Too difficult

[Crosby 4HyG]

I honestly haven't found this to be much of an issue. The Mercenary War Bands are very powerful when you start out, this is true, but if you've played M&B Native to any extent you should know the limits of your troop numbers and their abilities. You can't engage 50 bandits when you have 20 basic recruits... If they start chasing you just post up in a villiage until they move on.

 

[Haihefa Pauna]

I honestly haven't found this to be much of an issue. The Mercenary War Bands are very powerful when you start out, this is true, but if you've played M&B Native to any extent you should know the limits of your troop numbers and their abilities. You can't engage 50 bandits when you have 20 basic recruits... If they start chasing you just post up in a villiage until they move on.

well you can actually, just care from there bows and crossbows, take out theyr cav out first and just keep running in circles hitting all the time,takes a while but its better than losing a battle

 

[Crosby 4HyG]

I honestly haven't found this to be much of an issue. The Mercenary War Bands are very powerful when you start out, this is true, but if you've played M&B Native to any extent you should know the limits of your troop numbers and their abilities. You can't engage 50 bandits when you have 20 basic recruits... If they start chasing you just post up in a villiage until they move on.

well you can actually, just care from there bows and crossbows, take out theyr cav out first and just keep running in circles hitting all the time,takes a while but its better than losing a battle

I've tried that approach a few times, but if you play on max dmg to yourself and your troops, and combat/campaign AI on good, AND with the realistic save feature like I do it's not logical to take on an entire army basically by yourself. I'm damn good at combat in this game, but on maximum difficulty it's better to save some of your troops and take on a group of 20-30 looters to level up a few times before moving onto really negative battle advantages.

 

[Haihefa Pauna]

I honestly haven't found this to be much of an issue. The Mercenary War Bands are very powerful when you start out, this is true, but if you've played M&B Native to any extent you should know the limits of your troop numbers and their abilities. You can't engage 50 bandits when you have 20 basic recruits... If they start chasing you just post up in a villiage until they move on.

well you can actually, just care from there bows and crossbows, take out theyr cav out first and just keep running in circles hitting all the time,takes a while but its better than losing a battle

I've tried that approach a few times, but if you play on max dmg to yourself and your troops, and combat/campaign AI on good, AND with the realistic save feature like I do it's not logical to take on an entire army basically by yourself. I'm damn good at combat in this game, but on maximum difficulty it's better to save some of your troops and take on a group of 20-30 looters to level up a few times before moving onto really negative battle advantages.

i agree with that i know its a risk cuz im always thinking like should i do this or not??
but its possible

 

[original]

It can be too difficult at the start. I would like the option to take on looters at the beginning and then slowly level. But that option is taken out.

The start can be made smoother and easier. You can make the mid and late game stages difficult.

 

[Crosby 4HyG]

It can be too difficult at the start. I would like the option to take on looters at the beginning and then slowly level. But that option is taken out.

The start can be made smoother and easier. You can make the mid and late game stages difficult.

On the contrary, looters do exist in this mod. They may seem less common due to the addition of merc war bands, but if you can learn to avoid those and the admittedly large bandit groups in certain areas you should be able to find some looters eventually.

I honestly find this mod to be a refreshing challenge compared with the rest of the mods I've played, (about half way through prophecy of pendor right now). There are other ways to train your troops than getting slaughtered in battle, such as training fields and villiage quests.

 

[Glycerius]

Dark Knights are too difficult, unless on the easiest difficulty level, and even then they are hard.

 

[Haihefa Pauna]

Dark Knights are too difficult, unless on the easiest difficulty level, and even then they are hard.

just recruit around 50 rhodok people too crossbows
and you will penetrate through theyr armor maybe get around 10/20 spearman and set them in front so the horses wont pass

 

[Crosby 4HyG]

Dark Knights are too difficult, unless on the easiest difficulty level, and even then they are hard.

That really depends on how you handle them. If you're going to try and meet the entire DK faction at once in open battle then yes, you're going to get raped. However if you avoid that scenario and let them take a town then their force will be substantially weakened, and some lords will start to go off and do their own thing.

A large force of Swadian Cavaliers/upper level crusaders is more than capable of handling the DK's one lord at a time in open battle, even on highest difficulty, and using blunt weapons only will reward you with DK troops each time you take one out.

This mod is created for experienced players only, not to mention that you're not even obligated to let them invade at all. I found them to be a nice challenge, but nowhere near unbeatable on 86% difficulty.

 

[Bob the Insane]

I have to admit to having some difficulty with the DK's as well.

I was doing well enough, start was a little tough but it is not hard to focus on trading to get some cash, and once you have built up around 40 decent troops you can start taking the bandit groups apart and making more money...

The DK's came as a surprize, they are currenty leagues ahead of any other faction with their heavy cavalry.  I joined a group of 450 Nords that had isolated a 155 DK unit.  The battle was a joke, the Nords where torn apart and my troops didn't last much longer...

I have no doubt that once you learn to deal with them and have a good group of maxed out troops you can fight back.  But I am 140 days in, have one fief (a bit slow I know) and the DK have 4 towns now...

It is just a pretty sudden, and steep, step up in difficulty compared to fighting anyone else.  But I suppose that is what it is designed to be like...

 

[Haihefa Pauna]

I have to admit to having some difficulty with the DK's as well.

I was doing well enough, start was a little tough but it is not hard to focus on trading to get some cash, and once you have built up around 40 decent troops you can start taking the bandit groups apart and making more money...

The DK's came as a surprize, they are currenty leagues ahead of any other faction with their heavy cavalry.  I joined a group of 450 Nords that had isolated a 155 DK unit.  The battle was a joke, the Nords where torn apart and my troops didn't last much longer...

I have no doubt that once you learn to deal with them and have a good group of maxed out troops you can fight back.  But I am 140 days in, have one fief (a bit slow I know) and the DK have 4 towns now...

It is just a pretty sudden, and steep, step up in difficulty compared to fighting anyone else.  But I suppose that is what it is designed to be like...

u do know the NE is for advanced players right?
best way to deal with them is to get swadian cavs or rhodok spearman (to stop the horses from ramming through) and rhodok crossbow man

 

[original]

I have to admit to having some difficulty with the DK's as well.

I was doing well enough, start was a little tough but it is not hard to focus on trading to get some cash, and once you have built up around 40 decent troops you can start taking the bandit groups apart and making more money...

The DK's came as a surprize, they are currenty leagues ahead of any other faction with their heavy cavalry.  I joined a group of 450 Nords that had isolated a 155 DK unit.  The battle was a joke, the Nords where torn apart and my troops didn't last much longer...

I have no doubt that once you learn to deal with them and have a good group of maxed out troops you can fight back.  But I am 140 days in, have one fief (a bit slow I know) and the DK have 4 towns now...

It is just a pretty sudden, and steep, step up in difficulty compared to fighting anyone else.  But I suppose that is what it is designed to be like...

u do know the NE is for advanced players right?
best way to deal with them is to get swadian cavs or rhodok spearman (to stop the horses from ramming through) and rhodok crossbow man

It doesn't have to be for advanced players. I consider myself advanced due to playing since the first mount & blade, and I am now at the stage where I can take on those roaming warbands and bandits.

What got me interested in Native Expansion wasn't the extra difficulty, but features that add to the native gameplay like new buildings, new quests, redone troop tree, etc. I'm sure most people want this mod for those refined features.

But the start really is difficult and needs to be toned down. Like selling a new game, the start should be made easy to hook people in. The sharp difficulty spike will just chase potential users away, and I'm sure the mod doesn't want that.

Looters party size scaling to your level can be put back in the game so that new players can get into the mod easily. As mentioned, you can make the mid and late game stages hard.
If you want the 20+ bandits at the start, you can always transfer that to Brutality mode.

 

[Haihefa Pauna]

I have to admit to having some difficulty with the DK's as well.

I was doing well enough, start was a little tough but it is not hard to focus on trading to get some cash, and once you have built up around 40 decent troops you can start taking the bandit groups apart and making more money...

The DK's came as a surprize, they are currenty leagues ahead of any other faction with their heavy cavalry.  I joined a group of 450 Nords that had isolated a 155 DK unit.  The battle was a joke, the Nords where torn apart and my troops didn't last much longer...

I have no doubt that once you learn to deal with them and have a good group of maxed out troops you can fight back.  But I am 140 days in, have one fief (a bit slow I know) and the DK have 4 towns now...

It is just a pretty sudden, and steep, step up in difficulty compared to fighting anyone else.  But I suppose that is what it is designed to be like...

u do know the NE is for advanced players right?
best way to deal with them is to get swadian cavs or rhodok spearman (to stop the horses from ramming through) and rhodok crossbow man

It doesn't have to be for advanced players. I consider myself advanced due to playing since the first mount & blade, and I am now at the stage where I can take on those roaming warbands and bandits.

What got me interested in Native Expansion wasn't the extra difficulty, but features that add to the native gameplay like new buildings, new quests, redone troop tree, etc. I'm sure most people want this mod for those refined features.

But the start really is difficult and needs to be toned down. Like selling a new game, the start should be made easy to hook people in. The sharp difficulty spike will just chase potential users away, and I'm sure the mod doesn't want that.

Looters party size scaling to your level can be put back in the game so that new players can get into the mod easily. As mentioned, you can make the mid and late game stages hard.
If you want the 20+ bandits at the start, you can always transfer that to Brutality mode.

ive never had problems with them only when it was 1st time i started playing this mod
im not playing on medium difficulty and gonna try hard if i get better in that and i will change to brutality but no problems so far yet. same as when the DK's invade i always wait rushing in until im marshal so everyone listen to me

1st line infantry
2nd line crossbow/bowmen
and i let the calvary follow me and go in a big circle to get begind them and let the infantry charge and then let the calvs charge.
my most deads from troops was around 40

 

[Glycerius]

Dark Knights are too difficult, unless on the easiest difficulty level, and even then they are hard.

That really depends on how you handle them. If you're going to try and meet the entire DK faction at once in open battle then yes, you're going to get raped. However if you avoid that scenario and let them take a town then their force will be substantially weakened, and some lords will start to go off and do their own thing.

A large force of Swadian Cavaliers/upper level crusaders is more than capable of handling the DK's one lord at a time in open battle, even on highest difficulty, and using blunt weapons only will reward you with DK troops each time you take one out.

This mod is created for experienced players only, not to mention that you're not even obligated to let them invade at all. I found them to be a nice challenge, but nowhere near unbeatable on 86% difficulty.

No, they are wildly unbalanced.

 

[Argeus the Paladin]

TBH, before there was a change in troop trees DKs were easy to deal with. About a year back I've posted a thread about how castle defense + Arbalest + Queen Katilius in town = hundreds of DK dead. But I'm getting the feel that with the new troop tree, all faction troops have been weakened while the DKs haven't scaled with them correctly. Hence the imba.

Seriously hoping this will be addressed in next patch.

 

[Glycerius]

And yes, they were okay before.

 

[Crosby 4HyG]

Dark Knights are too difficult, unless on the easiest difficulty level, and even then they are hard.

That really depends on how you handle them. If you're going to try and meet the entire DK faction at once in open battle then yes, you're going to get raped. However if you avoid that scenario and let them take a town then their force will be substantially weakened, and some lords will start to go off and do their own thing.

A large force of Swadian Cavaliers/upper level crusaders is more than capable of handling the DK's one lord at a time in open battle, even on highest difficulty, and using blunt weapons only will reward you with DK troops each time you take one out.

This mod is created for experienced players only, not to mention that you're not even obligated to let them invade at all. I found them to be a nice challenge, but nowhere near unbeatable on 86% difficulty.

No, they are wildly unbalanced.

They're not supposed to be balanced, they're supposed to be a challenge. That's why the game allows the option to never let them invade if you don't want..

If you want to talk unbalance, talk about Swadia.

 

[brzi]

i play with swadians but they are terrible at sieges so i recruited some 50 ivory bowmen and trainded them into marksmen. i noticed that the DKs garrison their lowns lightly (50-100 units) so as long as there are no lords around and the town uses ladders for siege i can take any town with minimum casualties (0-3 dead).

unfortunately, defending the towns from DKs is not so simple. before i started this strategy the DKs held veluca, jelkala, yalen, uxkhal, praven and suno. right now i am playing hide and seek with the DKs - i take a town and move on to the next one while they siege the last town i took. since the towns i take hold small garrisons or no garrisons at all (they siege it before the queen assigns it to a lord) they retake the towns very fast. but since i move much faster on the map i am always a few steps ahead.

this keeps them busy while the other kingdoms recover and it's buying me some time before everyone declares war on the DKs.

edit: this also provides me with great DK loot with minimum casualties

 

[brzi]

btw, i tried to take on a DK caravan in the open field. i had ~70 swadian cavaliers + some random mid-heavy cavalry and their party of ~100 men had ~35 dark units and the rest was mercs and caravan guards. they charged immediately (like caravans always do) with caravan guards so i had no time for tactics. while my cavaliers were slaghtering the guards DK reinforcements came and killed or wounded a lot of my guys, my reinforcements came in twice. by the time the battle was over i had lost 30 men and 30-40 more were wounded. i don't plan on repeating this any time soon 

 

[gabriot]

But the start really is difficult and needs to be toned down. Like selling a new game, the start should be made easy to hook people in. The sharp difficulty spike will just chase potential users away, and I'm sure the mod doesn't want that.

I couldn't disagree with you more.  I've played hard mods and this one is on the easier end of things.  The start isn't easy but you get started out with incredibly good gear compared to any other mod that has a hard start.  If you want to see difficult, go play PoP or Brytenwalda, then you'll know true pain.

NE is child's play compared to those.  Try taking on bands of lvl 50-60 troops w/ gear that puts everything in this mod to shame, while being started off with nothing better than you'd find in vanilla gear-wise.