This is how it was meant to be? Really?

[ppg]

I really wonder if the faction you are playing for is handicaped by the game somehow. I started as Sarranid. Just after the beginning, Kherghits took two of our castles and they werent taken back until like day 200. I had to lead the army as a marshall to retake that castles, the others just didnt seemed to care much...
After several on-off wars with Khergits and Rhodocks, Shariz changed owner 5 times, while the other kingdoms seemed to prosper and gain more and more land. Except Swadia which has only Praven and kinda has Dhirim, too. Thats what I want to talk about - my faction isnt able to take one city from enemy, after 500 days! When the marshal assemble army, I am always optimistic to swipe that orange bastards for good, but EVERY TIME it ends in taking Dhirim. THAN the campaign miraciously ends and all lords go home. Nothing like continuous campaign when we go to several castles or cities is not happening!

Ok, so Sarranid take Dhirim, then, in their stupidity ride to desert to watch TV at home or whatever. What happens next? The remaining Swadians take all they got and come from Praven to retake Dhirim, which has only minor garrison left there by lords. Hmm... Who would have thought of that?

OMG, Dhirim is under siege by Swadians? Lets assemble army in the deeps of desert and lets show them! Give us like a week and we will be there!

I hope you see what I am pointing out, because this situation is repeating and repeating and repeating... Why the hell nobody ever stay to defend taken castle or city? Why the developert didnt thinked of this? Its clear that defeated faction will ALWAYS try to retake! I really like this game, but the frustration it causes to me is making me consider whether to play it at all. I just feel I cant advance anyhow, that I cant influence anything important, like war strategy (leave alone battle tactics). It just happens around me and always ends in frustration, while the other factions are growing.

 

[StinkyMcGirk]

Start your own kingdom, join a different kingdom, or get enough support from the other lords to become the marshal.

 

[ppg]

You may object that I should be a marshal and lead the army myself, but the one time I've tried it only like one third of lords came spontaneously (when assembling for campaign) and I had to personally catch the other lords and tell them to follow me. When I finally decided to go somewhere, some of the lords just leaved without saying anything, the just decided they are not having fun anymore...
Than, after I conquered something eventually, all I could do was try to hold the army together as long as possible to face eventual counter attack, but during time more and more lords leaved. Is the game supposed to work like that? Thats completely stupid, why would anyone want this?
Is the only way out of this starting your own kingdom? I am just really getting frustrated with this malfunctioning system...

 

[ppg]

Start your own kingdom, join a different kingdom, or get enough support from the other lords to become the marshal.

But thats not the point, is it? The system should work regardless I am participating or not. How does the other kingdoms do it? Or is my faction just lamer then the others somehow?

 

[StinkyMcGirk]

The point is to have fun.  If you're this bothered by the way the A.I. is governing how you play, I'm making easy suggestions that will take the way the A.I. works on the overland map out of the equation a bit.  There are more complicated solutions out there that increase the aggression and expansion of the faction A.I. too, but I can't be bothered to search for them.  Basically, the factions will gang up on whoever is the strongest, and become passive when they have a lot of land in native Warband.

 

[Kareth]

The morale of the kingdom can also affect just how many vassals come to you when you summon them as marshal, if all the vassals are pissed of at each other then fewer will come to the campaign. You mentioned that many of them had left? Then they're probably pissed of at Sultan Hakim or all the other lords and so on and so on, I recommend joining another faction because this one simply has to low morale in it. I think this stuff randomizes every time you start a new game.

 

[ppg]

This all sounds logical, but it cant explain what are clearly mistakes in the system itself. I am talking about that lord completely abandon campaing immediately after conquering a city or castle, all of them, even marshal. They just run in every direction, you sure saw that ingame. I belive that its clearly strong imperfection that cannot be bypased by becoming marshal or king or anything. The same thing is that AI is not capable of something like organized defence, its capable only of short-timed hit and run tactics or looting the villages, which is another enraging topic for me: Shariz is taken over, what shell we do? Oh yes, I know, lets plunder all the villages that were my property yesterday, retaking the city can wait when we rest enough in our castles.

I am just pointing out major faults that I dont think any player can defend and I am pretty astonished nobody seems to care about these things, as far as I searched the forum...

 

[w00d]

It is imho, the biggest weakness of the game in the end game.

Essentially, the game does not want a winner, you the player HAS to go out and win it for yourself or your faction.

You can see it too, you go out conquer half the map, wipe out half the other factions and what happens? Most of your lords leave your faction ! Due to the loss of rep from awarding fiefs etc. In my current game, i spend most of my time placating my Lords and the other half shopping for stuff so i can gift lords to keep the rep up. Eventually i know i will just go, screw this and just let them leave my faction and then imprison the whole lot of them.

they are quite useless anyway, my main rival has 3 times the lords but without fiefs they are pathetic small groups of 20-40 mens whom i can mow down en mass . And those are all either jumping from 1 faction to another or simply disappearing from Calradia. The arbitary loss of rep in fief awarding just means that as King i just don't award the fiefs out. That way everyone remains happy and who cares if the enemy retake the fief, it takes them so long to do so, u can ride behind take 3 times the fiefs and return to defend the undefended fief.

sadly i suspect this is meant to be, i am hoping for a mod that fixes these issues and provides a challenging end game.

fact is 1. the AI is dumb regarding onfield strat
2. the game punishes you for being successful ie tax inefficiency, rep loss from fief awards etc
3. you can win the game at the hardest difficulty with just yourself and 250 odd top tier troops.

 

[Mallissin]

Nobles will only join a campaign if they like the King or the marshal. Since you can only really affect your own rep with nobles, you are in a sense the best King or Marshal choice if you work to get the other vassals to like you.

In my latest game, I have 80% of my vassals over 20 rep, 60% above 40. Nearly everyone joins a campaign when I'm  the marshall or my second in command (a good-natured Vaegir noble).

I suggest downloading Diplomacy and/or at least the lazy noble fix from Caba'drin. You'll enjoy yourself a lot more.

http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,137064.msg3299944.html#msg3299944
http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,116424.0.html

 

[Bulzeeb]

I too suspect that the game is intentionally designed so that initial gains are not consolidated into long-term advantages. Were this executed by making the AI more aggressive, chances are wars would be won very quickly as those who randomly won the first few battles would go on and then take large numbers of fiefs. This has the side-effect of forcing the player to quickly join his faction of choice before it is annihilated, rather than take his time and train himself, his companions, and his soldiers, establish businesses in towns, and buy expensive equipment. It also has the effect of making the player's impact less meaningful - if your home faction were competent and aggressive enough to take many fiefs by themselves, which would not be difficult if they had the money advantage from fiefs, the player wouldn't have as much to do.

So, the trade of a fief here and there is done instead. Faction A will seize Fief A from Faction B, then promptly return home for celebrations. Faction B will amass a mighty army, re-capture Fief A, and return to their homes for celebration. Along the way a few skirmishes will occur and a few fiefs might exchange hands near-permanently, but overall the balance of power will remain unbroken.

Thus the image of constant conflict remains intact while the game-breaking scenario of a faction actually crippling another faction, one you may wish to join, remains unlikely.

 

[Remedius]

I always considered Warband a simulator of kinds. So taking the whole of Calradia is just an option. I think most people see this as the defacto aim of the game. While I admit that there is little other content to keep a non King interested - there is enough for me to enjoy and scope for modding. As to wavering allegiance and easily distracted lords - it's just like history in that regard. Nah - games not broken - it's just frustrating - which is as it should be in a historical context.

 

[ppg]

I dont really agree with that. There is no logic in constantly repeating one thing expecting different outcome. If the lords were real people, dont you think it would tire them after, lets say fifth taking/retaking of that city? I am sure they would manage to think of some different solution then "take it and let it be". I am sure that if you want to actually KEEP some conquered city and you know that enemy WILL be trying to take it back sooner or later (which AI probably isnt capable of knowing in this case), the most reasonable thing to do is stay alerted nearby with as much army you can have and be ready for counter attack or attack yourself to prevent such a thing.

 

[Assassinator1097]

So far I haven't helped the Swadians that much in my last game and they've taken over two Khergit cities. It's really just what the AI determines as balance, I guess. Each time one of the cities they took gets sieged over, they rush to its aid so they've been pretty productive.

Edit: What do you have campaign A.I. intelligence?

 

[ppg]

So far I haven't helped the Swadians that much in my last game and they've taken over two Khergit cities. It's really just what the AI determines as balance, I guess. Each time one of the cities they took gets sieged over, they rush to its aid so they've been pretty productive.

Edit: What do you have campaign A.I. intelligence?

The campaign AI is at "good" level for most of the game. Maybe Khergits are faster then Sarranids because what I remember, only one time they managed to come with army soon enough to break the siege. You know, I have to confess that Dhirim was given to me by Sultan, so the most of the frustration comes from that I ride around like idiot, trying to raise its garrison by recruiting and training and after week its all lost cause, how surprising, Swadian army is here once again in numbers from 500 to 1900 and even with like 170 garrison of mostly low and mid tier + my 20+mameluks and others, there is no way I would defend the city myself. The friendly armies just dont come at time, never. So Swadians take Dhirim and what the lords do? They just stop their travel and go home, nothing like "we didnt make it, at least we can retake it immidietly". No, some time has to pass, then maybe marshall decides its time to try on Dhirim again.

 

[Arkson]

Campaign AI has nothing to do with AI by the way.
That's the difficulty rating how fast enemy lords train their troops into high tier units.

There's no actual bar that influences campaign AI.

 

[Bulzeeb]

I dont really agree with that. There is no logic in constantly repeating one thing expecting different outcome. If the lords were real people, dont you think it would tire them after, lets say fifth taking/retaking of that city? I am sure they would manage to think of some different solution then "take it and let it be". I am sure that if you want to actually KEEP some conquered city and you know that enemy WILL be trying to take it back sooner or later (which AI probably isnt capable of knowing in this case), the most reasonable thing to do is stay alerted nearby with as much army you can have and be ready for counter attack or attack yourself to prevent such a thing.

Because, like I mentioned, if factions were actually aggressive and capable of consolidating their holdings, then one faction would quickly destroy the other. It doesn't matter if it's unrealistic - I don't want to play in a game where by the time I can actually grow strong enough to make a difference, the faction I want is already defeated, or even worse, one faction has beaten all the others. After all, realistically speaking, if a faction takes a fief from another faction, they should be "better" off than that faction, and if they were aggressive they would end up taking another fief, and another, and another.

 

[morphwan]

if the way native factions behave really bothers you I suggest trying out some of the mods to change up the gameplay. Mods like diplomacy can't change how the devs scripted the AI but when they add different extras like alliances and so forth it begins to change the dynamic way the kingdoms act. It doesn't make them act logical, or in anyway like an actual human monarch would, but it makes it more intersting to play.

 

[Maksim125]

Every time I start a new game there's always one stupid faction that looses, even though they have powerfull troops.

 

[Mallissin]

Every time I start a new game there's always one stupid faction that looses, even though they have powerfull troops.

For someone to win, others must lose.