Where's Lezalit when you really need him?

[imgran]

Times like this I really wish I could hire Lezalit, give him a shiny new cat o'nine, and turn him loose on the Calradians of this era. Lezalit would have taken 1 look at these captains who send recruit swarms into each other and first have the captains soundly flogged, then whipped the peasant armies into shape himself if it took all winter.

More seriously, passive training needs a massive buff so that it's, you know, actually useful, and we need Masters at Arms to take charge of training, or the option to do it ourselves. Wealthy lords absolutely would spend the time and money required to give their levies basic training and their fyrds more than basic training. The fact that the option to do that doesn't exist outside of mutilating a few hundred thousand Looters is slightly pathetic.

 

[ZydrateTheSmoothCriminal]

More seriously, passive training needs a massive buff so that it's, you know, actually useful, and we need Masters at Arms to take charge of training, or the option to do it ourselves. Wealthy lords absolutely would spend the time and money required to give their levies basic training and their fyrds more than basic training. The fact that the option to do that doesn't exist outside of mutilating a few hundred thousand Looters is slightly pathetic.

Exactly. We need trainers, and also drill events at castles and camps (when they're eventually added), would be amazing if we could see them training in action and all that.

 

[Highest of all Landers]

I read how the first perk selection works for leadership and it is nothing like the Trainer skill in Warband, it does not apply to every troop, just the first in the stack and it is not based on level difference, just a flat increase. I think it should at least be applied to every troop in the stack.

That being said, a developer replied to another thread a while back saying he was making changes to new lord parties and the ratio of recruits was going to be decreased, Tier 1 and Tier 2 would represent less than they do currently. I do not remember the exact numbers, it is going to go down from around 70% to 45% (if you are reading this and you know the exact numbers, please correct me).

 

[Tuco]

Next patch should boost the average troop level in armies quite a bit.

 

[bigbalzzz]

Next patch should boost the average troop level in armies quite a bit.

i am not sure how it boosts the player as we are told lord behavior will change
nothing about the player xp gain
escapilly with looters being the only source of training
now that source is no more viable

 

[VanHoven]

yeah it was 70 to 45. but still, 45% tier 1 and 2 troops is still a lot... would prefer more like maybe 5-10% recruits and maybe 15-20% tier 2. For me an somewhat ideal composition would look like 5-10% t1 and t5, 15-25% t2 and t4 and around 30% t3. some tier 6s

 

[eddiemccandless]

Times like this I really wish I could hire Lezalit, give him a shiny new cat o'nine, and turn him loose on the Calradians of this era. Lezalit would have taken 1 look at these captains who send recruit swarms into each other and first have the captains soundly flogged, then whipped the peasant armies into shape himself if it took all winter.

More seriously, passive training needs a massive buff so that it's, you know, actually useful, and we need Masters at Arms to take charge of training, or the option to do it ourselves. Wealthy lords absolutely would spend the time and money required to give their levies basic training and their fyrds more than basic training. The fact that the option to do that doesn't exist outside of mutilating a few hundred thousand Looters is slightly pathetic.

I completely agree, this is honestly the main reason why I am not playing all that much anymore right now. I don't want to have to keep sending troops against looters just to level them up.

 

[Nalgasucia507]

Good first paragraph, cracked me up!

 

[JustinTime49]

Honestly, even though I know it won't happen, I would've really preferred an upgrade system where your troops upgrade their skills from battle, but you can outfit them with gear at a large expense.

If skills are really the attributing factor to combat competence, how about instead of upgrade trees upgrading skills AND equipment, it just upgrades skills with commanders having to upgrade equipment for their units.

This way lords can outfit even recruits with shields or even higher tier armour but in general, that won't mean much when their skills are absolute poo.

This also should give an incentive of not being able to hoard millions because, in order to maintain a completely elite force, you(and lords) will have to spend hundreds of thousands to equip your men with the best culture appropriate equipment.

 

[Ratio Ultima]

Leadership in general should add training at the same rate as it's other benefits (morale and garrison size).

 

[vota dc]

Times like this I really wish I could hire Lezalit, give him a shiny new cat o'nine, and turn him loose on the Calradians of this era. Lezalit would have taken 1 look at these captains who send recruit swarms into each other and first have the captains soundly flogged, then whipped the peasant armies into shape himself if it took all winter.

More seriously, passive training needs a massive buff so that it's, you know, actually useful, and we need Masters at Arms to take charge of training, or the option to do it ourselves. Wealthy lords absolutely would spend the time and money required to give their levies basic training and their fyrds more than basic training. The fact that the option to do that doesn't exist outside of mutilating a few hundred thousand Looters is slightly pathetic.

They need active training as well. Passive for lords with good skills on the offensive, training field that train only for native lords and native troops (for example a khuzait horse archer has little to learn about axe lessons in sturgia) on the defensive side. So attackers will have passive training and defenders both.
Training fields should also be raidable.

 

[imgran]

I read how the first perk selection works for leadership and it is nothing like the Trainer skill in Warband, it does not apply to every troop, just the first in the stack and it is not based on level difference, just a flat increase. I think it should at least be applied to every troop in the stack.

That being said, a developer replied to another thread a while back saying he was making changes to new lord parties and the ratio of recruits was going to be decreased, Tier 1 and Tier 2 would represent less than they do currently. I do not remember the exact numbers, it is going to go down from around 70% to 45% (if you are reading this and you know the exact numbers, please correct me).

The most obvious way to accomplish that is make passive training actually work.

 

[bulbous_fripp]

If I can risk trying to read the designers' minds a bit, I think they probably intended the lack of passive training to be compensated for by the fact that you can recruit mid-tier units directly. Obviously, that's not the case now and it's especially not the case for AI lords pre-1.2, but it seems possible for them to actually make what they were planning work by having the 2+-tier units more common.

 

[Highest of all Landers]

The most obvious way to accomplish that is make passive training actually work.

Yes, I agree. While the tweaks to lord parties are welcome, the perks that provide passive xp should be reworked to make them actually useful.

 

[imgran]

Passive training should turn 5 T1 to T2, 1-2 T2 to T3, every day, and 1 T3 to T4 every other day or so.

 

[Earth Dragon]

yeah it was 70 to 45. but still, 45% tier 1 and 2 troops is still a lot... would prefer more like maybe 5-10% recruits and maybe 15-20% tier 2. For me an somewhat ideal composition would look like 5-10% t1 and t5, 15-25% t2 and t4 and around 30% t3. some tier 6s

This is why you take baby steps brother!

If you change the AI to where is fielding whole armies of Tier 3 units (which most of us would appreciate) THEN you Effectively update all the training avenues, you then have to go back and readjust the AI to where it’s not “nothing but tier 4-6 units” which would be equally ridiculous to have to always face.

Just like they’ve taken slow and sure pot shots at the economy, they need to start taking slow but sure pot shots at the troop leveling and maintenance mechanics

 

[Orkmann]

Haha, good old days with Legalit and the band very good point on passive training. It would not even need huge enhancements, as we already have some training perks in the game, they just wont work / providing negligible xp.

 

[VanHoven]

-as stated above-

Yes, thats true. One step at a time. I just wanted to point out that for my personal taste around 50% tier 1 and 2 shouldnt be the endgoal, at least in armies that are not freshly recruited. alas, the spreadsheet mexxico provided was tier of troops in all armies on the map, so maybe the distribution isn't equal. so some armies that are rebuilding more like close to 70 or 80% tier 1 and 2 and others more like close to 10%.

 

[daxiapi777]

I personally find the troops upgrading speed to be quite acceptable, a little too fast maybe. I mainly use archers and cavs (because infantry just die like flies in battle), and after every battle against a lord or any sizable army, quite a few (usually more than 10 and probably more than 20) of my troops are upgrading to the next tier, and there are a lot of such fights to be had. What I do in game is basically training troops to the top tier and put them in the garrison. I now have my own kingdom and 4 towns each has more than 250 top tier units. The only problem is just they are starving from time to time.

 

[Earth Dragon]

I personally find the troops upgrading speed to be quite acceptable, a little too fast maybe. I mainly use archers and cavs (because infantry just die like flies in battle), and after every battle against a lord or any sizable army, quite a few (usually more than 10 and probably more than 20) of my troops are upgrading to the next tier, and there are a lot of such fights to be had. What I do in game is basically training troops to the top tier and put them in the garrison. I now have my own kingdom and 4 towns each has more than 250 top tier units. The only problem is just they are starving from time to time.

I understand this thought, and can somewhat agree on the top end. But now you are talking about something that would require sweeping changes and adjustments if this was the case.

Too many factions don’t get whole classes of units until Tier 4 and even 5. So while it’s meant to be a minor supplement, it’s still meant to be there. Aserai have arguably the 2nd best archer in the game, but you rarely see any arrows being shot by their forces as bow users start at Tier 4 for them.

So it’s fine when playing the Empire or Vlandia who have fast access to missile units, but if you are a faction who doesn’t, you need those trained fast.