Siege Simulation is Cursed

[VersusXY]

My clan is mercenary under Vlandia. Calatild created 1400 men army and sieged 400 men castle. I simulated the battle because we were exteremly outnumbered them. I thought we will win. But we lost. Yeah we lost and castles defenders was mostly militia.. Siege simulations are crazy unbalanced. Sometimes I'm going to siege low guarded new conquered castles with 90 men in it. I have 600 men and I'm losing 500 of them against 90 soldiers. This is ridiculous. Picture of it is here:

 

[SadShogun]

Geri bildirimin için teşekkürler, daha fazla insanın okuyabilmesi için geri kalanını İngilizce yazıyorum.

The siege "assaults" were actually very rare, if they only provided an advantage of 2x, the defenses would be meaningless. In actuality, 5x-10x is required to assault a fully manned castle and win. In our game simulations, this number is between 3x-5x, in the mission, the number becomes close to 1.5x-2x according to my current data.

Nevertheless, I still think there is a discrepancy between the mission siege and the simulation siege. I believe the campaign is currently balanced around the simulated battles/sieges as the player has to be present for mission battles to commence.

For sieges in general, would you prefer the mission sieges to be harder and require numbers close to 3x (and reflect the simulated battles) or would you prefer simulated battles to reflect mission? I think the general sentiment is making settlements harder to conquer, but would like to hear more opinions.

 

[veronicaaltoids]

Geri bildirimin için teşekkürler, daha fazla insanın okuyabilmesi için geri kalanını İngilizce yazıyorum.

The siege "assaults" were actually very rare, if they only provided an advantage of 2x, the defenses would be meaningless. In actuality, 5x-10x is required to assault a fully manned castle and win. In our game simulations, this number is between 3x-5x, in the mission, the number becomes close to 1.5x-2x according to my current data.

Nevertheless, I still think there is a discrepancy between the mission siege and the simulation siege. I believe the campaign is currently balanced around the simulated battles/sieges as the player has to be present for mission battles to commence.

For sieges in general, would you prefer the mission sieges to be harder and require numbers close to 3x (and reflect the simulated battles) or would you prefer simulated battles to reflect mission? I think the general sentiment is making settlements harder to conquer, but would like to hear more opinions.

I understand your points,
but if it require 5-10 times to successfully conquor some city with 600+ men, then that would require 3000-6000+ size army, how would that possible to achieve??

even 3-5 times ratio, that would require you to form army with 2000-3000+ men
and just one siege city would exhaust all the lords. you have to seek peace immediately after you siege city.

it's seem so difficult to conquer a city with 500+ men

 

[Blood Gryphon]

For sieges in general, would you prefer the mission sieges to be harder and require numbers close to 3x (and reflect the simulated battles) or would you prefer simulated battles to reflect mission? I think the general sentiment is making settlements harder to conquer, but would like to hear more opinions.

Mission side needs to be harder. But if they fail to achieve that, then maybe we need to lower it to match mission side and increase garrison size so its not so easy. Having them be so different is a bit jarring and wont be acceptable for full release.

 

[VersusXY]

Geri bildirimin için teşekkürler, daha fazla insanın okuyabilmesi için geri kalanını İngilizce yazıyorum.

The siege "assaults" were actually very rare, if they only provided an advantage of 2x, the defenses would be meaningless. In actuality, 5x-10x is required to assault a fully manned castle and win. In our game simulations, this number is between 3x-5x, in the mission, the number becomes close to 1.5x-2x according to my current data.

Nevertheless, I still think there is a discrepancy between the mission siege and the simulation siege. I believe the campaign is currently balanced around the simulated battles/sieges as the player has to be present for mission battles to commence.

For sieges in general, would you prefer the mission sieges to be harder and require numbers close to 3x (and reflect the simulated battles) or would you prefer simulated battles to reflect mission? I think the general sentiment is making settlements harder to conquer, but would like to hear more opinions.

Bütün geliştiricilere saygılar. Geri bildirim yapmazsak oyun nasıl gelişecek, bu biz oyuncuların işi. Şimdi İngilizce yazmaya kalksam 3 saat sürecek, ayrıca İngilizce kelime haznem detaylı yazı yazacak kadar da iyi değil o yüzden merak ettiklerimi, kuşatmalar ve şehir yönetimi ile ilgili birkaç tavsiyemi Türkçe yazacağım. Umarım sorun olmaz. Sorun olur derseniz de yorumu silebilirsiniz.

1. olarak merak ettiğim bir şey var. Kuşatma araçları simülasyonlar da işe yarıyorlar mı? Bir etken olarak görülüyorlar mı? Mesela resimde görüldüğü üzere bizde 1 koçbaşı ve 2 kule mevcut. Bunlar kuşatmayı normal saldırı da oldukça kolaylaştıran araçlar hatta resmen hayat kurtarıyorlar. Fakat bana Simülasyonlarda sonuca hiç etki etmiyorlar gibi geliyor. Eğer etki etmiyorsa bunların + sonuçları olmalı simülasyonlara. Hem bize, hem düşman tarafına (fırlatılabilirler de dahil).

2. olarak, tam olarak kuşatma ile alakası yok ama kale ve şehir garnizonu ile ilgili bir önerim var, birbiri ile çok uzak konular değiller ve eminim ki çoğu diğer oyuncu da bunu ister. İçinde bulunduğum krallık bana aitse, ve ordu kurup bir şehir veya kale aldıysam, diğer klanların üyeleri fetih edilen mekan ilk olarak bana ait olduğu için içine garnizon takviyesi yapmıyorlar. Şehiri kendime alırsam da takviye etmiyorlar. Sadece kendi klan üyelerim takviye yapıyor fakat onların da askeri çok az oluyor genelde. Bir şehiri takviye edeceğim derken o şehir düşman tarafından geri alınıyor çünkü çok zayıf kalıyor. Buna bir düzeltme gelir ve diğer klanların birbirlerine garnizon yerleştirdiği gibi bizim kale ve şehirlerimizi de adamlarıyla desteklerlerse çok iyi olur. Veya, eğer şehirde bir Vali var ise ona bir bütçe ayırıp, şehire gelen acemileri garnizon olarak işe almasını veya bağlı köylerden adam toplamasını isteyebiliriz. Bu otomatik adam toplama sınırlı olabilir mesela. 20-30-50 veya 100 adam toplar senin için(bütçeye göre), gerisini sen ve klan üyeleri takviye eder. Hatta bunu perklerle destekleyebilirsiniz de. Her şehir ve kale çevreden adam toplarsa lordlar adam bulmakta sorun yaşar derseniz de garnizon için ekstra bir toplama havuzu kurulabilir. Lordların asker aldığı kısma dokunulmaz. Veya şehir ve köylerdeki önemli kişilerin (sanırım notables deniyordu onlara) sayısını artırırsınız daha fazla gönüllü asker bulunur veya notableların asker slotlarını 2şer genişletirsiniz notable sayısını artırmak yerine. Veya parayla bir garnizon komutanı tutabiliriz. Sarayımızda kalır. O komutan'a para veririz, o da bizim için asker toplasın diye tecrübeli birisini yollar ve tüm civar köylerden ona söylenen sayıda gönüllüleri garnizona getirtir. Ayrıyetten bu Kale kumandanı savunma savaşlarında çeşitli bonuslar da verebilir garnizona. Mesela moral desteği gibi, savunanlar çok hızlı ölüyorlarsa daha zor savaştan kaçarlar sınırları zorlayıp savaşırlar böylece yuvarlak altına alınmışken kaçmaya odaklanıp kendini savunmadıkları için kolay hedef olmazlar. Ayrıyetten bu saldıran tarafında işini zorlaştırır tabii. Ne zaman kuşatma yapsam en az 50 100 kişi savaştan kaçıyor. 100 kişi kalıp savaşsa saldıranlar daha da yıpranırlar. Kaybetseler bile saldıran yıprandığı için yeni aldıkları yeri savunmaları daha zor olur.

3. olarak, şehir ve kalelerin alınması tabii ki daha zor olmalı. Yoksa işin gerçekçiliği kalmaz. Ayrıca hala daha çözülememiş olan kartopu etkisini daha da arşa çıkarır. Fakat 1441 vs 450 (%80'i milis) gibi durumlarda da oyunun biraz insaflı hesaplamalar yapması gerekiyor diye düşünüyorum. 800-450 yapsam mesela ve kaybetsem şuan bu konuyu buraya açmazdım çünkü anlayışla karşılardım. 1000 saat oynadım bu oyunu, bu gönderiye attığım gibi bir şeyi ilk defa yaşıyorum. Ben en ufak şeye gelip konu açan birisi değilim.

4. Olarak, Npc lordların zekası geliştirilmeli. Kuşatma araçlarını efektif kullanmalılar. Bazıları duvarları kırmaya yönelik kuşatma yapmalı mesela. 2 tane balista üretip hiç hasar veremeden bodoslama savaşa girişmemeliler.

5. olarak, ufak bir öneri, eğer krallığa bağlı başka bir klanın şehri veya kalesi düşman tarafından kuşatma altındaysa ve bende o krallığın lideriysem, bana kuşatma bildirimi gelmesi çok iyi olur. Sonuçta ben Kral'ım ve her mülk beni ilgilendirir. Ben bir tarafla uğraşırken bir bakıyorum ki düşman 2 kale almış benim haberim bile yok. Sabaha kadar al-ver oyun oynuyoruz adamlarla. Savunmak için zamanında gidemiyorum o mekanları çünkü haberim olmuyor veya geç görüyorum yetişemiyorum.

Okuduysanız teşekkürler. Çoğu yerde konudan biraz saptım fakat söylediklerimin hepsi bir yerde şehir kale kuşatmaları ile bağlantılı sonuçta. Başta dediğim gibi Türkçe sorun oluyorsa silebilirsiniz ama değerlendirip öyle silin derim. İyi akşamlar.

 

[Blood Gryphon]

Great feedback @VersusXY, I don't know Turkish so I had to use google to translate but I believe I understood most your points.

@mexxico if im understanding right #2 above is partly about that donation issue we've discussed where as king, allied clans wont fill the garrison of a captured fief leaving it defenseless after they take it. This is still on your list to fix right?

Yes please give us #5, no reason to not get warnings about any fief that is under attack when the king of a faction.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

in the mission, the number becomes close to 1.5x-2x according to my current data.

Or just the player until AI is immensely improved

 

[Apocal]

The siege "assaults" were actually very rare, if they only provided an advantage of 2x, the defenses would be meaningless. In actuality, 5x-10x is required to assault a fully manned castle and win. In our game simulations, this number is between 3x-5x, in the mission, the number becomes close to 1.5x-2x according to my current data.

Out of curiosity, is your data based on telemetry, watching Streams, self-reporting or some combination of the above?

 

[SadShogun]

Bütün geliştiricilere saygılar. Geri bildirim yapmazsak oyun nasıl gelişecek, bu biz oyuncuların işi. Şimdi İngilizce yazmaya kalksam 3 saat sürecek, ayrıca İngilizce kelime haznem detaylı yazı yazacak kadar da iyi değil o yüzden merak ettiklerimi, kuşatmalar ve şehir yönetimi ile ilgili birkaç tavsiyemi Türkçe yazacağım. Umarım sorun olmaz. Sorun olur derseniz de yorumu silebilirsiniz.

Geri bildirim için teşekkürler, ben moderatör değilim ancak sorun olacağını düşünmüyorum. En iyi ifade edebildiğin dilde yazman bizim içinde faydalı olur tabii. Elimden geldiğince çevirip cevaplayacağım, anlam kayıpları ve hatalar olabilir, kusura bakmazsın umarım.

I am translating his feedbacks/questions into English and try to answer some of them. Please excuse me as some idioms and expressions might not be preserved completely and thank you for your understanding.

1. Does siege engines work in simulations. For example I have a ram and 2 siege towers, normally these are life savers would make the siege easier in the mission. It seems like, currently they're not affecting the siege at all. This should not be the case and they should affect both attackers and defenders in the simulation.

Basically yes, currently the attacker siege engines and defender wall level affects the simulation advantage of the defender side. There are some irregularities that need to be fixed, such as the defender siege engine not being considered and a small amount of general imbalance. I believe this is fixable, we are currently working on an updated battle simulation currently.

SadShogun: This one is largely translated by Google Translate because of its length, it might contain some errors.
2. Secondly, it has nothing to do with the siege exactly, but I have a suggestion regarding the fortress and the city garrison, they are not too far from each other and I'm sure most other players would like that too. If the kingdom I am in belongs to me, and if I set up an army and bought a city or fortress, members of other clans don't reinforce the garrison in it, since the conquered place belonged to me first. If I get the city myself, they don't reinforce it. Only my own clan members are reinforcing, but their military is usually very few. When I say I will reinforce a city, that city is taken back by the enemy because it is too weak. A fix comes to this, and it would be great if they support our castles and cities with their men as other clans garrison each other. Or, if there is a governor in the city, we can allocate a budget to him and ask him to recruit the recruits who come to the city as garrison or to recruit people from the connected villages. This automatic recruitment may be limited, for example. Collect 20-30-50 or 100 men for you (depending on budget), you and your clan members reinforce the rest. You can even support it with perks. If you say that lords will have trouble finding men if every city and castle collects men from the surrounding area, an extra pool for garrison can be set up. The part where the lords take soldiers is untouched. Or you increase the number of important people in the cities and villages (I think they were called notables), there are more volunteer soldiers, or you expand the soldier slots of notables by 2 each. Or we can hire a garrison commander with money. It stays in our palace. We give money to that commander, he sends an experienced person to recruit soldiers for us, and he brings volunteers from all the surrounding villages to the garrison. In addition, this Castle commander can give various bonuses to the garrison in defensive battles. For example, if the defenders are dying too quickly, they will escape from a more difficult battle, pushing the boundaries and fighting, so we did not focus on fleeing and defend the quirk of kendolay. Of course, this makes it difficult for the attacker. Whenever I siege, at least 50 100 people are fleeing war. If 100 people stay and fight, those who attack will wear out even more. Even if they lose, it will be harder for them to defend their new location as the attacker wears out.

For the first part of the question about who reinforces our garrisons, @mexxico can give a more detailed answer. For the second part about automatic garrison recruitment. We are working on testing some of the ideas here, while I cannot guarantee anything, recruitment without player involvement can be available in the future patches. The main reason why automatic recruitment can break the game is that it diminished the values of the clan parties. For example, if the garrisons could automatically recruit people through the town all the time, a lot of settlements being attacked would have full garrisons most of the time. In the current system, field battles also make sense because it cripples enemies garrison refreshment rates. Auto recruitment similar suggested by you but uses clan parties to recruit makes sense to me and there are several designs we are testing.

3 Towns and castles should definelty be harder to conquer, or there will be no basis in reality. Also easier sieges blow up the existing snowballing problem. Thatb being said, for situations such as 1441 vs 450 (80% militia), I believe more merciful calculation should take place. If it was 800 vs 450 and I lost, I wouldn't have posted it here and I would accept it. I played the for a thousand hours,this is the first time a situation like this arose. I am not a person which creates posts for minor stuff.

Well, if this is an isolated case then it's good in terms of general game health, but I understand your frustration with the issue. Simulated battles while still provide some randomness maybe should not be full of surprises to the player (at least a better pre-combat chance display would help I believe) Still the number of the troops is more important than the quality of them in the simulations, this is also something we might tweak in the future.

4. NPC lords should have better AI, they should utilize siege engines more effectively, some should focus on breaching the walls not just put 2 ballistae and immediately jump in to the battle.

This is something our combat team is working on, though I am not in a position to give information on the progress of siege battle and AI improvements. However, it perfectly safe to assume that it will get better.

5. If I am a kingdom leader, any besieged settlement should send me a notification. As a king all settlements are my concern. When I am fighting a war on one side, I look and I lost two cities on the other side. I do not have enough time to defend because I have no idea about those sieges or I notice it too late. We keep conquering and reconquering the same settlements.

This is something I will bring to attention in one of our UX meetings. I understand your frustration with the matter but showering with notifications can be very tiring to some players as well. Also each non-important notification we add diminished the value of all notifications since we have limited attention span and patience.

Thank you if you read it. In a lot of places I deviated from the topic, but they are all connected to sieges in the end.

As always thank you for your feedback, I do not have any problems if it's in Turkish(as I am a Turkish speaker), but it makes it hard to read by many members of the community. That's why I appreciate your effort to make your initial post in English.

Out of curiosity, is your data based on telemetry, watching Streams, self-reporting or some combination of the above?

It is a combination of multiple sources, including our battle simulation tool and my own experience. Though, my own experience might not be perfectly up-to-date.

 

[Because]

This is something I will bring to attention in one of our UX meetings. I understand your frustration with the matter but showering with notifications can be very tiring to some players as well. Also each non-important notification we add diminished the value of all notifications since we have limited attention span and patience.

As a king I'd really like this notification as well. It feels wrong that you don't get told that part of your kingdom is being besieged, especially when your army is probably one of the best defences that the city has.

 

[Rycon Caldestan]

Bütün geliştiricilere saygılar. Geri bildirim yapmazsak oyun nasıl gelişecek, bu biz oyuncuların işi. Şimdi İngilizce yazmaya kalksam 3 saat sürecek, ayrıca İngilizce kelime haznem detaylı yazı yazacak kadar da iyi değil o yüzden merak ettiklerimi, kuşatmalar ve şehir yönetimi ile ilgili birkaç tavsiyemi Türkçe yazacağım. Umarım sorun olmaz. Sorun olur derseniz de yorumu silebilirsiniz.

Gönderiniz ve fikirleriniz için teşekkür ederiz! Google ile çeviri yapmak zorunda kaldım, bu yüzden bu yanıtta bir sorun çıkarsa beni affet.

What I hope I said:
“Thanks for the reply, I also had to use google translate so forgive me if my reply comes across incorrectly”

Edit: I just read your reply and translation post so some of the below did not take into account your replies to VersusXY’s post.
@SadShogun
I think it also vital to remember that assaulting in a siege is already ”harder” right now due to many of the mechanics not working correctly, or at all.

We’re having issues with men actually assaulting in pretty much every option given to us:
- Ladders aren’t getting climbed or abandoned
- rammed gates have agents getting stuck on the ram and/or not pushing the breach.
- siege towers still only use one ladder of the multiple provided, and many times an agent gets stuck on that one ladder causing the entire tower to not work.

There are more threads that go into this in detail, my point is that as these get fixed, it will become easier to assault in missions. This will further skew the current discrepancy on place between missions and simulations.

Regarding: “Do simulations need to get easier or missions harder”. I would say both. As @Blood Gryphon mentioned I don’t think the average player is going to accept needing 3-5x as many units. And as @VersusXY has stated, I do think that artillary needs to become part of the equation for both defenders and assaulters. 2-3x seems like the reasonable range?

On the mission side,
I’ve seen catapults have devastating effects on troops. There are also the murder hole stones and other items I’ve been able to use as a player (yes I’ve actually played a few defensive sieges) but I don’t see those utilized by the AI. As the assaulting force gets stronger AI, the defensive needs to get better too and utilize these tools.

Thanks for reading.

 

[VersusXY]

if the garrisons could automatically recruit people through the town all the time

No, not all the time sir. Just for once or under some rare situations, or at limited numbers. Limited recruitment. Just to back up player or npcs a little and take exhaustion from their backs.

By the way, thanks for reading all of it and thanks for answers. I have millions of ideas about this game. I love this game. All I want from Native Bannerlord is, I should never need mods to improve my game experience. Because game should be full of content on full relaese. Warband wasn't like that. Mod community did amazing job on Warband but what I want from Bannerlord is being amazing without a single mod. This is an EA game, so everything is possible through time I assume.

 

[VersusXY]

We’re having issues with men actually assaulting in pretty much every option given to us:
- Ladders aren’t getting climbed or abandoned
- rammed gates have agents getting stuck on the ram and/or not pushing the breach.
- siege towers still only use one ladder of the multiple provided, and many times an agent gets stuck on that one ladder causing the entire tower to not work.

Yes those are big headaches for us. I don't want to be rude but Siege AI is bit stupid. Sometimes half of my troops cannot find way in to the town. They are running towards walls and sometimes they are even striking the walls with swords.

Also, rare but gamebreaking bug:

One of the enemy's defender is getting stuck under some object (bridge,wall etc.) and my army can't hit him. Soldiers endlessly screaming and hitting the ground to kill him but their weapons can't reach him. I am trying to reach him to end it but I can't get trough because of my soldiers.
As I told it's rare but annoying one. It happened to me at least 10 or 15 times since game's first relaese

 

[Wildthorne]

Sieges are so broken... I even don't know where to start. It is one of my favourite things, but in the current state, it is just crap.
To developers - When do you plan to fix all issues around the sieges in single player?

 

[Monkey]

I don't think simulated sieges should be easy. When the player is the one sieging, the difficulty can be circumvented by actually putting in some effort and playing the mission. It's not like you're sieging x5 times a day like you do field battles as you traverse the world map. On the other hand, making simulated sieges easier (requiring a lower multiplier of attacking troops) would penalize the player, especially those trying to start out their own kingdom, for example, which is probably the hardest feat in the game.

For sieges in general, would you prefer the mission sieges to be harder and require numbers close to 3x (and reflect the simulated battles) or would you prefer simulated battles to reflect mission? I think the general sentiment is making settlements harder to conquer, but would like to hear more opinions.

While there is indeed a discrepancy in difficulty (measured in dead troops as a percentage of attacking troops), I do believe that is for the good. I'm perfectly happy having to sacrifice 80-90% of my army if I'm lazy or just unwilling or only 10-20% if I'm willing to put in the effort of playing the mission.

 

[Yukmouth++]

My clan is mercenary under Vlandia. Calatild created 1400 men army and sieged 400 men castle. I simulated the battle because we were exteremly outnumbered them. I thought we will win. But we lost. Yeah we lost and castles defenders was mostly militia.. Siege simulations are crazy unbalanced. Sometimes I'm going to siege low guarded new conquered castles with 90 men in it. I have 600 men and I'm losing 500 of them against 90 soldiers. This is ridiculous. Picture of it is here:

Awesome. I like this. I've had enough of castles changing color like its a christmas lighting cord. Sieging a castle needs to be a god damn intense affair. Not some free win you dispose of.

 

[veronicaaltoids]

Awesome. I like this. I've had enough of castles changing color like its a christmas lighting cord. Sieging a castle needs to be a god damn intense affair. Not some free win you dispose of.

but come on, 1400 VS 400 and still fail, that's unrealistic
consider there are 300 are militia and only 100 are regular troops

if it require 5 - 10 times forces to conquoro, think about how many army you need to siege a city with 600+ troops??

 

[Yukmouth++]

but come on, 1400 VS 400 and still fail, that's unrealistic
consider there are 300 are militia and only 100 are regular troops

if it require 5 - 10 times forces to conquoro, think about how many army you need to siege a city with 600+ troops??

This might be too much, for sure, but still a step in the right direction for me. I want sieges to be a tedious affair.