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Author Topic: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord  (Read 103907 times)

Rolan7

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Re: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
« Reply #870 on: October 01, 2021, 03:42:25 pm »

I think it all comes back to the value of post-battle loot.

Not saying the economy isn't whacked in lots of other places. But I remember in M&B and Warband, a certain level of struggle being able to support a large army. The name of the game there was post battle loot too. But it didn't like it was worth as much and there were fewer ways to reduce upkeep cost. I remember at one moment in Warband where I had a really successful battle, upgraded a bunch of troops at once, and went from a positive daily upkeep value to deep into the negatives, just from upgrading like 20 troops to higher tiers. That just doesn't seem to happen in Bannerlord, or if it does, it's super easy to offset.

Not that I particularly want to be scraping to get by as a T5 clan with 100 troops, but due to money, so many things feel like they like context or impact. "Oh no, I'm $2k a day in the hole on upkeep." *sells 14k worth of post battle loot.* "Gee I guess that buys me two weeks of upkeep...." *sells another 14k of post battle loot the very next day.* "Oh guess I'm ok, guess I'll just go buy that T5 armor I've been looking at."

It's true, you don't end up with a stack of $1k denar swords very easily....but what you DO get, is a stack of 15 rusty swords that sell for 150 a piece. Everything gear-related needs to come down in sale price, so the perks that remove those sale penalties don't end up making everything stupidly profitable. Straight up trade goods have several controls on them: availability, carrying capacity, time investment traveling, price fluctuation. All those serve to keep trade goods largely in balance. Equipment? "We don't care if you just sold us 300 rusty pitchforks, we're always in the market for new rusty pitchforks!" Prices on gear should fluctuate just like the price of trade goods. There shouldn't always be the same market for a $10k sword in the same city all the time, or every city. And lastly, in terms of just product availability....gear is endless. There will ALWAYS be more bandits to hunt. They were always be more bandits to hunt at any given moment than you can possibly chase down. There is no end to that resource, so it's easy to exploit.
Yeah, equipment needs to vary in price/availability.  Heck, give higher-tier troops an upkeep of appropriate-tier metal (and uh, put metal on the market.  It's so strange only the player ever sells it).  And/or require it for the action of upgrading, like how certain troops require horses.  (Technically the upgrade ought to require finished weapons and armor, but this is a game.  Abstract that out, obviously)

Starving a town is easy but also mostly pointless.  Depriving a nation of metal ores and harassing refined metal caravans should help stop them from summoning up more "elite" troops so quickly.

And yes, flooding the market with rusty swords should drive the price down.  It's weird.
Yeah, the economy system has a ton of potential that's just not being used too much right now.
And I don't just want this economic stuff because numbers-go-up, either.  Smithing is already too lucrative for that to matter, though it did get me thinking "There should be a way for these megabucks to help win wars".

The sort of high-volume workshop I was talking about should be a precarious arrangement, disrupted by war and banditry.  If supplies of raw materials are cut off by villages and caravans being raided, that should *hurt*.  If the town changes hands...  I'm not even sure what should happen.  If I buy a workshop now and later my liege goes to war with the town's liege, I don't know if the game revokes it or what.  I'd certainly understand if workshops belonging to an enemy clan got seized.  Maybe, in some circumstances (under certain kingdom laws?) even neutral clan-workshops might get seized by desperate or greedy nobles.  This would never be done if your clan serves with honor under the same banner, of course.

Mostly this is to keep a factionless trader-clan-cartel from gaining control of the *entire* economy with complete impunity.  Likewise, and to keep that run interesting (this is a game about battle), such a character should have a chance to "dispute" the seizure (recapture the workshop) within a reasonable time frame.  The rest of the faction remains neutral because this noble/clan acted extralegaly, in a manner likely to incite popular rebellion.

The endgame for such a character still ends up being paint-the-map if only because the constant warfare hurts profits.  Just through subtler means, money and roguery.  A lot of options, even trying to intentionally weaken a town financially, should carry some risk of being branded a criminal by that faction for some time.

Anyway it's fun to imagine :)  I'm only obsessed with this because so much of the groundwork is already there.
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Urist McScoopbeard

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Re: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
« Reply #871 on: October 01, 2021, 03:46:41 pm »

I just wish we had more at that level between small fry mercenary and internationally known feudal lord!

Like... if you have workshops you should have problems with thugs and the local nobles, etc. quests revolving around that stuff to keep it interesting and different than say a merc or a lord.
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nenjin

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Re: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
« Reply #872 on: October 01, 2021, 03:50:18 pm »

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but there's a bit too much maintenance and management and not enough ME HIT COOL SWORD GUY NOW (and other epic battles).

I guess I feel the opposite. I'm regularly doing 200+ battles and auto-resolving them because I know: a) with no companion death, I don't need to worry about them b) my losses are trivial and easily replaced. I fight the battles manually because it IS epic, but after your 30 or 40th large battle you're like....do I even need to bother? All I'm really guaranteeing at that point is that I'm going to lose HP, and possibly get knocked out, and not be able to participate in tournaments until I heal up. Now that my skills are so high I don't even have the skill up incentive to shoot guys with a bow or cut them down with melee weapons.

In a way I think it's similar to like, Total Warhammer 2. Tough game when you HAVE to fight the battles out, but then you just get a numerical advantage in the # of troops or armies you're bringing and suddenly everything can be auto-resolve without much worry, and then the game becomes a grind. The difficulty is rather front-loaded.

Like I feel like there's not a lot to maintenance and management in Bannerlord. Have enough gold to build the right projects in your fiefs to offset the problems they're facing, pick a good governor, swing back through every week or so to top off their project reserves. There really isn't any management to be done from my perspective.

About the only real annoyance I find is that once you've got some fiefs, if you want them to be optimal, you're constantly having to protect them from raiding from enemy kingdoms. Which is fine. Except when you have to ride back and forth across your fiefdom, and as soon as you reach one end of your fiefdom to defend one village, one on the opposite side gets attacked. Sure, I could make a new party and order them to be defensive and they'd protect my fiefs....until the AI just straight up derps and gets into fights it can't win, gets captured, you lose that party and that companion until you can pay their ransom and put them back into play.

But frankly, the Merc/Ass Kicker is the easiest and most profitable way to play IMO. The bigger the foes you tangle with, the more money you can make. And then you add in supplementary income from trading, workshops, caravans, smithing, prisoners and fief ownership and the world is pretty much your oyster.

Also another weird/dumb observation: auto-resolving battles means no escapees, ever. If you don't like bandits escaping, or lords escaping, auto-resolve. If you win, they'll never escape the battle. It's way better for the "Needs Manual Laborers" quest to just auto-resolve battles against looters and what not, because on average (unless you're rocking a blunt weapon and doing most of the work) way more of them will survive as prisoners than if you fight the battle manually. And it's about 5x faster doing it that way than fighting every single battle you can't possibly lose and having to run down all the routed bandits in the battlescape.

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Like... if you have workshops you should have problems with thugs and the local nobles, etc. quests revolving around that stuff to keep it interesting and different than say a merc or a lord.

What keeps coming back to me is...if you visit a city with really low loyalty, there should be random events where you're attacked in the streets by unhappy citizenry. There's exactly zero reason for civilian clothes and equipment if you're not doing criminal activities right now.

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If supplies of raw materials are cut off by villages and caravans being raided, that should *hurt*.  If the town changes hands...  I'm not even sure what should happen.

Pretty sure that when a city you had a workshop in gets conquered, by anyone, you just straight up lose the workshop.
« Last Edit: October 01, 2021, 06:13:35 pm by nenjin »
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Urist McScoopbeard

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Re: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
« Reply #873 on: October 01, 2021, 05:40:44 pm »

If youre independent I think your workshops are fine if a city changes hands
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nenjin

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Re: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
« Reply #874 on: October 01, 2021, 07:25:29 pm »

I've now fought in the neighborhood of 10 battles for the village of Talivel in the last 4 days. Slain 3 Vlandian lords in the process. Yet still they come. I check their Clans. They're breeding them as fast as I can kill them. One clan has 7 babies in the waiting. It is pretty damn annoying that the AI doesn't seem to take the hint. Literally one lord after another, evenly spaced, head for the village, a conga-line of annoyance. I walk away from the village until they engage then come back and nab them as they try to flee due to the speed penalty from raiding. Meanwhile my other fiefs are getting raided and the damn Main Quest keeps giving me shit to do on the other side of Calradia. Getting a little annoyed at the demands for my presence.

And then the game crashed. Lol.
« Last Edit: October 01, 2021, 07:48:43 pm by nenjin »
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Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
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Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
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Rolan7

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Re: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
« Reply #875 on: October 01, 2021, 08:34:52 pm »

Yeah the lords recover their troops pretty quickly once they escape or you release them-
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Slain
Ohoho, that's a different matter.

I haven't tried that yet, but I've been kinda tempted at times (particularly with the Lagetan rebellion lead by lich emperor Arenicos).  The thing is - and I only know this from old Reddit posts, so maybe it has changed - killing a noble of a culture might royally piss off all the notables of that culture, including village leaders and such.  Not by faction, but by culture.

If true, that means I have a really good reason never to execute an Imperial.  Quite a legacy for a bloated, fallen realm.
Whereas Vlandians should be very thankful for my mercy, considering what a pain in my ass they've been.  I want to pay them "all the moneys" to join Battania, since they like me so much for sparing them, but I'm not sure that's an option unless I'm an independent ruler.  And why would I do that?

...Actually I have every reason to start a new nation given the opportunity.  The person I swore to protect died almost instantly in a really dumb way.  I can form neo-Battania, with Vlandians and indoor plumbing, and still stay true to my Battanian culture.

But you know I can't resist the bitter irony of naming my Battanian nation after my precious capital, Lageta <3
You may rest in peace, Arenicos, once I do what you failed to accomplish - the Lagetan Free State.

this got away from me
Edit: Wait what if I form the Lagetan Free State and pay Arenicos to join my cause omgs
« Last Edit: October 01, 2021, 08:40:03 pm by Rolan7 »
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nenjin

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Re: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
« Reply #876 on: October 01, 2021, 09:02:21 pm »

I didn't Execute them, if that's what you mean. There's a chance that any non-player character owned notable can die if they're downed in battle. I feel like it's on the order of 5 to 10%, but, I've killed at least 5 Vlandian nobles in my game in battle (out of the 40+ nobles they have or have had.) It's nice because the Bannerlord accepts that as the cost of doing business and you don't lose any rep over it, not even if you were the one to deal the killing blow (which I seem to have penchant for, probably because I flank with my cavalry and the AI lords count themselves as cavalry and sit on the flanks of their army. Even then, the # of times I'm the middle of a skirmish and seen an enemy cavalry go by, and either chased them or shot them down and killed a lord surprises me. It's one of those special moments in battle you look for.)

Or, if you do lose rep for slaying enemy lords in battle, the game chooses not to inform you. I've got maybe -3 reputation with the average Vlandian lord and that's after like 10 wars where I'm downing between 10 and 20 of them a war? So yeah, fight enough battles you'll start killing off lords (and run enough armies and you'll see your own allied lords die too.) But the game I feel just auto-corrects by having them have more children. I suspect there's some kind of clan population controls in place to keep entire kingdoms from getting wiped out in simulation. And I think Executing does lose you rep with at least every lord in the opposing faction.
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Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
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Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
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Rolan7

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Re: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
« Reply #877 on: October 01, 2021, 09:12:05 pm »

Ah, I assumed wrong!  Yeah I see nobles (both on the winning and losing side, though probably weighted to the losing) die, and 5-10% of the time sounds correct.  Probably closer to 5%.  That's how my Liege Caladog died. 

I wonder if armor provides any defense, or the manner in which they're defeated?  In Warband of course nobles would magically flee if you "killed" them, but if you used blunt weapons (which have certainly never caused ANYONE permanent harm) they would be captured.  I haven't looked into it. 

It's a nice bonus when an enemy commander perishes, even when they like me for repeatedly releasing them.  Because relation is per-clan, a change I really appreciate.  Their clan survives, rewarding my generosity.  Yet it's one less enemy commander roaming around.

Edit: But unless it changed at some point:  Executing anybody might make you person-non-grata for that entire culture.  Something to consider.

Edit2: If any Battanians ask, I definitely don't release our enemies.
I actually stopped doing that, specifically because I saw how it grants us better negotiation status to have prisoners.  Since we keep having to truce with Vlandians and Western Empire, I'm doing my part.  At my own expense, bleh.  But it help the nation.
« Last Edit: October 01, 2021, 09:15:37 pm by Rolan7 »
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Quote from: Fallen London, one Unthinkable Hope
This one didn't want to be who they was. On the Surface – it was a dull, unconsidered sadness. But everything changed. Which implied everything could change.

nenjin

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Re: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
« Reply #878 on: October 02, 2021, 05:14:34 am »

Nobles aren't worth much in the grand scheme of things. I think 6k is the most I've ever seen offered for one. Nice cash but there's a point where reducing their ability to field armies is almost priceless. When you're thinking at that scale, $20k really ain't that much.
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Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Quote from: Sindain
Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
Quote from: MrRoboto75
Always spaghetti, never forghetti

Mephansteras

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Re: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
« Reply #879 on: October 04, 2021, 12:21:43 pm »

Things are going well in my game.

I finally got around to really getting involved with leading armies, and I must say that I like whatever rebalance they did with the influence costs for that. Last time I played it was a struggle to keep enough influence to do much, but this time I've always had several hundred on hand so my limitations have been due to lack of troops or the other leaders all being in armies already.

In any case, with me actually being in command of some forces we've made great strides. Rather than trading Sargot back and forth every war we're actually holding territory. We now have Sargot and Charas plus all the surrounding castles in the south. After the last few swaps I elected to take Charas for myself over Sargot, since the AI always goes for Sargot first. Definitely looking to take Jaculan as my next fief, but I want to be able to give it a full garrison immediately afterwards since it'll be a prime target for revenge attacks. So I've been biding my time and buliding up Charas' garrison so that I'll have a strong base of troops to pull from.

I've also been doing strange things the AI would never consider doing...like plopping my army in Sargot to defend it rather than letting it get taken in the first place. Works like a charm, especially when you've got a noble bow and 3 stacks of arrows on you. I killed off nearly 60 people by myself in that defense.

I'm also generally focusing myself on wars with Vlandia and using wartime with the Empire or Sturgia as chances to rebuild my forces rather than leading armies around.

The results are very noticeable. The AI only seems to ever have 2 armies up and running at a time, so whenever I bring up a 3rd it shifts things considerably in our favor. And while we've taken a good chunk of territory from Vlandia all the other borders are fairly stagnant. A city or castle will change hands on occasion but are generally regained shortly after.
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Rolan7

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Re: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
« Reply #880 on: October 04, 2021, 12:28:21 pm »

That's cool!  IIRC there's an option, probably in the kingdom page, to dissolve friendly armies using influence.  I haven't tried it yet (or formed an army) but it sounds useful if you need more troops.
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This one didn't want to be who they was. On the Surface – it was a dull, unconsidered sadness. But everything changed. Which implied everything could change.

Mephansteras

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Re: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
« Reply #881 on: October 04, 2021, 12:33:40 pm »

That's good to know. I'll have to try that at some point, especially when one of our armies is just faffing about in interior of Battania rather than going out and doing something.

Another thing I've noticed is that the AI doesn't care too much about castles. Towns it'll always target in a war, but I've held a former Western Empire castle for a long time now and they just don't seem to care. Sure, they'll try and grab a castle as an opportunistic attack, but I don't see the laser-focus "we must get our land back" with castles the way they do with towns.

Makes having a castle as your first/primary holding actually pretty useful.
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nenjin

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Re: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
« Reply #882 on: October 05, 2021, 10:01:05 am »

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but I want to be able to give it a full garrison immediately afterwards since it'll be a prime target for revenge attacks. So I've been biding my time and buliding up Charas' garrison so that I'll have a strong base of troops to pull from.

Jaculan can be a tough nut to crack. It's got quite a large garrison due to all the militia from 4 villages. I went at it with about ~750 troops vs. their 500 garrison and they absolutely ate me alive. I don't really like prolonged sieges. All it really does is give the AI time to form an army to come stomp your guts out. So I tried rushing a siege at Jaculan, and I'd barley killed 100 of them by the time they'd slain over half my army.
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Cautivo del Milagro seamos, Penitente.
Quote from: Viktor Frankl
When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.
Quote from: Sindain
Its kinda silly to complain that a friendly NPC isn't a well designed boss fight.
Quote from: Eric Blank
How will I cheese now assholes?
Quote from: MrRoboto75
Always spaghetti, never forghetti

scriver

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Re: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
« Reply #883 on: October 05, 2021, 11:19:27 am »

Have anyone of you gone independent yet? I'm definitely betraying Caladog (he betrayed me first - remember when he promised me 20 000 for retaking Llanoc Hen then just cancelled the quest once I did? Well, Battannia remembers, and my falx will reap the sweet wheat of his treachery), having seized almost the entirety of southern Vlandia for myself over time as it was won and lost from and back to the Vlandians over the years. I would like to have some more property in Battannia proper but unfortunately my presence in the war has come to meant very few territorial losses in the heartlands, and convincng people to redistribute holdings over to me is a hard sell even with the relationship to the majority of Battannian clans at 100.

This is about as far as I have come before in my many fresh starts. I'm unsure how to actually get other clans to join you, and whether or not I will have enough parties to even stand a chance once I found my own realm.
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Mephansteras

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Re: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
« Reply #884 on: October 05, 2021, 11:32:54 am »

Quote
but I want to be able to give it a full garrison immediately afterwards since it'll be a prime target for revenge attacks. So I've been biding my time and buliding up Charas' garrison so that I'll have a strong base of troops to pull from.

Jaculan can be a tough nut to crack. It's got quite a large garrison due to all the militia from 4 villages. I went at it with about ~750 troops vs. their 500 garrison and they absolutely ate me alive. I don't really like prolonged sieges. All it really does is give the AI time to form an army to come stomp your guts out. So I tried rushing a siege at Jaculan, and I'd barley killed 100 of them by the time they'd slain over half my army.

Hmm, good to know. Sounds like I'll need a whole ton of high level troops for that. Which I guess is next on my list to do, then, as my garrison at Charas is pretty much ready to go.


@Scriver: No, I haven't tried independence in Bannerlord yet. Very curious to see how it works out for you, though, as I am in a similar situation (my holdings are all in and around Southern Vlandia).
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