Too many armies

[Rush09]

Hi guys, just some thoughts I had on this issue while I was playing in my current campaign.

The number of armies formed in any given war completely trivializes the weight an army is supposed to bring to a conflict, any noble can just call an army and go siege some random far-reaching castle that holds no strategic or economic purpose.
Capturing a settlement at the moment means so little due to the fact that 5 minutes later, some random enemy army being led by some unknown dude is going to siege it back only for another of your armies to captures it again, creating this loop that is going to be maintained until the war is over.

I feel that only the ruler should be able to call his/her nobles to form a big army, it would increase the risk/reward of winning a big fight knowing that to defeat the ruler's enemy army would mean a small opposition for the rest of the campaign but also means that if you lose, your properties would be in serious danger, it would be up for the defenses of your castles/towns and any available noble to fight back the incoming invasion.
Clan leaders (and only clan leaders) should be able to form an army made only by their own clan members for smaller engagements.

I do believe most battles in a war should be between individual nobles of each faction and not between armies of 800+ made by some nobles who just joined the kingdom, that is going to be recreated immediately after being defeated. And also... who the hell is he? dude with no rep in the faction can just call so many leaders out of thin air to his/her side?

Just my 2 cents, what do you guys think?

 

[Nawki]

Hi guys, just some thoughts I had on this issue while I was playing in my current campaign.

The number of armies formed in any given war completely trivializes the weight an army is supposed to bring to a conflict, any noble can just call an army and go siege some random far-reaching castle that holds no strategic or economic purpose.
Capturing a settlement at the moment means so little due to the fact that 5 minutes later, some random enemy army being led by some unknown dude is going to siege it back only for another of your armies to captures it again, creating this loop that is going to be maintained until the war is over.

I feel that only the ruler should be able to call his/her nobles to form a big army, it would increase the risk/reward of winning a big fight knowing that to defeat the ruler's enemy army would mean a small opposition for the rest of the campaign but also means that if you lose, your properties would be in serious danger, it would be up for the defenses of your castles/towns and any available noble to fight back the incoming invasion.
Clan leaders (and only clan leaders) should be able to form an army made only by their own clan members for smaller engagements.

I do believe most battles in a war should be between individual nobles of each faction and not between armies of 800+ made by some nobles who just joined the kingdom, that is going to be recreated immediately after being defeated. And also... who the hell is he? dude with no rep in the faction can just call so many leaders out of thin air to his/her side?

Just my 2 cents, what do you guys think?

Hi, in my eyes the problem lays also in influence gain. I made a thread about it. I like your point of view about army creation by clan leaders
https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?threads/beta-1-4-0-ai-influence-steamroll.423108/

 

[AshDragon]

in my opinion both AI influence gain and Army' creation cost must revalued considerably

 

[Trauko]

Yeah, the moment I saw Raganvad casually summoning an army during peace to patrol around Varcheg I knew something was off.

 

[EternalHeathen]

I could certainly be wrong, but I think it's only clan leaders raising armies already. Never see svana or liena or IRA leading armies, for instance. Influence is the problem here I think. The biggest clan leaders start with plenty of influence, and fiefs to keep raking it in.

They've adjusted that a fair bit with 141, but the perma-war that came with it is also providing influence for victories. Only the clans with lots of property ever seem to have enough influence for armies, let alone voting.

Maybe a significant influence loss after defeat for the leader if hes defeated would help, not mention be more immersive. Slightly smaller influence loss if he raises an army but had no victories before disbanding.

 

[Ogrinn]

It would be cool if large armies were limited to the ruler or marshal (if the policy was enacted) and less frequent.

 

[isamurai]

in my opinion both AI influence gain and Army' creation cost must revalued considerably

this!

 

[federally]

I think this issue would largely be solved if defeating a lord, or a bunch of lords in an army, actually put them out of action fir a while.

Right now there are simply so many potential party leaders for every kingdom, that defeating one army accomplishes nothing.

By the time you deal with all the party's and armies running around, the ones your defeated first are back running around.

So you just have to fight off endless waves of opponents. It's pretty torturous

 

[EternalHeathen]

It would be cool if large armies were limited to the ruler or marshal (if the policy was enacted) and less frequent.

While I get where you're coming from, campaign ai would have to be much much smarter for this to work. Sturgia and aserai, with their geographical issues, are prime examples.

If you're at war on two fronts the ai would need to coordinate defense on both fronts. As things currently stand, given how nonsensical the campaign ai is, I as the player need to be able to raise an army to defend one side of sturgia and hope the ai takes care of the other(they dont). Or drop all my troops and run as fast as I can between borders, necessitating raising an army on the other side.

If only two armies can be raised, and I'm not the marshal or king, it makes it almost impossible to save the ai from itself.

I think this issue would largely be solved if defeating a lord, or a bunch of lords in an army, actually put them out of action fir a while.

Right now there are simply so many potential party leaders for every kingdom, that defeating one army accomplishes nothing.

By the time you deal with all the party's and armies running around, the ones your defeated first are back running around.

So you just have to fight off endless waves of opponents. It's pretty torturous

This right here is a big issue as well, especially in 141 permawar. One of the things that excited me about bannerlord was that they were going to make the ai follow the same rules as the player. Now the ai get magical troops, on top of get out of jail free cards, while I have to start from square one. I think, and really hope, that a lot of this stuff is just bandaids while the dev's work out real fixes.

 

[Rush09]

While I get where you're coming from, campaign ai would have to be much much smarter for this to work. Sturgia and aserai, with their geographical issues, are prime examples.

If you're at war on two fronts the ai would need to coordinate defense on both fronts. As things currently stand, given how nonsensical the campaign ai is, I as the player need to be able to raise an army to defend one side of sturgia and hope the ai takes care of the other(they dont). Or drop all my troops and run as fast as I can between borders, necessitating raising an army on the other side.

If only two armies can be raised, and I'm not the marshal or king, it makes it almost impossible to save the ai from itself.

True but that would happen to every faction, for example if the Aserai were fighting the Vladians and suddenly the Southern Empire attacked from the other side, that would leave the Southern Empire open to attack from the Khuzait or any other empire faction while its army is away. It puts more weight in the importance of the army and would also put more weight on stronger garrisons for border castles and towns.

But I do agree that the current AI would need an upgrade for this.

 

[EternalHeathen]

True but that would happen to every faction, for example if the Aserai were fighting the Vladians and suddenly the Southern Empire attacked from the other side, that would leave the Southern Empire open to attack from the Khuzait or any other empire faction while its army is away. It puts more weight in the importance of the army and would also put more weight on stronger garrisons for border castles and towns.

But I do agree that the current AI would need an upgrade for this.

You aren't wrong, but I think the travel time for sturgia and aserai is worse in such a situation, but I guess that's off topic and just my current permawar fatigue fixation. Looking at it from a realistic point of view in the situation you outlined. Say I'm a southern empire lord(marry me Rhagaea), and I know the queens army and the marshals army are down in Aserai capturing pretty shiny things for the queen. I hear that the Khuzait just declared war and monchung is riding heavy. I'm going to send ravens to every lord that I know isn't in the armies, and rally them to try and protect the beautious queens holdings while she's away. So she'll marry me.

Basically, I don't like the idea of eliminating a tactical option, especially for the player, even if the campaign AI were smarter. I could get behind king/queen and marshal armies being influence free to raise, making it more of a last resort choice for a third lord to raise an army. Of course, then we circle right back around to the AI needing to be smarter, so that those two armies aren't just constantly running around because no influence is needed to keep them going.

 

[Magnusnyg]

No. Just no. Armies are fun, and it would make no sense that only rulers (and/or a select few) could make armies. Jean d’Arc didn’t rule anything when she made her army...

 

[Apocal]

No. Just no. Armies are fun, and it would make no sense that only rulers (and/or a select few) could make armies. Jean d’Arc didn’t rule anything when she made her army...

Jean d'Arc didn't make an army. She was placed with an already existing one and didn't command it, although she sat in council.

At any rate, the player wouldn't be cut out of them entirely. They'd just have to become Marshal, like in Warband, in order to create one. There would still be the possibility of participation in someone else's army.

 

[Figulus]

Aye , what was wrong with Marshal concept in Warband?

 

[missionAvs]

I agree with having it restricted to the King/Queen and a Marshall. Right now, it's absolutely silly how many huge armies can get put together to just take a stroll much less actually go out and siege some meaningless castle. This would provide the player with incentive to become the Marshall/found their own kingdom and would certainly help with factions snowballing out of control so easily. Campaign AI fixes should come with time but this is definitely something that warrants at least trying it out for a patch or two.

 

[GitiUsir]

I totally agree with OP. I was working on a new influence system (and new fief system) because I felt exactly the same. I don't know if I will finish it because few people seemed interested, but essentially it would make lords with cities able to call subordinated lords from surrounding castles linked to the city. The king would be another powerful duke, only he would be the ruler on top of that.
So there would be less armies, and those armies would be gathered by powerful lords only.

influence system

 

[Rush09]

You aren't wrong, but I think the travel time for sturgia and aserai is worse in such a situation, but I guess that's off topic and just my current permawar fatigue fixation. Looking at it from a realistic point of view in the situation you outlined. Say I'm a southern empire lord(marry me Rhagaea), and I know the queens army and the marshals army are down in Aserai capturing pretty shiny things for the queen. I hear that the Khuzait just declared war and monchung is riding heavy. I'm going to send ravens to every lord that I know isn't in the armies, and rally them to try and protect the beautious queens holdings while she's away. So she'll marry me.

Basically, I don't like the idea of eliminating a tactical option, especially for the player, even if the campaign AI were smarter. I could get behind king/queen and marshal armies being influence free to raise, making it more of a last resort choice for a third lord to raise an army. Of course, then we circle right back around to the AI needing to be smarter, so that those two armies aren't just constantly running around because no influence is needed to keep them going.

In the situation you just described, I see several tactical options on what to do. Rhagea is away with the army, you aren't in that army and Monchug is coming. Awesome! What to do? Defend in what is likeliest his first castle to siege? do I have enough men to do so? Maybe sacrifice the first initial castles and take a stand in the nearest town, more men and better chance of winning? Have all my clan members join Rhagea's army or do I have enough to take a giant gamble? instead of waiting for his attack, I could siege a small castle somewhere far in Khuzait territoy with the intend of making Monchug have to pick between attacking or defending. With diplomacy in the game, you could maybe even possibly convice Lucon or Ragnvald to attack the Khuzaits from behind. If you managed to protect the territory from a Khuzait attack while the Empress is away, pretty sure she would marry you on return ahah.

Honestly, I would love something like that.

But it's what we said, the AI would need to be changed. With the AI at the moment, pretty sure the Khuzaits would put everything in offense making you restricted to a couple of tactical choices.

If the game was restricted to a ruler system, I think influence would be less of an issue, given that only the influence of a ruler would be used in a big army. Most of the nobles influence would be for politics or clan management. The ruler would need a big buff to influence gain though for this but I mean, running a kingdom should already provide you with a pretty big influence gain, it's not every dude that runs a kingdom.

 

[Rush09]

No. Just no. Armies are fun, and it would make no sense that only rulers (and/or a select few) could make armies. Jean d’Arc didn’t rule anything when she made her army...

Pretty sure Jean d'Arch didn't have an army, she was put in command of the army belonging to the French King. Historically speaking, I don't think it was weird for a non-warrior king or queen to give command of the army to a more suitable noble, be it from a military perspective or something else.

 

[StewVader]

While I get where you're coming from, campaign ai would have to be much much smarter for this to work. Sturgia and aserai, with their geographical issues, are prime examples.

If you're at war on two fronts the ai would need to coordinate defense on both fronts. As things currently stand, given how nonsensical the campaign ai is, I as the player need to be able to raise an army to defend one side of sturgia and hope the ai takes care of the other(they dont). Or drop all my troops and run as fast as I can between borders, necessitating raising an army on the other side.

If only two armies can be raised, and I'm not the marshal or king, it makes it almost impossible to save the ai from itself.




This right here is a big issue as well, especially in 141 permawar. One of the things that excited me about bannerlord was that they were going to make the ai follow the same rules as the player. Now the ai get magical troops, on top of get out of jail free cards, while I have to start from square one. I think, and really hope, that a lot of this stuff is just bandaids while the dev's work out real fixes.

I wouldn't hold your breath oh that hope. The game doesn't work unless the AI cheats.

 

[mikeboix]

in my opinion both AI influence gain and Army' creation cost must revalued considerably

Totally agree to this.