Should recruits have shields?

[Orion]

This would kind of be a non-issue if there was a to train up lower tier troops somewhat quickly, but there isn't.

I think if there is a real issue here, then it's this or not giving rocks to recruits. If they had rocks then they'd have a way to generate some XP without getting slaughtered in a melee every time against equivalent units (e.g. looters). I don't think they should be rebalanced to be better against higher tier units at all, and every T2 infantry unit has a shield which would nullify the boost recruits would get from rocks.

Regarding the training thing, Warband had the training grounds scattered across the map where you could practice melee, ranged, and cavalry play and earn XP for relevant troop types by doing so. The melee practice put you against one to four of your own troops in a brawl, and beating them all would provide a decent amount of XP. I'd say a workable way to reintroduce this kind of feature would be to add at least one training ground to each faction's territory, add a stamina limit for training like we have for smithing so you can't speedrun a hundred recruits into vlandian sergeants, wound half or more of the units that get knocked out, and pass time on the world map after each bout (this time doesn't count for recovering training stamina or wounded troops). The amount of XP earned should be such that acing your entire pool of recruits in maximum-size sessions should allow between a quarter and half of them to rank up, which is of course assuming you don't get beaten at any point.

A key factor in this is keeping it like Warband where you and all of the units were forced to wear plain clothes and use blunt practice weapons, and where fighting more troops at once yielded greater total XP for them. If you can 1v4 with identical equipment, you can be the "safe" meatgrinder that you put your recruits through. This is a way to reward the player for competency.

 

[thomas13]

You obviously haven't read the thread. Go up and read it.

It will make tier less meaningful and hurt the sense of progression. It will be unimmersive for every single recruit in calradia to own a military grade item with no use to them. It will make armies more homogenous with a ridiculous amount of shields on the battlefield. It makes no sense for archers to start training with a shield. It will make the lategame more grindy, as once you have defeated a lord's T3 army they can come back a couple days later with a group of T1 recruits who are almost as effective solely due to having shields.

There is also no good reason why all recruits should be given shields. If there is one I haven't already refuted in this thread, go ahead and tell me after reading the thread.

That's the thing. Early game is well balanced and doesn't need to be easier or harder, late game is an annoying grind that doesn't need to be harder.

Giving all recruits shields will make early game easier and lategame harder for the player.

Multiply one shield by 100 recruits in an AI lord army. Now those 100 recruits are significantly more difficult for your ranged troops and melee troops to kill.

Recruits don't need their survivability increased, it is fine the way it is. They are  meant to be the cannon fodder of Bannerlord.

If we want them being able to level up then just make them level up faster to T2. Problem solved.

Then it shouldn't be done at all! This game is already grindy enough. Completing a single playthrough takes upwards of 50 hours and by the end is thoroughly unfun. The AI does not need any further advantages.

I don't need to read the thread to see your being a bit too overdramatic about a shield. I never knew shields were such an eyesore. And now your trying to make the claim that t3 infantry are no better than t1? Your name should be a buck 50 cause that's all your arguments are worth.

There are plenty of good reasons. You haven't debunked a thing.

Early game lasts all of one week in game time. I highly doubt recruits with shields are going to make a difference for the player in the early game. You're talking nonsense.

Stop acting like giving recruits shields are the same as giving them mithril. As ricky gervais would say... you're talking sh*t.

Well its good to see you can at least count. I had my doubts. That sounds like a good thing to me. Which is the exact point of giving it to them.

Problem not solved. We don't want to increase their skills just want to give them some wood.

Recruits with shields aren't going to change late game grind. Relax. The player has all the advantage not the AI.

 

[LyonExodus]

How would recruits be worse than looters and peasants if they had rocks?

Looter and peasants have more weapon skill than any recruit? like double the skill kind of more.

Doesn't matter as there are multiple other reasons to not give recruits shields, and we have not established why we need to in the first place.

It just sounds like something people think it would be "nice" to have, rather than many real reasons. Can you tell me why it is actually necessary instead of giving recruits faster level up?

Quite honestly, faster level ups should be given only to the AI as they kinda never field proper armies to begin with. The player has no need for it, they can just get some amazing perks to skip the first 3 tiers of units entirely

Steward perks.
What i am trying to saying is that we already have faster level ups. the AI just can't keep up with the player and happens to field a large amount of recruits . Not to mention that there are a lot of recruits in garrisons as if there weren't the AI would have problems singing.

Waiting on why any of this reasons wouldn't be valid...

I want to make archers less powerful against ALL troops, not just ****ty recruits, which would be accomplished by changing armour to actually work against arrows.

What about starting somewhere?
but i know you. you are the guy that is either 100 or 0, there's nothing in between.

I have agreed way to many times that archers are overturned. Still, even a small change is a good change.
With how TW has proven to be capable of understanding the meta of their game very well (joke) if they were to change the archers to behave the way you hope for the game would somehow become even worse.

I don't put any faith in TW capabilities of making such a big change well and then patch it up correctly in less than 300 days.
The better thing is a slow and steady progression, nothing radical. TW has shown they can't do that well.

Counterpoint: I think it's unrealistic that every single recruit in the entirety of Calradia, even those training to be archers, already have a shield ready when you recruit them. A military-grade item that would have been of no use to them in civilian farming life.

Mate a sparring shield is not military grade (300HP), is training grade (20HP).
With this said. why do you arbitrarily disregard realism when you can't use it to make your points stand? When i know you do talk about it a lot

Cmon mate, be real and put your idealist side aside for a moment.
it wouldn't be unrealistic for recruits to have a plank, or a rotten wooden shield, or some trash item that is there for mainly looks. It will get destroyed with a few hits from a weapons or a few projectiles of any kind. Damn maybe even a rock might pop it soon enough.

Then can you please tell me of multiple drafted levys or recruits forced to join a fight without the most minimal of equipment?
Well honestly we might to not even look to far into history to see that in action, but at least they have helmets.

At this point i guess i will ask this: was it common practice to send recruits and levys in battle without even a plank?
I am not an historian at all but common sense tells me that's not likely for this period.
anyway, if you can find some sources i will gladly have a look.

If one template had a crappy shield and 4 didn't I would be okay with that. Anything else makes shields too common and recruits stronger than they should be.

Have you read the Original post of this Thread? Recruits would actually get much worse if they were given shields.
let me help you

*Strangely with shields recruits do worse against other melee units somewhat, though I suspect this mainly has to with me taking away the scythe and replacing it with a spear.

It even states the theory of it.
Thing is that i have done some tests myself, recruits get very close to beating T2 units because of their aggressive AI in comparison to shielded troops.
The only reason they generally lose to T2 infantrymen is due to morale, but they routinely get a lot of kills.

Also remember this:

The above here is mostly an assumption. until Bluko or someone else does the testing with those parameters what we are discussing here is nothing more than speculation.

 

[five bucks]

I don't need to read the thread

Yeah you do. That's how forums work. Otherwise you're just retreading old ground and wasting your own time as well as everyone else's.

I never knew shields were such an eyesore. And now your trying to make the claim that t3 infantry are no better than t1?

These are called strawman arguments. I didn't say "no better", I said "almost as effective". I didn't call shields an eyesore, I said that having too many would homogenise the battlefield. And it's "you're", not your.

There are plenty of good reasons. You haven't debunked a thing.

Then name some.

Early game lasts all of one week in game time.

Your definition of early game differs from others', then. And I only brought it up because someone else did.

Stop acting like giving recruits shields are the same as giving them mithril. As ricky gervais would say... you're talking sh*t.

Again another straw man argument. Are you arguing with me or an imaginary version of me?

That sounds like a good thing to me. Which is the exact point of giving it to them. Recruits with shields aren't going to change late game grind. Relax. The player has all the advantage not the AI.

This is why you need to read the thread. This has already been addressed.

Problem not solved. We don't want to increase their skills just want to give them some wood.

For what reason? You still haven't given a reason that hasn't already been refuted in the thread.

 

[thomas13]

Yeah you do. That's how forums work. Otherwise you're just retreading old ground and wasting your own time as well as everyone else's.

These are called strawman arguments. I didn't say "no better", I said "almost as effective". I didn't call shields an eyesore, I said that having too many would homogenise the battlefield. And it's "you're", not your.

Then name some.

Your definition of early game differs from others', then. And I only brought it up because someone else did.

Again another straw man argument. Are you arguing with me or an imaginary version of me?

This is why you need to read the thread. This has already been addressed.

For what reason? You still haven't given a reason that hasn't already been refuted in the thread.

You explained to me your arguments in your previous message. No, I don't need to go back and look. I was replying to someone else and you decided to interject. That's on you. Mr. Buck 25.

Except you are treating shields as an aesthetic. It makes perfect sense for recruits to have some gear starting out but that gear doesn't have to be better than t2 gear. Apparently, you also feel archers need to be nerfed. So, would it not make sense then for a recruit to be given some gear to survive? According to you, no. Scr*w the recruits. As Drago from Rocky said, if they die then they die lol. I could see giving recruits a 150 hp shield and a cheap sword. Maybe even a little armor. Something along those lines.

Looters have zero skills and no backing. That's why they are looters. Recruits are backed by a lord/noble. I'm sure they don't take investments lightly. Putting recruits in battle wearing a long sleeve t-shirt and carrying a pitchfork and no training is not a smart investment. Especially when the opposing army has archers.

Shields helping to cause late game grind? This makes no sense to me. Are you saying that vigla recruits give you a difficult time? Because that is almost exactly what we're talking about with infantry with a shield. If they do cause you trouble then late game grind isn't your real concern. Late game is grindy for other reasons but let's stay on topic.

Early game would be unchanged by adding shields. Except more recruits might survive battles. This would be a good thing. It is difficult for AI armies to field strong armies of higher tier troops. But it very easy for the player to field unending high tier troops especially in late game. The player has every advantage. Late game will be grindy regardless of stronger or weaker armies. But stronger armies are more challenging to play against and all the more fun. This game is already too much of a participation trophy.

What advantages does the AI have? I bet you the player has more.

Truth is it doesn't matter to me if they give recruits gear or not. It may make a difference or it may not. If anything it won't take away from the game. I'm open to it.

 

[Bluko88]

Rather than giving recruits shields, I would prefer to fix that by making their existing armor 1.7x more effective. Also, I would make them reach T2 a little bit quicker.

Really, they *should* be cannon fodder. Who else in the game is a better candidate than the guys who you just recruited and haven't trained yet?

I dunno if you want to go that far. I think armor is pretty close to correct in terms of gameplay, it's just you mainly go from really bad 0-20 Armor to pretty good 40-60 Armor. The 20-30 Armor range is really lacking especially for Arms/Legs. Leg Armor only matters for cavalry, but Arm Armor definitely matters for any melee unit.

Also 70-80 Armor sounds great, until you realize blunt weapons more or less totally ignore it. Your proverbial platemail would be useless in this game due to all the maces. But guess that's what RBM is for.

This is a pretty good idea I think. It would make them good as a mass of flexible but ****e reserves who can do almost anything very poorly. Then specialist troops would lose that flexibility. Hey, just like warband!

I have never liked the idea that high tiers should just automatically steamroll lower tiers, it's extremely boring. Sure it feels fun in the moment to crunch through 1000 recruits with a small army, but it is terrible for replayability and pacing. I would actually like a situation where recruit spam is a viable component of some army compositions

That's actually what I was aiming for. For instance Vlandian Recruits have the most of spears of any recruit unit. Aserai Recruits have more blunt weapons like hammers, etc. Tried giving Battanian Volunteers mauls, but that was pretty OP to the point they could beat T2 infantry easily. Basically Recruits should reflect what they'll "evolve" into is what I kind of tried to do.

I guess I didn't consider archers really, the problem is recruits skills are so low not sure what sort of results you'll get. Obviously they'll be limited to the starting ranged weapons. LOL do you give Khuzait Tier 1 Horseman? Food for thought I suppose.

Though the big problems are
1) You have to assign a unit to a troop type (probably have to stick with infantry)
2) Equipment sets are not fixed, it's all randomized, so you will end up with archers who have arrows, but no bows. And then units with a sword and bow, but no arrows. That's why unit equipment really don't vary too much. So no you can't have hybrid units, not without some real wizardy that effectively changes how the game loads rosters.


Well if anyone wants to try my Recruits for themselves:

RecruitsNew.zip

drive.google.com

I'm pretty content with it currently, guess it's a bit WIP which is why I'm not putting it anywhere else, though my patience for testing is basically out at this point. Making changes is simple enough (anyone can do it really), but you have to run a scenario about 10 times and you need to do that for basically every unit near it's tier before you can truly say "working as intended" result wise.

 

[five bucks]

Looter and peasants have more weapon skill than any recruit? like double the skill kind of more.

Ok, then either give recruits more weapon skill or nerf looter/peasant weapon skill.

What i am trying to saying is that we already have faster level ups. the AI just can't keep up with the player and happens to field a large amount of recruits . Not to mention that there are a lot of recruits in garrisons as if there weren't the AI would have problems singing.

The AI can't keep up with the player because we're smarter and make better decisions. And that's fine. Otherwise this game would be literally unwinnable. It's already a very grindy game which takes ages to complete a single playthrough. The AI usually only fields lots of recruits when their initial powerful army full of T5 troops has already been defeated. In which case you should be able to defeat the subsequent scraps army easily, so you can take over their territory.

Waiting on why any of this reasons wouldn't be valid...

Your first point? Because you don't need to give recruits shields to have better weapon skill, just give them better weapon skill.
Your second point? Because the AI's scraps armies after defeating their main army should not be challenging. That will just drag out the game more.

What about starting somewhere?
but i know you. you are the guy that is either 100 or 0, there's nothing in between.

Let me explain.
Changing armour will fix the problem of archers being too strong.
Giving recruits shields will not fix the problem of archers being too strong, so armour will still need to be changed.
Therefore it is not a reason to make recruits have shields, since the actual fix will still need to happen anyway.

With how TW has proven to be capable of understanding the meta of their game very well (joke) if they were to change the archers to behave the way you hope for the game would somehow become even worse.I don't put any faith in TW capabilities of making such a big change well and then patch it up correctly in less than 300 days.

Blunt damage to armour was changed the way I wanted and it made the game much better. Cavalry charge damage/knockdown was changed the way I wanted and it made the game much better.

Mate a sparring shield is not military grade (300HP), is training grade (20HP).

A shield is solely useful as a military item. It has no other purpose.

it wouldn't be unrealistic for recruits to have a plank, or a rotten wooden shield, or some trash item that is there for mainly looks.

Nobody would bring a literal plank to a battle. That would be less than useless, it would actually hinder you. As for a rotten wooden shield, such things are not just lying around everywhere either.

Then can you please tell me of multiple drafted levys or recruits forced to join a fight without the most minimal of equipment?
Well honestly we might to not even look to far into history to see that in action, but at least they have helmets.

Bannerlord troops are NOT "drafted levies". You can go into a village of a kingdom you have no ties to, and recruit men there even if you are not their lord or even from that kingdom.

Since you are proposing the change, the burden of proof is on you. Can you go find me multiple historical examples of volunteer soldiers joining travelling warbands and all of them already having shields with them?

It makes perfect sense for recruits to have some gear starting out

How does it make "perfect sense" for a guy who was working on a farm five minutes ago and has never fought before in his life to already have a shield that is only useful for fighting? And for literally every single guy in Calradia to just have a shield lying around?

Apparently, you also feel archers need to be nerfed. So, would it not make sense then for a recruit to be given some gear to survive?

See above in this post.

Recruits are backed by a lord/noble. I'm sure they don't take investments lightly. Putting recruits in battle wearing a long sleeve t-shirt and carrying a pitchfork and no training is not a smart investment. Especially when the opposing army has archers.

Recruits are not backed by anyone. They are unaffiliated volunteers. I can be a Khuzait, go to Vlandia, say "anyone want to join me?", then use those same guys to attack a Vlandian lord.

Shields helping to cause late game grind? This makes no sense to me.

Because you are not reading the many explanations given in this thread. Then you complain that it does not make sense. If you read the thread it would make sense to you and you would save yourself time. Here. I'll even link the post for you.

Should recruits have shields?

So something that has bugged me for a long time is the general ineffectiveness of recruits. Now I get it; they are recruits, lowest of the low for the military units, and not supposed to be much better than peasants. But the sad truth is actual peasants are probably better fighters then recruits...

forums.taleworlds.com

The player has every advantage.

The player starts off with nothing, has to work their way up through the entire game, has to conquer 100 castles and 100 cities and defeat enemy AI armies in hundreds of field battles.
We are meant to have an advantage. Otherwise instead of taking 70+ hours to complete a single playthrough like it does now, it would take 200 hours.

Late game will be grindy regardless of stronger or weaker armies. But stronger armies are more challenging to play against and all the more fun. This game is already too much of a participation trophy.

An army of 3000 T1/T2/T3/T4/T5/T6 is a challenge.

Once that is wiped out, the AI will be able to muster maybe 400 recruits to attack me while I am sieging their castle.

An army of 400 T1/T2 is not a challenge and I will beat them easily.

An army of 400 T1/T2 "but the T1 have shields" is still not a challenge and I will still beat them easily; but due to being stronger with shields they will cause my troops to have some more casualties I will need to replace.

Thus making the game more grindy without making it more challenging.

Truth is it doesn't matter to me if they give recruits gear or not. It may make a difference or it may not. If anything it won't take away from the game. I'm open to it.

Because you haven't thought it through and/or don't understand the impact it can have over the course of a full playthrough. And that's fine, just mod it into your own game rather than saying it should be in vanilla.

I dunno if you want to go that far. I think armor is pretty close to correct in terms of gameplay, it's just you mainly go from really bad 0-20 Armor to pretty good 40-60 Armor. The 20-30 Armor range is really lacking especially for Arms/Legs. Leg Armor only matters for cavalry, but Arm Armor definitely matters for any melee unit.

Armour protection against arrows is terrible in terms of gameplay. I've done testing and the average number of chest shots to kill a same tier troop is 4-5. This means ranged troops are just as deadly at a distance as melee units are up close. This makes them very overpowered.
Shields do help due to their unrealistically high HP, but when troops are fighting in melee, they can't block with their shield and they get shot full of arrows anyway. And troops without shields are totally screwed.

Making armour give 1.7x better protection against arrows/bolts would make ranged units much more balanced and improve the game.

Also 70-80 Armor sounds great, until you realize blunt weapons more or less totally ignore it. Your proverbial platemail would be useless in this game due to all the maces

Maces didn't make plate useless, just want to point that out: far from it. Padding was worn beneath plate.

Yes, maces were the most effective way of dealing with plate (other than a dagger to the eyeslit), but that is not the same thing as making plate useless. Otherwise real life min-maxing knights would have all started using maces and ditched their expensive, heavy, vision-restricting armour.

 

[Bluko88]

I'm taking about the AI: the last thing I want is the army they scraped together in two days after I killed off 3000 of their men to be at all usable in contesting my (now beaten-up) army.

I can't say I have that experience: between archers, improved cav and shieldwall formation putting shieldless dudes towards the back, I can usually mop up a village militia or small lord party for the XP.

I think some are conflating the advantage a shield provides to the player, with that of the A.I. The A.I.'s ability to block melee attacks is largely determined by their skill and the attacker's skill. This is why militia units don't hold up very long, doesn't matter if they have shields, they'll let themselves get hit. It's why you land a lot more hits more easily the higher your melee skills skill go up, because opposing A.I. deliberately fails to block as much.

Shields really don't help in melee that much, they are really all about blocking projectiles. And my recruits because of their weapons (i.e. lack of scythe) actually perform slightly worse in melee. Here's 100 Legionaries chewing through 400 Recruits with shields:


Again the point of shields given to SOME recruits is so they are less of liability. So you can start to engage more advanced forces, like Bandits, earlier. Killing recruits doesn't even provide very good XP, so all those extra kills don't really amount to much.

I'm a bit surprised TBH, I thought most everyone loathed recruits to the point that I've seen some suggest they shouldn't even be in game and you should start at tier 2.

 

[Chest Hunter]

I think some are conflating the advantage a shield provides to the player, with that of the A.I. The A.I.'s ability to block melee attacks is largely determined by their skill and the attacker's skill. This is why militia units don't hold up very long, doesn't matter if they have shields, they'll let themselves get hit. It's why you land a lot more hits more easily the higher your melee skills skill go up, because opposing A.I. deliberately fails to block as much.

Shields really don't help in melee that much, they are really all about blocking projectiles. And my recruits because of their weapons (i.e. lack of scythe) actually perform slightly worse in melee. Here's 100 Legionaries chewing through 400 Recruits with shields:


Again the point of shields given to SOME recruits is so they are less of liability. So you can start to engage more advanced forces, like Bandits, earlier. Killing recruits doesn't even provide very good XP, so all those extra kills don't really amount to much.

I'm a bit surprised TBH, I thought most everyone loathed recruits to the point that I've seen some suggest they shouldn't even be in game and you should start at tier 2.

ITT: I want recruits to be MY vision of recruits, with helmets and spears and low health shields because I believe the peasants and indentured servants I wrangled from the slave trad-I mean recruiter, would have them.

TW(probably): Recruits are recruits. Want shield? Upgrade. Want shield recruit? Hire noble. Problem solved.
This reply confuses and angers the shieldboi.

Poll for not requiring war mounts to upgrade cavalry troops. All I do is slap some barding on a lame sumpter *slap* see? Much better... And besides, it's not like I can't train the horse's legs to become un-lame, just put some butter on the joints like they did in real life. Look how much the low tier cavalry gets destroyed by spearmen, here's a gif of me marching them uphill into a phalanx. See how much they're fodder for spearmen? Literally unplayable. The low-tier horsemen get eaten by phalanx, but when I do the same 'test' with Elite Cataphracts and a host of Butter Knights they fare better than their recruit counterparts. All I'm saying is we shouldn't need horses to upgrade, it's not like they don't already have horses, maybe 1/3 or 2/5 should spawn with full plate barding for the sake of balance. It's not like my horsemen wouldn't have barding...

But nah in all seriousness if your peasants are being killed by arrows, you're doing something wrong and are a bad commander. You know those lumps of dirt and rock protruding from the earth, crested with grass and foliage? Hills I think they're called. The devs implemented them into the game. I use a simple tactic of placing my recruits behind the hill (shocker I know, 1000 IQ Sun-Tzu-tier tactical genius) and when the enemy crest the hill, my men engage and are victorious. Don't tell anyone about my amazing strategy. The world is 3D not 2D lmao. I legitimately hate the idea of the farmer peasants I've just picked up having shields. The recruits are the best and most interesting unit of each faction and you're scared to admit it.

 

[wyrda78]

Getting higher tier troops shouldn't be easy. In Warband, it was too easy, making low-tier troops essentially pointless because they would be bypassed instantly. However, even in Bannerlord, training up recruits still isn't particularly difficult. I can't understand how you can think it's too much of a challenge. There are plenty of looters that are easy to kill, and bandits aren't too tough if you can distract their attention (and bandits shouldn't be pushovers to low-tier troops in the first place, peasants are their primary prey after all, and if you're charging recruits directly into archers you are doing something wrong) There are also a myriad of perks to level up recruits without battling at all. Take 3 perks requiring only 50 Steward and 100 Leadership and you can level up tier 1 by doing absolutely nothing except waiting 17 days. Or, you could simply pay to level them up by giving them gear, or plop them in a fief with a governor and passively generate high tier troops. And with a good medicine skill, you hardly need that many recruits in the first place and can get by with tier 2+ unless you are throwing your high-tier troops fighting in battles with bad odds.

My problem with the levelling system is not that levelling up low tier troops is too hard, it's that levelling up high-tier troops is too easy, and the fact that there is no meaningful mechanical distinction between noble vs commoner recruits, despite the fact that Taleworlds have had a myriad of mods, which have successfully implemented a bifurcated recruit system, to learn from.

 

[Chest Hunter]

and the fact that there is no meaningful mechanical distinction between noble vs commoner recruits

Nobles come mounted/geared. Are we playing the same game?

 

[five bucks]

Again the point of shields given to SOME recruits is so they are less of liability. So you can start to engage more advanced forces, like Bandits, earlier.

This can be accomplished by just making recruits level up slightly faster.

Recruits are T1. Forest bandits are like T2-T3. I don't think recruits should be able to compete with them.

If I have a party of T1 Recruits, I should be fighting looters until they level up to T2. Then I should be fighting bandits.

 

[wyrda78]

Nobles come mounted/geared. Are we playing the same game?

I'm playing Mount and Blade: Bannerlord v1.0.2. What about you?

 

[Apocal]

I'm a bit surprised TBH, I thought most everyone loathed recruits to the point that I've seen some suggest they shouldn't even be in game and you should start at tier 2.

There are like six perks that, when taken together, make leveling them a snap for the player so people making use of them would never have an issue leveling recruits. A lot of the time, they don't even need to get into fights really, since there is a +200 bonus XP perk in there somewhere.

At that point, the only concern is the AI having them and not being able to delete the trash mobs for basically zero effort.

 

[thomas13]

Ok, then either give recruits more weapon skill or nerf looter/peasant weapon skill.

The AI can't keep up with the player because we're smarter and make better decisions. And that's fine. Otherwise this game would be literally unwinnable. It's already a very grindy game which takes ages to complete a single playthrough. The AI usually only fields lots of recruits when their initial powerful army full of T5 troops has already been defeated. In which case you should be able to defeat the subsequent scraps army easily, so you can take over their territory.

Your first point? Because you don't need to give recruits shields to have better weapon skill, just give them better weapon skill.
Your second point? Because the AI's scraps armies after defeating their main army should not be challenging. That will just drag out the game more.

Let me explain.
Changing armour will fix the problem of archers being too strong.
Giving recruits shields will not fix the problem of archers being too strong, so armour will still need to be changed.
Therefore it is not a reason to make recruits have shields, since the actual fix will still need to happen anyway.

Blunt damage to armour was changed the way I wanted and it made the game much better. Cavalry charge damage/knockdown was changed the way I wanted and it made the game much better.

A shield is solely useful as a military item. It has no other purpose.

Nobody would bring a literal plank to a battle. That would be less than useless, it would actually hinder you. As for a rotten wooden shield, such things are not just lying around everywhere either.

Bannerlord troops are NOT "drafted levies". You can go into a village of a kingdom you have no ties to, and recruit men there even if you are not their lord or even from that kingdom.

Since you are proposing the change, the burden of proof is on you. Can you go find me multiple historical examples of volunteer soldiers joining travelling warbands and all of them already having shields with them?

How does it make "perfect sense" for a guy who was working on a farm five minutes ago and has never fought before in his life to already have a shield that is only useful for fighting? And for literally every single guy in Calradia to just have a shield lying around?

See above in this post.

Recruits are not backed by anyone. They are unaffiliated volunteers. I can be a Khuzait, go to Vlandia, say "anyone want to join me?", then use those same guys to attack a Vlandian lord.

Because you are not reading the many explanations given in this thread. Then you complain that it does not make sense. If you read the thread it would make sense to you and you would save yourself time. Here. I'll even link the post for you.

Should recruits have shields?

So something that has bugged me for a long time is the general ineffectiveness of recruits. Now I get it; they are recruits, lowest of the low for the military units, and not supposed to be much better than peasants. But the sad truth is actual peasants are probably better fighters then recruits...

forums.taleworlds.com

The player starts off with nothing, has to work their way up through the entire game, has to conquer 100 castles and 100 cities and defeat enemy AI armies in hundreds of field battles.
We are meant to have an advantage. Otherwise instead of taking 70+ hours to complete a single playthrough like it does now, it would take 200 hours.

An army of 3000 T1/T2/T3/T4/T5/T6 is a challenge.

Once that is wiped out, the AI will be able to muster maybe 400 recruits to attack me while I am sieging their castle.

An army of 400 T1/T2 is not a challenge and I will beat them easily.

An army of 400 T1/T2 "but the T1 have shields" is still not a challenge and I will still beat them easily; but due to being stronger with shields they will cause my troops to have some more casualties I will need to replace.

Thus making the game more grindy without making it more challenging.

Because you haven't thought it through and/or don't understand the impact it can have over the course of a full playthrough. And that's fine, just mod it into your own game rather than saying it should be in vanilla.

Armour protection against arrows is terrible in terms of gameplay. I've done testing and the average number of chest shots to kill a same tier troop is 4-5. This means ranged troops are just as deadly at a distance as melee units are up close. This makes them very overpowered.
Shields do help due to their unrealistically high HP, but when troops are fighting in melee, they can't block with their shield and they get shot full of arrows anyway. And troops without shields are totally screwed.

Making armour give 1.7x better protection against arrows/bolts would make ranged units much more balanced and improve the game.

Maces didn't make plate useless, just want to point that out: far from it. Padding was worn beneath plate.

Yes, maces were the most effective way of dealing with plate (other than a dagger to the eyeslit), but that is not the same thing as making plate useless. Otherwise real life min-maxing knights would have all started using maces and ditched their expensive, heavy, vision-restricting armour.

Archers are strong cause the player can mass them in a long line and flank incoming armies. The only counter to archers are mass shielded high tier troops. Since the AI rarely masses those troops in significant numbers they have a difficult time with mass archers. Adding a little bit more armor to all troops isn't the way forward. And if you do add more armor won't that make late game more grindy? See you constantly contradict yourself all the time.

To be honest giving recruits shields will probably make zero difference in gameplay and be a complete non factor. Having said that I don't see any harm in them having some gear. So stop acting like giving them shields will be like uniting the gatekeeper with the key master. It wouldn't be the end of the world. Giving recruits shields won't end in more casualties for the player in late game. They're not stronger they just get some arrow protection. You know this as well as I do. You're being dramatic.

Last I checked the player doesn't even come close to starting with nothing. The player gets a horse, shield, melee weapon and ranged weapon and armor. How is that nothing? Yes, they're are a lot of fiefs to capture. The "grind" isn't really about capturing fiefs the "grind" is that the player reaches a certain point early in the game and he has zero chance of losing. That is when the "grind" starts. Capturing fiefs then becomes a chore and loses all it's fun. The player has every advantage over the AI except he can't be in multiple places at once that's his only weakness.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Yes, they're are a lot of fiefs to capture. The "grind" isn't really about capturing fiefs the "grind" is that the player reaches a certain point early in the game and he has zero chance of losing. That is when the "grind" starts. Capturing fiefs then becomes a chore and loses all it's fun. The player has every advantage over the AI except he can't be in multiple places at once that's his only weakness.

The way to reduce this grind isn't just to make the game easier or harder using stats. They need to actually add more game mechanics or make existing ones more interesting to use. There are plenty of games where you're unstoppable early on if you know what you're doing, but they offer creative and skillful ways to curbstomp the AI. Native Bannerlord has none of that, and I would even say that the process of getting to the curbstomp phase is also pretty boring.

 

[thomas13]

The way to reduce this grind isn't just to make the game easier or harder using stats. They need to actually add more game mechanics or make existing ones more interesting to use. There are plenty of games where you're unstoppable early on if you know what you're doing, but they offer creative and skillful ways to curbstomp the AI. Native Bannerlord has none of that, and I would even say that the process of getting to the curbstomp phase is also pretty boring.

Earlier I mentioned strong or weak armies aren't what influences the grind. Experienced players realize that when losing comes off the table it becomes increasingly and unavoidably apparent how empty the game really is. And at that point there is nothing left to offer experienced players who have tried every build known to man. Still though challenging gameplay and quality content go hand in hand to keep the player coming back for more. That does not exist in this game for experienced players.

 

[JunKeteer]

The way to reduce this grind isn't just to make the game easier or harder using stats. They need to actually add more game mechanics or make existing ones more interesting to use. There are plenty of games where you're unstoppable early on if you know what you're doing, but they offer creative and skillful ways to curbstomp the AI. Native Bannerlord has none of that, and I would even say that the process of getting to the curbstomp phase is also pretty boring.

This, adding shields to recruits is just a band-aid solution to the underlying issues with how poorly tuned the stages of the game are from early>mid>late. If some players struggle with naked recruits against forest bandits, etc...wonderful - the game should be more challenging and thoughtful before your engagements; much more like WB early phase with sea raiders and those taiga bandits which takes slightly longer than BL to comfortably/mindlessly grind out.
Giving recruits all shields just makes that part even quicker, without solving the actual issues some pointed out with AI parties and their later-game issues of 75% recruit compositions (it's a fault of how they set up their economic system and how lords 'spawn' recruits - and player always being better). Sure, maybe giving 1/5 variety of recruits a crappy shield would be nice to break out from all the copy&paste units, I can at least be ok with that, but it still doesn't solve your recruit-laden garrison issue in the end either.

I mean, it's the same with the armor; there's a ****-ton of T1/T2/T3 equipment most players probably skip right past after just a few short hours/minutes of playing. Whereas, that T1/T2/T3 armor 'phase' should've been equally represented by the early-game and extend that part of the 'gearing up' acquisition to make it longer/harder/difficult to pass through that phase so that it also lines up with everything else. All the phases of your equipment, troop tiers, clan tiers, etc...are all horribly misaligned.
Clan T0-2 (up to mercenary part) should ideally be represented by that T1-3 equipment phase, and similar with what you can feasibly manage in acquiring/holding a group of T1-3 troops. It also makes the clearing bandit hideouts/quests part slightly more 'useful' in terms of needing to do them for a while in order to gain skills/exp/money (acknowledge that the quests suck but that's also a different issue); maybe also makes smithing more of a side-necessity than what it currently is. Tournament betting actually worth it (and rewards tuned down, or harder to win), boardgame betting too, etc...none of that really matters since most players skip that 'content' within a few short hours - then all we're left with is just the ****ty lategame.

This has nothing to do with 'gatekeeping' and giving shields to recruits doesn't impact the challenging aspect of the game even if TW bothers to actually adjust this (they won't); that is an entirely different laundry list of issues/reasons on that.

 

[LyonExodus]

Blunt damage to armour was changed the way I wanted and it made the game much better. Cavalry charge damage/knockdown was changed the way I wanted and it made the game much better.

do you realize that is a small change? it's not the radical as: let's give 1,7x more armor effectiveness out of the blue.
God man, you are a broken disk. it's a pain debating with you.

also you weren't the only that thought that improving charge DMG and nerfing and buffing stuff was a good plan. (also improving the charge DMG didn't work as well as you thought, as i have explained the biggest change that improved cavalry lately was the thrusting AI improving. The horses actually made them worse since they got faster, they got better only Vs High tiers which is well... not that great if you got worse Vs the little ones that the AI spams.) The reason i am stating this is because the 1.8.1. data, before the horses changes Cavalry was at it's peak. And it got worse with 1.9. but still better than 1.8.

But you are the most morbus of enforcers on that side.

Since you are proposing the change, the burden of proof is on you. Can you go find me multiple historical examples of volunteer soldiers joining travelling warbands and all of them already having shields with them?

Let me tell you this magical terms knows as "militia" or "resistance groups". They fight with basically nothing but the minimal of equipment and are often made up by a bulk of simple civilians.
I don't know but WW2 told me a few things about them and how important they are, as i said, we don't have to look that much down in history. And common sense tells me that if did happen in the 40s it likely happened in the 1000s too.


I don't know mate, you are quite a pain to argue with. you get stuck on your line of thinking and close yourself to anything different.
Then even when good arguments are made you keep going against them. You are way too ideological mate. It's infortunate i am not going to address any of your points any further. i gave you my logical reasoning but i am not the kind that talks to walls unless it's a person i deeply care about.
Anyway what sources could i find:

A PDF Manuscript with this said:
THE MILITIAS
Enea Silvio Piccolomini, the humanist and future Pope Pius II, commenting on the state of military preparedness in Germany in 1444, wrote that “not only every noble, but even every burgher (citizen) in the guilds has an armoury in his house so as to appear equipped at every alarm. The skill of the citizens in the use of weapons is extraordinary.” It is worth noting that Piccolomini mentions not just their arms and armor, which we know the burghers had from surviving town records, but also explicitly their skill.

A definition and origin of Milita

And a breakdown on small communal forces in medieval Italy

The very predictable milita is not recruits is coming. Thing is, if a fight were about to happen near a village civilians would be called up (likely paid well too if they survived), then left there or dead after the fight is done. Pretty sure extra shields were the norm in military logistics, as were extra weapons and armors. Not to mention loot or possession the civilians might have themselves.

But let's forget about logistics right? not that it was important.

there are also other documents that prove that civilians could have the right to posses weaponry in their homes and communal milita forces had armories with extra equipment.

None of this leads me to think that a poorly trained soldier shouldn't have been capable of at least bringing a board and shield if called up or given one.

Still giving them a crappy shield wouldn't make then any close to being bothersome, they are still recruits with 20 weapon skill fighting veteran soldiers with 130.

 

[Bluko88]

Perhaps it would be better if I illustrated with a more likely scenario. Let's say you have 30 recruits, maybe you had some tier 2 units before, but they died in another fight. Maybe you're trying to get somewhere and or looking for smaller looter bands, but spawns aren't favorable. Then along comes a 20 man bandit party (all tier 2 Bushwackers).

This should be a fair fight, but it's not LOL, it's slaughter:


But if recruits have some shields it is "fair"; you can win this with player involvement:




Now some are probably mumuring "Well you should have all tier 2 units before fighting bandits!", yeah but they really don't fare too well.

隐藏: Spolier Alert!

So you still need numerical superiority, and that's fine. But recruits are such a liability against anything beyond a looter they really aren't good for bolstering your ranks. And then this locks you into a kind of crappy JRPG grind where you gotta level up recruits exclusively off looters, but if you aren't amassing archers, you're going to lose troops, so you gotta get more recruits again. It becomes very cyclical.

And that's fine if your new and coming to grips with the game, yes you should fight looters til you learn what to do. All I'm trying to do is take the bumper rails off a bit for veteran players.


Look I get it. If you save frequently, this is likely a non-issue. The problem is the iron-man experience is not very good, due to the wild imbalances. There's no point in "owning your mistakes" when the mistakes aren't really yours half the time.