SP - General Sturgia worst performing faction, due to having the worst Troop tree, Liege AI, Economy and Geography.

[hruza]

i think i found some mixed up stats for their elite troop - they should have more polearm skill than bow skill right?

Yes, there are couple of troops in the game that seems to have stats misplaced. Batania have some too.

 

[Mote]

I manually modified the game data files so that custom battles would contain each of the desired units for testing. After these modifications, I started a 250 v 250 battle of Sturgian Units vs each of other factions equivalent units. I then recorded these tests, which are linked below. For your convenience, I have compiled a chart showing whether the Sturgian unit won or lost the battle. I replicated this design across many of the later tier troops and types:

	Empire	Aserai	Vlandia	Battania	Khuzait
T5 Ranged	Lose	Lose	Lose	Lose*	Lose
T5 Missile Cav	Lose	Lose	n/a	(Lose)	Lose
T3 Infantry	(Lose)	(Lose)	Win	(Lose)	Lose
T4 Infantry	Lose	Lose	Lose	Lose	Lose
T5 2H Infantry	Win**	Lose	(Lose)	Lose	n/a
T6 Heavy Cav	Lose	Lose	Lose	n/a	n/a
T5 Infantry (Veterans)	Tie	Win	Win	Win***	(Win)
T5 Infantry (Shock Troop)	Win	Win	Win	Win	Win

• Win = Sturgia Wins
• Lose = Sturgia Loses
• () = Close Match (~50 or less remaining)
• * = Used Battanian Heroes, the t4 noble line. Fians or Fian Champions would be a slaughter
• ** = Imperial Elite Menavliaton are technically polearm units, so are probably more of an anti-cavalry unit than an anti-infantry one.
• *** = Used Wildlings instead of Oathsworn since it is a closer analog

While these results were roughly in line with my expectations and for the most part speak for themselves, there were a couple of unexpected results:

1. Different units of the same type can have different gear. Each unit has up to 3 different gear sets, and each unit is randomly given one of these sets. There can be quite a variation between these gear sets, for example, Shock Troops have 3 different possible shields and 2 different cape slot items. They can have lamellar plate shoulders or a 2 armor scarf. They can also have the typical round shield, a kite shield, or the ****ty t4 spearman shield. Another interesting example is the Vlandian Sergeant, who can have a mace, a sword or a 2h axe as a backup weapon.
2. Sturgia has the worst t4 infantry of any faction. The Sturgian Spearmen lost overwhelmingly to every other factions t4 equivalent. It wasn't even close.
3. Sturgia has the worst ranged unit of any faction*. As long as you count the battanian noble line, which I think is fair. They get crushed by the third tier of the noble Battanian line, and there are two upgrades above that.
4. Sturgia has the second worst t3 infantry in the game. The only unit that lost to the Sturgian Soldier was the Vlandian Infantry and Vlandian Spearmen. Although, I must say they over performed compared to my expectations. Even their losses were quite close. I think the Sturgian Soldiers "Success" can be attributed to their head armor. They have the best helmet of the entire t3 roster, and when you get in mosh-pit fights, AI often spams overhead attacks aimed at the head, so having good head armor really makes a difference here.
5. Sturgia has the second worst 2h infantry in the game. Throwing axes help a little bit here, but the ulfhedhar really are bottom of the barrel. 2H units are already a questionable niche, and this is one of the worst units of that niche. If you want a dedicated 2H unit, take the Aserai Mameluke Palace Guards. They are absolute tanks and were carving through Ulfhednar like they were nothing.
6. Sturgia, predictably, has the worst heavy cavalry noble line. Part of this can be written off to mismatched stats. Another small thing to note, is that they are quite slow for heavy cav.
7. Veterans are pretty great infantry. Not much to say here, the only unit that could beat them head-to-head was the Imperial Legionaries. Their stats and gear really do speak for themselves.
8. Shock Troops are actually amazing? This was completely unexpected. On paper, they are inferior to the veterans in every way. Lower armor, lower stats, worse shields and chance of having a ****ty tiny shield. The dark horse here was their secondary weapon: a tier 5 war-razor and some advantageous AI. When the shock troops approach, they approach with their shields in front of them and axe drawn, which keeps them alive from projectiles, but once they get in melee range, they switch to their 2h war-razor. Remember when I said AI spam overheads once they get into a very tight lined battle? Well they start swinging these crazy 2h pole-arms overhead, which will easily 1 shot heavy infantry. They absolutely melt even the heaviest of infantry. The downside of this, of course, being that they swap their weapons when they reach the enemy line. This often means they take a fair number of losses before they get a chance to start carving through enemy infantry.

Did some practical testing this morning and appended the results to my post.

Edit: It turns out, Shock Troops beat Imperial Elite Cataphracts in a 1 to 1 ratio. These guys are absolute monsters at not only anti-infantry, but also anti-cavalry. This must be why they have such low stats and armor for their tier. The t5 war-razor really does a ton of heavy lifting.

 

[durbal]

Sturgian troop trees need to be fixed. Campaign AI needs to be fixed. Economy needs to be fixed. A lot needs to be fixed.

Let's start with fixing their troop trees. I'm kinda baffled as to how they're not fixed yet since it's immediately obvious that units like the Druzhiniks have their stats all wrong! This seems like a simple value change and yet it's still not resolved...

 

[Androme1]

Sturgian troop trees need to be fixed. Campaign AI needs to be fixed. Economy needs to be fixed. A lot needs to be fixed.

Let's start with fixing their troop trees. I'm kinda baffled as to how they're not fixed yet since it's immediately obvious that units like the Druzhiniks have their stats all wrong! This seems like a simple value change and yet it's still not resolved...

Yeah the most basic thing Taleworlds can do to begin with is to correct their stats, and give them stronger equipment. And then they can start looking at deeper core game mechanics such as AI logic, formation mechanics/AI etc. .

 

[Tobi7043]

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 matter.

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:


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MORE FEEDBACK FROM OTHER USERS

Here's another great thread with feedback regarding Sturgia by user @Mote

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/sturgia-needs-some-love.414325/

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Well made

 

[Garderoben]

Had to make an account just becuse i want to get this of my chest, sturgia really sucks. I started a new campaign in the BETA branch now and they are in my opinion allot better but what in heavens name happend to all the cool armor?

Now they just look like some weird Imperial/Khuzait blend, please tell me this is a placeholder?

 

[Randlocher]

Now they just look like some weird Imperial/Khuzait blend, please tell me this is a placeholder?

Especially the shoulder guard looks really stupid. there are simply no matching pieces.

 

[pras]

Nice post. I myself like Sturgia the most even though it is in a hard place right now... I kinda have a thing for Rus and overall Slavic stuff (genetic bias I guess).

I would like to bring up couple of things to consider, otherwise I like most of your ideas OP.

• Sturgia (Kievan Rus) has relationship with Nords (misc Scandiavians). After all their king is a Nord. This should not be neglected in the unit roster. However, the main unit roster should be "Slavic" flavoured completely. What I'm proposing is that the Nord twist to Sturgia should basically be a separate tree that it is Nord flavoured. Basically grab the berserker and move it to a seperate one branch unit tree. You can rename the berserker to something else if you will but at the end of the day the point that must come across is: "we came here on a boat, we are kickass, just look at us; our dude is running the show but we are few in numbers".
• If we are already on the topic of furry half naked berserker; I don't see any sane warlike person with experience going into a fight being naked from the waste up. Looks cool so keep it, just switch it around; have the naked guy first in the tree and the chain-mail guy as an upgrade. Logic being: let the young and stupid run around naked and those that survive became smarter and put some armour on.
• How to get to the Sturgian Nord unit tree? Well access to it must reflect that they are foreigners in less that sizeable numbers in a land that one of them rules so it shouldn't be as easy as going to a random Sturgian village and enlist them. They should also be few in numbers. IMO you should be able to enlist them only in the capital or even better maybe you must ask the king to give them to you. Not for free... you should have good enough relationship with the king and ofc they would cost money.
• Why do spearmen have kite shield? Everyone has the round shield... I guess it is just a little overlook but still.

Sturgian lands really need a rework. My take:
East:

The left red part must be land or something... that little bridge is not enough. The area circled in red on the right needs a rework as well.
If cities and castles are moved in the general area where the blue stuff is pointed IMO it would make more sense. The mountain range circled in black either needs to let people pass near the coast or the cities indeed need to move.

West:

The red part must be cut out, that peninsula is IMO too long... it does make the land seem more remote which I kinda get and like though... but not too remote. I would move the Ustokol castle where it is pointed and place Revly where the castle originally was.. if we are already making things narrow let's make it in a way that it makes sense... a castle guarding a narrow valley that has a city in it.
Kranirog needs to move to shield Varcheg from the south west better. Mazhadan sitting where the arrow is pointing makes far more sense now... shielding passage between two rivers.
That huge empty uneventful space between Varcheg and Ov should be utilized better as well.
I didn't deep dive in what villages are producing in general in that "permafrost" but if I remember correctly it doesn't make sense much. You want food production where there is no snow and iron/furs/fishes where you can't turn a plough properly because it is basically ice all the time.

Something like that.

 

[karijus]

I made a little mod for myself - added an infantry branch for Sturgian noble line, basically it's just like noble cavalry, just focused on 1h, athletics and throwing, same armor, t5 axe or sturgian noble sword, shield and 2 packs of throwing axes. So sort of infantry version of Battanian noble archers. Those guys are beastly, finally feels like there there is something exciting about Sturgia lol.

 

[andycott]

Sturgia Rework mod
https://www.nexusmods.com/mountandblade2bannerlord/mods/547
"This is a Rework of the Sturgian Troop Tree.
I played them and somehow the Sturgian Troops felt a bit weird. The Spearman was absolute crap with just T3 equipment as T4 unit and the Ulfhednar looses almost all armor, etc.
So I wanted to balance them a little bit.
This is my first mod.
Feedback is always welcome. "

 

[pras]

Sturgia Rework mod
https://www.nexusmods.com/mountandblade2bannerlord/mods/547
"This is a Rework of the Sturgian Troop Tree.
I played them and somehow the Sturgian Troops felt a bit weird. The Spearman was absolute crap with just T3 equipment as T4 unit and the Ulfhednar looses almost all armor, etc.
So I wanted to balance them a little bit.
This is my first mod.
Feedback is always welcome. "

Funny enough I wanted to quote your mod when I was doing post above. I like it overall but IMO like I wrote Nord stuff shouldn't be in general Sturgian tree.

 

[Sarissofoi]

Greeting OP.
Just wanted to say hello and agree with most of your arguments here.
Especially about strategic and economic Struggian situation and their war thirsty AI.
All Sturgian units having bonus to snow walking would be pretty neat and I support it wholehearted.

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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I would disagree partially on it.
I agree that tiers need to be fixed and troops give better equipment and better stats but I thinks unbalanced troops should be fixed based on their stats not their equipment.
I was looking at Sturgia troops and noticed that their stats would have make perfect sense if their role and equipment was changed.
Noble troops(The Warrior Son Tree) Have three stats high:
>Riding, One handed and Bow
It make perfect sense to make them cavalry armed with bows one handed and shield from Tier one.
It would help in few ways:
>give them little more of strategic mobility
>boost them in auto resolve
>serve as bodyguards for the Leaders(as they also come with bow and arrows)
>with them having one handed axes/swords and shields they could also serve as dismounted heavy infantry if needed
Sturgians are not a pure Nordic faction but a nation influenced by both Steppe and Sea people - like the original Rus.


Brigands branch.
They have weird stat distribution but pretty doable to accommodate equipment for it. One handed weapons could be axes/sabres.
>first tier have one handed and shield, they also should get a horse
>second have two handed weapon(axe probably) maybe extra axe or sabre or shield
>last tier should have one handed sidearm and a pole-arm - glaive or lighter Sturgian lance
They would serve in similar way to Noble troop tree - extra mobility, bonus auto resolve and protection of the Leaders.

The only thing about archers that bother me is their medium tier having a high raiding skill - maybe they were suppose to be horse archers? Dunno. Making their last tier a horse archers would probably help Sturgia in both mobility and auto resolve. It would make sense considering how close steppe nomads are.

The infantry tier is all messed up and need cleaning. There is no need for 3 last tier units.
There should be 2 separate branches:
>one spear and one hand/shield users
>second 2handed axe one hand/shield users
Both could have some throwing weapons. Axes probably.

Gonna make a fix and test it on new save. Can post results if anyone interested.

Sturgian troop trees need to be fixed. Campaign AI needs to be fixed. Economy needs to be fixed. A lot needs to be fixed.

Also this.

 

[dphilostrate]

Sturgia Rework mod
https://www.nexusmods.com/mountandblade2bannerlord/mods/547
"This is a Rework of the Sturgian Troop Tree.
I played them and somehow the Sturgian Troops felt a bit weird. The Spearman was absolute crap with just T3 equipment as T4 unit and the Ulfhednar looses almost all armor, etc.
So I wanted to balance them a little bit.
This is my first mod.
Feedback is always welcome. "

I like what I see here because they are such minor solutions to major problems.

 

[mbchudno]

Sturgians was inspired from normans+nothern russians.(Thats why we have units like "druzhinnik" and Varyag") And they loved spears. And guess what - spears was frkn awesome in a shield wall formation.

So i love how they looks and feels.

But TS is right. Spears in this games just suck. And their units too.

Normans and Nords are not the same...

 

[DocShotgun]

Did some practical testing this morning and appended the results to my post.

Edit: It turns out, Shock Troops beat Imperial Elite Cataphracts in a 1 to 1 ratio. These guys are absolute monsters at not only anti-infantry, but also anti-cavalry. This must be why they have such low stats and armor for their tier. The t5 war-razor really does a ton of heavy lifting.

I'm curious - what was the method you used to change the troops that spawn in custom battle? Also is it possible to have a mix of different types of units in each formation (infantry/archers/cav/HA)? I wanted to see how the unit stat fixer mod as well as more realistic mixed unit compositions would affect the outcomes in faction balance. Looked in the custom battle module and the only XMLs I could find to edit were the list of scenes and heroes to choose from lol.

 

[Mote]

I'm curious - what was the method you used to change the troops that spawn in custom battle? Also is it possible to have a mix of different types of units in each formation (infantry/archers/cav/HA)? I wanted to see how the unit stat fixer mod as well as more realistic mixed unit compositions would affect the outcomes in faction balance. Looked in the custom battle module and the only XMLs I could find to edit were the list of scenes and heroes to choose from lol.

The custom battle module pulls the characters from the SandboxCore module directly, so the code itself must be querying for specific ids somewhere. To get the custom battle to have the units I wanted, I basically swapped the unit ID of the queried unit in the SandBoxCore XML files with the desired units.For example, since all the spear units default to that factions basic t4 infantry unit, you can just swap the ID of the t4 infantry unit with the id of whatever you want, and then the spear units in custom battle will be replaced with that unit.

 

[TheycallmeCoconutJones]

After looking into a few mods and finding out how easy it was to modify the base game unit loadout i dug around though the files and ended up doing a small personal mod to rework their units to test what might make a difference without making things to over the top, after playing around with a few things this is the conclusion iv come to for the most part

Recruit: one of the things i think is going is their units don't live past the heat of battle and recruits get mowed down and re-recruited faster then the villages can pump the poor bastards out, i think a faction who revolves around shield wall tactics should be able to implement their fresh recruits into that shield wall, even if its a basic shield. This has resulted in more units surviving but the recruit still dies quite easily.

Warrior: this unit only needs some simple changes, a upgrade to some basic leather armor so it can last a bit longer along with some constancy in the shield options it gets

Soldier: basically i think it needs more of the same upgrades as the warrior, up the armor further and give it a stronger shield so it can live and get a better chance to become the stronger units

Spearman: this unit is where the love needed to really start, this unit needs some decent armor changes and a heavy round shield to match the rest of the shield wall so they can keep protected better, not sure if it should have throwing weapons but it needs to be more relevant as a tier 4 units


before the beta the shock troop and the veteran warrior were some of the best units in the army but now they are even better in beta, the devs gave them a lot of love in the armor department and they can last a lot longer

Shock Troop: as ,mentioned above i think it all around good, i think it should get some throwing weapons and a stat increase to go along with a polearm that can be used with the shield, the war razor is an awesome weapon but i think it should go on a different unit il elaborate when i get to that unit

veteran warrior:pretty solid unit i think it should get an extra set of throwing weapons other then that they are awesome

Berserker/Ulfhednar: simply put i think they need to have their sets swapped between one another, i think the berserker should be the half naked lunatic with the axe ( as it was historically) and make the Uldhednar feel like an upgrade buy giving it lots of chain armor and fixing the skills to match what the unit before it was using. It needs to feel like and upgrade and the ulfhednar as it stands in the base game is a complete downgrade

Woodsman: this unit needs a shield and it needs some basic leather armor, same theory as the warrior it needs to survive to the next phase

Hunter: Same line of thinking with armor upgrades but the archer line needs to fill a secondary role in the army, simply put they have the worst arches in the game and are surrounded by factions with vastly better range or firepower then they do. With the warrior race theme in mind and the fact that their going to be pretty close to your shield wall to pepper units on the approach i think this unit needs to get skill in polearms instead of 1H weapons and should be equipped with a basic spear

Archer: currently this unit gets better armor then the one it upgrades into, i believe it should be swapped so this one gets the lite lamellar armor and also continues with the polearm theme as i mentioned before to act as a secondary role in the army, it could also probably use an upgrade in the arrow type

Veteran Bowman: with the armor swap in mind this unit would have chainmail and would be better at taking damage, it needs bodkin arrows to be able to make the shorter range damage more relevant. I think the tier 5 unit should get a strong polearm, in my test mod i decided to do some mad science and give these guys the WarRazor that the shock troop used to have and i like the potential but it might need to be just a basic spear not sure tho but having them relevant in melee due to how close they are make them feel like a natural part of how the sturgian army should work

Brigand: Could use some better armor to get to the point where its on a horse and more useful at its potential role

Hardened brigand: there is a small stat mess up that can needs fixing other then that this unit is just a light cav that likes javs seems alright just need better AI

Horse raider: there nothing that feels out of place, it's a light cav that has a love for javelins sounds good on paper. the biggest problem with these units is the AI doesn't know how to skirmish with them or aim their javelins at things properly, once that changes I think these units will be alright.

Sturgian warrior son: same problem as other units not well enough equipped to survive or be effective, sense this is the nobility line and the son of a Boyar i think it safe to say it should be better equipped than your average recruit

Varyag: this is a nice jump in gear and stats, becomes a solid unit

Varyag Veteran: i think this unit should look more like the Druzhinnik in terms of its load out just without the horse to show the progression that the unit is going through on its way to the Boyar Cavalry

Druzhinnik/Champ: this is the unit that literally made me do this entire writeup/experiment, its Stats are AWESOME for a Boyar cav Unit, and Sturgia is much more of a Rusviking inspired faction then a purely norse based one, which pretty much tells me these guys just got overlooked on getting the bows they need to be the unit that their namesake is inspired after, they even get them as load out options in MP.

Basically the unit just needs a bow and some good arrows to go along with its shield and one handed weapons so it can act as an anti cav Unit. harass the enemy cav into rushing at you where you can horse lock them up making their lances useless and your superior one handed skill can win you the fight in close combat with them.

 

[saucefar]

Sturgia is the worst of the bunch, all i can do is recommend that you use the mod that fixes the stats for them.

 

[Amon Morell]

Anyone tryed the mod ?
What are the rusults ?

 

[Maximum997]

Recruit: one of the things i think is going is their units don't live past the heat of battle and recruits get mowed down and re-recruited faster then the villages can pump the poor bastards out, i think a faction who revolves around shield wall tactics should be able to implement their fresh recruits into that shield wall, even if its a basic shield. This has resulted in more units surviving but the recruit still dies quite easily.

They need to buff all recruits. They are main core of lords armies right now. And they should be "men in arms". Not a dedicated proffesional warriors, but not a naked pesants from farms.

Becouse any lord wanna present equiped and trained soldiers for his suzerain.Poopy pesants with showels who cant hold a line was a total shame. Becouse your toops represents you. (bad troops = bad ruler)
So it should be padded armor (it is actually really good against cuts and blunt hits, but useless against thrusts) padded hat, shields and spears\axes.

Second reason - they train very slowly. In warband as +- decent trainer you can lvl up them for 1 day. And you have 11 possible trainers in your group.
So it was very historical accurate - you get pesants fom your village, give them some equip and show then how to hold the line and where is pointy end on spear.