Troop upgrades and skill problems

[Ninja]

Hey @ all,

is it normal that I can upgrade ALL my troops after a battle to the next rank? After four battles against bandits I had only elite troops... Not that it's that much of a problem, though I feel myself like a cheater, cause it goes so fast 

Another problem I have is with my skills... I normally have 5 Power Strike and 5 Athletics. But the numbers are red and both on 1... What is that? My character has 100% health, why are his skills lowered?

 

[Waffenbaum]

You're just lucky, not cheating. I hired 18 peasants and went into battle against 6 bandits. Made it out with 4 live peasants and 8% health after tripping and getting an arrow in the back. It's much down to terrain. Most of my battles have been uphill, so getting peppered with rocks, javelins and arrows really kills off men like flies.

 

[Stein]

Hey @ all,

is it normal that I can upgrade ALL my troops after a battle to the next rank? After four battles against bandits I had only elite troops... Not that it's that much of a problem, though I feel myself like a cheater, cause it goes so fast 

Another problem I have is with my skills... I normally have 5 Power Strike and 5 Athletics. But the numbers are red and both on 1... What is that? My character has 100% health, why are his skills lowered?

The skill reduction is due to penalties from wearing heavy armor/helm/shield etc.

 

[Thorgil]

is it normal that I can upgrade ALL my troops after a battle to the next rank?
After four battles against bandits I had only elite troops...
Not that it's that much of a problem, though I feel myself like a cheater, cause it goes so fast 

thats the worst thing which could have happened - in my eyes.
dev-team, i thought the plan was to make the game more difficult and more realistic by needing a LOT more time to upgrade troops. 

its just bull**** to train a damn farmer to a veteran warrior in 5 days.
and it would make the game A LOT more tensioning if you have to care about your men, in order to get a good army after weeks or months even.
now, if you loose an elite army, who the hell cares, you can build up a new one in a few days 

sad to say this, but this is a fact which kinda destroys my imagination i had of the new version.
i really hoped for much longer upgrade times...  -  now they are even shorter.

 

[Stitch74]

is it normal that I can upgrade ALL my troops after a battle to the next rank?
After four battles against bandits I had only elite troops...
Not that it's that much of a problem, though I feel myself like a cheater, cause it goes so fast 

thats the worst thing which could have happened - in my eyes.
dev-team, i thought the plan was to make the game more difficult and more realistic by needing a LOT more time to upgrade troops. 

its just bull**** to train a damn farmer to a veteran warrior in 5 days.
and it would make the game A LOT more tensioning if you have to care about your men, in order to get a good army after weeks or months even.
now, if you loose an elite army, who the hell cares, you can build up a new one in a few days 

sad to say this, but this is a fact which kinda destroys my imagination i had of the new version.
i really hoped for much longer upgrade times...  -  now they are even shorter.

Upgrading troops is a lot more expansive now and their upkeep is more expansive.  It cost 2000 schillings to upgrade to an Irish Elite Cavalry.  It may be faster to upgrade troops, but the player has to decide if upgrading their troops are going to be worth the money.  If you loose an army full of elite troops than you loose a lot of money.

The team might have done this on purpose, so the player has to think more economically.

 

[Howitzer]

The high troop cost might balance it out eventually.

It's possible to have an army of a hundred hearthweru's quickly, but how fast are you going to raise the 200k necessary to simply upgrade them? Let stand the upkeep afterwards.

But still, I thought the aim was to lengthen the time needed for upgrades to weeks and months. Only having Hearthweru's (as an example of an elite unit) after months of training..

Why did you choose this method Idibil?

 

[Idibil]

Mm, It should be fast to udgrade for low lvl troops, for high (difficult) for elite troops (betatesters meet very difficult upgrade to elite troop for xp need). Maybe some feature changed some here, I have ask to Taragoth if freelancer do changes in upgrade system or something.

 

[Ninja]

Ok, thanks for the replies.
Damn I didn't noticed the skill reduction, caused by items. I should be more careful with what I wear.

Yea the troop upgrading is a bit too easy, because you can get really fast heavy infanterie, though the elite infanterie is indeed very expensive and this is good imo.

 

[Csatádi]

Ok, thanks for the replies.
Damn I didn't noticed the skill reduction, caused by items. I should be more careful with what I wear.

You can switch off this option in the menu. I always do.

 

[Thorgil]

Upgrading troops is a lot more expansive now and their upkeep is more expansive.  It cost 2000 schillings to upgrade to an Irish Elite Cavalry.  It may be faster to upgrade troops, but the player has to decide if upgrading their troops are going to be worth the money.

yea, good point, but: there are always ways to get (lots) of money, while there is no way around training troops for some time until they gained enough experience so that they can be considered as veterans! veterans shouldnt be bought, veterans should be trained!

Mm, It should be fast to udgrade for low lvl troops, for high (difficult) for elite troops (betatesters meet very difficult upgrade to elite troop for xp need). Maybe some feature changed some here, I have ask to Taragoth if freelancer do changes in upgrade system or something.

so you mean:
- lower troops get fast upgrade
- from a certain (mid-)level on higher/mid troops are being upgraded much slower (means much more xp-points per level needed, like e.g. player characters do)
--> thats what it should be i´d say!

 

[Frostyham]

As Idibil mentioned, it might have something to do with Freelancer. Maybe the way experience gain is handeled. A friend of mine was trying out the mod, and while in a Lord's army he went from level 2 to 21 in thirteen minutes without noticing it.

 

[JHaukewood]

The fast upgrading isn't a problem to me, but rather the fast upgrading combined with the huge upgrade costs. One or two 2k upgrades to hearthweru after a battle is all right, since I understand that, theoretically, you are equipping them, but 60 after one fight is really, really daunting and can penalize the player's finances just for winning battles.
How might one further slow upgrades, so that they happen in a trickle, and not a flood?

 

[Howitzer]

The fast upgrading isn't a problem to me, but rather the fast upgrading combined with the huge upgrade costs. One or two 2k upgrades to hearthweru after a battle is all right, since I understand that, theoretically, you are equipping them, but 60 after one fight is really, really daunting and can penalize the player's finances just for winning battles.
How might one further slow upgrades, so that they happen in a trickle, and not a flood?

Edit the levels of the troops manually. The larger the level differences between the troops, the longer it'll take for them to upgrade. Which was actually Idibil's intention AFAIK.

 

[Uhtred Ragnarson]

Upgrading troops is a lot more expansive now and their upkeep is more expansive.  It cost 2000 schillings to upgrade to an Irish Elite Cavalry.  It may be faster to upgrade troops, but the player has to decide if upgrading their troops are going to be worth the money.

yea, good point, but: there are always ways to get (lots) of money, while there is no way around training troops for some time until they gained enough experience so that they can be considered as veterans! veterans shouldnt be bought, veterans should be trained!

Mm, It should be fast to udgrade for low lvl troops, for high (difficult) for elite troops (betatesters meet very difficult upgrade to elite troop for xp need). Maybe some feature changed some here, I have ask to Taragoth if freelancer do changes in upgrade system or something.

so you mean:
- lower troops get fast upgrade
- from a certain (mid-)level on higher/mid troops are being upgraded much slower (means much more xp-points per level needed, like e.g. player characters do)
--> thats what it should be i´d say!

The betatesters had a very very long debate about this... and in the end we figured it probably would be a more accurate if highly trained troops were rather bought and not trained... The mount and blade engine is so difficult in this regard, so we decided to justify this buying effect by saying that throughout history, professional armies are made by not only training/experience, but money. Money is the most important resource in warfare and standing/professional armies rest on the backbone of surplus revenue/resources of a warlord (the cost of keeping able bodied men away from mining or farming or trading or producing, and then also feeding them, arming them, paying them). The devs of Brytenwalda had the intention of making elite troops very hard to train, but in the beta phase, it was literally impossible to upgrade to elite infantry. I recruited a few peasants to test this feature and I had to spam ctrl+x over a hundred times to upgrade from tier 4 -> tier 5. (meaning it would take 100,000 experience)... Its simply not possible to do this. Ergo, the mod team decided to make elite troops more expensive, rather than making them uber hard to train. And this isn't entirely a-historical  of a concept.

 

[eskil]

i understand but it is normal that all the lord have ton of top tier troop...pratically i'm unable to even wia battle

 

[aurgelmir]

The betatesters had a very very long debate about this... and in the end we figured it probably would be a more accurate if highly trained troops were rather bought and not trained... The mount and blade engine is so difficult in this regard, so we decided to justify this buying effect by saying that throughout history, professional armies are made by not only training/experience, but money. Money is the most important resource in warfare and standing/professional armies rest on the backbone of surplus revenue/resources of a warlord (the cost of keeping able bodied men away from mining or farming or trading or producing, and then also feeding them, arming them, paying them).

But could an anglo-saxon warlord really just buy a band of men like a band of later day condottieri? As far as I understand the professional warriors were simply the men that could afford the tools of war and the profit of war was not in the shape of money but in the shape of land that the sucessfull conqueror would enfeoff his followers with. If his followers died the payment did not revert back to the lord but was inherited by their sons. If the the adult members of the martial class all died on the battlefield the lord would have to wait for their sons to come of age as the resource he use to procure the service of armed men (land) has already been spent and he will not have more without confiscation or victory on the battlefield.

There wasn't even a developed monetary system around. as late as during the early modern peiod the kings of europe struggled to get as much of their taxes as possible in bullion that could be used to fund a war rather than in bulky and easily spoiled agricultural products.

 

[Thorgil]

Upgrading troops is a lot more expansive now and their upkeep is more expansive.  It cost 2000 schillings to upgrade to an Irish Elite Cavalry.  It may be faster to upgrade troops, but the player has to decide if upgrading their troops are going to be worth the money.

yea, good point, but: there are always ways to get (lots) of money, while there is no way around training troops for some time until they gained enough experience so that they can be considered as veterans! veterans shouldnt be bought, veterans should be trained!

Mm, It should be fast to udgrade for low lvl troops, for high (difficult) for elite troops (betatesters meet very difficult upgrade to elite troop for xp need). Maybe some feature changed some here, I have ask to Taragoth if freelancer do changes in upgrade system or something.

so you mean:
- lower troops get fast upgrade
- from a certain (mid-)level on higher/mid troops are being upgraded much slower (means much more xp-points per level needed, like e.g. player characters do)
--> thats what it should be i´d say!

The betatesters had a very very long debate about this... and in the end we figured it probably would be a more accurate if highly trained troops were rather bought and not trained... The mount and blade engine is so difficult in this regard, so we decided to justify this buying effect by saying that throughout history, professional armies are made by not only training/experience, but money. Money is the most important resource in warfare and standing/professional armies rest on the backbone of surplus revenue/resources of a warlord (the cost of keeping able bodied men away from mining or farming or trading or producing, and then also feeding them, arming them, paying them). The devs of Brytenwalda had the intention of making elite troops very hard to train, but in the beta phase, it was literally impossible to upgrade to elite infantry. I recruited a few peasants to test this feature and I had to spam ctrl+x over a hundred times to upgrade from tier 4 -> tier 5. (meaning it would take 100,000 experience)... Its simply not possible to do this. Ergo, the mod team decided to make elite troops more expensive, rather than making them uber hard to train. And this isn't entirely a-historical  of a concept.

ok, i see, thanx for the answear.

what about a mix?
you say "it was literally impossible to upgrade to elite infantry" - couldnt that be lowered?
means: the upgrade time not that long (but long enough, definitely longer than now) plus the upkeep costs a bit reduced?

by the way, i think its not that bad that lords mostly lead elite troops.
its good not to be able to attack every lords army when gathering some men for a few days - it should be a challenge you have to prepare for!

 

[Howitzer]

Why don't we use the same troop levels as in 1.332, but with the current costs? That still lengthens the whole experience.

But t.b.h., I always thought warriors were given gifts now and then by their lords, but it were the troops themselves who actually bought weapons/armor/whatnot..

 

[Frei]

Actual gameplay should be kept in mind over anything else.  It's good that you had a lively debate, but as it stands, maintaining an army to defeat even a single lord's army (at 100 perecent difficulty) is nearly impossible, and if you have to defeat two lords in a row then, good luck.  They have nearly 100 percent elites.

 

[Thorgil]

Actual gameplay should be kept in mind over anything else.  It's good that you had a lively debate, but as it stands, maintaining an army to defeat even a single lord's army (at 100 perecent difficulty) is nearly impossible, and if you have to defeat two lords in a row then, good luck.  They have nearly 100 percent elites.

well... good point. but the elite lord party thing will be changed again as far as i understood Idibil, right?
but:

Why don't we use the same troop levels as in 1.332, but with the current costs? That still lengthens the whole experience.
But t.b.h., I always thought warriors were given gifts now and then by their lords, but it were the troops themselves who actually bought weapons/armor/whatnot..

sounds VERY good to me also.
in the end the devs have to decide.
but if i can make a plea: make upgrade by experience longer! 
i want to have the responsibility to take care about my (long time experienced) warband and not go into every fight with the knowledge that i can "buy" me another army two days later! somehow i want to avoid the feeling of a computer game