I want to start of by saying that Bannerlord is everything I expected it to be and has so far been extremely fun to play despite the (expected) hiccups, and there's no gaming experience I'd rather have than early acess janky release of a game I've been waiting for years to play, and would like to congratulate Taleworlds on the massive success that Bannerlord is and thank them in advance for the upcoming decade of Bannerlord.
Now, however, time for feedback, that is after all what Early Access is about:
Every aspect of the Sturgian faction is lackluster, and the behaviour of Raganvad makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Resulting in the faction being the overwhelmingly worst performing faction in the Singleplayer campaign.
I will first outline what I believe are the problems with Sturgia, later on further below I will be writing about suggestions and solutions that I believe would help alleviate some of these issues.
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TROOPS
- Sturgia currently contains the highest amount of troops with the wrong skill/proficiency distribution. Not only was this bad enough, but now that AI competency is directly tied to their skill/proficiency with any given weapon, the latest update made the Sturgian troop AI even worse than it was before, as if it wasn't the worst to begin with. This results in non-simulated battles resulting in either defeats or pyrrhic victories. It is virtually impossible to secure a close/resounding victory as Sturgia in non-simulated battles.
- Sturgia performs the worst in simulated battles (i.e auto-calculated battles) due to various different reasons which I will go into more detail further below, but it is a combination of having the worst economy in the game, the worst geography in the game, and the worst troop quality in the game, due to continous defeats, never allowing lords to level up their troops, resulting in Sturgian armies almost always consisting to 90% of Recruits and nothing else.
- The quality of the equipment worn by the Sturgian troops is the worst in the game aswell. One example being the weapons, for example Veteran Warrior has a short and low damage axe, and Shock Troop has some sort of Glaive (which doesn't even make much sense for the faction) which is completely useless because formations seemed to be unoptimized and doesn't allow proper use of large weapons. Their equipment, despite having worse stats, are also the heaviest in the game, resulting in the supposed-Infantry faction having the slowest moving Infantry in the game. Shields are also the worst despite offering the best form, but having the worst stats. The best Sturgian shield is the "Heavy Round Shield" which is a tier 3 shield which has roughly ~33% less HP than high tier shields of other factions.
- The Lords skills and proficiences are all wasted because for some reason they are given a bow and arrow (?) and mounted, instead of fighting either with the melee cavalry or with the infantry.
- Noble troops are virtually never used, thus the Sturgian army (as if 90% consisting of Recruits wasn't bad enough) isn't complemented with the Druzhinniks that it sorely needs.
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RAGANVAD
- I'll start of by saying that I very much like that the different rulers have different personalities, and I very much remember how Raganvad was described in the Sturgia blog released way back, so I would have no issues with Raganvad being a bit of a troublemaker that easily irritates his vassals, but there needs to be some reason to his actions and his actions also needs to not needlessly endanger the existence of Sturgia within the first year of the game beginning.
- My understanding is that Raganvad has a "Warmonger AI" setting enabled for him, which makes him likely to declare war on other factions. This behaviour combined with the fact that Sturgia has the lowest quality troops, the worst economy and the worst geography, makes Sturgia get completely obliterated even in a 1vs1, let alone a 1vX.
In my recent game, Raganvad declared war on: Vlandia, Battania, Northern Empire, Western Empire, Khuzaits. None of these factions declared war on us, it was Raganvad who declared war on them. From almost day 1 of starting this playthrough, it was constant non-stop war for roughly 300-400 days. And despite eventually building a very strong character, good tactical knowledge of the battlefield and a good party with high quality troops, and defeating lord after lord (I probably captured lords about 50 times during the 300-400 day playthrough), this was not enough to turn the tide of war because we were simply at war with too many factions at once.
- Raganvad also seems to have a tendency to not be generous with the (few) fiefs that we have. Despite already owning a city, he just keeps hoarding fiefs for himself, causing clans to leave the kingdom and join the enemy, worsening the already downward spiral even further. He's also a fan of overruling kingdom laws proposed that would increase militia production during times of war, but only lets through laws which in one way or another enriches him personally to the detriment of others.
- All of the above mentioned facts combined makes Raganvad not only the worst leader in the game, but the worst leader in the game for the worst faction with the worst troops with the worst economy with the worst geography.
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ECONOMY & GEOGRAPHY
- Sturgias geography is unique in that it's split across two landmasses with only a tiny stone bridge connecting the two, and also having a castle and a town completely isolated from everything else that requires a long trek to reach (Revyl), and not only that, but also Sturgia is unique in that it has a castle that is completely surrounded by other factions, on a landmass not connected to "mainland" Sturgia (Nevyansk Castle).
Combine this with the fact that the trek from Tyal to anywhere else is massive, and from Revyl to anywhere else is massive, and
put snow on top of it all which slows down movement, and you've got a recipe for disaster just waiting to be exploited by more well off factions.
- With longer distances from settlements to towns, and slowed movement speed due to being heavily forested and snowy, peasants take ages to reach Sturgian towns, delaying any potential positive economic effect they might've had on the town, while other factions economies are developing at a much faster pace. These factors also makes it so that it is virtually impossible to reach anywhere in time if they are under attack, so raids on Sturgian settlements are almost always successful, as are sieges.
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SUGGESTIONS & SOLUTIONS
- To begin with, the faulty allocation of weapon proficiencies needs to be corrected, some examples include but are not limited to: Sturgian Spearmen having worse Polearm stat than the unit they upgraded from. Sturgian Druzhinniks having low Polearm stat and high Bow stat despite using a Polearm and not a Bow. Sturgian Shock Troop having tier 4 stats as opposed to tier 5 stats that they're supposed to have, etc. .
- The equipment quality used by the Sturgians needs to be dramatically increased. You can achieve this multiple ways, one example: The equipment they use can use the same models and everything as the equipment that the player has access to, but that doesn't mean they need to be the exact same. You can have two copies of the same helmet, with one being available to the player, and one only being available to specific AI units to spawn with, this way you can buff the AI version of the item while not making it so that a specific factions equipment ends up being overpowered. TLDR: Buff the stats of the items used by Sturgian infantry units.
- Whatever is causing the issue/snowball effect of Sturgian armies consisting to 90% of Sturgian recruits, needs to be remedied. Without this fixed, nothing else will even matte
r. I personally suspect this is simply largely due to Lords having few opportunities to level up their armies, but especially for factions that are victims of snowballing, their units simply all die before the Lord gets any chance at upgrading them.
I altered this suggestion, Inspired by input from
@dphilostrate in this thread:
- Remove the 'Ulfhednar' and replace it with a unit called "Sturgian Vaegir Guard". There's in-game lore to actually back this up (as opposed to the "Ulfhednar"), and makes perfect sense as an upgrade to the "Sturgian Berserker". The Vaegir Guard served as elite bodyguards to Calradian emperors, within the lifetime of adult-aged men that the game takes place in. As opposed to the lightly armoured Sturgian Ulfhednar, the Sturgian Vaegir Guard should be Moderately/Heavily-armoured (Imperial Armour + some bear furs to keep influence from the 'Berserker'), and use a Two-Handed Axe.
NOTE: See further down for more troop tree suggestions.
- All Sturgian troops needs to use round shields as opposed to tear-shaped/kite shields in order to function better in a Shieldwall formation.
- The AI's capabilities to fight in a Shieldwall needs to be increased, currently large weapons are not very functional in a Shieldwall, and this is perhaps intended, but this also applies to some degree to medium-sized weapons aswell as sometimes to smaller weapons. This really hampers the ability of the Sturgians to be an effective infantry force.
- The stats on round shields of Sturgian origin needs to be buffed, buff all of their stats to make them on par with other factions, most importantly their health.
- Remove Bows & Arrows from Sturgian Lords, and in my opinion have them fight alongside the infantry. There isn't nearly enough melee cavalry for the Sturgians for the Lords to be fighting alongside. Either the amount of Druzhinniks in Sturgian Lords armies needs to be increased in order to better protect the Lords, or the Lords need to fight alongside the Infantry.
- Raganvad needs to have his Warmonger AI removed. (If this is even a thing, maybe his warlust is just a bug?)
- Sturgian economy, besides the changes to the geography of Sturgia, also needs a buff in the resource department. It was mentioned in the blog post regarding Sturgia that they have alot of bog iron naturally available in their lands. Would it then not make sense for Sturgia to have more than just one (?) village producing iron ore? Replace some of the grain producing villages to produce iron ore instead.
- Sturgian cultural benefit (less movement speed penalty in snow) needs to be buffed to
no movement speed penalty and also apply to all parties of Sturgian culture (peasants, lords, etc. .)
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SUGGESTIONS REGARDING GEOGRAPHY.
I realize altering major parts of the world map at this point is perhaps too late, but perhaps just a few minor alterations along with moving a few cities/castles/villages a little bit?
- The landmass on which Revyl sits needs to be altered so it's closer to Varcheg and easier to reach without the narrow trek filled with bandits that it currently is. The distance between Omor and Varcheg also needs to be reduced, preferably just shrink the entire western part of Sturgian lands and squish it closer to Omor.
- There needs to be more than one narrow passage to pass from western into eastern Sturgia.
- Nevyansk Castle needs to be completely relocated. There's a Battanian castle that's bordering Sturgian lands nearby, just switch the places of these two castles with eachother so Nevyansk castle is closer to Mazhadan castle.
- There needs to be some castles between the Khuzait lands and Tyal, and Tyal also needs to be more easier to reach from the Varnovapol/Sibir area. Villagers journeys from the villages between these two areas also needs to be made safer so they will more easily be able to reach the towns.
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ALTERNATIVE BASIC TROOP TREE SUGGESTION TO ROUND OUT STURGIAN TROOP TREE BETTER
Some of these suggestions run counter to some previous suggestions further up in the thread. This is only meant to serve as inspiration, or as an either/or situation compared to suggestions further up in the thread. I believe multiple approaches to balancing Sturgia are possible.
Regular tree:
- Sturgian Recruit -> Sturgian Soldier (Infantry) -> Sturgian Veteran Soldier -> Sturgian Warrior (1H+Shield) -> Sturgian Veteran Warrior (Heavy Infantry 1H Sword/Axe + Spear + Throwing + Shield)
- Sturgian Recruit -> Sturgian Soldier (Infantry) -> Sturgian Veteran Soldier -> Sturgian Vanguard (2H+1H+Shield) -> Sturgian Veteran Vanguard (Heavy Infantry 2H Axe + Throwing + 1H Axe + Shield)
- Sturgian Recruit -> Sturgian Woodsman (Throwing) -> Sturgian Hunter (Archer) -> Sturgian Archer -> Sturgian Veteran Archer (Heavily armoured mediocre Archer Bow + Arrows + 2H Sword/Axe)
- Sturgian Recruit -> Sturgian Woodsman (Throwing) -> Sturgian Brigand (Cavalry) -> Sturgian Raider -> Sturgian Veteran Raider (Mediocre Cavalry Spear + 1H Sword/Axe + Shield)
LOGIC: As you can see, "Shock Troop" and "Ulfhednar" are gone and kinda combined into the new "Vanguard", this is because both of those troops were performing underwhelmingly and so just having one heavily armoured 2H+1H+Shield+Thrower just fills that purpose better. The Vanguard would of course be differentiated from the Warrior by having lower 1H and Throwing skill and have higher Athlethics and 2H, the Vanguard would also exclusively use Axes so they could be employed when you need to specifically counter shields.
The Sturgian archers are not meant to be amongst the best in the game, actually they should honestly be the worst in the game in terms of their ranged offensive capabilities, but they need to have something going for them, right? So why not make their melee skills better than most other archer units, while also giving them pretty good armor? This would make them rather durable as infantry, as Sturgia is intended to be good at.
The skirmisher Brigand cavalry is gone and replaced with the Raider melee cavalry. This is mostly because it seems Taleworlds is intent on having Lords spawn on Horseback, and so Sturgian lords should have better protection from the units around them. Melee cavalry achieves that job much better.
Noble tree:
- Sturgian Adventurer (Infantry) -> Sturgian Veteran Adventurer -> Sturgian Druzhinnik -> Sturgian Veteran Druzhinnik -> Sturgian Elite Druzhinnik -> Sturgian Druzhinnik Champion (All-around strongest infantry unit in the game.)
- Can spawn with various different loadouts:
- 1) 1H Sword/Axe + Throwing + Shield.
- 2) 1H Sword/Axe + Spear + Shield.
- 3) 1H Sword/Axe + 2H Sword/Axe + Shield.
LOGIC: Sturgia needs an overwhelmingly powerful infantry unit as their best troop. Which is supposed to be the factions strength. Honestly I don't have much against a Horseback Druzhinnik, but it just seems wasted since they would be so alone as melee cavalry for Sturgia anyways. The argument could be made that they would make more sense if my suggestions were implemented since then Sturgia would have the Raider melee cavalry line to complement the Horseback Druzhinnik, but I don't know. I think sticking with mediocre Cavalry (Raiders) and doubling down on Sturgias infantry is the better route.
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GOOD POST BY ANOTHER USER REGARDING STURGIAS ECONOMY:
have been looking into the Sturgian economic woes and I can see a lot of has to do with poor resources their villages produce. Most factions start with a handful of villages producing the same thing such as the Battanian villages produce a lot of grapes, hardwood, and clay. Vlandia has a lot of olives, and the Khuzaits have a lot of sheep and horses. The Sturgians have a 7 villages producing fish and six producing cows, neither of which can be transformed into anything through workshops.
Sturgia does have four villages producing furs and four producing flax, but I have yet to see these trades being profitable for them. Sturgia has one source of hardwood and one source of iron while other factions tend to have two or three. Also, it is interesting the Sturgians and Northern Empire are the only factions that I see to not have their own silver mine.
Economic complications probably also stem from limited caravan visits, though I do not know this for certain until someone measures it.
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MORE FEEDBACK FROM OTHER USERS
Here's another great thread with feedback regarding Sturgia by user
@Mote
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