Thoughts on building villages/castles/towns?

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I'm sure the idea has been thrown around before, but what are people's thoughts on being able to create villages?
I think it would be a cool feature to have (but don't misunderstand, I don't really hold out hope ^^').

It would be cool though, say, building up from nothing into a village, then eventually a castle, then a city, and building linked villages to produce resources.
And there could be diplomatic impacts too - like settling too close to a lord, making them angry and potentially waging war or trying to integrate you.
There could also be some "No-Man's Land" to set up (Like in unoccupied desert part west of the Aserai), but with negatives for being far away from everything.

Don't think it's possible - and might never be, but I still think it would be a cool feature to think about!
If there was a feature like this - what would you want out of it?
 
It was something possible even in modded Warband.

It was something teased in development blogs, and I was incredibly miffed to have found out that whole thing was scraped because it was "unbalanced" or whatever the inane excuse was.

As much as I'd love this to happen in base game (there's plenty of empty real estate on the map), don't hold your breath. Though mods will probably add it in some way.
 
Building castles was something they wanted and was either discussed or shown in the demo (the one with the Germans?), but they scraped it because it caused problems. This of course in no excuse because they're the developers, not modders, they can change what they need to to make it work. I don't know if they've mentioned if it's something they could try again in the future or not. This has always been a highly requested thing in M&B and it was a huge disappointment that they dropped it.

It was something possible even in modded Warband.
Yes.... however for me it usually caused problems and bugs, at least in the 1257 AD mods. I think it was okay in Nova Aetus though.
 
That's a shame. Because for it to be truly sandbox, there should be some element of carving your own way entirely.
Bringing a small plot of land from nothing - to a bustling city.

I know it's easy to say "They should have this, and this, and this" - but very hard to implement it ^^
 
know it's easy to say "They should have this, and this, and this" - but very hard to implement it ^^

Indeed.

Building settlements from a simple village to a castle / city would be awesome in theory. But let's think a bit more on it and let's raise some issues.

Allowing such liberties to the player would it be reasonable in therms of aesthetic? What about the economy aswell?

Aesthetic first
. Would the build feature be totally free? Like placing every single props or buildings by hand and terraforming the map like a pure sandbox? Or would the build feature be in some way more restrictive? Allowing player to only build presets and upgrade major buildings?

Economic: What about the player's evolution curve? How about the main map? For example if you create / add new villages. It will take some spaces and could destroy the balance of the whole game. How the lords will interact with?

It would be in fact a very damn cool feature but we should take into account how many issues it will raise and how to bring the build system working properly with the rest of the game. Like making settlements destructible could be starting point.
All of this need to be clarified and if some modders want to do something about it later they would need to prepare a solid document about it :smile:
 
Aesthetic first[/B]. Would the build feature be totally free? Like placing every single props or buildings by hand and terraforming the map like a pure sandbox? Or would the build feature be in some way more restrictive? Allowing player to only build presets and upgrade major buildings?
Warband's Custom Settlements (and the follow-ups in other mods) did it by presets. It worked, if not without issues related to the restrictiveness of the engine.

Bannerlord is a spanking-new custom engine. Either way could work, even if hand-placing all the elements might not be something a lot of people would want to do due to perceived tediousness of the task. It's not like you couldn't combine stock settlement scenes with some kind of editor.
Economic: What about the player's evolution curve? How about the main map? For example if you create / add new villages. It will take some spaces and could destroy the balance of the whole game. How the lords will interact with?
Either allow this on currently barren parts of the map (and include restrictions on the peasants going to other towns, I guess), or, say, make it dependent on "village slot" unlocks through town's or castle's prosperity. This would also help with the "starvation through prosperity" issues, and general balancing out of town's prosperity potential - something that is strictly restricted right now by initial assigment of number of villages. A reason why Sturgian towns (with two villages to their title) will never match a lot of other towns in their potential. Allowing village slots unlocks at specific prosperity levels would at least address that imbalance - assuming the towns, and their villages, don't suffer from growth reversion due to constant warfare events.

In itself, it should not be a project the player can engage in on the get-go (unless cheats, I guess, but that's self-inflicted). Balance its accessability through demands of a lot of resources spent before even the first few huts pop up, and take it from there. It gives the player a non-warfare long-term project to dabble around (and drive their gameplay focus). Hell, you could actually pace it so that the generational gameplay that we already have but will rarely, if ever, see in play actually matters. So your son might inherit a developing village, and leave a fortress of a castle to their progeny (and make it modable so that people who want that to happen faster can do it).

Shouldn't be that difficult to code in lords to try to (depending on their personality traits, anyway) set aside enough wealth to start such projects on their own. Make "generous merciful" or whatnot lords more likely to start investing into their fief than "greedy devious" ones. Maybe add the possibility of a lord's senior (clan leader or faction leader) doing some general improvement of their own, even on others' fiefs.

The main problem is that Taleworlds decided that villages shouldn't be independent in Bannerlord (a decision I'll never stop complaining about, because "what were they thinking?!"). So even if you end up a faction leader of an independent kingdom, with tons of wealth to dump into such an expensive project, you'll never be able to start "growing" spanking brand new villages of your own as a way to attract minor lords. Technically could use this mechanics to get some new castles (in a long, long-term project), but unlike a village, it's not something you can base factional strength growth about - it will just take too damn long. This change also prevents (at least in current implementation) from "re-binding" villages to different castles/towns. Something that could have helped to shore up some of the inherently "poorer" towns at the expense of castles, if the player desired so, or wanted to prevent about-to-be-captured castle from taking away a much needed food/production source of their town. Not to mention making villages a viable diplomatic trade good when suing for peace, or even ransoming a faction leader.

I don't really see how this would be a problem in terms of balance. Either you make it "faraway nobody cares about until it hits some wealth level" possibility (so that player can genuinely start a real, independent kingdom through non-warfare means, which in itself would be nice now that we have a lot of non-warfare skills to build specific characters around), or it's just a piece that falls into similar slot as any other villages/castles/towns on the map.
It would be in fact a very damn cool feature but we should take into account how many issues it will raise and how to bring the build system working properly with the rest of the game.
We won't know if there would be any meaningful issues at all since it's something TW gave up on long ago, before the rest of the game was in any kind of semi-complete state (if it's now). Personally, I think the "balance" concerns are overblown - it'd have been a feature that wouldn't see constant occurrence, could have been balanced out by sheer time and resource investment tied to its creation, and at worst would simply make it easier for some location to get more prosperous (assuming nobody comes around raiding or ownership-flipping, which is a BIG assumption). On the other hand, aside from promoting a more peaceful playthroughs (though... not necessarily, either), it would provide a genuine long-term goal that even "vassal" players could engage in.
Like making settlements destructible could be starting point.
They kind of are. That's pretty much what happens when they get raided, even if the recovery time is pretty quick. If you mean complete removal of a settlement from the map... only if there is some form of dynamic settlement placement implemented, because otherwise I guarantee you the AI will end up with an empty map :smile:
All of this need to be clarified and if some modders want to do something about it later they would need to prepare a solid document about it :smile:
I have faith in people who will tinker with Bannerlord's code, because they already managed to do it with crummy Warband engine.

I'd much rather see at least the basis for it implemented by Talewords as part of the base game and engine, though. If only so that people who mod can focus on adding other things, because the way things seem to be headed right now they'll be fixing glaring holes in the base game for years to come instead of building up on a solid base.
 
I like the Idea and would even take It further. To cut the time it will take to get the resources (men, Money, Wood and Stone) and the construction time it takes to build a whole village you should instead build the village piece by piece, house by house, and each Meter of the Wall around the village. Wenn creating a Castle it should also be build piece by piece, room by room. Later rooms and Houses could be upgraded. Maybe even make some kind of Buildings Mode Like in "the Sims" game. Then the developers only need to create the Basic stuff instead of creating 100 of combinations, and can leave it up to the Players to create their costum houses, castles and towns.
 
I like the Idea and would even take It further. To cut the time it will take to get the resources (men, Money, Wood and Stone) and the construction time it takes to build a whole village you should instead build the village piece by piece, house by house, and each Meter of the Wall around the village. Wenn creating a Castle it should also be build piece by piece, room by room. Later rooms and Houses could be upgraded. Maybe even make some kind of Buildings Mode Like in "the Sims" game. Then the developers only need to create the Basic stuff instead of creating 100 of combinations, and can leave it up to the Players to create their costum houses, castles and towns.

So basically you want them to make a whole new game from scratch and insert it into an already existing game... Surely you realize how stupid an idea this is...
 
What would be cool is creating bandit hideouts for yourself... the more you become a bandit and dedicate yourself to that life, the more access you get into creating a small bandit camp and hiding it. There you can take prisoners there, stash resources, stash animals to keep a population going and to make it a small village. That’s what I was really hoping for in M&B. There really isn’t a way to live a bandit lifestyle without just constantly being on run and hitting caravans. Gets boring.

wherever your bandit camp is built can start influencing smaller towns and cities to come to your “faction”. Like a bandit hero.. you could even have quests to bring village lords to your side and eventually start civil wars with the populace against bad kings! Recruits could begin to flood into your camp the more reknown you get. I would expect this type of gameplay to me the hardest as bounty hunters and angry lords are constantly hunting you and trying to attack your bandit lair, but the reward would be amazing, an all out civil war!

sigh... all wishful thinking..

Also, if there was ruins around the land, would be amazing to claim a ruined castle/fort, and start stashing resources to build it back up. You would need heroes good at engineering to bring the # of resources needed lower and the # of days to build lower, but that would be a worth while and rewarding effort. It would encourage long plays where you build your bandit style up, build your encampment, fort, castle, and then begin to subvert certain factions and eventually try to lead rebel wars.
Seriously WHY ISNT THIS IN THERE!!!!!
 
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