Starting game with a kingdom. Balance issue. Saved by the poor A.I.

[Retrobarbaari]

Because it's not an issue with the game, but a mod. Thus, it's not TW's responsibility to fix.

Already debated and replied.
Do you have anything new?

 

[Apocal]

No it hasn't.
Yeah, that's the difference: you start gradually rising. Read the first comment with a thought (and probably some other comments in the thread). When you start as a kingdom, you don't have that gradual rising into power. Read it.

I did. I even replied with a mod recommendation that will make the campaign easier. You can just zero out the AI's initial parties and armies.

 

[Retrobarbaari]

I did. I even replied with a mod recommendation that will make the campaign easier. You can just zero out the AI's initial parties and armies.

With Diplomacy mod?
Too bad that everyone doesn't know it, or can't use that.

If you think that's a good solution, don't you think it should be available in the game without finding the mod with it?

 

[Apocal]

With Diplomacy mod?
Too bad that everyone doesn't know it, or can't use that.

If you think that's a good solution, don't you think it should be available in the game without finding the mod with it?

You can't start the game as a kingdom without a mod in the first place.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Do you really want to have them unbalanced mods? Why?

If you knew how mods are made you wouldn't be saying this. mods edit or override the games C# code directly. The developer has no control over what they do without essentially removing all mod support. It's not feasible, or even really possible, to limit how balanced or unbalanced a mod is.

But even if that was possible, I still wouldn't want it. I want unbalanced mods to exist. There should be as few restrictions to modding as possible so that people can make whatever mods they want to suit their own tastes. This of course means that you as a player have to check if the mod actually works or not, but that's the tiny price you pay for all this free user-generated stuff that quadruples the value of the game.

I really want Taleworlds give the player the possibility to adjust the campaign start. There's multiple ways you could have a campaign where you start as a kingdom. You could reduce the number of towns and clans the other kingdoms have, you could set a time when no-one would declare a war against you, you could start with a high tier army (or garrison).

I agree, different starts would be a good idea. However i don't think total customization of gameplay is good for theb base game. Balance issues aside, having some baseline common player experience is always good thing. Otherwise there is no player community because everyone starts playing a different game even without mods, and it makes guides etc useless.

This may seem in contradiction with me wanting mods to be as diverse as possible, but i still think every player should have more or less the same experience before diving into mods.

 

[Retrobarbaari]

You can't start the game as a kingdom without a mod in the first place.

Yeah but there are PLENTY of mods. People don't know what all mods do. I have browsed a lot of mods, I had no idea Diplomacy would have such an option.
But if it was a choise in the game, everyone would have it.

Not the way (other kingdoms having no troops) how I would like to start the game, but sure, one solution.

 

[Retrobarbaari]

If you knew how mods are made you wouldn't be saying this. mods edit or override the games C# code directly. The developer has no control over what they do without essentially removing all mod support. It's not feasible, or even really possible, to limit how balanced or unbalanced a mod is.

Even if you could remove player's choises to define campaign parameters, or developer's way to balance the game... how many would do it? Probably some, but most likely very few.

IMHO that's not a good reason not to have such thing in the game code.

However i don't think total customization of gameplay is good for theb base game. Balance issues aside, having some baseline common player experience is always good thing. Otherwise there is no player community because everyone starts playing a different game even without mods, and it makes guides etc useless.

But you said there already is total costomization.

Have you not played strategy games before? Plenty, if not most, offer players make choises about the campaign. I don't think that is any kind of community destroyer. Nor makes guides useless.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Even if you could remove player's choises to define campaign parameters, or developer's way to balance the game... how many would do it? Probably some, but most likely very few.

IMHO that's not a good reason not to have such thing in the game code.

Can you rephrase this? I'm not sure what you mean.

But you said there already is total costomization.

Have you not played strategy games before? Plenty, if not most, offer players make choises about the campaign. I don't think that is any kind of community destroyer. Nor makes guides useless.

My point is that there are always going to be a plurality of ideas about what should be in the game, or how game mechanics should work. The obvious answer is "just put an option in the menu" but this very quickly becomes unmanageable, both for the player (they have to test out a bunch of different options) and the developer (potentially testing thousands of combinations of different options). Developers should be confident enough in the vision of their game to say "if you want to add X or Y, mod it in and balance it yourself" whenever it falls too far outside what the core game is.

Different game starts are a good idea, but you are at risk of making half the game obsolete if you allow players to start as lords with a full army in the base game. I think if they add lategame starts they should be preset scenarios that present their own challenge, not just cheat modes that allow players to skip half the game. That kind of cheatyness in mods is a different story because people understand that they're not playing "the base game".

 

[Retrobarbaari]

Can you rephrase this? I'm not sure what you mean.

It would probably be only a fraction of mod developers that would remove the code which balances campaign start, or the code which enables players to adjust campaign setup parameters.

And if some modders would remove that part, in my opinion it is not a good reason to not have that code in the game.

Got it?

..you are at risk of making half the game obsolete if you allow players to start as lords with a full army in the base game. I think if they add lategame starts they should be preset scenarios that present their own challenge, not just cheat modes that allow players to skip half the game. That kind of cheatyness in mods is a different story because people understand that they're not playing "the base game".

In my opinion, if that's the way players want to play, it's good they could.
Some may get bored to start as the poor peasant every time.
It would be their choise.

I would rather see a game that allows players to choose the way they like to play the game, than a game that makes them play the way which the developers wanted.

 

[Apocal]

I would rather see a game that allows players to choose the way they like to play the game, than a game that makes them play the way which the developers wanted.

It does. That's why there is a whole section and dedicated dev support for modders.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

It would probably be only a fraction of mod developers that would remove the code which balances campaign start, or the code which enables players to adjust campaign setup parameters.

And if some modders would remove that part, in my opinion it is not a good reason to not have that code in the game.

Got it?

But it's not possible to implement such a code, even on a theoretical level. Code that analyses other code is almost impossible to write, and extremely easy to circumvent. It's called the Halting Problem. I'm not exaggerating when I say it would probably take 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years to write a function that determines whether someone's mod is balanced or not, and it would make the game take decades to run, while someone could very easily circumvent the entire thing and make an unbalanced mod anyway.

It would also require a total rewrite of the way the game works. Currently most of the game is written in C#, and mods overwrite different functions after the game loads using a system called Harmony. Harmony is basically a hack, and to my knowledge the developer has no control over what kind of code gets injected into it. They can either disable it or enable Harmony for different functions by changing its visibility in the code, but not analyse code while its being injected. And as I said before, it would probably take them longer than the entire lifespan of the universe to write code that determines whether the mod is balanced, and even then it would be impossible for it to be correct all the time.

In my opinion, if that's the way players want to play, it's good they could.
Some may get bored to start as the poor peasant every time.
It would be their choise.

I would rather see a game that allows players to choose the way they like to play the game, than a game that makes them play the way which the developers wanted.

You yourself chose to install a mod, fiddled with the sliders, and are now complaining that it doesn't work properly and creates an unwinnable scenario. Sure it's a mod, but now imagine this was in the base game, and you could potentially ruin your campaign by picking the wrong values. No company wants to deal with this headache, and neither do most players. This is why developers tend to guide players towards a generalised experience rather than giving them the choice to completely mess with the mechanics. That's for the wild west land of mods.

 

[Retrobarbaari]

It does. That's why there is a whole section and dedicated dev support for modders.

Good grief! Was the comment too difficult for you?
We were talking about the game (without mods), should it have different choises for the player.

The mods offering different options how to start has been debated already, and the problem with mods are:
1) People don't know all the contents mods have. For example, if Diplomacy mod offers a way to set foe lords troops to zero, how many players know? 1% or less? I would wager far less than one percent.
2) Mods cause conflicts. Just about everyone who uses mods know it. For example I tried Diplomacy mod, but couldn't use it: conflicted with other mods.

If you think mods would be a solution to the issue, why would you not have it in the base game? For everyone.
That's what I don't get.

 

[Retrobarbaari]

But it's not possible to implement such a code, even on a theoretical level. Code that analyses other code is almost impossible to write, and extremely easy to circumvent. It's called the Halting Problem.

What are you talking about? I for sure didn't ask code pre-emptively analyze other mods.

It's freaking easy to see how strong your kingdom, garrison and party are compared to the A.I. kingdoms.

(Still, I would rather developer gave the choise to the player how to balance the campaign start, than balance it by themself)

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

It's freaking easy to see how strong your kingdom, garrison and party are compared to the A.I. kingdoms.

You can only do that after the game has fully loaded. Much of the campaign is procedurally generated from data that doesn't make it obvious how strong X or Y will be. The only way to implement what you're describing would be to terminate the campaign after it has loaded if the player is too weak, which is ridiculous. If you want player choice like this you also have to accept that you can create an unwinnable campaign if you change the options a certain way. This is not the developer's responsibility when it's user-made mods.

 

[Retrobarbaari]

You can only do that after the game has fully loaded. Much of the campaign is procedurally generated from data that doesn't make it obvious how strong X or Y will be. The only way to implement what you're describing would be to terminate the campaign after it has loaded if the player is too weak, which is ridiculous. If you want player choice like this you also have to accept that you can create an unwinnable campaign if you change the options a certain way. This is not the developer's responsibility when it's user-made mods.

Look, I have experience of programming myself. I know what I'm suggesting.

It doesn't matter if you can read the strength of kingdoms after loading the mods. The game code certainly can at any time compare the strengths. Both before it opens the campaign and during the campaign.

 

[Apocal]

Good grief! Was the comment too difficult for you?
We were talking about the game (without mods), should it have different choises for the player.

OK, if we're talking about the game without mods, there's no way you can start with your own kingdom.

The mods offering different options how to start has been debated already, and the problem with mods are:
1) People don't know all the contents mods have. For example, if Diplomacy mod offers a way to set foe lords troops to zero, how many players know? 1% or less? I would wager far less than one percent.
2) Mods cause conflicts. Just about everyone who uses mods know it. For example I tried Diplomacy mod, but couldn't use it: conflicted with other mods.

If you think mods would be a solution to the issue, why would you not have it in the base game? For everyone.
That's what I don't get.

Because it is a solution to a problem that only happens because of a mod you used. The base game puts up big, thick guard rails to prevent players from winding up in the same situation you were in.

 

[Retrobarbaari]

OK, if we're talking about the game without mods, there's no way you can start with your own kingdom.

Everyone knows that, I've known it from the start.
Trying to fill this thread with nonsense?

I've met people before who try to distract discussions.
And I've noticed couple of pages ago, that I seem to talk with couple of guys who in principle argue against, and try to fill the thread with nonsense comments.

Because it is a solution to a problem that only happens because of a mod you used. The base game puts up big, thick guard rails to prevent players from winding up in the same situation you were in.

I'm not suggesting a problem to a specific mod.
Or are you suggesting that this mod is the only one, and will be the only one, that makes campaign start unbalanced? I very, very much doubt it.

I don't get it, why you have to resist the idea of the base game giving players choises. What's the harm?
Why it would only be okay if mods do it. (Or maybe that isn't okay either)?

 

[Apocal]

Everyone knows that, I've known it from the start.

Everyone? Are you sure about that?

I don't know if you can start game with a castle in vanilla or if this option is because of Cultured Start -mod. Because this is my second game and both have been with Cultured Start.

I don't get it, why you have to resist the idea of the base game giving players choises. What's the harm?

They already did. There is nothing stopping you from not doing this:

I started the game with realistic damage (to me and my troops) and Bannerlord difficulty.
Yes, that's supposed to make the game hard.

This right here.

So let's recap: you load up a mod that deliberately gives you only one fief to start with, set the difficulty as high as it can possibly go, then complain the game is too hard and there aren't any options for balancing it.

 

[Retrobarbaari]

Everyone? Are you sure about that?

Yes. All the time we have talked in this thread, is balancing the modded campaign start.
At no point here have we discussed about starting the vanilla campaign with a kingdom.

You have been here from the start, so you should know it.

They already did. There is nothing stopping you from not doing this:

This right here.

You are fine with them difficulty selections the game let's you choose before the campaign starts.
But you are against other campaign choises players could do.

I wonder is it, because the developers already made them, they're fine,
but if they aren't in a game yet, then you have to oppose it?

 

[Retrobarbaari]

set the difficulty as high as it can possibly go, then complain the game is too hard and there aren't any options for balancing it.

You don't know the difference of balanced starting setting and a difficulty setting?

With low difficulty typically you inflict high damage, take low damage, and opponent A.I. is weak.
An unbalanced campaign setting puts your one castle kingdom of newbie soldiers against big kingdoms of multiple parties with high tier soldiers.

I do wanna play a challenging game.
But I don't want an easy difficulty game.

With these "difficult" settings my game just crashed (that's mods for you!) after a battle where my character (with a sword) killed 94 enemy cavalry men. I wouldn't call that difficult. It's easy as heck still, and A.I. is still poor: they were defensive even while twice stronger (according the strength balance bar, 3 x more men) so I had time to cut their cavalry down.

And I complained because I too want this to be a better game and better experience.
I do now know how to survive this unbalanced start: just retreat to your castle when a war is declared.