Recovering from casualties almost impossible in this game?

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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
Ahm,when you say something yourself, rather than quote it from a reliable source, its indeed "according to you".
So wait, before you said that they get their troops from the garrisons, now you are saying they are simply able to instantly train hundreds of tier 1 units into tier 2-3 units?
 
Inappropriate behavior
Ahm,when you say something yourself, rather than quote it from a reliable source, its indeed "according to you".
So wait, before you said that they get their troops for the garrisons, now you are saying they are simply able to instantly train hundreds of tier 1 units into tier 2-3 units?
You said according to me they can take troops from garrisons which is what happens AI troop garrison range from tier 2 and 3 mostly and rarely tier 4, 5 and 6 but since it seems like trying to explain anything to you does not work since you clearly don't want anythimg but people agreeing with you just **** off
 
You said according to me they can take troops from garrisons which is what happens AI troop garrison range from tier 2 and 3 mostly and rarely tier 4, 5 and 6 but since it seems like trying to explain anything to you does not work since you clearly don't want anythimg but people agreeing with you just **** off
hahahaha why you mad kid?
You just can't explain how they are able to come back every time with parties filled with tier 2-3 units. You just can't explain it.
 
@orgat

It is supposed to take a considerable amount of time and resources to reach T5 or T6 troops -this is just part of the game design, so I don't think expediting the process will improve gameplay in any way.

That being said, you are right about how T5 and T6 troops seem to die really easily. Élite units' survivability rates are laughably low compared to that of Warband.
 
hahahaha why you mad kid?
You just can't explain how they are able to come back every time with parties filled with tier 2-3 units. You just can't explain it.
The only one who mad here you kid
I explained it its garrisons some clans have arpund 12 to 13 fiefs with a party limit of at most 120 or 190 for clan leader which their multiple garrisons can easily fill out yet since you can't accept fact it won't be the same for you of you ask for help and deny it all don't ask for help
 
@orgat

It is supposed to take a considerable amount of time and resources to reach T5 or T6 troops -this is just part of the game design, so I don't think expediting the process will improve gameplay in any way.

That being said, you are right about how T5 and T6 troops seem to die really easily. Élite units' survivability rates are laughably low compared to that of Warband.
You are completely right about that you should put a lot of effort before you can reach tier 5 or 6, but the issue I mentioned is not only about losing just tier 5-6 and not being able to reclaim that fast, the main issue is about tier 2-3.
Basically when you go back to the cities and towns you are going to find 90% of the troops as tier 1 which are useless because they are not archers, not cavalry and not good infantry.
And so you can't really go out there again and make a difference. instead you have to go back to fighting mudcrabs with sticks as in the first hour of the playthrough.
If the game let me at least recruit tier 2 units I wouldn't complain, but that's not the case.
 
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

the solution to this is to allow automatic recruitment to your castle. Somewhere in the line of the improved garrison mod. While you are away fighting a war, your "constable" NPC will be sending out recruiters or an general call for recruits to come to a specific garrison. These will then be upgraded and trained until a by the player set max tier. After you loose a big chunk of your party, you can take a new one out of garrison, leaving you free to keep fighting with an army composition to your liking.
 
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..."
yeah and? what's bad about this?
 
yeah and? what's bad about this?
What's bad is that when your party has shrunk in size after suffering enough casualties after enough battles, when you go back to your cities to replenish them, instead of having t2-t3 who can actually fight your only option is to recruit useless tier 1 units.
You could travel around the cities and villages and hand picking all the t2 or t3 units you come across but this is way too time consuming, both in terms of in-game time and both in terms of real-world time.
My suggestion is that after certain amount of time, or after a few upgrades to your city or castle, the minimal tier of the recruits should increase.
It doesnt make sense to lose Sharpshooters and Vanguards and then go back and replace them with farmers.
 
What's bad is that when your party has shrunk in size after suffering enough casualties after enough battles, when you go back to your cities to replenish them, instead of having t2-t3 who can actually fight your only option is to recruit useless tier 1 units.
You could travel around the cities and villages and hand picking all the t2 or t3 units you come across but this is way too time consuming, both in terms of in-game time and both in terms of real-world time.
My suggestion is that after certain amount of time, or after a few upgrades to your city or castle, the minimal tier of the recruits should increase.
It doesnt make sense to lose Sharpshooters and Vanguards and then go back and replace them with farmers.
As I said earlier I am not necessarily against some balancing changes if they are needed. But have you considered playing on a lower difficulty? I believe there are several people on this forum who manage to conquer the entire map on realistic so it seems like they don't suffer as much from the problem as you do.
By the way, please don't feel offended, I play on easy myself simply because I don't want to lose my troops all the time.
 
As I said earlier I am not necessarily against some balancing changes if they are needed. But have you considered playing on a lower difficulty? I believe there are several people on this forum who manage to conquer the entire map on realistic so it seems like they don't suffer as much from the problem as you do.
By the way, please don't feel offended, I play on easy myself simply because I don't want to lose my troops all the time.
Before I reply to your comment, let me just say that if a game is unbalanced or some mechanisms are broken it really doesnt mean its unbeatable.
Having that said, winning is not the a problem for me.
I am able to conquer the whole map too, I never claimed it's impossible to play and win in the current state of the game,
I only meant to say that losing troops is too costly and extremely hard of recover from. You have to either start grinding looters again like in the first hour of the playthrough, which feels dumb and boring and totally breaks the fun and flow of the game in my opinion, or as I mentioned earlier you can rely on bandits.
Bandits give you a steady, unlimited supply of decent troops anywhere on the map.
When I play Sturgia I go with sea raiders for infantry, upgrade some of them into Druzhiniks for heavy cav and forest bandits or later Fians for extremely good archers. Lost a lot of infantry in a bloody siege? no problem just find a group of sea raiders and recruit them again.
Lost some archers? recruit forest bandits.
When I play a Mongol horde playthrough its even more of a walk in the park.
I recruit a lot of steppe raiders which are later upgraded into the unstoppable Khan's guards who can obliterate armies 7 times their size in minutes. After I lose some Khan's guards I go back to the steppes and recuirt new raiders which are already really good horse archers to begin with, in no time they are upgraded into Keshigs and Khan's guards again.

So you see, winning is not the issue for me, it's just that I feel like the fundamental mechanism of governing cities, recruiting troops, fighting and then recruiting troops again just doesnt work, because the cities provide almost only tier 1 troops, which makes it extremely hard for you to recover from losses.

EDIT:
Don't you just think it's absolutely absurd how you can extremely easily maintain without a problem an army of 300 Khan's guards which are besdies being unique elite units also happen to be the best unit in the game, by just recruiting raiders and in no time upgrade them into elites again, while at the same time if you lose your traditional t5 or t6 unit that you upgraded from a t1 recruit, it's extremely difficult to replenish.
This perfectly demonstrates my point there is something very wrong in the game now with regards to recruiting troops.
 
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Yes, the AI pulls troops from garrisons:
When they escape from prison they start with 10% of party size filled with troops only and as @scarface52 mentioned they can get troops from 2 slots ahead for now (means that if normally they can get 1st slot only they can get from slots 1-2-3, its like they are playing at easiest recruiting mode. It will be removed when initial lord-notable relations are set). These are the only cheats AI have in your scenario. If you see AI lord with hundreds of troops they probably took them from garrison or recruited from villages.

As for the OP, I just use tier 3 troops and consider them good enough. It isn't like high-tier troops are that much more powerful. It is more a question of getting access to specific capabilities (shields, bows, horses) etc. that hold back low-tier units from performing well. If you have problems recovering after a battle, I on't know what else to say except that your standards for party composition are probably too high.
 
EDIT:
Don't you just think it's absolutely absurd how you can extremely easily maintain without a problem an army of 300 Khan's guards which are besdies being unique elite units also happen to be the best unit in the game, by just recruiting raiders and in no time upgrade them into elites again, while at the same time if you lose your traditional t5 or t6 unit that you upgraded from a t1 recruit, it's extremely difficult to replenish.
This perfectly demonstrates my point there is something very wrong in the game now with regards to recruiting troops.

Yes it´s Absurd.. I started a new game last week. and played about 20 in-game days. I recruited 20 Imperial recruits on my ways to Vlandia where I intended to play. Did 5-6 quests in Vlandian villages, encountered small groups of looters and other bandits. Now I am stuck with 7 legionaries and 7 Royal guards I can't afford to pay for. I have reached level 3.... Not even a T3 should gain any experience to speak of from killing Looters, yet even T4's does. And I´m not even a leader, providing free daily experience ...

Imagine some progress in leadership skill and your T2 is T4 before they have crossed the map.

In another game I have 200 armysize.. I upgrade 10-15 T1 units every day, just from leadership perks(about 150 skill Leadership, nothing extreme!), if I have many of them. Should I even happen to be low on Influence and only able to recruit T1´s after a defeat and start out with 150 T1-T2 troops out of my 200, I run out of T2's within a week -they are all upgraded without a single battle. My problem there isn't elite troops but recruits! I need supplylines to supply levies! Elites are produced 1-2 a day
 
I feel a bit torn on this one. I disagree with the most recent beta patch to make it harder to get to tier 5 and 6 as I don't think the game needs any more grindiness to it. However, I also don't think it should be watered down any. I don't see the problem with having to go back to square 1 and beat up some looter mobs to get your recruits going. I almost always auto resolve and keep moving.
The only advice I can offer is maybe saving troops up in garrisons or waiting longer in between major battles and you should be able to hold on to more of your men. Naturally, you're going to lose men in any major battle. I just take the survivors that ranked up and store most of them in a garrison and use the rest to help train the new recruits. Eventually, I end up armies mostly consisting of top tier troops. I may lose some in big battles sure, but I can keep them topped off from my reserves in garrisons.
 
Yes it´s Absurd.. I started a new game last week. and played about 20 in-game days. I recruited 20 Imperial recruits on my ways to Vlandia where I intended to play. Did 5-6 quests in Vlandian villages, encountered small groups of looters and other bandits. Now I am stuck with 7 legionaries and 7 Royal guards I can't afford to pay for. I have reached level 3.... Not even a T3 should gain any experience to speak of from killing Looters, yet even T4's does. And I´m not even a leader, providing free daily experience ...

Imagine some progress in leadership skill and your T2 is T4 before they have crossed the map.

In another game I have 200 armysize.. I upgrade 10-15 T1 units every day, just from leadership perks(about 150 skill Leadership, nothing extreme!), if I have many of them. Should I even happen to be low on Influence and only able to recruit T1´s after a defeat and start out with 150 T1-T2 troops out of my 200, I run out of T2's within a week -they are all upgraded without a single battle. My problem there isn't elite troops but recruits! I need supplylines to supply levies! Elites are produced 1-2 a day
I actually don't have a problem with this. The raise the meek nerf was heavy handed imo. Why shouldn't a good general be able to turn recruits (basically peasants with farm tools) into basic infantry before they begin engaging in battles?
I also don't think there would be any feasible way to nullify xp gained from looters. The game calculates the xp on dmg and kills. Doesn't matter what kind of unit received the dmg. Besides, this would horribly break the game balance. When you make it harder to get elite troops, you really only do that for the ai. Players will always do whatever they need to get a huge tier 5 army, and once the ai is no longer able to keep up then the player can steam roll the whole map because the ai can't catch up
 
I actually don't have a problem with this. The raise the meek nerf was heavy handed imo. Why shouldn't a good general be able to turn recruits (basically peasants with farm tools) into basic infantry before they begin engaging in battles?

"A good general" - does a 20 day old level 3 Bannerlord charachter fullfill the reqs for that? :grin:

I think you missed the ironi. :smile: I pictured the exact same thing OP said was a AI problem as too easy to repeat as a player.

I also don't think there would be any feasible way to nullify xp gained from looters. The game calculates the xp on dmg and kills. Doesn't matter what kind of unit received the dmg. Besides, this would horribly break the game balance. When you make it harder to get elite troops, you really only do that for the ai. Players will always do whatever they need to get a huge tier 5 army, and once the ai is no longer able to keep up then the player can steam roll the whole map because the ai can't catch up

That´s probably right. But not gaining more XP for killing a Legionarie than from killing a Looter is a little bit... disatisfying... :smile:
 
Yes, the AI pulls troops from garrisons:


As for the OP, I just use tier 3 troops and consider them good enough. It isn't like high-tier troops are that much more powerful. It is more a question of getting access to specific capabilities (shields, bows, horses) etc. that hold back low-tier units from performing well. If you have problems recovering after a battle, I on't know what else to say except that your standards for party composition are probably too high.
Pray tell, where are you able to recruit tier 3 units? if you mean you grind looters every time until they hit t3, that's exactly what I am trying to avoid.
 
Playing devils advocate here, as I said earlier I am not against balancing changes.

So after reading the last few comments:

- you want faster access to elite troops because they don't die as often as recruits
- you don't have enough elite troops because they die too often
- recruits aren't good enough to replenish your army because they die too often
- the game is easy as it is, even on realistic

I am not sure if I get the problem. Please don't get me wrong, it's probably not what you meant but just my interpretation.

Maybe it would help if we can define an army composition goal?

In my opinion army composition should be:
20% Tier 5/6
60% Tier 3/4
20% Tier 1/2
Obviously percentages are fluctuating, but generally this is how an army should look like. A few Elite troops, a few recruits and lots of experienced soldiers.
 
Playing devils advocate here, as I said earlier I am not against balancing changes.

So after reading the last few comments:

- you want faster access to elite troops because they don't die as often as recruits
I actually never said that lol, I don't have a problem with leveling troops up, as long as I dont have to do this from zero every single time.
- you don't have enough elite troops because they die too often
I never said that. It's not about having "enough" elites, it's about having enough troops who are not filthy t1 recruits.
- recruits aren't good enough to replenish your army because they die too often
Not because "they die too often". Because you can't seriously hope to win any battles or sieges with farmers with forks and not armor.
And thus, they can't really help recover at all.

- the game is easy as it is, even on realistic
Easy, yes. But brokenly easy, which is not good. Some things are very easy, such as getting an army of 300 elites through bandits, while on the other hand playing "traditionally" by going to cities and recruiting, you will only find farmers lol.
I am not sure if I get the problem. Please don't get me wrong, it's probably not what you meant but just my interpretation.
Maybe it would help if we can define an army composition goal?
I have no clue how you were able to come to this interpretation.
In my opinion army composition should be:
20% Tier 5/6
60% Tier 3/4
20% Tier 1/2
Obviously percentages are fluctuating, but generally this is how an army should look like. A few Elite troops, a few recruits and lots of experienced soldiers.
 
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