Reddit Referral Re: Clans and Kingdoms

[BigBadBill]

Hello

I created a post on reddit and it was suggested that I drop it here as it received a number of upvotes and should get more visibility:

(https://www.reddit.com/r/mountandblade/comments/k2brtd/npc_clans/)

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Posted by
u/Bill_Munroe_87

15 hours ago


NPC Clans

This will probably fall on deaf ears but I've finally had to resign my current play through.

I now have have 5 cities and endless castles and it is utterly impossible to get an NPC clan to join my faction.

I have spent about 2-4 hours (irl time) wandering the map playing the mini game with literally everyone I can to try and get them to convert. If I can win the mini game, which does happen rarely, they want millions of gold. Millions! Why can't i offer them a city; take 3 just come fight for me!!!!

Only thing i can do now is let the game run overnight while i sleep and *pray* to RN-Jesus I don't have a faction declare war on me. The only reason i don't have millions of gold IS the npc factions declaring war on me. they then take 'tribute' as i can't beat AI factions with only 650 men against three doomstacks of 1200 men each, and i can't get any more men as i can't convert anyone. SMH; FML

Oh and if you're wondering how i got so many cities i snipe them when the AI takes them. Just declare war immediately after the army wanders off and there's no defenders> Siege> Win> Insta-truce. +1 city. Also broken by the way lol

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The suggestion to pop this here is apparently devs do read the forums / chat. Personally, I just want to signpost the issues and exploit I've found. I cannot link to the reddit page as i'm not allowed links yet, sorry. So far there are 7 likes, no dislikes and a number of useful comments. The top is:

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level 1
ave369

5 points·10 hours ago·edited 10 hours ago

Strange. Maybe you are trying to recruit landed clans. I only try to recruit landless clans, and the price is reasonable, it varies from 100K gold to something around 300K. 1 to 3 top grade smithed two handers or glaives is usually enough to convince a landless clan to join.

Also, when you get the 200 Trade perk, recruiting becomes trivially easy. Just offer them a fief from the get go, and you can recruit even a landed clan.

But you are right in that offering fiefs (as opposed to buying them) should not be locked behind a hard to get perk. A player king should always have the ability to offer fiefs in barter, but not demand them. A Master of Business Administration degree is not a required skill to be a king.

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I agree with moving the offer fief perk. Personally I'd like to see it unlock very early. One of my first moves when acquiring new NPC clans would be to offer them a castle to manage:

A) (so i don't have to)
B) To buff them
C) To have have castle/cities dotted around the map to drop prisoners and troops to farm influence

In any case recruitment of clans should be viable to a small player kingdom. Why can't we have a system like in the last game where you occasionally get NPC's come to you to offer services, or just put a ceiling on to limit the cost to 200k or something...Anything,

Anyway I hope the feedback is useful. Sorry the original post to reddit was salty but my game is now over due to game mechanics and it's frustrating so many hours in...

Regards
B

 

[spirit1flyer]

I exploited this little glitch myself only to learn you take a national rep hit each time. After a 2 or three captures they started hating my guts constantly and declaring war endlessly. Maybe there is a difference when you are a kingdom...

 

[ZemTex]

I hear you.

So I've posted about his on reddit ages ago, around launch.
Anyway, there's a few tricks.

first: Recruit fiefless clans. They take 0 to 150K to bail. But yeah, it's a pain to look them up and then chase them halfway around the map.
Second: Having a good relationships helps a ton. (unlike upon release when it meant nothing), having a negative relationship means it's utterly impossible. So let go selected prisoners to get a relationship boost.
Third: there's a way to cheese it. It's not really cheesing though since in hundreds of hours of playtime, I have managed to win the stupid minigame exactle ONCE!.

1: save your game before talking to a clan leader.
2: start the minigame. try to convince him to join. Once you fail ( and you will) but have at least 2 point convincing him and he rejects, end the conversation, but then save.
3: reload the savegame, you will retain the points you had. now you only need 2 points. It might still take a few tries.

Hope that helps.

 

[BigBadBill]

I exploited this little glitch myself only to learn you take a national rep hit each time. After a 2 or three captures they started hating my guts constantly and declaring war endlessly. Maybe there is a difference when you are a kingdom...

Interesting, but there's no logical way around the issues anyway afaik as, with no clans in your kingdom, there's no way to muster the force needed to take a settlement and then fight a war normally sadly.

 

[BigBadBill]

I hear you.

So I've posted about his on reddit ages ago, around launch.
Anyway, there's a few tricks.

first: Recruit fiefless clans. They take 0 to 150K to bail. But yeah, it's a pain to look them up and then chase them halfway around the map.
Second: Having a good relationships helps a ton. (unlike upon release when it meant nothing), having a negative relationship means it's utterly impossible. So let go selected prisoners to get a relationship boost.
Third: there's a way to cheese it. It's not really cheesing though since in hundreds of hours of playtime, I have managed to win the stupid minigame exactle ONCE!.

1: save your game before talking to a clan leader.
2: start the minigame. try to convince him to join. Once you fail ( and you will) but have at least 2 point convincing him and he rejects, end the conversation, but then save.
3: reload the savegame, you will retain the points you had. now you only need 2 points. It might still take a few tries.

Hope that helps.

I have head someone else mention the fief less clans but you still need to (a) find them, (b) win the minigame. organically this hasn't happened and if this is the only way to achieve more clans to your kingdom i'd argue the mechanic is broken and still needs fixing imo

I did try a cheese myself - i downloaded a mod that makes free clans apply to your kingdom in the same bay as M&B Warband (excellent game!) but sadly it makes my game crash. I may honestly see if there is a way to command line (straight up cheat) assign a few clans to my kingdom just to finish the run...

 

[ZemTex]

I have head someone else mention the fief less clans but you still need to (a) find them, (b) win the minigame. organically this hasn't happened and if this is the only way to achieve more clans to your kingdom i'd argue the mechanic is broken and still needs fixing imo

I did try a cheese myself - i downloaded a mod that makes free clans apply to your kingdom in the same bay as M&B Warband (excellent game!) but sadly it makes my game crash. I may honestly see if there is a way to command line (straight up cheat) assign a few clans to my kingdom just to finish the run...

Don't get me wrong, I totally agree. Once again, during hundreds of hours of playtime, I've only managed to recruit a clan trough normal means, once! And that's not all, when I originally posted this issue on reddit back when, any clan once recruited (and positive relationship mean nothing back then) any clan, once recruited, would bail within a day, regardless of the sum you paid him. But here we are, it's still early access. I'd say TW should address this ASAP, but theyv've come a long way I'd say. Give it time and give feedback, it seems the devs (or at least the community manager) is quite active on these forums.

In the meantime, Use my cheesy workaround I've described here. It works, but takes time and effort.
The way it used to work in WB was a bit too extreme (fiefless clans would flood my city), here in Bannerlord, it's nigh impossible, but I'm sure the devs will fix it eventually.

 

[BigBadBill]

Don't get me wrong, I totally agree. Once again, during hundreds of hours of playtime, I've only managed to recruit a clan trough normal means, once! And that's not all, when I originally posted this issue on reddit back when, any clan once recruited (and positive relationship mean nothing back then) any clan, once recruited, would bail within a day, regardless of the sum you paid him. But here we are, it's still early access. I'd say TW should address this ASAP, but theyv've come a long way I'd say. Give it time and give feedback, it seems the devs (or at least the community manager) is quite active on these forums.

In the meantime, Use my cheesy workaround I've described here. It works, but takes time and effort.
The way it used to work in WB was a bit too extreme (fiefless clans would flood my city), here in Bannerlord, it's nigh impossible, but I'm sure the devs will fix it eventually.

Yes hopefully they will come up with a fix!

I've dived in an out of the game for a while now. I remember the release day version, an it's certainly come a long way!

 

[Old-Bull]

Recruiting landed clans is too expensive, especially since all clans will start the game landed starting with the new patch.

They should make it significantly less expensive if the clan has poor relations with the king and similar traits to the lord recruiting them.

Unlanded clans get snapped up quickly, so if you're starting a new kingdom its very difficult to bring a clan with you.

 

[BigBadBill]

Recruiting landed clans is too expensive, especially since all clans will start the game landed starting with the new patch.

They should make it significantly less expensive if the clan has poor relations with the king and similar traits to the lord recruiting them.

Unlanded clans get snapped up quickly, so if you're starting a new kingdom its very difficult to bring a clan with you.

Yep, it's currently impossible imo...

 

[Old-Bull]

Yep, it's currently impossible imo...

Yeah, the rules make it very difficult to start a kingdom. If you just take a weakened factions territory and create a kingdom, you only have one clan, everyone attacks you so you have to defend the entire time, and you don't have the stability or time to find and recruit an unlanded clan.

That makes you want to start a kingdom with a landed clan. That's damn near impossible without exploiting the broken smithy system. 2-3 million for a clan with fiefs is way too much.

What I used to do to create a kingdom is join a kingdom, build up relationships with 2 clans I wanted to take with me, and create an army with the leaders of those 2 clans. Then I would run down a dead end, disband my army, create my kingdom, and recruit the 2 clans I wanted. That same process would work to start a kingdom with 2 clans. It just takes you 20 years or more to build up the 6 million it would cost to recruit those lords, and that is with 60 relations with each clan, and my personal character having 100 + in charm.

The cost of recruiting landed clans is just too high, without being able to mitigate that cost by giving them more land.

 

[hieronymos2]

In 1.5.3 and now 1.5.4 it seems the main variables affecting Clan recruitment cost are Rep and Fiefs. And oddly, the cost of recruiting a Clan during peace--when they bring zero fiefs--is same as during war. Obviously, charm skill discounts--but I'm unsure how much. Clan level seems to up the cost as well. Can't tell if military strength of the clan matters; but they're usually pretty battered and/or with mainly low-tier troops when I make the pitch.

With 129 charm:
Price of a fellow Imperial landless clan with zero rep was >2,600,000
Price of a single castle fellow Imperial clan with 98 rep was <300,000

And obviously most of the price was paid with smithed weapons (only got the landed clan, btw).

Building clan rep makes the player-as-badass-merc phase of the middle game so important, doing catch-and-release with as many nobles as possible of target factions.

After establishing a kingdom, and declaring peace with whatever faction you took from, time your next war declaration to when you're adjacent to the next target lord you want to recruit.

 

[BigBadBill]

Update:

I enabled the cheat menu to get the 300 trade skill so i could offer fiefs. This was a 'For Science' excercise as my save is null and void without it anyway...

After some time i manged to win the annoying minigame and got to the barter stage. To join my kingdom the clan wanted:

• 250k Gold
• two castles
• two cities, and
• my entire inventory.

Naturally I paid this as it was for science. After the deal was done i insta-revoked one of the cities and left them the other provinces to manage to see what would happen. I then continued playing for a number of hours after turning off cheat mode. (notes on cheat mode below)

Results:

• There was no rep loss revoking the city from the NPC clan. It's fixed at 100 still. This seems broken as surely there should be rep loss revoking provinces, and also would it not make sense to add a timer to stop people exploiting this as i have?
• The cost is insanely expensive. I single handedly made them more powerful than two NPC factions in one deal. This is very broken IMO.
• Giving fiefs as the final trade option is very unfair to the player as it's the only fool proof method to hire other lords
• The cheat menu is broken:
  • I'd been trying to activte the cheat menu.
  • I edited the engine_config.txt file but when i launched the game, the save file reverts the cheat state to 0 and the consul says cheat mode is disabled.
  • I tested and it's not the save game that is reverting the state, it's the game booting up.
  • I again changed the config.txt file cheat state from 0 to 1 then removed write access in Windows to the file for the system by clicking the 'deny' box. This forced the game to load the file with cheat mode enabled.
  • There should be a way to enable the cheat menu without gaming the system...
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• Reddit link: https://www.reddit.com/r/mountandblade/comments/k2brtd/npc_clans/