Snowballing in mid to late game

[Rush09]

So, I think we can all agree snowballing in early game has been greatly improved, no longer do the Khuzait smash the Sturgians in a few turns. But mid to late game, as a faction gets bigger, the snowballing returns due to the share amount of 1k+ armies it can put on the field, leaving little room for smaller factions to fight back.

The idea here is to make influence harder to get as your empire gets bigger in order to at least slow down the momentum of a faction that it's getting too strong and giving the smaller factions a fighting chance. Gamewise, it could improve the mid to late game snowballing.

In terms of does it make sense? I think so as your empire grows bigger, your actions stop being "grand". Impressive that David took down Goliath, but less if Goliath had taken down David.
For a faction leader of a big empire I think it makes sense to not have this debuff, it should bring power to lead such an empire but for the many lords vying for attention, each one of them matters less. For a smaller faction, the actions of a few matter more.

In essence, give the big empire a more challenging mid to late game and the smaller faction a more survivable environment.

 

[Antaeus]

I haven't seen any snowballing that I didn't make.

Either way, I don't think that we should make it harder for the US to maintain large armies just because Granada can't compete militarily.

If we were going to introduce mechanics to keep the game challenging later on, the mechanics should be around making a large empire difficult to manage - perhaps loyalty should play a greater role, or that powerful noble families should resent each other if they become too powerful leading to rebellion or civil war mechanics. Perhaps rebellions should be able to form their own factions, or group together if they're under the same culture. Perhaps leading nobles should have assassination as an option if they don't like their leader. Etc.

I think we're too late in the development for many of these considerations.

 

[Rush09]

I do like your ideas but I figure introducing those would require quite a bit more work than just decrease influence gains for bigger factions and like you said, we may be too late in the development for such measures.

But I would love for relations to be overhauled to have more impact in each campaign than it does now, a shallow measure.

 

[Reften]

So, I think we can all agree snowballing in early game has been greatly improved, no longer do the Khuzait smash the Sturgians in a few turns. But mid to late game, as a faction gets bigger, the snowballing returns due to the share amount of 1k+ armies it can put on the field, leaving little room for smaller factions to fight back.

The idea here is to make influence harder to get as your empire gets bigger in order to at least slow down the momentum of a faction that it's getting too strong and giving the smaller factions a fighting chance. Gamewise, it could improve the mid to late game snowballing.

In terms of does it make sense? I think so as your empire grows bigger, your actions stop being "grand". Impressive that David took down Goliath, but less if Goliath had taken down David.
For a faction leader of a big empire I think it makes sense to not have this debuff, it should bring power to lead such an empire but for the many lords vying for attention, each one of them matters less. For a smaller faction, the actions of a few matter more.

In essence, give the big empire a more challenging mid to late game and the smaller faction a more survivable environment.

agree with this 100%....I'm 20 years into a game and have unlimited influence, and a very strong Sturgian kingdom...should be an influence cost per day that grows exponentially based on total army size of kingdom.

 

[black_bulldog]

At some point someone has to win. Imho artificially dragging out the game into a stalemate for years would get extremely grindy and would probably cause a lot of players to quit. My biggest issue with late game is how a kingdom can be beaten have no fiefs and 1 clan and still harass you by constantly raiding villages and hiring multiple merc companies with money they must get through magic.

 

[Rush09]

At some point someone has to win. Imho artificially dragging out the game into a stalemate for years would get extremely grindy and would probably cause a lot of players to quit.

Someone would still win, this wouldn't be a change that would completely turn the mid to end game. It would just make bigger factions have in general smaller armies. If an army of 400 men of a smaller faction finds a 1.1k army attacking a town its a no go but if that army instead was a 600 men army? maybe it would have a fighting chance. It would make the fights more challenging in a part of a game were usually the big factions just crush everyone else.

Honestly, its usually when I get to a big faction that I quit the campaign, it just gets boring.

 

[WeiKaiXuan]

At some point someone has to win. Imho artificially dragging out the game into a stalemate for years would get extremely grindy and would probably cause a lot of players to quit. My biggest issue with late game is how a kingdom can be beaten have no fiefs and 1 clan and still harass you by constantly raiding villages and hiring multiple merc companies with money they must get through magic.

OMG This! I eliminated Vlandia and they not only refused to disband, but because they hated my guts, would not join Battania (where I was playing for), but they would declare war CONSTANTLY, while being listed as broke. They had no influence to call armies after I tossed them in jail enough times, but they would raid my settlements non-stop like little roaches. Prior patches had no such issue. You even got to see a kingdom dissolve with a banner notification at the top saying that the remaining lords have went to other kingdoms. Why can't we get that back?

 

[black_bulldog]

Someone would still win, this wouldn't be a change that would completely turn the mid to end game. It would just make bigger factions have in general smaller armies. If an army of 400 men of a smaller faction finds a 1.1k army attacking a town its a no go but if that army instead was a 600 men army? maybe it would have a fighting chance. It would make the fights more challenging in a part of a game were usually the big factions just crush everyone else.

Honestly, its usually when I get to a big faction that I quit the campaign, it just gets boring.

If you joined another faction I suppose I can understand how you feel, but at some point I want to win. But if you start your own faction the ai is constantly at war with you and not just 1 at a time but multiple factions even if they don't have a history of conflict with you and it starts to make the game feel really grindy with nothing but wars.

 

[Rush09]

If you joined another faction I suppose I can understand how you feel, but at some point I want to win.

Yeah I get that but like I said, I think the big faction would still win. That battle I gave as example, the 600 vs 400? the 600 still have the majority and most likely would still win. the idea is just give the enemy a fighting chance.

But if you start your own faction the ai is constantly at war with you and not just 1 at a time but multiple factions even if they don't have a history of conflict with you and it starts to make the game feel really grindy with nothing but wars.

Yeah but in this scenario, when you start your own faction, you are not immediately a big faction so you wouldn't have any influence penalty. If anything, it would probably be some of the AI factions attacking that would have the influence penalty. Instead of having to face hordes of 800 men AI armies attacking your town or castle, maybe a couple of 500 men armies attacking are way more manageable.

 

[darksoulshin]

It should not be an arbitrary parameter that dictates the difficulty of a faction in moving a large army to conquer the opposing territory.

It should be the LOGISTICS difficulty that does it.

Do you want to move a large army?
you will be slow in doing it.
Do you want to be faster?
Uses a column marching formation.
Does the column have a certain length and cannot perform repositioning or reversing maneuvers fast enough?
And then you accept the risk that someone will attack you on the sides of the column.
=> MARCHING FORMATIONS.
GEOGRAPHICAL COVERAGE: marching formations, ambush, interception of armies,resting

Do you want to move a large army?
You will need food and ammo.
Run out of food and ammunition?
You will need a supply line from your chosen city to where you are. This line is made up of the wagons carrying the stuff you need.
Should the line be protected?
And then you will have to "divide" your army, or you have to conquer border towns and castles, so that your supply line can be shorter as you push into enemy territory and with less risk of having your supplies cut off.
=> supply lines.

=> strategy for the defense of the lines and for the assault on the lines.
=> line sabotage missions
=> messengers carrying orders relating to the trajectory of refueling wagons, refueling frequency, encampments, espionage.

=> large armies can also be stopped by small armies.

In this link you will find both the one relating to the march formations in the campaign map, and the one relating to logistics and supply lines.
ECONOMY , LOGISTICS and WARFARE SUGGESTION LIST

 

[Lord Irontoe]

I don't know what the big deal about snowballing is. As long as its not the same faction every game, then snowballing is just the natural thing that factions do. Their only goal is to expand, and since nobody's building new cities, the only way to expand is to take them from someone else. So the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker. Classic zero sum game.

The real problem with snowballing is that TW introduced the generational gameplay concept without thinking through the implications. So now players expect to be able to play the same playthrough forever, passing down their clan to their children and grandchildren. But the game's not designed to last that long. Leave the factions to their own devices and one of them is going to gobble up all the rest within 20 years. Its just what they do. So TW's solution is to bog them down with artificial constraints and hobbles to keep them from expanding too fast, and so you get this very unsatisfying situation where zombie factions just refuse to die.

Instead, they should've gone for a shorter timescale and let the factions go at it with everything they've got. 20-30 years is a good timeframe for a playthrough. Look at all the famous figures from history and you'll find that almost all of them did all the things that made them famous within a 20-year period, usually less. With a shorter timeframe, snowballing isn't such a big issue anymore, since you expect big changes to the map over the course of a playthrough. The economy also becomes easier to manage if it doesn't have to remain stable for the rest of time.

If people want generational gameplay, it could be treated as a "new game+" kind of deal where you play your game, have your kiddies, and when that playthrough runs its course, you start a new one as your child. Put in a 10-15 year time jump using the end state of the first run's map as the seed to generate a new randomized map for the next run and you've got a whole new world to play in. The starting choices could be used to determine the fate of your clan in the intervening years, so you could choose to pick up basically where you left off or roleplay that the clan fell on hard times and you've got to build it back up again, or some option in between.

 

[Apocal]

I don't know what the big deal about snowballing is.

People wanted to meander the map for a long period of time without feeling rushed into joining a faction in order to save them from another faction.

 

[Rush09]

I don't know what the big deal about snowballing is. As long as its not the same faction every game, then snowballing is just the natural thing that factions do. Their only goal is to expand, and since nobody's building new cities, the only way to expand is to take them from someone else. So the strong get stronger and the weak get weaker. Classic zero sum game.

Yeah and adding a bit more challenge for the bigger faction wouldn't change what would most likely still be a win for that faction. The idea is just reduce the intensity of the bigger factions a bit in order for a more enjoyable mid to late game.

The real problem with snowballing is that TW introduced the generational gameplay concept without thinking through the implications. So now players expect to be able to play the same playthrough forever, passing down their clan to their children and grandchildren. But the game's not designed to last that long. Leave the factions to their own devices and one of them is going to gobble up all the rest within 20 years. Its just what they do. So TW's solution is to bog them down with artificial constraints and hobbles to keep them from expanding too fast, and so you get this very unsatisfying situation where zombie factions just refuse to die.

Instead, they should've gone for a shorter timescale and let the factions go at it with everything they've got. 20-30 years is a good timeframe for a playthrough. Look at all the famous figures from history and you'll find that almost all of them did all the things that made them famous within a 20-year period, usually less. With a shorter timeframe, snowballing isn't such a big issue anymore, since you expect big changes to the map over the course of a playthrough. The economy also becomes easier to manage if it doesn't have to remain stable for the rest of time.

If people want generational gameplay, it could be treated as a "new game+" kind of deal where you play your game, have your kiddies, and when that playthrough runs its course, you start a new one as your child. Put in a 10-15 year time jump using the end state of the first run's map as the seed to generate a new randomized map for the next run and you've got a whole new world to play in. The starting choices could be used to determine the fate of your clan in the intervening years, so you could choose to pick up basically where you left off or roleplay that the clan fell on hard times and you've got to build it back up again, or some option in between.

I do think the changes TW made for snowballing in early game are actually quite good, I'm currently playing one of those generational playthroughs you mention and almost 70 years from the beginning of the game and no faction rules the map yet. Several have been eliminated (by eliminated I mean reduce to a nuisance) but 3 factions are still quite strong.

I get what you mean but if the player decides to, he can always end his playthrough after those 20 or 30 years, no need to force end it.

 

[Lord Grindelvald]

At some point someone has to win. Imho artificially dragging out the game into a stalemate for years would get extremely grindy and would probably cause a lot of players to quit. My biggest issue with late game is how a kingdom can be beaten have no fiefs and 1 clan and still harass you by constantly raiding villages and hiring multiple merc companies with money they must get through magic.

Same issue here. I had to console-kill 2 factions because they have +61 raids, no money, no castles, no towns, no clans but 5 merc clans.
PSA: When you console kill a faction - you also kill all the merc clans they currently enlist.

 

[Blacke]

I do think the changes TW made for snowballing in early game are actually quite good, I'm currently playing one of those generational playthroughs you mention and almost 70 years from the beginning of the game and no faction rules the map yet. Several have been eliminated (by eliminated I mean reduce to a nuisance) but 3 factions are still quite strong.

I get what you mean but if the player decides to, he can always end his playthrough after those 20 or 30 years, no need to force end it.

Started my first serious game ever a month ago. Sandbox/ironman/death/bannerlord settings. Around 80 years has passed now (my main died at 77).

After few years as a mercenary I finally got two castles and one city on upper Battania, all next to each other. Didn't wanted to extend more than that for a whole generation, especially because I had to be more familiar with some game mechanics like settlement, trade and family management.

Also I like to take my time, to feel like I'm part of this world instead of some absurdly unstoppable war machine at some point, like in so many strategic games.

But while I was doing my life on this side of the map, I didn't notice the Western Empire litteraly crushed it's two counterparts and started to knock at everyone's door.

Vlandia, Sturgia, Aserai and Khuzait are still quite strong but they just don't declare war to Western Empire, not even to each other or me anymore, which is kind of surprising, as well as boring.

I'm starting to feel that my game is almost set. Nothing new will come anymore from the others factions, soon or later Empire will roll on us.

Makes me sad because since I'm playing my son's character along with his siblings as companions, I wished to build some kind of big dynasty and play this game like forever (in a manner of speaking), testing new gameplay/weapons for every new generation, because why not ?

But this kind of faction snowballing litteraly ruins everything and now I feel so frustrated about it. I'm thinking about quiting for good, without restarting a new game from scratch. At least not for a loooong while.

If only the remaining factions could simply be more agressive, defend themselves better or even make some kind of alliance to resist a snowballing one, even just for a while, it could change everything and make the game interresting again.

Some new independant houses could also emerge from a city or a village (not just a weak rebellion), eventually reach tier after tier, grow into some new factions and threaten the existing ones, exactly as we, as players, can do when we end up creating our own kingdom.

 

[archaicwarrior]

Alliance of smaller kingdoms against the super power, is the answer.

.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

We need a game journalist dilly dally take for every baby option and a big boy I AM THE ONE WHO DOES THE SNOWBALLING option. I get the fixation on not wanting factions to go bye bye without you, but it's also lame to have no changes and fore games to be mostly the same (until you bulldoze everyone!).
Already snowballing doesn't exist, if you want even less change it might as well be a war-pause option, which has been recommended way back too.
Instead of making the game miserably stagnant and repetitive by default, let the players who WANT the world to stay the same while they trade mules for 50 years and have grandkids just pause the wars. Of course I know most factions will have problems without war money and certain ones will be sitting pretty when it's finally time for war....

 

[anoddhermit]

It's good for some factions to eventually snowball, but it shouldn't be typical for it to be the same faction, or one of maybe two, every time.

I think certain events (sieges, army vs. army) should just be a bit more decisive and change the trajectory of the balance of faction power more.