Recruit noble troops from castles only!

[Lucius Confucius]

I recall in Warband your garrisons would help if you fought battles near your castles but this doesn't happen in Bannerlord. It's a bummer.

I remember using that feature to guide enemy parties near a castle then attack the party so that the garrison would come to its aid. All I had to do was win the field battle and then stroll right inside the castle without having to put up with the warband walls.

Honestly, sieges in this game is a major improvement over warband. But the defensive side could do with some more non-simulated advantages, such as major amount of more gate health or something.

 

[Veith]

Momentary castles are nearly without any functions, villages have more. It is not only the recruitment ability. Towns have taverns, trading points. Clear a castle is not a big production or market place, but without any function it is more only a map-place-filler for some siege training.

 

[Apocal]

Momentary castles are nearly without any functions, villages have more. It is not only the recruitment ability. Towns have taverns, trading points. Clear a castle is not a big production or market place, but without any function it is more only a map-place-filler for some siege training.

You can get a 30-80% garrison cost reduction in a castle, maybe more. Castellan's office maxed out for thirty percent + the Riding 225 perk that reduces cavalry garrison costs by half.

 

[black_bulldog]

You can get a 30-80% garrison cost reduction in a castle, maybe more. Castellan's office maxed out for thirty percent + the Riding 225 perk that reduces cavalry garrison costs by half.

Besides housing troops what function to they provide? I mean they don't have a smithy, or merchant, sure you can walk around them but there's no reason to.

 

[Apocal]

Besides housing troops what function to they provide? I mean they don't have a smithy, or merchant, sure you can walk around them but there's no reason to.

A place to stash items? They also give you some money and the possibility (currently pretty low chance, even over a long playthrough) of generating supporters who feed your influence. Also, you don't have to worry about them rebelling, ever.

Like I said elsewhere, I think owning castles overall is dumb (just strip out the garrison and treat them as pocket money until someone sieges them) but they aren't without some function.

 

[Old-Bull]

I like the idea of nobles from castles, just not exclusively from castles.

I would prefer to see it just like it is now, with castles providing additional noble troops exclusively for the owner of the castle. That way it gives everyone access to nobles, it gives people an incentive for owning and keeping castles, and it adds a realistic source of nobles to the game.

Castles should provide some form of military boost as well, maybe a passive + or - %5 to damage within a short distance of castles. That way if you get in a battle near a castle it provides a zone of control buff/debuff to the armies in the fight.

 

[black_bulldog]

A place to stash items? They also give you some money and the possibility (currently pretty low chance, even over a long playthrough) of generating supporters who feed your influence. Also, you don't have to worry about them rebelling, ever.

Like I said elsewhere, I think owning castles overall is dumb (just strip out the garrison and treat them as pocket money until someone sieges them) but they aren't without some function.

Owning a castle or two should be a nice step up for the player, not a glorified safe stash and income generator. TW lack of imagination when designing this game is mind boggling. It really feels like many of the devs have never played an rpg in their lives.

 

[Old-Bull]

They need to come up with a mechanic that simulates what castles do in real life: provide area control.

1. They could have the garrisons sally forth to engage smaller armies(not ones they will lose too).
2. They could provide a buff/debuff for the area surrounding the castle to improve the performance of the army defending that area and decrease the performance of the invader.

I love the noble idea for castles, but giving castles a strategic military purpose seems more important to me.

 

[five bucks]

Castles should generate patrols that scout the nearby area for bandits/enemies (including raiding enemy farmers and caravans). That way you would be forced to capture a castle in order to secure the area around it, because if you just captured the fiefs around it, you would find your fiefs constantly being attacked and possibly retaken. This would make castles useful in cutting down bandits and general security.

Also having small patrols to fight would be a good mid-game enemy for low level player parties without having to take on entire lord armies.

 

[Nakh]

I played some of 1.5.7 after a long break and quickly found out what best option about castles - give them back to the realm. They are not simply useless, they are harmful for player. Pure liability.

 

[Apocal]

Castles should generate patrols that scout the nearby area for bandits/enemies (including raiding enemy farmers and caravans). That way you would be forced to capture a castle in order to secure the area around it, because if you just captured the fiefs around it, you would find your fiefs constantly being attacked and possibly retaken. This would make castles useful in cutting down bandits and general security.

A small patrol is never going to be capable of taking a fief in Bannerlord. Even if you have something like ridiculously low like 30 T2 defenders, they can probably kill 60-120+ attackers, depending on wall level and whichever siege engines the attackers get built. There is also no reason to give a damn if your villagers get hassled since garrisons are increasingly difficult to starve and the money you make from towns is pretty limited in 1.5.8 due to the prosperity softcaps getting lower and lower.

Also having small patrols to fight would be a good mid-game enemy for low level player parties without having to take on entire lord armies.

You can legit start taking down lord parties by Day 20 of the game. You can find lords running around with thirty dudes pretty often then, beat them up easy then continue on your way. Especially in the early game before every clan gets tiered-up and has ample garrisons to pull from.

I played some of 1.5.7 after a long break and quickly found out what best option about castles - give them back to the realm. They are not simply useless, they are harmful for player. Pure liability.

I mean, its free money assuming you don't put a garrison there. And it only costs 30 influence to have it retaken, which is so low it isn't even worth bothering about.

 

[five bucks]

A small patrol is never going to be capable of taking a fief in Bannerlord. Even if you have something like ridiculously low like 30 T2 defenders, they can probably kill 60-120+ attackers, depending on wall level and whichever siege engines the attackers get built.

I worded my post poorly, meant the whole force hiding in the castle, not just a patrol. Obviously that's something which already happens, but I was adding it in to show the sum total of a castle's usefulness.

There is also no reason to give a damn if your villagers get hassled since garrisons are increasingly difficult to starve and the money you make from towns is pretty limited in 1.5.8 due to the prosperity softcaps getting lower and lower.

Suggestions should work on the assumption the game isn't going to be an imbalanced mess forever. Otherwise there's no point making them.

 

[Mr_Shestak]

+1

 

[Oakenlix]

This is one of the best suggestions out there IMO. Makes no sense to have noble troops come from villages, and castles lack a purpose atm.

 

[Apocal]

Suggestions should work on the assumption the game isn't going to be an imbalanced mess forever. Otherwise there's no point making them.

Things were deliberately balanced this way in terms of making garrisons difficult to starve (currently impossible for low-prosperity towns) based on player feedback (most players don't like losing garrisoned troops to starvation). The same dev responsible has done nothing more than modest adjustments to the fief income stream despite being asked at least a dozen times over the course of the last six months.

 

[hirovard]

Meh, the Op's suggestion is Ok but why stop there, you should be able to recruit peasent class troops from villages. they will basically be ok against weak parties like looters and some bandits, but honestly are fodder. maybe their max tier should be 2-3, no horses and low tier weapons armour. They should be cheap to recruit and maintain but basically be fodder.

Next up would be from towns. these you can recruit after establishing a good relation with notables in the town. they would essentually be mid tier troops, decent but nothing exceptional. more expensive than peasent class troops, but also more effective. some cav, but more light cav and such than heavy cav

finally you should have nobles. these would be you knights and top tier units. hard to recruit and expensive. a small party of these should be able to handle a decent amount of peasent troops and a fair few townsman tier. you would need to be in good standing with a faction as well as the castle owner. these can only be recruited in smallish numbers. certainly not enough to creat a army of them.

I fell it would give players a bit more of a decition to make, do they want a hoard of trash units and hope to win with over welming numbers, a group of high tier units that can crush but could be over welmed against a larger party, or a mix of all and try to balance their army out.

it could even lead to events that happen within the army between the different classes resulting in either increased party moral or less. maybe you side with the nobles and the peasents are more likely to desert or the other way around. perhaps you find a compramise they both like and everyone fights a bit better for a while.

Honestly i'd like to see a system where there is more to managing your party than, pay them, train them and keep them fed. i'd like to see stuff taht makes managing the party a little more involved, but not to the point that its a pain to deal with.

 

[five bucks]

The same dev responsible has done nothing more than modest adjustments to the fief income stream despite being asked at least a dozen times over the course of the last six months.

Almost like you're describing 50% of the mechanics in the game, including the one being discussed in the OP.

 

[Apocal]

Almost like you're describing 50% of the mechanics in the game, including the one being discussed in the OP.

I mean, he said he would look into something like the OP suggestion.

 

[five bucks]

I mean, he said he would look into something like the OP suggestion.

I saw the snowballing thread too but my point was that castles have been nigh-useless for a lot longer than 6 months.

 

[Pandora's?Suggestion☠Box]

Others have said this, but it deserves its own topic. This would give another strategic advantage to castles, it would make them more useful and interesting. 1 notable per castle maybe?

Perhaps what we need is a small % chance that our castles birth wanderer heroes and a new castle project to help spurn types of wanderers like calvary/infantry/archers/etc depending on the single-project progress options like archery range/husbandry stables/sparring rooms/etc.

These wanderers are taken on and generate a small backstory to assign a usefulness niche (especially when our other heroes have perished and the city-scape wanderers are not to our liking).

But if no wanderer, a few elite troops might be neat.

Thoughts?

Namaste!