Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

[Fedora Master]

0 army just means they got defeated and barely escaped, running around at 1% HP I assume.

 

[IDtenT]

Got a weird bug with many lords running around with 0 army... Got the increased armor, better time, cultured start mods. Does anyone have any idea why this happens?

Defeated lords definitely struggle.

 

[user]

0 army just means they got defeated and barely escaped, running around at 1% HP I assume.

Yeah but I keep meeting them too often and it's only the first few weeks, only been in Aserai so far. I started as a poor looter with a criminal record and like 50g, with the cultured start mod, and became filthy rich within an hour

 

[AgentFransis]

Speaking of filthy rich, with 5 workshops and 3 caravans I'm pulling 5k a day. Can't even spend it all. Wish I could hire mercs and that high tier armor was more common in the shop. Never even seen the stuff high tier empire troops wear for sale.

 

[XenomorphII]

They really need to bring back manhunter parties to thin out the bandits. Some of the factions are fairly spread out with lots of natural choke points too (Sturgia) making it very difficult for beaten lords to recover.

 

[Fedora Master]

Butterlord indeed.

 

[Zanzoken]

I apologize if this has already been brought up already (I only checked back 5 pages or so) but the fief economy/garrison interaction is fundamentally broken.

The higher a settlement's prosperity the higher the food requirements, and in turn starvation lowers prosperity. This is a fine and dandy mechanic for tying prosperity (partly a factor of population size) to how much food it is either able to imported or grown in linked villages, but the problem is that having starvation also kills off your garrison.

And the way the mechanic works EVERY town will eventually always reach starvation once its prosperity grows to the max level the food can support it. As a result towns at PEAK prosperity (or peak for the current conditions) will constantly be losing garrison, which is more than a little ridiculous. I believe this is also contributing to the snowballing problem as many settlements are unable to be properly garrisoned due to starvation issues.

While I agree that food shortages caused by sudden shortfalls (war and raiding) should be able to kill off Garrison, a food shortage caused by a settlement just naturally reaching peak prosperity (or natural variations from trade) should not cause the town to be ungarrisonable.

This mechanic needs to be reworked. As things currently stand, if you want to actually have a large garrison so the settlement has a halfway reasonable chance of being able to defend itself it is better to have as little prosperity as possible.

I think having prosperity contribute to the garrison cap instead makes more sense. That way more prosperous settlements can naturally support larger garrisons, and having prosperity drop from starvation will reduce the garrison size, so reducing the prosperity drop from raiding/war will still be able to reduce garrison size by reducing the garrison cap.

This is true, and luckily with the Bannerlord Tweaks mod you can adjust the prosperity malus and/or add bonuses to food production. It's not a perfect fix but seems to have largely abated this problem in my game.

I also used the mod to add a flat bonus to militia production, and this seems to have solved the issue of snowballing. Perhaps a little too well actually -- towns are now guarded with around 600 to 700 troops and the AI doesn't seem too interested in attacking them anymore.

 

[IDtenT]

I apologize if this has already been brought up already (I only checked back 5 pages or so) but the fief economy/garrison interaction is fundamentally broken.

The higher a settlement's prosperity the higher the food requirements, and in turn starvation lowers prosperity. This is a fine and dandy mechanic for tying prosperity (partly a factor of population size) to how much food it is either able to imported or grown in linked villages, but the problem is that having starvation also kills off your garrison.

And the way the mechanic works EVERY town will eventually always reach starvation once its prosperity grows to the max level the food can support it. As a result towns at PEAK prosperity (or peak for the current conditions) will constantly be losing garrison, which is more than a little ridiculous. I believe this is also contributing to the snowballing problem as many settlements are unable to be properly garrisoned due to starvation issues.

While I agree that food shortages caused by sudden shortfalls (war and raiding) should be able to kill off Garrison, a food shortage caused by a settlement just naturally reaching peak prosperity (or natural variations from trade) should not cause the town to be ungarrisonable.

This mechanic needs to be reworked. As things currently stand, if you want to actually have a large garrison so the settlement has a halfway reasonable chance of being able to defend itself it is better to have as little prosperity as possible.

I think having prosperity contribute to the garrison cap instead makes more sense. That way more prosperous settlements can naturally support larger garrisons, and having prosperity drop from starvation will reduce the garrison size, so reducing the prosperity drop from raiding/war will still be able to reduce garrison size by reducing the garrison cap.

This is true, and luckily with the Bannerlord Tweaks mod you can adjust the prosperity malus and/or add bonuses to food production. It's not a perfect fix but seems to have largely abated this problem in my game.

I also used the mod to add a flat bonus to militia production, and this seems to have solved the issue of snowballing. Perhaps a little too well actually -- towns are now guarded with around 600 to 700 troops and the AI doesn't seem too interested in attacking them anymore.

Rather than factional wars, wars should mostly be about weak border towns. Ideally kingdoms would only go to war with one another if there is an opportunity for gain.

I support higher militia numbers.

 

[Zanzoken]

Speaking of filthy rich, with 5 workshops and 3 caravans I'm pulling 5k a day. Can't even spend it all. Wish I could hire mercs and that high tier armor was more common in the shop. Never even seen the stuff high tier empire troops wear for sale.

I'm seeing what appears to be price inflation in my game. I haven't studied it comprehensively, but food and trade items seem much more expensive across the board than they were at the beginning of the game. I am about 10 years in at this point.

I am running 3 caravans too and they're each averaging something like 2k per day profit, probably due to aforementioned inflation. That along with a town + 2 castles means money is basically no longer an object.

 

[Hellion]

As far as food item prices are concerned, it might have to do with cities being constantly under siege by that time or stuff like that. When a city siege has just ended, food prices skyrocket due to the shortage and it takes a while for them to normalize.

 

[AgentFransis]

Also kingdoms can pass a decision to debase the currency which gives the ruler cash but inflates the prices and has another bad effect.

 

[Delterius]

unrealistic, a currency based on hard gold and silver cannot possibly be debased

 

[ArchAngel]

unrealistic, a currency based on hard gold and silver cannot possibly be debased

It can if you start mixing less valuable metal into coins but keeps same marking on it. People testing coins with their teeth came into being because rulers used to do that.

 

[Delterius]

unrealistic, a currency based on hard gold and silver cannot possibly be debased

It can if you start mixing less valuable metal into coins but keeps same marking on it. People testing coins with their teeth came into being because rulers used to do that.

only the byzantine empire did that which is why it fell 1000 years later

 

[Alienman]

In the beta patch they have really increased the rate troopers earn experience. After just 2-3 looter battles I have veteran imperial archers. I feel it's way too quick now. I preferred the slower leveling. I like when things take time, now I have veteran troopers that have very expensive armor and equipment for only 50 bucks while I still run around in rags. I'm assuming the AI lords also benefits from this so it's gonna be interesting facing elite armies only in the future. Really liked the ragtag armies with the occasional elite unit that faced off each other :/ (I'm only speculating of course, but I don't see why it wouldn't be like this).

By the way, anyone know where to find the XP rate in the files? Maybe it's easy to slow it down.

Edit:

This is on day 16, just killing looters:

 

[Zanzoken]

I can handle a certain amount of abstraction in games, but something needs to be done about the absurd contrast between what it costs to properly equip the player character & companions vs the cost of training troops. How is it that I can train a heavy cavalry for only a few hundred gold when he's outfitted in six figures worth of gear?

Not only is it immersion breaking but it doesn't make sense in terms of gameplay either. Good equipment does help in combat but it's far from game-breaking, so there's no reason why it should be locked to the late game. Also, if they just want to give the player a gold sink, wouldn't fief improvements be a much better mechanism to achieve that? Massive municipal infrastructure projects costing huge amounts of money is much more believable and satisfying than a suit of armor that costs more than an entire army. But for some mystifying reason Taleworlds thinks fief improvements should be free?

Design choices won't always be to everyone's taste, and I'm fine with not liking something if I can at least understand the rationale behind it. But in this case, I genuinely don't understand what they are going for.

 

[RK47]

Just wiped out a Company. And didn't seem to get much renown out of it.
IMO they should give a lot more.

Spoiler

Two piggies went to the market....

This piggy went to Wuhan.

This piggy got cornered.

Time to stuff this pig.

None to be had...

Testing complete. The war pigs are no more.

 

[Alienman]

I can handle a certain amount of abstraction in games, but something needs to be done about the absurd contrast between what it costs to properly equip the player character & companions vs the cost of training troops. How is it that I can train a heavy cavalry for only a few hundred gold when he's outfitted in six figures worth of gear?

Maybe they could add some kind of mechanics where you are asked to buy equipment at level up, at a reduced cost maybe, otherwise the soldier level up but keep his equipment. I don't know really, but I fully agree with you here. That is why I find the increased XP gain even more annoying. My guy killed 3 looters, that was all going from peasant to renowned Imperial guard

I downloaded Bannerlord Tweaks as a temp solution since I can't find how to edit troop XP gain. It's a bit bloated but you can set the XP gain in it at least.

 

[Zanzoken]

As a newly minted faction trying to poach vassals from other rulers, I see no discernible effects from having a high Charm skill (>200) or even having good relations with my potential recruits.

I started out by raiding the corpses of the Northern Empire and Western Empire factions and could only manage to get 2 out of 5 clans to join. That honestly seems low to me considering neither of those factions has any remaining holdings, and their lords have been reduced to punching bags for bandit gangs. What do they really have to lose by making the jump? But whatever -- I admittedly didn't have any rapport with those lords going in, and my kingdom is still a long way from the throne. So it's somewhat understandable why they might be hesitant.

Then on a lark I decided to see if I could recruit Oros from the Southern Empire. Entirely different circumstances -- he is part of a powerful faction, has large holdings on the Empire's eastern border with Aserai, and also happens to be my father-in-law. We still have +35 rep despite taking a major hit when I renounced my oath.

Imagine my surprise when the recruiting conversation I have with Oros is almost exactly the same as the ones I had with the unfamiliar, powerless lords. First question from him -- I barely know you and you want to talk treason? The other guys started with this too, but this time it's a big WTF since we're supposed to be family. The rest of the questions are the same general stuff, with roughly the same odds of success. And in the end, he decided to join me even though it caused him to lose all of his fiefs. And the gossip about this dude is that he isn't loyal.

Point being -- this didn't feel at all like a conversation with a real human being who was being asked to make a difficult choice between family ties, political livelihood, and personal honor. It felt like a dumb RPG speech check where not even the relevant stats made any difference as to the outcome.

I know it's EA, unfinished game, blah blah blah. But this is a really poor effort by the devs, to the point where I am probably going to revert to the backup save I made before forming my own kingdom. Hopefully they are planning to implement a lot more stuff in the "start your own kingdom" approach because it feels rather dull and lifeless right now.

Edit to note: This is on the most recent main build, version e1.0.10.

 

[RK47]

Game still refuses to save Formation Assignment from save game.

 

[IDtenT]

Game still refuses to save Formation Assignment from save game.

What makes it worse is that some units are clearly in the wrong formation.

 

[SmartCheetah]

Speaking of filthy rich, with 5 workshops and 3 caravans I'm pulling 5k a day. Can't even spend it all. Wish I could hire mercs and that high tier armor was more common in the shop. Never even seen the stuff high tier empire troops wear for sale.

You can have 5 workshops? I believe it was capped on 3 few versions ago.

 

[Hellion]

 

[Insane Psychic]

Speaking of filthy rich, with 5 workshops and 3 caravans I'm pulling 5k a day. Can't even spend it all. Wish I could hire mercs and that high tier armor was more common in the shop. Never even seen the stuff high tier empire troops wear for sale.

You can have 5 workshops? I believe it was capped on 3 few versions ago.

I think you get +1 per clan level.

 

[Ezeekiel]

Beta patch sadly still does not fix my hitching issues... Sigh. More waiting.