawn with 10 to 15 troops ranging from tier 2 to tier 3
Ah yes, multiply this by a few dozens of lords and we have a serious problem.
When your clan members respawn they respawn with nothing and sometimes immediately get captured by bandits. same goes to the player.
 
Ah yes, multiply this by a few dozens of lords and we have a serious problem.
When your clan members respawn the respond with nothing and sometimes immediately get captured by bandits. same goes to the player.
The AI will never go out and attack the enemy immediately after respawning they respawn 3 days after release from capture or not being captured if this is a problem for you you have clearly never played warband
 
Ah yes, multiply this by a few dozens of lords and we have a serious problem.
When your clan members respawn they respawn with nothing and sometimes immediately get captured by bandits. same goes to the player.
You can cut their heads and they won't appear no more.
 
They increased troop death rate across the board in 1.5.7 beta patch. Having a pitched battle is suppose to cause losses on both sides and the winner shouldn't be able to just walk and heal most of their troops despite barely winning a fight.
 
I honestly don't think it's particularly difficult to recover. One of the primary mechanics that exist in the game is the concept of an experienced army vs inexperienced army. It is always going to be the case that new parties will be weaker than established ones, and a pyrrhic victory will certainly lead to a temporary reduction in combat effectiveness, and that has to be considered. A few battles and your troops will be back up to reasonable tiers. You might suffer from losses, but over time your units will slowly upgrade again.

Something I would say is that while I don't necessarily understand the mechanics behind how notables provide units and how they provide higher tier units specifically, they do provide higher tiers with higher relations and higher influence. For example, in my two cities, I have access to all recruitment slots (on the hardest recruitment difficulty) and the units tend to all be higher than tier 1, averaging tier 3. The same can be said in many of the villages I own, with the exception of the one village I have that was recently raided. So it seems getting high relations and protecting your towns / villages may be an effective way of gaining access to higher tier recruits.

This link shows one of my villages: https://pasteboard.co/JJHKHl8.png
Lowest influence for these four notables is 151 (the third one).
 
I honestly don't think it's particularly difficult to recover. One of the primary mechanics that exist in the game is the concept of an experienced army vs inexperienced army. It is always going to be the case that new parties will be weaker than established ones, and a pyrrhic victory will certainly lead to a temporary reduction in combat effectiveness, and that has to be considered. A few battles and your troops will be back up to reasonable tiers. You might suffer from losses, but over time your units will slowly upgrade again.

Something I would say is that while I don't necessarily understand the mechanics behind how notables provide units and how they provide higher tier units specifically, they do provide higher tiers with higher relations and higher influence. For example, in my two cities, I have access to all recruitment slots (on the hardest recruitment difficulty) and the units tend to all be higher than tier 1, averaging tier 3. The same can be said in many of the villages I own, with the exception of the one village I have that was recently raided. So it seems getting high relations and protecting your towns / villages may be an effective way of gaining access to higher tier recruits.

This link shows one of my villages: https://pasteboard.co/JJHKHl8.png
Lowest influence for these four notables is 151 (the third one).
Yeah I have seen this before, but the question is, how often do they spawn such troops? what happens if you recruit all of them? I doubt they will spawn anything but tier 1 troops.
 
They increased troop death rate across the board in 1.5.7 beta patch. Having a pitched battle is suppose to cause losses on both sides and the winner shouldn't be able to just walk and heal most of their troops despite barely winning a fight.
Yes but the problem is that it works only one way, against you.
In my experience the enemy lords seem to always come back with huge armies made of trained troops.
Take the Khuzait for example, in every playthrough that I tried to overthrow them and take over their cities, they just kept coming back with endless armies, and each time a huge chunk of their army was horse archers.
How can they come back everytime with horse archers like nothing happened is beyond me.
Cutting their heads off like somebody suggested is not really an option because:
1) If you want them later on as your vassals you gotta keep them alive
2) Even if you don't need them and don't mind executing them, doing so, for some odd reason will upset your vassals and in no time you will have -100 relation with every single one of your vassals.
 
First, I think that losing lots of good troops should remain something that happens when you fight a large army and it should be a setback that you need to recover from. It's part of the gameplay loop and if you could just replace them almost immediately it would devalue the whole recruitment and upgrade cycle.

That said, I don't know if TW already found the sweet spot yet and it's certainly something that should be discussed.

Generally, acquiring high tier units should become faster as you advance in the game, giving you the feeling of progress. That's a very fundamental design which is part of every good game. Your character / clan improves over time, gets better, stronger and more efficient. You become more powerful but you should also face bigger obstacles.

So what can be done about recruiting and upgrading as you advance in the game is is:

a) better perks and skills allowing you to train troops faster and improve relations
b) better relations to notables as you solve issues for them
c) improving settlements with projects / buildings and prosperity

These things already exist in game but maybe they need further balancing and small changes.


There are also other ways to make sure you don't need to replenish high tier units all the time, like getting a good doctor who makes sure that soldiers survive wounded instead of dying. Again, that's something that may need to be balanced.

Regarding wounds, you could also improve chances for getting wounded instead of killed for high tier units because of better armour. When getting knocked out, a guy in chainmail should have a bigger chance of surviving than some peasant in a tunic.
 
Yes but the problem is that it works only one way, against you.
In my experience the enemy lords seem to always come back with huge armies made of trained troops.
Take the Khuzait for example, in every playthrough that I tried to overthrow them and take over their cities, they just kept coming back with endless armies, and each time a huge chunk of their army was horse archers.
How can they come back everytime with horse archers like nothing happened is beyond me.
Cutting their heads off like somebody suggested is not really an option because:
1) If you want them later on as your vassals you gotta keep them alive
2) Even if you don't need them and don't mind executing them, doing so, for some odd reason will upset your vassals and in no time you will have -100 relation with every single one of your vassals.
2 points I want to make, first have a really good surgeon helps a ton, medicine right now is moving slow and TW need to adjust it, but taking a good training perk can help get your troops trained, Raise the meek was slightly nerfed but is very effective for training troops from 1-3
 
>makes a mistake
No, where in this whole thread did I say my entire army died? I said RECOVRING from casualties.
>their army dies
No, just about 20 of my best units out of a party of say, 200 units which makes it 10% of the party after a DECISIVE win.
>why my army died? bad design, now I should go and make an army again?
No, but my army didn't die.
I think either you can't read or maybe your IQ is very low or maybe you are just a troll.
I said several times that I speak about recovering from substantial casualties, even if you win.
And a previous post of mine clearly states:

"Even if you win by a DECISIVE victory, some of your elite troops WILL DIE.
There is no victory without a cost.
The AI wont stop there, you still have to defeat waves after waves of his parties, and if you are to fight a huge battle, many more will die, even if you win decisively, and so all these wins will take a toll on your troops and you just can't keep up with these "minor" losses..."
 
Yes but the problem is that it works only one way, against you.
In my experience the enemy lords seem to always come back with huge armies made of trained troops.
Take the Khuzait for example, in every playthrough that I tried to overthrow them and take over their cities, they just kept coming back with endless armies, and each time a huge chunk of their army was horse archers.
How can they come back everytime with horse archers like nothing happened is beyond me.
Cutting their heads off like somebody suggested is not really an option because:
1) If you want them later on as your vassals you gotta keep them alive
2) Even if you don't need them and don't mind executing them, doing so, for some odd reason will upset your vassals and in no time you will have -100 relation with every single one of your vassals.
As I said and this is especially true for khuzait due to sbowballing they take troops from their harrison depleting it or weakening it to come back with at least tier 4 troops
 
As I said and this is especially true for khuzait due to sbowballing they take troops from their harrison depleting it or weakening it to come back with at least tier 4 troops
So according to you, if I kill enough of their waves, their garrisons should all be depleted and they will only attack me with tier 1 troops?
I don't recall that ever happening to me. In my experience they keep coming back with huge hordes of horse archers.
 
So according to you, if I kill enough of their waves, their garrisons should all be depleted and they will only attack me with tier 1 troops?
I don't recall that ever happening to me. In my experience they keep coming back with huge hordes of horse archers.
Khuzait have tier 2 horse archers which is after 3 or 4 defeats their main unit and this is nothing of just "according to me" its just how the game works
 
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