Tactical decisions on the battlefield should play a bigger role in deciding the tide of battle

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There are some tactics yes, but it certainly isn't enough, @Ikea Knight said this

He is absolutely right, my friend plays like this and he can destroy armies, I love tactics and formations and I'm trying historical formations but it doesn't work the way it should work, the game makes you feel stupid because you can't do tactics at all

Ah yea, the formations really don't seem to work properly, there is indeed room for improvement. But in Warband I dont think I ever used anything else than the "charge" command. Bannerlords system is definitely more complex and tactic dependant!
 
I doubt you can find someone like that in the forums, I simply can't understand why TaleWorlds doesn't listen to us, forum users. We are the ones that care about the game. we are trying to give feedback in order to make this game better.

I actually found a thread on Reddit that was created a short while ago that linked both this thread and what @StewVader posted, and based on the comments in it so far it seems a lot of them are mixed to negative in regards to the aspect of formations.
Here it is for anyone interested:
 
Right here; I like monocolor banners. The only thread I saw about them, it was a mix of expressed preferences.
I recognize that, nothing is 100% anything, and "De gustibus non est disputandum", but in my opinion, the monocolor banners are an ugly downgrade from what we had in Warband, and in real life history for that matter, which TW claim proudly to take heavy inspiration from.
There are lots of objective and rational reasons why i think that way, from purely aesthetic reasons (1 color background in heraldry), to the ones that i think this feature takes individuality and diversity away from the clans and from the map overview itself, that the milticolor banners "complexity" issue could easily be overridden with some minor UI tweaks that were already in the game before the simplification
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, and many many others, most are mentioned in the thread i will link below.
However, my opinion is not crucial, but the community's is, and it's very clear in the linked thread below.

Many people are oblivious and actually think the monocolor banners are placeholders, bless their believing hearts. :cry:

They don't want to believe banners were designed in a lazy way on purpose.

There were, in fact, a lot of threads about it, one of the most clear community opinion, and with the largest sample, was shown in this one, strange you haven't bumped into it : The Bannerlord Banner Poll , which was not a mix of preferencies in the slightest.
Not to mention many of the developers themselves don't like that particular design too, but that's a whole other story.

On top of it all, it's quite embarassing having the game called BANNERlord, while also having the banners that AI clans has, and the complete lack of any sensible banner customization options for the player at least.

EDIT: Anyways, i'm taking a break off the Bannerlord grid, so excuse me for not participating in potential future quoted posts, i will not be seeing them.
Cheers
 
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I actually found a thread on Reddit that was created a short while ago that linked both this thread and what @StewVader posted, and based on the comments in it so far it seems a lot of them are mixed to negative in regards to the aspect of formations.
Here it is for anyone interested:
" If I wanted to spend my battle moving squares around I'd play Total War. " this comment made me laugh, it is complete non-sense
 
I seem to recall most posts on forums about 6 years ago wishing that Bannerlord was just an upgraded Warband, and that people didn't want a completely different game, many posts say things like "I just hope for a Warband with extra mechanics". I took that to mean people didn't want to see a change like from Fallout 1 and 2 being a Tactical time-based game to a real-time shooter, and it really doesn't elaborate on what people wanted. So when people complain about it not being more than what they had hoped for, its just like: where were you?

Taleworlds already stated that the beginning of the EA release will be about bug-fixing and stuff, that the new mechanics would be coming in later. Unfortunately we have no idea exactly when or even what they might just be considering. They have definitely started giving us more information but their post on future plans and focuses currently just covers a handful of things of which about half have been addressed in patches, such as perks, adding the ability to vote for war and peace, creating your own kingdom, General AI enhancements etc.

With regards to the OP

It currently has more mechanics, the problem is their actual impact on the game is pretty shallow. The big thing everyone keeps pointing out is how they want even just a glimpse of the surface level of the political system to be something like Crusader Kings 2 intrigue and politics. Currently lords are only there to be fought, and oppose your vote. Formations are about as useful as Warband, but we have Horse Archer AI? Which has made them terrifyingly powerful, because the other factions don't have anything particularly good in the way of combat AI to counter it.

The bare-bones implementation of an army AI where its split between lords controlling divisions could be a bit more intelligent in their battle decisions. The AI doesn't seem to have a concrete "goal" of what it wants to achieve in battle it just goes with a play-by-play style of response to the enemy, if it starts by holding high ground it will often give up that very high ground when the enemy gets close enough to charge.

On the subject of Divisions, Instead of splitting units based on type it would be nice if we could make custom divisions that have a certain number of people in each one. maybe I want 2 archer divisions that make pincer attacks, maybe I want an infantry division with some pikes mixed in to stop those cav, maybe I would 2 groups of heavy and light cav, to min-max combat potential and mass when riding down an enemy formation. All this could be saved as "loadouts" in the pre-battle menu.

Individual lord fights feel small because they might not have more than 70 men and even the largest size lords can be something like 125, whereas mid-to-late game Warband is looking at even 175, Sieges are over in a flash and the casualties for attackers often feel way too low for attacking a fortified position. I personally wanted sieges to be punishing and hard, which would solve the snowball problem honestly, Sieges are being rewarded right now with easy paths to the gate, and minimal damage done by the defenders on many castles. The result is that with minimal losses sustained on the siege the army can just move onto the next target with no downtime. The exceptions seem to be Sturgian castles and cities that tend to have 180 to 270 degree angles of fire on the gates even. those castles cause so many casualties consistently in my campaigns.

The game has the mechanics, but their potential just hasn't been met. I am hoping once they moved on from the fixes they planned to focus on for the first half year or so to implementations like they said, we will see the greatness hammered out. I want to love this game, but right now I can only like it.
 
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Many people are oblivious and actually think the monocolor banners are placeholders, bless their believing hearts.
Uhh, sorry guys those aren't placeholders. in this video (it is in Turkish language, I'll translate the important part)
In 6:07 the journalist asks about removed features by saying "Are there any features that you removed"
In 8:28 the journalist asks about banners by saying "One of our viewers asked about banners, can we customize banners?" and Armagan replies by saying "You said are there any features that you removed right, in this case, we didn't remove it but we simplified it" and here comes the sad part, especially sad in this post "The reason for that simplification is, our game is already so complex, the game giving so much information to the player, there is so much thing going on when you look at the map, caravans passing, armies passing, recruiting soldiers, trading and that kind of thing, so we wanted to do it like this when you check the map you should understand lord's and other kingdoms banners fast, so instead of prioritizing appearance we prioritized comprehensibleness so we simplified it" so yeah
 
I stopped playing Bannerlord about 5 weeks ago. Think was at 400+ hours according to steam. Quit playing because TW made some big mistakes in this game development and the number 1 mistake is Early Access itself. Not really a fan of TW higher up decisions makers for the reason Bannerlord was released to Early Access. Bannerlord is still in Alpha stage and TW seems to be falsely advertising by not saying Alpha stage. More importantly, TW is not offering Bannerlord at Alpha stage costs that most game companies do.

Make no mistakes, the number 1 crime that TW is committing is falsely implying Bannerlord is not alpha stage and charging premium $ for a game still in Alpha stage.

I did have large number of mods installed when I used to play Bannerlord, but the only mod I think would affect battles was the mod that allows a sword swipe or spear thrust to harm more than 1 target.

So from my 400+ hours played, I disagree with the OP that battlefield tactics are meaningless in early access Bannerlord. Bannerlord could get better: tactics, better strategy options, formations and most importantly AI...Yes, yes, and yes, but the implications that there is no AI and tactics are meaningless is just not true in my experience.

Most of the time, if you just want to win a battle..yes, just charge will work. But to be efficient and reduce army casulities takes tactics. The mere act of reducing army losses/deaths during a battle is strategy. The crying wolf in this thread about "no tactics" and "no strategy" In Bannerlord at all is simply not true and raising a stink for stink sake.

Battlefield tactics I regular used that was very effective in reducing casualties if not changing the course of a loss:

-- Archers in loose formation
-- Archers stay here at top of hills
-- Infantry in front of the archers, also loose formation, also stay here command. Horse archers right behind the foot archers
-- Infantry change to shield wall, right before clashing with enemy melee/calvary.
-- Only tell infantry/archers to charge after breaking the initial enemy charge
-- If no slopes to position on, put the archers in front and then have then archers fall back when infantry/ calvary get close
-- Let the enemy come to you mostly. (there is tricks to use to get the enemy armies to charge you when not in their best interest)
-- When the enemy gets closer, but still not in melee range..Tell the horse archers to charge.
-- For calvary, hold off until the enemy archers and enemy infantry separate some.
-- Calvary at start of battle will be off to the side and behind, waiting. Loose or line formation, usually loose
-- Do not simply order calvary to charge, rather change formation to Skein and follow you.
-- Calvary charges should all be lead by the player, do not tell calvary to blindly charge unless the enemy is fleeing or wanting calvary to counter enemy calvary charge
-- Calvary charges should be directed towards enemy archer formations, Do not not ride in straight line at the enemy archers as a player.
-- Do not stop to engage archers or other melee during charge, only ride through their formations.
-- The other tactic to do besides leading calvary charges is to have calvary formations off to the side of the battle, and use a far side "move here" so that your calvary rides THROUGH the enemy formation and does not stop to engage
-- The only time I would use "charge" order to my calvary formation was when the enemies were fleeing or when chasing down enemy calvary charges. All though for countering calvary charges, I preferred to have my calvary and horse archer formations "follow me".
-- There is a good time for circle formation for archers and melee: When you face an enemy with a large amount of horse archers.
 
I seem to recall most posts on forums about 6 years ago wishing that Bannerlord was just an upgraded Warband, and that people didn't want a completely different game, many posts say things like "I just hope for a Warband with extra mechanics". I took that to mean people didn't want to see a change like from Fallout 1 and 2 being a Tactical time-based game to a real-time shooter, and it really doesn't elaborate on what people wanted. So when people complain about it not being more than what they had hoped for, its just like: where were you?

People were saying that because they just wanted Bannerlord to come out, and also it had become apparent that the game was going to be kind of mediocre to some people. There were some controversial decisions around that time (like the influence system and the weird perks) and most regulars realised that the dream game they had in their minds in 2013 didn't exist in 2015. It wasn't "I don't want the game to be different from warband", it was more like "I don't care if the game releases without these features". You often find this when games take a long time to release, people feel like they want to cut their losses and get the game in a relatively barebones form. The problem now is how slow and disjointed the patching process is.
 
Uhh, sorry guys those aren't placeholders. in this video (it is in Turkish language, I'll translate the important part)
In 6:07 the journalist asks about removed features by saying "Are there any features that you removed"
In 8:28 the journalist asks about banners by saying "One of our viewers asked about banners, can we customize banners?" and Armagan replies by saying "You said are there any features that you removed right, in this case, we didn't remove it but we simplified it" and here comes the sad part, especially sad in this post "The reason for that simplification is, our game is already so complex, the game giving so much information to the player, there is so much thing going on when you look at the map, caravans passing, armies passing, recruiting soldiers, trading and that kind of thing, so we wanted to do it like this when you check the map you should understand lord's and other kingdoms banners fast, so instead of prioritizing appearance we prioritized comprehensibleness so we simplified it" so yeah

I really don't get it. Just how dumb do they think their playerbase is?
 
All I want is to be able to tell my troops to attack specifics enemy's troops, like "cavalry, charge enemy's archers".
 
I really don't get it. Just how dumb do they think their playerbase is?

The impression I get is that Taleworlds is extremely insular and kind of out of touch from the reality of their game. When you work on a game for 10 years it becomes difficult to make decisions like "are we giving too much information to the player.

This is why it's so baffling that they squandered the beta and said "this is what we're doing, no alterations" to some of the features. It was the first chance they had to get some real feedback from total outsiders.
 
The game leans more on the action RPG side, with just elements of strategy sprinkled in here and there
Oooooooooh noooooooooo :sad:


I think the commands in that mod are a little busy for my taste, but I do expect more out of formation and AI and I think being able to save starting formations and select them before battle is a really basic thing to want in a 2020 game. It also lends to the "action rpg" aspect of battle if you don't have to manually move all your units around every single battle and could at least select a saved layout of where you want you formations to be at the start.

I've got my routines down but it still sucks tbh.
Everyone to the back of the map, archers back right the look that way, HA in front look this was, cav on the edge...inf......INFANTRY when did you get here okay in front...no back you'll just die.....
OH no here come a lord and some T 5 HA gotta intercept before they kill somebody because NO SURGERY STILL AFTER 3 MONTHS
 
There were, in fact, a lot of threads about it, one of the most clear community opinion, and with the largest sample, was shown in this one, strange you haven't bumped into it : The Bannerlord Banner Poll , which was not a mix of preferencies in the slightest.

I didn't see it because I wasn't playing Bannerlord then (September 2019). Neither were most of the people posting on this forum now. At any rate, it was an example, again, of someone saying "everyone" when they mean "me, and the people I like."
 
At this point I just want TW to release Dev tools so somebody with more competence passion and vision would actually make some good game.
Because I don't see any of it in TW now.
 
I didn't see it because I wasn't playing Bannerlord then (September 2019). Neither were most of the people posting on this forum now. At any rate, it was an example, again, of someone saying "everyone" when they mean "me, and the people I like."
What a pathetic spin of what Piconi said. He never said "everyone", he asked where are these hordes of players that like the ugly one color banners, and only you showed up, just proving his point that the hordes of players are on the other side, on the one that does NOT like the banners, what that thread, as well as the posts on the whole forums from the whole last year or so tell us.
Also, we didn't have to play it back then to see the singleplayer videos that announced the awful banner design, so that does not excuse you from not using the search function properly, when claiming it was "the only" thread you have found.
Not only that, but as mentioned above, the thread you "found" is not about banners, but uniforms, and there was a much more important thread than that too
The Great Poll About Textile Color
You can have your opinion and it is your right, but how can anyone take you seriously after such false claims and lazy search, i really don't know, just made yourself discussion unworthy...
Just another example of miserably failed straw man . . .
 
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Bannerlord battles look great on the surface level, until you get past the surface level and you realize how garbage everything is and how nothing works the way it should.

No words could be ever truer. No wonder I feel like warband feels more better than bannerlord
 
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