The most profitable way...

[imgran]

Yes it feel a little like exploiting, but in lack of a better solution (lower wages), i have learned to live with it.

Besides they are expensive troops, and some weeks will pass before u make a saving overall. I also think their unit capacity increases with ur renown but im unsure about it.

You should not have to trick a mod into working.

The real culprit is the frankjly pathetic training system.  There is no practical reason why it should take weeks and weeks to train farmers into basic unarmored infantry.  None.  At all.  Period.  Ever.  Especially in this period in this region where wars happened fairly frequently and most villages had a few experienced fighters knocking around.  That should, if anything, make training FAR EASIER.

If you could train your soldiers like, you know, an army of soldiers is ACTUALLY TRAINED, then it would make sense to use low tier units and keep a small core of units for wartime.  But because nothing meaningful has been done to the AI and how enemy lords generate troops, this solution is neither practical nor adequate, as the AI will always, ALWAYS win the arms race, since it is ridiculously slow to train basic infantry into something somewhat resembling an adequate fighter.  By the time you could take your cadre of 50 elite soldiers and make a decent army out of it the siege would have begun and ended and you can raise your army as a vagabond.  The historical model IS BROKEN, so expecting any part of it to be maintained on the basis of "realism" is ludicrous.  There is no realism here.  You're clinging desperately to a pipe dream.

You can EITHER have unrealistically slow training OR large standing enemy armies.  CURB ONE OF THOSE TWO THINGS.

Or here's an idea.  You've got something going a bit with the concept of noble troops.  So you have your noble troops that can train as delightfully slowly as you might imagine they could, but have a high ceiling of ability and can pretty much take point in the army at any time, and then you have your peasant levy troops that get to, like, tier 3, but get there using the actual training skill something remotely like the way it's actually meant to be used.  Then adjust your party templates to reflect the same kind of proportion among AI troops and there ya go.  Something that isn't patentely absurd, ahistoric, and utterly impractical within the game scheme.  Something that actually works.  Novel concept eh?

Heck, half the stuff done to this mod beyond the skinning itself hasn't been done to add realism, it's been done to make the game harder.  To sabotage all the things people didn't like about the original Warband game that served to keep it from becoming a complete unpleasant grindfest, amd replace them with, you guessed it, a complete unpleasant grindfest.  Ta-da!  Not that there aren't some really great ideas here -- don't want to imply that -- but they're lost among the make-it-harder nonsense until the end result is a basically inaccessible mod with a few elite players sitting around clapping themselves on the back for being awesome and looking down on anyone who complains about it.

Well, feel superior all you want to folks, this is one folder that's pretty freaking easy to delete.

 

[imgran]

Ghhh.  OK, I'm calmer now.

This is a bit of an issue though.  I'm having real trouble keeping an army around me that can A: handle most bandits, and B: CATCH most bandits.  Pathfinding seems to do less than nothing.  And I can't cut down my size for more speed even if it'd help, because I can't train soldiers up to that level quickly.  And I can't get large numbers of cavalry (which would be the correct solution in literally every other mod), because... I can't train soldiers up to that level quickly.  And I can't just sit here training becaaaauuuse I can't pay for my soldiers that long.  Can't loot to keep my soldiers paid becaaause I can't catch bandits.  Can't fight battles with my companions because they're not equipped.  And I can't equip them beccaaaause I can't catch bandits with any army that can beat them.  Neat little catch 22. 

I was hoping that a skill like Barding might help the problem and it kinda does, except that it only really provides enough income to pay my companions, and not to maintain any kind of force that could defend me against the inevitable bandits that happen because you have to move from town to town to get best use of the skill.  Not to mention that ALL OF YOUR COMPANIONS ARE FREAKING LEVEL ONE which is absurdly out of synch with the experience some of them claim to have had.  Makes non-warrior classes ridiculously hard to get off the ground.

Really not appreciating the skills nerf on top of the weapon speed nerf and the wage hike, as well as a few other things specifically designed to make those who are used to playing Warband stumble (in at least one case, literally).

Understand, I'm not just complaining because these things are inconvenient.  THe problem here is that I don't volunteer to spend hours of my time being annoyed at a mod that takes too long to load on my machine in the first place.  At some point when you're playing a game, somewhere along the line enjoyment is supposed to happen.  Still trying to figure out when that might be.

 

[NacroxNicke]

We are all masochists deep into our soul

The key to take off the ground is simple, something that worked for me is trading with a lot of pathfinding and alone, getting enough money to take some heavy mercenaries (the ones that take 100 from wages), desband someones of them (keep 3 or 4 only), and fullfill all the rest of the party with **** and levies.

Then go hunting low-level bandits gangs until you reach high level and enough leadership to handle high parties, and keep trading.

Also, prisioners give a lot of money, more than before, and you can even "donate" them for sacrificies in "Ancient Ruins" to the druid, he gives some nice-easy money.

Try to invest money on donkeys as you keep trading (horses/donkeys gives speed bonus to your party while they are in the inventory), and try to rest on nights and fight bandits to keep morale high (that gives some speed bonus too)

I got ripped in the first week of the game, but you need to play it calmly, more like a strategic game (like HoI or EU) than a combat game (If you want a combat game, I strongly suggest you to try Expanded Gameplay 3 for the original M&B if you have it, it makes the game harder but the combat exciting and enjoyable)

PD: I play with a ****e machine too (DX7), I know how painfull is to wait to the game to load a scene from a town or even from a village, or even a dialogue =P

 

[Thorgil]

(...) but you need to play it calmly, more like a strategic game (like HoI or EU) than a combat game (...)

you brought it to the point.

 

[imgran]

It's never that simple and you know it.  The best trading areas are bandits-that-are-faster-than-you heaven.

I do hear what you're saying though.  The biggest problem is I'm a Christian (I can't quite make myself roleplay as a pagan) and the best trading route in the game runs through Mierce.  It's going to take time to master the trading aspect of the game well enough to do without Mercia, and yet I'm obligated to do things that alienate them.  So eh, maybe I'm doing part of it to myself.

 

[NacroxNicke]

Din Gonwy (near "Ancient Ruins") and villages: Minerals, Stone, Silver > Caer Miguaddi

Cirren Coaster and villages: Salt > Din Gonwy

100% christian territory (It's on west-south England, the names are a little off, I don't remember them well), only bandits gang's in the way (and they have only one really dangerous unit, the Bandit leader, the others are archers with knife's)

Ask to the caravans when you see them, they sometimes gives nice info, and ask for rumors to the villagers, they sometimes says trade routes (They say that in X part the X thing is sold better)

I have to admit though that I was affiliated with celts and I insulted a Christian monk in a great hall, so my trade route went FUBAR and I'm seeking one near Mierce and to the north. 

 

[imgran]

I've found beer and Mead in eastern Mercia to be ridiculously cheap, and any city nearby will buy it for a fat profit, it almost doesn't matter what you do for a return cargo, you're still making money.  Go north and find some place with cheap furs, you should have yourself a good two point route.

Forgive me, I can't even begin to manage the old spellings so that's about the best I can do.

 

[Mooncabbage]

Yes it feel a little like exploiting, but in lack of a better solution (lower wages), i have learned to live with it.

Besides they are expensive troops, and some weeks will pass before u make a saving overall. I also think their unit capacity increases with ur renown but im unsure about it.

You should not have to trick a mod into working.

The real culprit is the frankjly pathetic training system.  There is no practical reason why it should take weeks and weeks to train farmers into basic unarmored infantry.  None.  At all.  Period.  Ever.  Especially in this period in this region where wars happened fairly frequently and most villages had a few experienced fighters knocking around.  That should, if anything, make training FAR EASIER.

If you could train your soldiers like, you know, an army of soldiers is ACTUALLY TRAINED, then it would make sense to use low tier units and keep a small core of units for wartime.  But because nothing meaningful has been done to the AI and how enemy lords generate troops, this solution is neither practical nor adequate, as the AI will always, ALWAYS win the arms race, since it is ridiculously slow to train basic infantry into something somewhat resembling an adequate fighter.  By the time you could take your cadre of 50 elite soldiers and make a decent army out of it the siege would have begun and ended and you can raise your army as a vagabond.  The historical model IS BROKEN, so expecting any part of it to be maintained on the basis of "realism" is ludicrous.  There is no realism here.  You're clinging desperately to a pipe dream.

You can EITHER have unrealistically slow training OR large standing enemy armies.  CURB ONE OF THOSE TWO THINGS.

Or here's an idea.  You've got something going a bit with the concept of noble troops.  So you have your noble troops that can train as delightfully slowly as you might imagine they could, but have a high ceiling of ability and can pretty much take point in the army at any time, and then you have your peasant levy troops that get to, like, tier 3, but get there using the actual training skill something remotely like the way it's actually meant to be used.  Then adjust your party templates to reflect the same kind of proportion among AI troops and there ya go.  Something that isn't patentely absurd, ahistoric, and utterly impractical within the game scheme.  Something that actually works.  Novel concept eh?

I agree with PART of what you're saying. The training skill sucks. It takes a lot more experience to level an army, and the training skill hasn't been adapted in any way to compensate. Additionally, I believe with the training skill, you have to be high level than the troop you want to train for them to recieve experience. I'm lvl 20 in game and I'm only higher level than the first two tiers! Which means the training skill is totally useless until you're atleast level 15.

That said, I don't think turbo levelling is appropriate or necessary. Troops still level up relatively quickly from battles. No the real problem is the very NATURE of first tier units. They're equipped like medieval peasants. They don't have spears, they don't have shields, and in this period, they should. It would have been quite normal at this time for the free men of a village (which would have been practically all of them), and their sons, to be prepared to fight, and not with improvised weapons, but with the standard equipment of this period. It's not like a wooden shield and a spear are particularly difficult to make, and a seax was more or less equivalent to a pocket knife.

Ghhh.  OK, I'm calmer now.

This is a bit of an issue though.  I'm having real trouble keeping an army around me that can A: handle most bandits, and B: CATCH most bandits.  Pathfinding seems to do less than nothing.  And I can't cut down my size for more speed even if it'd help, because I can't train soldiers up to that level quickly.  And I can't get large numbers of cavalry (which would be the correct solution in literally every other mod), because... I can't train soldiers up to that level quickly.  And I can't just sit here training becaaaauuuse I can't pay for my soldiers that long.  Can't loot to keep my soldiers paid becaaause I can't catch bandits.  Can't fight battles with my companions because they're not equipped.  And I can't equip them beccaaaause I can't catch bandits with any army that can beat them.  Neat little catch 22. 

I was hoping that a skill like Barding might help the problem and it kinda does, except that it only really provides enough income to pay my companions, and not to maintain any kind of force that could defend me against the inevitable bandits that happen because you have to move from town to town to get best use of the skill.  Not to mention that ALL OF YOUR COMPANIONS ARE FREAKING LEVEL ONE which is absurdly out of synch with the experience some of them claim to have had.  Makes non-warrior classes ridiculously hard to get off the ground.

Really not appreciating the skills nerf on top of the weapon speed nerf and the wage hike, as well as a few other things specifically designed to make those who are used to playing Warband stumble (in at least one case, literally).

Understand, I'm not just complaining because these things are inconvenient.  THe problem here is that I don't volunteer to spend hours of my time being annoyed at a mod that takes too long to load on my machine in the first place.  At some point when you're playing a game, somewhere along the line enjoyment is supposed to happen.  Still trying to figure out when that might be.

There is no getting around the fact that companions in this mod are _****ed_. I don't know if that's to prevent exploiting their equipment early on in the game, but as you say, they're all level 1, often with much higher leveled skills, and non of them have any decent equipment. How they introduce themselves often has no bearing whatsoever on what you actually get. One of the non-combat characters has 7 in inventory management and trade, but nothing like the stats to back that up. If I wanted to advance any of those skills, I'd have to sink point after point into his fairly average INT and CHA stats. I shouldn't have to do that.

I wouldn't mind companions being a lot more expensive actually, especially if they were used to replace Mercenary Captains (which they should be). Level them up, equip them appropriately, and make them hire themselves out for a reasonable fee. And not all companions have to be the same, you can have high level ones and low level ones. You should expect to pay maybe 1000 for a low level companion, maybe 5-10k for a well equipped high level companion.

Also, prisioners give a lot of money, more than before, and you can even "donate" them for sacrificies in "Ancient Ruins" to the druid, he gives some nice-easy money.

Try to invest money on donkeys as you keep trading (horses/donkeys gives speed bonus to your party while they are in the inventory), and try to rest on nights and fight bandits to keep morale high (that gives some speed bonus too)

I did not know this. Also, donkeys give you a bonus to Inventory Management, although they might have to be equipped for that.

 

[King Ragnarok]

100% christian territory

Does this hint there will be pillaging and killing awaiting us?