What to do in peacetime.

[Keimpe]

I have 200K, i'm losing some denars, gaining some.
I have 3 workshops, 3 caravans, 2 castles and 150 men to feed.

And it's peacetime, most of the time.

In the beginning you went from town to town, doing missions and entering the arena.
Slowly you build up.
Then you become a mercenary so you can pay and feed your growing warband.
Then you swear allegiance to a faction, you win some wars you lose some.
You buy some caravans, workshops etc.
Then you are stable.

And then more than not, peacetime comes.
And there's not much to do.

I find the game lacking in content in peacetime. There's not much management, not much to take. (except for missions)
I think i've outgrown missions, and are not yet powerful enough to expand on my own.
My faction doesn't support wars, we pay some tribute and we gain some.

This part of the game is when i mostly quit.

How do you guys deal with this gap?

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

I have 200K, i'm losing some denars, gaining some.
I have 3 workshops, 3 caravans, 2 castles and 150 men to feed.
...
How do you guys deal with this gap?

Essentially, by not having workshops, caravans or castles.

Keep the fight going until you want to commit to being the king/endgame.

 

[Keimpe]

Yeah that is not a solution, that is more like circumventing the issue at hand.

 

[Sweynforkbeard]

Yeah that is not a solution, that is more like circumventing the issue at hand.

Well, alternatively, work on getting your faction to declare war on someone instead.

Or trade or do tournaments (both)

 

[Keimpe]

Well, alternatively, work on getting your faction to declare war on someone instead.

Mostly i just raid a farm and then it's wartime.
But if i don't want to do that, then there's really nothing to do. Battania, my faction of choice, just never ever wants any war that last for even a month.

The game is boring in this stage of the game. Tournaments dont give me enough to try the effort. And trading is redundant because i have enough money (And gain enough by taking the occasional bandits).

For me this is a serious problem.

 

[black_bulldog]

The opposite problem of constant wars is just as bad too. Variation in game play is what keeps the game fresh otherwise it becomes tedium and as you've said the only thing to do is restart. There may be modders that can fix this issue but something like this will take a long time to address. Taleworlds talks about having a "vision" but in the end they really don't they may have some kind of a vague idea of what they want from their game but they don't know specifics. It's pretty evident outside of actual battles that the game is a hodgepodge of ideas thrown together not a plan of how to make a game. Taleworlds won't and I suspect they can't fix an issue like this because it's beyond the scope of what they want to deal with. This is why the game has taken so long to develop.

 

[Keimpe]

The opposite problem of constant wars is just as bad too. Variation in game play is what keeps the game fresh otherwise it becomes tedium and as you've said the only thing to do is restart. There may be modders that can fix this issue but something like this will take a long time to address. Taleworlds talks about having a "vision" but in the end they really don't they may have some kind of a vague idea of what they want from their game but they don't know specifics. It's pretty evident outside of actual battles that the game is a hodgepodge of ideas thrown together not a plan of how to make a game. Taleworlds won't and I suspect they can't fix an issue like this because it's beyond the scope of what they want to deal with. This is why the game has taken so long to develop.

In my review of the game i also say that you can almost smell the glue that keeps it just about together.
I have a similar issue with the arenas being barebones. But that i can live with, because it is easily moddable and already done so.
I'm having real issues though with a company giving us the bare minimum and then hoping for modders to do the work for them.

The problem that i adress is one that affects the actual gameloop which cannot be fixed by mods.The spine of the red thread that runs through the progress is cut.
They've done a good job of letting you build up. But once you're built up and there's peace time. The game is sorely lacking content/progress.
That's outting it mildly. To be quite frank. There's NOTHING to do.

This is a serious problem and one that keeps me from returning to the game.

Maybe in peacetime you can focus on comradery. Roleplay elements. Maybe sit around the fire, telling tales, skirmishing with companions. etc.
Maybe even relive the history of one of those companions in a flashback.
What about wondering around your castle, talk to your citizens, solving their issues.
Where is the immersion instead of stale attributes?

That would be the stuff i like to see.

 

[BigFat]

This is where it becomes apparent how bad the relations/clan/diplomacy stuff is. Peace time could be great for mending relations between two feuding lords but relations don't really do much. You could spend that time courting a lady but courting doesn't exist. No feasts to throw etc etc. I guess you're just expected to do quests to raise your recruitment levels but even in my current playthrough as a permanent merc I have almost full recruitment slots unlocked on people I've never met just from perks.
There's so many things you could be doing that were deemed not important enough to add or bring back to the game.

 

[Keimpe]

This is where it becomes apparent how bad the relations/clan/diplomacy stuff is. Peace time could be great for mending relations between two feuding lords but relations don't really do much. You could spend that time courting a lady but courting doesn't exist. No feasts to throw etc etc. I guess you're just expected to do quests to raise your recruitment levels but even in my current playthrough as a permanent merc I have almost full recruitment slots unlocked on people I've never met just from perks.
There's so many things you could be doing that were deemed not important enough to add or bring back to the game.

I agree, War would mean the obvious. And peace time would mean exactly what you described.
It WOULD be fantastic.

Out of pure boredom i just randomly attack and behead parties now.
It makes me feel again.
Also, it's the only sane thing to do in a dead world.

 

[Totalgarbage]

Peacetime as a vassal should be where you would ideally increase your standing in the realm. Unfortunately, currently the only meaningful way to do that would be through policies and votes, which requires influence ...which ultimately requires fighting (or a LOT of tournaments, towns with forums or charm level 275+).

Honestly I don't care if they add feasts or not, they sucked anyways in my opinion, but we should at least be able to discuss politics with clan leaders such as: "would you support my proposal if I put x policy to a vote?", "what would it take for you to vote for policy x?" and "what would you think about kicking y clan from the kingdom" and barter (literally the barter menu) political favours with them. We should have some sort of chat checks (a faulty system by itself but it's already in the game) with the lords of our kingdom for convincing them to do something specific. There is so much potential for further interactions with other clans but I doubt that most, or likely any, will be added to the game.

 

[Keimpe]

Which is very sad. Bannerlord lost its potential for me.

It is also the very last game i've bought in Early Access. They didn't live up to the promise.
Instead we got years of bugfixing, and some assets here and there.

The complete immersion is barebones and focused solely on combat.But they forgot about peace time, which is 70% of the gametime, at least in my playthrough.

I agree with you Total Garbage, that would be a perfect system, also with Rogue as an existing perk tree.


Well, I think i'm alsmost done with this game. 2 castles in and i lost complete interest in the rest. Because i know it will be exactly the same over and over and over. I gotmy money's worth. i played it 355 hours over the 2 years.Mostly it is testing of new stuff.
And writing a hundred bugreports about it.

I'll come back to when the game releases, maybe something will change my mind.

I doubt it though.

When the hoofs stop trampling and the soldiers stop screaming, the silence of the dead world is depressingly apparent.

 

[Totalgarbage]

I mean, I doubt much will change with the release considering that it's in 9 days, maybe they will add voiceovers. They released the game in a very buggy and unoptimized state which took around 6 months to a year after the release of EA for the game to get to a reasonable level. I think they did add a lot of good things to the game, but unfortunately the vast majority of the things they added (e.g. pre-battle placement, banners, campaign & battlefield map integration) were about battles. I don't really blame the devs a lot considering that the USP of this franchise has been it's battles and they chose to play to their strengths rather than bettering their weaknesses, and this approach resulted in the game being very heavily centred on battles & sieges while making the rest of the game feel empty.

I do wish and have a little bit of hope that they will be enhancing the other aspects of the game, but I'm not too convinced that they will. At the very least, I do think that they will add more dialogue options as time goes, though I doubt that it will be very profound. Same as you, I've gotten like 400h of the game. I do think that it's a good game that has a lot of flaws, (and while imo it's not the best approach,) I'm grateful that they at least made the game very moddable. I think the fact they have announced that there will be no dlcs in the near future is a good indication that TW also sees the game as lacking, which hopefully means that they will continue supporting it for years to come in order to make the game more 'complete'.

 

[JunKeteer]

Peacetime as a vassal should be where you would ideally increase your standing in the realm. Unfortunately, currently the only meaningful way to do that would be through policies and votes, which requires influence ...which ultimately requires fighting (or a LOT of tournaments, towns with forums or charm level 275+).

Honestly I don't care if they add feasts or not, they sucked anyways in my opinion, but we should at least be able to discuss politics with clan leaders such as: "would you support my proposal if I put x policy to a vote?", "what would it take for you to vote for policy x?" and "what would you think about kicking y clan from the kingdom" and barter (literally the barter menu) political favours with them. We should have some sort of chat checks (a faulty system by itself but it's already in the game) with the lords of our kingdom for convincing them to do something specific. There is so much potential for further interactions with other clans but I doubt that most, or likely any, will be added to the game.

Or just spend the influence currency to purchase their relationship (with everyone in that clan); such a stupid system.
Clan tier is a stupid system where it's only there to cap your workshop/companion#s, means absolutely nothing with other clans, nor even a limit to how many castles you can own (which I would assume is a more 'clan tier' thing).

War/peace is just an arbitrary numbers calculation check to 'balance' the game with tributes (much like what they do with all the town systems - ie the loyalty/security/prosperity drift - again, stupid); yet there's also no loyalty/culture drift at all. There's no objective like: 'we want X town and to hold it no matter what', 'we want to cripple their economy by doing widescale raiding', 'We as vlandians hate battanian, never want to be at peace with them', 'we're at war because we don't like X faction's king and want to execute him when we can to change it'
Clan is permanently the culture of the starting player so marriage/kids culture really doesn't do anything; against the only thing that matters with town loyalty/culture and that bs.

 

[Totalgarbage]

Or just spend the influence currency to purchase their relationship (with everyone in that clan); such a stupid system.
Clan tier is a stupid system where it's only there to cap your workshop/companion#s, means absolutely nothing with other clans, nor even a limit to how many castles you can own (which I would assume is a more 'clan tier' thing).

Agreed, I wish that they completely got rid of clan tiers (or kept them as a threshold only for getting titles for your character). It adds nothing to the game. Spending 50(?) influence for increasing relations with a clan is also very dumb, agreed.

There's no objective like: 'we want X town and to hold it no matter what', 'we want to cripple their economy by doing widescale raiding', 'We as vlandians hate battanian, never want to be at peace with them', 'we're at war because we don't like X faction's king and want to execute him when we can to change it'
Clan is permanently the culture of the starting player so marriage/kids culture really doesn't do anything; against the only thing that matters with town loyalty/culture and that bs.

Yeah, I wish they added some sort of war objectives to the game, even just to serve as flavour (they technically exist in form of the ruler giving the player a quest to raid 3+ villages or capture x castle/y town, but I don't think it affects AI decision making in the slightest so it's barely there). I don't mind the city management as much tbh, it's not great but it serves its purpose decently I suppose (although we really should be able to build a few buildings in villages as well, also I don't get why castles still have loyalty & security, they can't rebel and they're literally defensive fortifications that housed only a few people, most being the noble family and their servants). I agree, Marriage is mostly meaningless, except for having kids which you very likely won't even have in your party, due to time passing too slowly. The relationship gain from marriage doesn't serve any purpose, maybe the clan leader is slightly more likely to vote for you during fief ownership votes.

 

[Keimpe]

I mean, I doubt much will change with the release considering that it's in 9 days, maybe they will add voiceovers. They released the game in a very buggy and unoptimized state which took around 6 months to a year after the release of EA for the game to get to a reasonable level. I think they did add a lot of good things to the game, but unfortunately the vast majority of the things they added (e.g. pre-battle placement, banners, campaign & battlefield map integration) were about battles. I don't really blame the devs a lot considering that the USP of this franchise has been it's battles and they chose to play to their strengths rather than bettering their weaknesses, and this approach resulted in the game being very heavily centred on battles & sieges while making the rest of the game feel empty.

I do wish and have a little bit of hope that they will be enhancing the other aspects of the game, but I'm not too convinced that they will. At the very least, I do think that they will add more dialogue options as time goes, though I doubt that it will be very profound. Same as you, I've gotten like 400h of the game. I do think that it's a good game that has a lot of flaws, (and while imo it's not the best approach,) I'm grateful that they at least made the game very moddable. I think the fact they have announced that there will be no dlcs in the near future is a good indication that TW also sees the game as lacking, which hopefully means that they will continue supporting it for years to come in order to make the game more 'complete'.

I wholeheartedly agree. Word for word. As it stands it is not finished imho.I miss context, like what CKIII does very well, it reacts to your situation. It would be perfect to say, there's a riot at one of your towns etc (f.i. with a low loyalty). Or a castle needs repairs, rpg elements that make my experience matter.

 

[Ananda_The_Destroyer]

How do you guys deal with this gap?

I start a war. I go into the faction I prefer to fight and raid a village who's troops I don't want and then go siege or attack armies/parties. You will get ding 200 influence but you can quickly (and much more) get it back and of course there are limited uses for it as a vassal anyways. It's interesting that often after forcing a war this way the faction seems to do even better. Possibly because the war/peace voting is meant to slow down expansion, so goin against it can put them in favorable situations.

If you are a ruler it's even better: You can just attack a lord to start a war, no influence lost. As a ruler every 500 influence can equal a new clan so this matters now. This means you can locate their main armies and immediately destroy them at the wars start. Dum vassals making peace when you're winning Oh well, let them have it and attack again and again.

 

[RozBritanicus]

Maybe in peacetime you can focus on comradery. Roleplay elements. Maybe sit around the fire, telling tales, skirmishing with companions. etc.
Maybe even relive the history of one of those companions in a flashback.
What about wondering around your castle, talk to your citizens, solving their issues.
Where is the immersion instead of stale attributes?

That would be the stuff i like to see.

I agree i played a few campaigns and normally stop playing them because war gets boring and peace time is boring. Once your set up with workshops and caravans and making millions you don't need to do missions for towns and villages the fetch quest. I think everything is apart from battles is lacking. You can't improve your workshops and marriage is way too simple in warband it took a little work. Relationship are very basic and nothing much come from it just cheaper army stacks which helps and maybe people may vote to give you a fief or join you faction. TW have said there not done and Thay will but some updates after release so there is hope that the none combat side of the game will get some love.

 

[Keimpe]

I agree i played a few campaigns and normally stop playing them because war gets boring and peace time is boring. Once your set up with workshops and caravans and making millions you don't need to do missions for towns and villages the fetch quest. I think everything is apart from battles is lacking. You can't improve your workshops and marriage is way too simple in warband it took a little work. Relationship are very basic and nothing much come from it just cheaper army stacks which helps and maybe people may vote to give you a fief or join you faction. TW have said there not done and Thay will but some updates after release so there is hope that the none combat side of the game will get some love.

There is hope. But hope is also a false fact/loose sand. In other words, the chances are very slim that they will enhance the sp role playing element compared to the very popular aspect of war and battle. I don't hope personally. I only theorize and my theory is it is lacking poorly and not popular enough to justify any development time of Taleworlds. (Sadly)

 

[Apocal]

How do you guys deal with this gap?

1. Rebuild a deep bench of T3/T4 troops that I stuff into a garrison that's likely to be near to the next war.
2. Run village quests for landowner/headman relations.
3. Leave my companions as emissaries at cities to max-out town notable and noble relations.
4. Gather up stocks of varied food, herd animals and warhorses.

Basically, I use peacetime to prepare for the next war and shore up relations in my faction.

 

[Aurex]

That's probably the biggest issue that the game has. There's simply nothing to do in the gameplay loop. Crime is basically non-existent and it pays little. Smithing is a minigame that makes you so rich the money becomes a non-issue. Aside from war, there's really, really little to do in Bannerlord. It's also why I kept abandoning playthroughs were I had established a powerbase and was on my way to conquest the map. Either boring peace or copy-pasted wars with copy-pasted armies.

As for what you could do in that time, @Apocal up there gave some solid suggestions. I do the same, and perhaps obsessively take care of my fiefs to make sure they're doing alright and have a rising prosperity. That time can also be really good to find/court/marry a lady if you're not at that point yet, you can do tournaments, recruit "exotic" troops from the farthest factions for your next war, try some trading (horse trading is still pretty good, I think) or do some bandit hunting with a very small troop of companions with blunt weapons (helps with roguery and levels them up.)