Somethings gotta give

[Apocal]

The only time AI does not get any attrition is when special events spawn or situations like that, which are not all that common.

Yes, this is exactly the thing I'm complaining about. Those events are 100% AI cheats. They were nonsense on stilts from the beginning especially with the scaling mechanic for uprisings. They are also common throughout a playthrough; religious revolts, decadence revolts, adventurers, scripted conquerors, etc.

And yes...it has changed considerably over the years

The scaling mechanic for revolt and uprisings was never removed, so you still get six-digit numbers if your levies are a certain size.

Bannerlord, on the other hand, has this problem spread out through all AI constantly. It isn't a "oh, maybe this will happen, better be careful!" it's a constant problem. Beat an AI, they come back tenfold. Always. Instead of handling this seemingly endless population in Bannerlord or restrict it somehow, they just allow AI to recruit endlessly immediately after loss. So I say again: not the same thing and you know it. But whatever floats your boat, huh?

The core of that problem isn't the AI's cheats. It is that the game produces hundreds of new troops per day and the recent changes that make it easier to get high-tier recruits/more nobles means the AI gets them too.

 

[Ser Jon]

Yes, this is exactly the thing I'm complaining about. Those events are 100% AI cheats. They were nonsense on stilts from the beginning especially with the scaling mechanic for uprisings. They are also common throughout a playthrough; religious revolts, decadence revolts, adventurers, scripted conquerors, etc.

They actually aren't common and are not a constant AI mechanic—which you initially claimed. They are not "literally" the same thing. One spawns as an event, occasional, and Bannerlord has it constant. In Crusader Kings 2, you are given the same things AI are to build your army up (into whatever you can actually afford) or your territory so that attrition falls, as well. So, you are still very much wrong. But you are not going want to hear that, so I know this will go nowhere.

The scaling mechanic for revolt and uprisings was never removed, so you still get six-digit numbers if your levies are a certain size.

I was talking about attrition there with the "not there" statement, but okay? ?‍

The AI events which spawn these revolts of course were never removed. I never even implied it. You took a lot out of the "game has changed considerably". I said these "doom stacks" you're talking about are actually quite rare in a gameplay and that attrition does, in fact, exist for AI and only doesn't in extremely rare cases (which Paradox has confirmed numerous times is a bug when it doesn't happen elsewhere). The only thing amongst that which you mentioned that happens more often are the peasant revolts, but they are easily squashed even if they exceed your numbers, because they are that ****. This is most likely there to annoy the player into fixing what's causing them. This also only really happens if your territory is in a bad shape, such as shifting cultures etc. So long as you aren't completely impoverishing your states and your people, it doesn't happen all that much.

The core of that problem isn't the AI's cheats. It is that the game produces hundreds of new troops per day and the recent changes that make it easier to get high-tier recruits/more nobles means the AI gets them too.

Sure thing.

 

[Ted Striker]

This is a game about military conquest. It doesn't get more competitive than that. You can "win" on the micro scale in individual battles, and you can win on the macro scale by controlling the entire map. I agree that this should take a long time. The problem is that letting every AI lord regenerate their army in a week is a terrible hack that keeps the winning side from advancing. It makes battles meaningless and turns the game into a giant stalemate.

So you want your Bannerlord games to be "won" within a game year, or a few real life days? Like this is Stellaris?

I'm not fond of instant armies either but without it the AI snowballs which is no good for a game that's supposed to simulate a long-term ongoing war.

 

[Helz]

So you want your Bannerlord games to be "won" within a game year, or a few real life days? Like this is Stellaris?

No, but it should be possible for a faction to be eliminated that quickly. According to Apocal, the snowballing complaint came from people being upset that some factions were eliminated after 10-15 years without player intervention. If a player doesn't bother to help their favored faction for over a decade, that's their own fault.

It is a balance problem if the same factions are always dominating or being destroyed. You make the strong factions weaker or the weak factions stronger. You don't give everyone infinite spawns and freeze the map in carbonite.

I'm not fond of instant armies either but without it the AI snowballs which is no good for a game that's supposed to simulate a long-term ongoing war.

There are many possible solutions to this "problem". The current solution sucks. Taleworlds should implement a better one.

 

[Ted Striker]

No, but it should be possible for a faction to be eliminated that quickly. According to Apocal, the snowballing complaint came from people being upset that some factions were eliminated after 10-15 years without player intervention. If a player doesn't bother to help their favored faction for over a decade, that's their own fault.

It is a balance problem if the same factions are always dominating or being destroyed. You make the strong factions weaker or the weak factions stronger. You don't give everyone infinite spawns and freeze the map in carbonite.

There are many possible solutions to this "problem". The current solution sucks. Taleworlds should implement a better one.

I agree, all around. I think the new faction traits help curb the Kuzait snowball, or at least in my current playthrough it feels like it. That slight tax loss seems to be keeping them more or less at bay.

Or it could be something completely different causing it, I don't know. But Kuzait used to always snowball in my games and now they're not.

My one concern with constantly balancing the factions among each other is you soon reach a point where they're all more or less the same. It's already a problem in this game. There's not enough uniqueness to the factions as is.

 

[Ser Jon]

I think it's possible to give good balance without making them all the same, the problem is, it may be difficult for them to do at this point.