"Variety is the spice of life"
In Bannerlord, fighting is
really fun. But it is the
only fun part of the game. And only in the early-mid game as afterwards your army is so large that you are
forced into a commander role.
All the other gameplay features in the game are some form of a
Skinner Box.
- Village Issues are terrible and allow for almost 0 roleplay
- Economy is complex but that does not automatically mean fun. The economy is mostly manipulated through passive means (caravans and workshops) instead through player agency. Worst of all, it does not tie itself back to any other system of gameplay.
- Diplomacy is similar, the system seems complex enough to handle interesting scenarios but it fails for three main reasons:
- 1. Very little player agency until late game
- 2. Many many policies with very small impacts. At one point I was in a kingdom with half of all the policies active and it felt 0% different than if none of them were active.
- 3. It, again, does not tie into any other mechanic in the game
- Disjoint game mechanics. I have touched on this in my points above but it reallyneeds its own bullet. NONE of the game mecahnics interact in meaningful ways.
- Issues/Quests have no real effect appart from very small effects on village/town economy and recruiting through notable power tanking. So technically it ties into war and economy, but in such a small way as to not be there at all.
- Economy and Diplomacy, as noted above, are almost completely separate systems
- War is CONSTANT and therefore BORING
- Character progression does not introduce any new player mechanic, it is ALL passive apart from very few perks like the "everything has a price". (I dislike that perk for RP reasons, but at least it unlocks something new)
Anyway, I'm in a Zoom meeting and should get to work
They already said they are working on fixing workshop and caravans to be profitable again.
