Unbalanced Hideouts

[Tsewe]

Hideouts are way too hard most of the times. A village elder sent me on a quest to clear a forest bandit hideout nearby. Fine, I told him, I'm gonna be ok with my top tier troops.
But no. Why? Because there were more than 30+ of them in that hideout. And we're 8. Even with top tier equipment, it's still unachievable.

Ways to improve balance for hideouts:

1. Put a max number of men in hideouts (ex : 20).
2. Give the player the option to chose his men.
3. Give the player's troops a chance; if the Player falls in battle, and his troops wins the battle, then the battle is won like any other one.
4. Give the player a different option than sneaking up at night, like... attacking, like a normal battlefield.
5. The Sneaking option, if successful, could bring you directly to the Hideout Chief. If you manage to kill him first, the bandits scatter.

The current state of Hideouts does not make any sense, and gets quite boring and annoying quickly.

 

[Portano]

Hideouts are way too hard most of the times. A village elder sent me on a quest to clear a forest bandit hideout nearby. Fine, I told him, I'm gonna be ok with my top tier troops.
But no. Why? Because there were more than 30+ of them in that hideout. And we're 8. Even with top tier equipment, it's still unachievable.

Ways to improve balance for hideouts:

1. Put a max number of men in hideouts (ex : 20).
2. Give the player the option to chose his men.
3. Give the player's troops a chance; if the Player falls in battle, and his troops wins the battle, then the battle is won like any other one.
4. Give the player a different option than sneaking up at night, like... attacking, like a normal battlefield.
5. The Sneaking option, if successful, could bring you directly to the Hideout Chief. If you manage to kill him first, the bandits scatter.

The current state of Hideouts does not make any sense, and gets quite boring and annoying quickly.

I agree with most of what you are suggesting. I just avoid hideouts at the moment because there is no practical way of winning the fights.

 

[Scotlander]

A thing that would make Hideouts more enjoyable would be:

1. Let the Player choose the soldiers/companions to raid the hideout with you.
2. Have a way to increase the number of men you can take with you. (Maybe a high rank in Rougery or Tactics could give you more men?)
3. More dialogue variety for bandit chiefs (come on man im not gonna duel you)

OP makes a good argument here

 

[Ahtas]

They are really hard to take over when there are like 60 bandits and you try to kill them with only 8 or so. The point of ambush is catching them off-guard so that they cannot escape from you. If a hideout has enough men to defend a castle, I should be able to assault it with my whole army. I think direct assault should be an option and when you select this option, bandits should have a chance to escape from you (more men inside, less chance to escape which makes ambush with fewer men viable while there are a few of them and assault compulsory when they have a hideout next to you town you need to get rid of them no matter what). Currently, with an army of 240 men and as a king, I can't get rid of two hideouts next to my town as they have like 50 inside each.

 

[seanledarc]

i agree with the ideas, hideouts are annyoing

 

[andreashun]

I agree, there should be more options to hideouts.

- Let me choose how many men I want to take (and who I want to take) maybe giving me a 100% sneak-attack with 8 people, and lowering the possible sneak-attack success rate when taking more people, like 90% chance with 10 people, 80% chance with 12 people, etc. Could also scale with roguery skill.
- Maybe give me the option to try a sneak-attack with only a few men, but send in two of my companions with also a few men each, from different directions?
- Give me the option to make it a full on attack. If I found the hideout and I have a party of 30, 70, 130 people, what is hindering me from a full frontal attack?

 

[FullbordadGames]

They're bad as they are now. What you can do if you can be arsed is attack it. When you've killed 20ish or whatever you're comfortable with just tab out (escape?) and attack it again. The ones you killed wont be there so you can gradually chip away at them.

Or just change settings before attacking a 1k bandit hideout to 1/3rd damage taken and you'll clear it with high tier troops.

 

[Ranger243]

I don't have any problems with the hideouts anymore, once you figure out how to attack them then its much easier. Playing on Realistic settings the easiest way to attack a hideout, short of using Fian troops, is to just use archers of your own. You are ambushing them so using your own archers means they won't rush the entire hideout at you unless you position wrong.

 

[Ichon]

I don't have any problems with the hideouts anymore, once you figure out how to attack them then its much easier. Playing on Realistic settings the easiest way to attack a hideout, short of using Fian troops, is to just use archers of your own. You are ambushing them so using your own archers means they won't rush the entire hideout at you unless you position wrong.

For the most part you can do that up to 40ish Bandits but past that only your player character can get arrows reloaded and your companions are running out not to mention the larger sized Hideouts have groups of 10-20 in a single location in a couple places. You might be able to get the first group down but you will lose some of your party, the 2nd group I have barely won but was too weak to defeat the final boss with 4 as backup.

Hideouts with 60-90 are fairly common 100 days into a campaign... the only way to defeat those is to sit on the Hideout for a 1-3 weeks fighting all the bandit parties that come near and occasionally attacking the Hideout. About 50% of the bandits that get killed in an attack are only wounded and they heal in 1-3 days so to reduce 80 down to a manageable 30 that you can for sure handle in 1 single rush takes avg close to two weeks.

That is a fairly big investment for not much loot and relatively small renown. If clearing out a Hideout let you take it over as a pre-castle hold that has a max # of occupants around 60 (including you, companions, and prisoners) or install one of your companions as a bandit gang leader... that would be worth it. Or some limited time prosperity boost for the local fief.

 

[Deutschmann]

I’m disagree!
Spent an hour recently trying to clear out a difficult hideout. And it was great! Controlling every step of your troops, noticing a places with a lot of guards, planning a roadmap through the hideout, counting every javelin and finally - victory. Yes, it’s hard but it has a great mechanic and gives challenge.
BTW if it’s too hard for you, you can visit hideout 2 times killing a part of bandits first time and finishing next night with 20% health. You get less loot but it’s fair.

 

[Bonicolai]

I think Sea Raiders hideout is really hard, since they must have some of the best footmen in the game. Usually have to use 2 or 3 tries to get them completely. And since it takes so long to run around at their hideout I usually make my men charge and go afk, come back and repeat the process till they are gone. And in the northen Vlandia around Ostican, Rovalt and Tirby they may be 3 of them at one time plus a Mountain Raiders hideout. Takes sooo much time to get rid of them.

 

[Sepone]

I have read in another thread that the number of bandits in a hideout varies with the bandit parties coming and going. It said if you wait for a good opportunity you have to deal with less enemies. I haven't done a hideout since then, so I'm not sure if it works.

 

[Ichon]

I’m disagree!
Spent an hour recently trying to clear out a difficult hideout. And it was great! Controlling every step of your troops, noticing a places with a lot of guards, planning a roadmap through the hideout, counting every javelin and finally - victory. Yes, it’s hard but it has a great mechanic and gives challenge.
BTW if it’s too hard for you, you can visit hideout 2 times killing a part of bandits first time and finishing next night with 20% health. You get less loot but it’s fair.

I agree some of the Hideouts are really fun and offer potential challenge- 20-40 is a good number and with sneaking in crouch, positioning, having a half decent party of companions- you can clear those in one go if you don't make mistakes.

Later in a campaign it is really difficult to find any Hideout with less than 80. That is still possible with multiple nights of attacks to defeat but for the amount of loot vs danger (more of your troops will die since it can't be autoresolved) the time commitment and the nearly 0 effect on local bandits or much of anything (the bandit #s will be almost the same a few days later) the only reason to do it is as a small challenge to yourself. For how many Hideouts are in the map that isn't enough.

 

[Tsewe]

I’m disagree!
Spent an hour recently trying to clear out a difficult hideout. And it was great! Controlling every step of your troops, noticing a places with a lot of guards, planning a roadmap through the hideout, counting every javelin and finally - victory. Yes, it’s hard but it has a great mechanic and gives challenge.
BTW if it’s too hard for you, you can visit hideout 2 times killing a part of bandits first time and finishing next night with 20% health. You get less loot but it’s fair.

Interesting, did not know that last part.
I've cleared some too, but when there are more than 30+ archers firing at you (even if in groups of ~15), no matter what my troops are and their equipment, they always end up bombarded and dead. I've tried many ways to win them, but no matter the tactics, always ended in a massacre.

Anyway, there's mod that lets you change your party limit, which solves everything.

 

[Ranger243]

For the most part you can do that up to 40ish Bandits but past that only your player character can get arrows reloaded and your companions are running out not to mention the larger sized Hideouts have groups of 10-20 in a single location in a couple places. You might be able to get the first group down but you will lose some of your party, the 2nd group I have barely won but was too weak to defeat the final boss with 4 as backup.

Hideouts with 60-90 are fairly common 100 days into a campaign... the only way to defeat those is to sit on the Hideout for a 1-3 weeks fighting all the bandit parties that come near and occasionally attacking the Hideout. About 50% of the bandits that get killed in an attack are only wounded and they heal in 1-3 days so to reduce 80 down to a manageable 30 that you can for sure handle in 1 single rush takes avg close to two weeks.

That is a fairly big investment for not much loot and relatively small renown. If clearing out a Hideout let you take it over as a pre-castle hold that has a max # of occupants around 60 (including you, companions, and prisoners) or install one of your companions as a bandit gang leader... that would be worth it. Or some limited time prosperity boost for the local fief.

idk what hideouts you're finding that have 60-90 but I would LOVE that. As for your archers reloading, just move them near the arrows. They reload just like you do so if there are spare arrows on the battlefield then they will pick them up and use them. If the hideouts have too many people for you to comfortably attack then wipe out the roving bands around them. The bands in the hideout will start to exit then and you can bring the numbers down that way. If you are taking a mission to wipe out a hideout then just bring decent troops and you can wittle them down rather easily. Your player heals to 20% while you wait so you can join the fights every time and you can easily wipe out a 60 man group with about 3-4 days of attacks if you are smart about it.

 

[andycott]

+ These are unbalanced.

 

[Jyharl]

I don't have any problem with hideouts. You are not supposed to be able to clear the strong ones in one go.

Here are some tips:

1. You can influence who is coming with you to the hideout by adjusting the unit order in your party screen. Eg. For Forest Bandit hideout, I put my Fians Champions on the top, just below my character. Then some of them will be with me during the attack (it doesn't seem to take into account the number of unit though, just the type).

2. When it gets too hard, go slowly and use tactical commands. Don't have your units charge brainlessly. The hideout enemies are organized in clutter. Kill the first clutter, maybe the second one if you can handle it, then retreat & heal. Rince and repeat.

 

[Ichon]

idk what hideouts you're finding that have 60-90 but I would LOVE that. As for your archers reloading, just move them near the arrows. They reload just like you do so if there are spare arrows on the battlefield then they will pick them up and use them. If the hideouts have too many people for you to comfortably attack then wipe out the roving bands around them. The bands in the hideout will start to exit then and you can bring the numbers down that way. If you are taking a mission to wipe out a hideout then just bring decent troops and you can wittle them down rather easily. Your player heals to 20% while you wait so you can join the fights every time and you can easily wipe out a 60 man group with about 3-4 days of attacks if you are smart about it.

I have tried to get them to reload from the barrel so many times! Is there a command or something other than position near the barrel?

It takes longer than 3-4 days in my experience to get rid of 60 size Hideout because for every bandit gang that runs out another one runs in. I should make video of my army standing on the hideout, 20 size party of bandits leave with 10 wounded from the first attack and I move to chase them down and as I move south a larger bandit party of 30 moves into the Hideout from the north. So I killed over 20 bandits and the Hideout size went from 60 to 70. You have to chase parties of Bandits for a week or more to get it down so nothing more than size 10 party might run into the Hideout. Then whittle down those inside- by the time you are doing your final attack some from the first attack healed so total when I've counted my party ended up fighting through almost 160 Bandits for a Hideout that started with 60.

At a certain point that is kind of fun but when when I travel the map and literally dozens of Hideouts... they need to do something else or they are a really low return on time invested as it takes far longer to battle through a hideout then fight 3-4 Lords armies.

 

[ZygoUgo]

I scout the hideouts first to see how many men are there before accepting a local quest, if there are too many, wear them down with multiple attacks before you take the quest.
Also, more options please, it would be good to have several different ways to attack.

 

[Tsewe]

I scout the hideouts first to see how many men are there before accepting a local quest, if there are too many, wear them down with multiple attacks before you take the quest.
Also, more options please, it would be good to have several different ways to attack.

Yes, that is my approach too, and my opinion on the matter.

I don't have any problem with hideouts. You are not supposed to be able to clear the strong ones in one go.

Here are some tips:

1. You can influence who is coming with you to the hideout by adjusting the unit order in your party screen. Eg. For Forest Bandit hideout, I put my Fians Champions on the top, just below my character. Then some of them will be with me during the attack (it doesn't seem to take into account the number of unit though, just the type).

2. When it gets too hard, go slowly and use tactical commands. Don't have your units charge brainlessly. The hideout enemies are organized in clutter. Kill the first clutter, maybe the second one if you can handle it, then retreat & heal. Rince and repeat.

1. I've done this since the first hideout I cleared, but even then, it somehwat worked. Even if my unexperienced recruits/volunteers are at the bottom of my party list, there is almost always at least one of them which equals to "ok, reload my last save" until only your best ones are all there. Which is annoying and pointless. Just let the player! It's simple and effective. Why would I bring a totally unexperienced recruit when I know super experienced sniper bandits are waiting for uws? This is senseless.

2. This kind of ruins the point of sneaking up and attacking by surprise. If you leave the hideout and heal, then you're out there and that you'll come back. Why not just attack with more soldiers from the beginning..

Anyway thank you for sharing on this topic, it's nice to see how people with these hideouts. It's still very unbalanced to me and as a result, is fun only sometimes. Most of the times it's annoying, or you just end up avoiding them.