Why factions snowball? Realistic behavior in unrealistic environment.

[samoja]

So yeah, i have been thinking about this issue a bit lately, this is not just Bannerlord issue, but it got exacerbated because the AI is not dumb anymore. One can imagine, if this kingdoms and empires existed for generations, that there is a pretty strong stalemate between them. Even in Warband the game would become unstable by day 1000 unless you ounded your own kingdom, constant wars would start lords bouncing from kingdom to kingdom and eventually leave the realm. Issue in both Warband and Bannerlord (though in Bannerlord it seems more pronounced) is that kingdoms and especially empires don't just consist of 3 towns and 6 castles, even CK2 that has extensive map with hundreds of territories and multiple holdings in each one could not cover all of it. Truth is even small kingdoms had dozens if not hundreds of fortifications of different size, and those fortifications served as speedbumps to prevent the exact sort of situation that happens in Bannerlord, with one faction gaining an advantage and immediately proceeding to roll over any opposition it may have had. here was also the issue of campaign season, you can't campaign during winter(it would be suicide) or during harvesting or planting season, at best you get 3 months of campaigning per year.

So how can this issues be remedied? Apart from expanding each faction tenfold and adding heavy attrition penalties for the attacker, the only real solution is to introduce artificial checks on AI expansion. AI not pressing it's advantage may be unrealistic, but in real life such army would more often then not be prevented from pressing the advantage due to factors that just don't come into play in Bannerlord

 

[Revenant342]

I think a major step in the right direction would be to just make sieges take way longer. As it is, it's like two days from the enemy rolling up with a doomstack to them assaulting and taking the city, which is kinda ridiculous. Should at least be enough time for the defenders to actually show up and contest the siege.

That alone would slow the snowballing a lot I think, and make territory changes a lot more rare. As it is you see the same city swapping back and forth 5 times in a month sometimes.

 

[Sidhwen_Khorest]

I mean, in CK2 the biggest part that allowed for less snowballing was the way that inheritence works and rebellions splintering larger empires. I think it would be interesting to see that same concept in bannerlord. larger kingdoms especially ones with territories in mismatched cultures would be more prone to rebellion, whether that be the lord in charge or the settlement itself. once it gets messy enough, AI could prioritize towns that have matching cultures, if they are held by enemies.

It would be cool to see calradia being overrun by a strong faction, only to have that empire break down into chaos, and then return to somewhat normalcy. If clans go extinct, new ones could try to unite a culture under one flag and re-create kingdoms.

obviously this is a huge ask, and I think they might have something like this in mind? either way it will be a while before we see a true fix, one that is dynamic yet promotes cohesion of kingdoms.

 

[Korz]

Campaign season should be summer and spring only. Winter should be four times the supplies to keep your troops feed if you're not in a settlement. This would also make the player hold up during the wintertime. The northern trait should also give a decrease to winter supplies. Sieges should take a long time and putting up fortifications on bridges and other choke points should be an upgrade option.

 

[k_mitt]

Campaign season should be summer and spring only. Winter should be four times the supplies to keep your troops feed if you're not in a settlement. This would also make the player hold up during the wintertime. The northern trait should also give a decrease to winter supplies. Sieges should take a long time and putting up fortifications on bridges and other choke points should be an upgrade option.

I love this idea. Have winter attrition that is is so costly it could be suicidal to campaign during that time.

 

[Bob Gnarly]

Campaign season should be summer and spring only. Winter should be four times the supplies to keep your troops feed if you're not in a settlement. This would also make the player hold up during the wintertime. The northern trait should also give a decrease to winter supplies. Sieges should take a long time and putting up fortifications on bridges and other choke points should be an upgrade option.

I like it

 

[fladin]

Warband's "declared war to curb the other realm's power" mechanism is IMHO the easiest hack to -temporary- fix that issue :
If one faction becomes too powerful (number of fiefs exceeding a certain number/percentage) => the other kingdoms make peace with each other and declare war to the most aggressive one (yes, it's not realistic but it kinda worked on Warband)...

 

[Pinkman]

I think a major step in the right direction would be to just make sieges take way longer. As it is, it's like two days from the enemy rolling up with a doomstack to them assaulting and taking the city, which is kinda ridiculous. Should at least be enough time for the defenders to actually show up and contest the siege.

On top of that, i easily miss the notification that a siege battle against my settlement has started. Lost several cities to this. Also, I do not remember seeing notifications that their enemy has started building their siege camp. Any 2 days is ridiculous i barely arrive time

 

[kekkuli5]

Well AI spawns armies too fast, doesn't negotiate peace as often as in warband.

 

[Turbofjes]

Completely disagree. They should make it harder to dominate the map, not just take the lazy route and tell the NPCs not to do it.

 

[Edith Weiss]

The reason factions snowball is probably because diplomacy isn't fleshed out at all. If they make peace treaties more meaningful and last years, that would help reduce snowballing tremendously and making CB's needed in declaring war would make snowballing practically non-existent.

 

[Delinard]

There aren't any feasts so the only thing lords do is fight and collect taxes

 

[GrasSclammPferd]

I feel they made sieging way too easy for the attacker. Now that we have more than one route to breach the walls, the defenders are often spread thing and once they get attacked at one side, it domino effects and collapses the entire defensive line. The lack of ability to position-specific troops to shore up certain breaches(we only have 1,2,3,4,etc) makes it worse. Then there's the ladder bug, where the defender will end up getting on the ladder with their ass to the attacker in a zealous attempt to attack them.

There aren't any feasts so the only thing lords do is fight and collect taxes

Harlaus was the true saviour of the game :p

 

[Delinard]

I feel they made sieging way too easy for the attacker. Now that we have more than one route to breach the walls, the defenders are often spread thing and once they get attacked at one side, it domino effects and collapses the entire defensive line. The lack of ability to position-specific troops to shore up certain breaches(we only have 1,2,3,4,etc) makes it worse. Then there's the ladder bug, where the defender will end up getting on the ladder with their ass to the attacker in a zealous attempt to attack them.



Harlaus was the true saviour of the game :p

Anything that happens in a siege battle has nothing to do with autoresolve calculations

 

[DEM1L1CH]

This thread has a mod posted that increases Peace Negotiation, decreasing the snowball effect, a year 1100 map is shown with a very evenly balanced map

 

[Turbofjes]

This thread has a mod posted that increases Peace Negotiation, decreasing the snowball effect, a year 1100 map is shown with a very evenly balanced map

You like this mod, we get it. Does he pay you or something?

 

[DEM1L1CH]

You like this mod, we get it. Does he pay you or something?

You're upset, I get it. Did someone hurt you?

 

[Scotlander]

Warband's "declared war to curb the other realm's power" mechanism is IMHO the easiest hack to -temporary- fix that issue :
If one faction becomes too powerful (number of fiefs exceeding a certain number/percentage) => the other kingdoms make peace with each other and declare war to the most aggressive one (yes, it's not realistic but it kinda worked on Warband)...

That sounds like the "Realm Divide" feature from Total War Shogun 2. When a certain faction owns too much of the map the Emperor declares them an Enemy of the Realm, basically making all other factions declare war on you.
Problem is this never stops. When does the AI reconize that the Enemy #1 is beaten back and everyone can go back to peacetime without completly wiping the offending faction out?

 

[jipped]

Im not sure why people don't want winter battles. It's aesthetic af. I like winter battles/ sieges.

The idea to make it difficult to siege in winter should either help or hurt certain factions then. In example, Sturgia could have a bonus that others do not.

 

[raidersdie]

I think the biggest issue is, at least in my game, kingdoms are always at war with each other. I joined a kingdom as soon as I hit clan level 2 and that kingdom was at war with another kingdom even before I joined. Many in game years have passed yet they still haven't made peace. You can't even suggest them to make peace using your influence. That option is grayed out. My guess is, they will fight until one of them simply disappears.

Even in Warband, kingdoms would make peace after a period of fighting. This is why snowballing would take a lot of time. It wasn't like in Bannerlord, where I am sure same two kingdoms will keep fighting until one of them is completely gone and the winner will immediately start fighting another kingdom.

Correct me if I am wrong, but in Warband, losing kingdom would send peace offers and winning kingdom would sometimes accept, I doubt this is happening in Bannerlord, because they always fight until they die out.

This is a weak point of Bannerlord. AI doesn't know how to surrender. You can have a 500 man army and fight against a group of 5 but they are not smart enough to be scared, you can shout "SURRENDER OR DIE" again and again, but they will threaten you and still try to fight you. It is ridiculous.