My Thoughts After 100+ Hours Of Playing

[Caelib]

This is a truly great game so I don't want the following negative to take away from everything the game does right, but I feel like there is a barrier in the mid-to-late-game that "stops the fun" ...

Once the player reaches Clan Rank 5 or 6, the game really stagnates because the recipe for capturing territory is extremely tedious, slow and uninteresting. This is exacerbated by the fact that towns and castles in Bannerlord are the most unsecured prisons in the history of the universe - it's impossible to create a battlefield advantage of numbers by capturing nobles or leaders of mercenary clans.

My daily combat feed is filled with constant spam of nobles escaping my prisons, which is completely absurd when the town's security is extremely high.

I also think parties are nearly worthless because they don't really make any meaningful gains on their own and they just become a nuisance to have them constantly getting captured and then go through the hassle of getting them up-and-running again.

I understand that these are not easy problems to address, I am just sharing what my frustrations as a relatively new player are with you in an effort to make the game better.

[xao2099]

There are perks that help with escaping, and if you able to call your parties in to an army[for free, no influence/cost for your own parties] just keep them with you all the time.Not tryin to sound like a ♥♥♥♥ but, 100 hrs in is barely scratching the surface,keep playing you will find ways around most issues,i suggest you look up Strat gaming videos, tons of tips and info that i didn't know and i'm almost at 1700 hrs, have fun good luck

[RJboxer]

Originally posted by Caelib:

This is a truly great game so I don't want the following negative to take away from everything the game does right, but I feel like there is a barrier in the mid-to-late-game that "stops the fun" ...

Once the player reaches Clan Rank 5 or 6, the game really stagnates because the recipe for capturing territory is extremely tedious, slow and uninteresting. This is exacerbated by the fact that towns and castles in Bannerlord are the most unsecured prisons in the history of the universe - it's impossible to create a battlefield advantage of numbers by capturing nobles or leaders of mercenary clans.

My daily combat feed is filled with constant spam of nobles escaping my prisons, which is completely absurd when the town's security is extremely high.

I also think parties are nearly worthless because they don't really make any meaningful gains on their own and they just become a nuisance to have them constantly getting captured and then go through the hassle of getting them up-and-running again.

I understand that these are not easy problems to address, I am just sharing what my frustrations as a relatively new player are with you in an effort to make the game better.

100% correct,,,,

and I have CONSIDERABLY more hours than "100" (sadly way way way way way more hours)

[RJboxer]

Originally posted by xao2099:

There are perks that help with escaping, and if you able to call your parties in to an army[for free, no influence/cost for your own parties] just keep them with you all the time.Not tryin to sound like a ♥♥♥♥ but, 100 hrs in is barely scratching the surface,keep playing you will find ways around most issues,i suggest you look up Strat gaming videos, tons of tips and info that i didn't know and i'm almost at 1700 hrs, have fun good luck

the perks are useless.

He's not talking about calling a party to his army, hes talking about why even MAKE another party???? what you are talking about is "make your OWN party bigger, by letting a companion make his own 'party' then join your 'party' and call it an army". That ain't how the game should work. Even worse, that TOO has issues. For instance, I am king... right??? well when I take a fief. My "companion party" who is IN MY ARMY, gives ALL his troops to the garrison. So now, He needs to find NEW troops to replace those (read my recent post about how troops are scarce late game.. or search forums, it has been an issue for over a year).. There are more issues than just that. But even if there weren't. OP is saying "ummm shouldnt me making a separate party that I have to support and maintain, do 'something' positive??? as opposed to get captured every 5 days, or donate HIS troops all to garrisons, or etc etc etc"

There are no ways around those two issues. So your "100 hour scratching the surface" is correct. but that premise does not prove your point "you can get around them" you can't.


All the youtubes are fake . If you can't figure that out, then that is ON YOU... and anyone who quotes a Bannerlord youtube as an example of "how to do something" knows very very very little of how the game works.

I could write 10,000 pages outlining how youtube will NEVER be an accurate or true example of how to play bannerlord, and WHY (EVEN IF I MADE MY OWN BANNERLORD YOUTUBE). But if someone can't figure out WHY THEY ARE ALL CHEAT MODE.. or MODS. (usually both), then that is on them... and they won't understand my examples anyway.

Twitch MIGHT be a good place to watch a playthrough and learn.. but even that is doubtful. I haven't watched a bannerlord twitch so this is just theory.. but IN THEORY it should be "more true" than a youtube. Then again, if I was doing a twitch I'd probably cheat just like ALL YOUTUBERS do.... (for the reasons I won't write in my 10,000 page opus).

[Cosmic Cat]

I had to use a mod so I could modify the escape-chance of NPC's myself, unplayable without in my opinion.

[xao2099]

I completely agree about the usefulness of parties Or lack thereof, That's why i keep them with me, sheer numbers to help steamroll any army two or three times my armies size with leveled up troops. The perks to help with lords escaping worked for me when i last used them,1.72, i think, i had lords in the dungeons for in-game years,so maybe 1.8 broke them ? IDK , i mostly release them now.Unless i find a minor clan that attacks one of my caravans,They get 8 pounds lighter.Also i do know most if not all youtubers all cheat, have mods, ect..still informative sometimes even entertaining, I've never tried twitch,so i would have no opinion about that.Honestly if you trim your opus down to like 1500 pages...I'd read it.

[RJboxer]

Originally posted by xao2099:

I completely agree about the usefulness of parties Or lack thereof, That's why i keep them with me, sheer numbers to help steamroll any army two or three times my armies size with leveled up troops. The perks to help with lords escaping worked for me when i last used them,1.72, i think, i had lords in the dungeons for in-game years,so maybe 1.8 broke them ? IDK , i mostly release them now.Unless i find a minor clan that attacks one of my caravans,They get 8 pounds lighter.Also i do know most if not all youtubers all cheat, have mods, ect..still informative sometimes even entertaining, I've never tried twitch,so i would have no opinion about that.Honestly if you trim your opus down to like 1500 pages...I'd read it.

!- Yep.. party AI needs a rework.

2- Good for boosting your PERSONAL army and not much else

3- The perks for lords escaping are PRIMARILY for in your party. (so that's the first issue, you gotta carry them around with you). The OTHER perks to prevent them from escaping is for a governor. And I'm sure you've seen the joy of trying to level a companion to get them to even a half way decent governor, let alone one who is GOOD. and I never get around to focusing on leveling one up.. to be a warden (?) . But.. I have had one or two in the past that CAME with that perk.. And it didn't work well. They MIGHT have escaped a bit later, but how can I know? It's a "range" of time to escape.. and it felt a tad bit longer, but I can't be sure. I CAN BE SURE that it wasn't long term. (and that is by design... because if you COULD keep everyone prisoner for a long time... you win. No one left to oppose you).

4- I haven't played past 1.7.2 It was buggy enough, and I hear 1.8 is worse.

5- All youtubers cheat. And they have since I watched them. There are reasons. many reasons like, They are weak. The game changes too much and they can't keep up. It takes FOREVER to do things in game, and no one wants to watch a video for 9 hours, just to make some progress. etc etc etc. I stopped watching ALL the youtubers, unless they flat out said "I am only doing modded now". since the mods they picked tended to speed up the game, and to me that was MORE likely that they wouldn't cheat. (you can literally watch a few spots most cheat ON CAMERA... let alone off camera)... And I don't mind the cheating, I just think it isn't representative of a legit playthrough.. and is a terrible Teacher for new people. (but again... if I was youtubing, I FOR SURE would cheat.. as it eliminates a ton of the slow stuff.. and makes the game more exciting, AND IS THE ONLY WAY to get past some late late late game things.. like Influence shortage and AI deficiencies when trying to take over whole map... etc).

6-- Why do I say TWITCH might be less cheaty?? Because they are trying to FILL TIME.. "hey yall we gone be here 4 hours today, come backs tomorrow for same ting". And then grind away jabbering "hi welcome joeblow. glad to have ya" as they play the game. So it is NOT necessary for them to cheat (they are just going slow by design). but I'm guessing most of them don't have 500 or 1000 hours, OR MORE.. and understand all the nuances of the game... so probably get "stuck" every once in awhile..

~cheers.

[RJboxer]

Originally posted by Starlet:

I had to use a mod so I could modify the escape-chance of NPC's myself, unplayable without in my opinion.

quite the opposite. Using it so they don't escape. makes the game UN-LOSABLE.

all you have to do is be a weak weak weak player, with no economy (not saying you are.. just saying this would work for the worst of the worst weak player). Then fight.

HUZZAH you win game. Just capture everyone, drop them off in a fief. and rinse/repeat. Who cares if u are caught, who cares if u lose your army, who cares if you starve your army etc... EVENTUALLY you will have captured everyone (there ain't an infinite amount of lords lol).. and you LITERALLY can not lose. There is NO ONE in the world to fight you.

That is quite possibly the dumbest mod ever made, if it lowers escape chance or outright eliminates it.

Just Ctrl+alt+f4... and teleport everywhere.. same easiness. without having to go to a mod database.

[teasippin]

Good feedback. With perks you can achieve a pretty high percentage on securing prisoners too. I haven't checked what all of them tally up to together but yeah there are some vanilla perks in the skill trees to help out with those slippery nobles.

Prisoners escaping is kind of an issue.. but really, for me at least, the biggest issue is that the Kingdom is not eliminated when they have no land left after x amount of days. When it dawned on me during my first successful playthrough that I would have to capture/execute every single one of them... well, I started a new game. This isn't fun to me. Mass execution starts feeling like the only way because of the escapes too. Those dudes should become like... wanderers or part of other factions instead, with a small chance to attempt starting up their kingdom again diplomatically or as some sort of rebellion later down the line if they manage to get some political standing again. That level of depth is absent from this game tho so instead we have bottomless pocket nobles running rampant with ~60+ men until they manage to take back something.

Well there's a lot more wrong with the overall flow of the game than this but yeah. Once I get a town or two I lose interest. The rest of the campaign is an awful slog. I can never seem to make it far enough for my main character to die. The game is pretty much over by that point anyway.

[Rhapsody]

Being able to bleed a faction dry just by capturing or executing nobles wouldn't be any better system. It'd cause warfare to be nothing but a game of superior numbers in first contact. Moderate chances of escape allow each side a chance to counter-attack if the situation and strategy favors them.

The actual problem is the scale of the game. The number of towns is something like doubled from Warband, and conquering Calradia of that time frame was already tedious, even with mods. But there is no fixing that, and thus there's no real way of fixing the perceived "flow" issue.

Originally posted by Caelib:

I also think parties are nearly worthless because they don't really make any meaningful gains on their own and they just become a nuisance to have them constantly getting captured and then go through the hassle of getting them up-and-running again.

This is not the case in 1.8, at least if you're giving competent troops to a competent commander.

You can also simply bribe off the remnant factions when they declare war to you. That is, you pay them a pittance of a tribute to keep them from attacking you. It's historically accurate, even, at least to certain extent, but more importantly, it heavily reduces the likelihood of the faction declaring war on your realm.

[Tempered]

I don't know about 1.8, but in 1.7.2 you can get the perks up to around 150% less chance of prisoners escaping from your party. So you keep the noble prisoners with you. I've had over 25 lords in my prison train. By that time, they are ready to sue for peace, giving you a nice tribute payment. Hell, I dragged Garios around for years as a prisoner after I took over all of his cities and castles. Didn't want to execute him since I married his daughter. He never escaped. I just got tired of dragging him around.

[RJboxer]

Originally posted by Tempered:

I don't know about 1.8, but in 1.7.2 you can get the perks up to around 150% less chance of prisoners escaping from your party. So you keep the prisoners with you. I've had over 25 lords in my prison train. By that time, they are ready to sue for peace, giving you a nice tribute payment. Hell, I dragged Garios around for years as a prisoner after I took over all of his cities and castles. Didn't want to execute him since I married his daughter. He never escaped. I just got tired of dragging him around.

correct. IN PARTY.. but not so great for not escaping IN FIEFS. (and that is how it should be IMO, prevents from escape in party).

In party there is a trade off. You carry dudes that take up spots for potential recruitable troops (prisoners) you move slower.. etc...

not big trade offs but carrying around 10-20 lords... so they escape slower (not much slower. 150% isn't much... if they normally escape in 1 day... but now last 2.5 is that a big deal??? ). can be a bit "cumbersome"


Anyway, yeah as I said above. there are perks to lower escape chance.. and that's fine. But having it so they have LOW chance to escape or NO chance to escape.. is Trainer.. Literally a trainer mod.

just cheatmode and TP kill everyone. It is HARDER to do it that way. lol..

at least then you have to actually enter combats, over and over,, fighting (f4) dudes. With the mod.. You wouldn't even have to fight ever. lmao.> your ally lords could just capture dudes, throw them in a fief. and in a year.. maybe 2. YOUD WIN. there is ZERO chance you can lose. Tough to lose when the enemy has zero troops, zero parties, zero armies, zero lords.


TRAINER MODE.

[Zerosaiko]

Originally posted by RJboxer:

In party there is a trade off. You carry dudes that take up spots for potential recruitable troops (prisoners) you move slower.. etc...

not big trade offs but carrying around 10-20 lords... so they escape slower (not much slower. 150% isn't much... if they normally escape in 1 day... but now last 2.5 is that a big deal??? ). can be a bit "cumbersome"

Escape isn't a bar that fills up like prisoner conformity. When the daily tick happens, either they escape or they don't, and with those perks, they can't unless they're a Clan Leader with Fleet Footed (Roguery 250, so very unlikely).

Originally posted by RJboxer:

at least then you have to actually enter combats, over and over,, fighting (f4) dudes. With the mod.. You wouldn't even have to fight ever. lmao.> your ally lords could just capture dudes, throw them in a fief. and in a year.. maybe 2. YOUD WIN. there is ZERO chance you can lose. Tough to lose when the enemy has zero troops, zero parties, zero armies, zero lords.

The situation you're describing already exists, but only for those who have Keen Sight (Scouting 225) and Mounted Patrols (Riding 225) on their current main characters, which far outpace the already existing 0.5x escape chance for hero prisoners in a player's party/fief.

Having those perks doesn't make them escape more slowly, they both outright reduce a lord's chance by 50% cumulatively, so a party leader having them both means that a lord can't escape from your party.

A player can also (painstakingly) grind a governor that can do something similar, reducing their chances by 95%, which means they'd have like a... 0.2% chance to escape from a town per day?

So basically we have a case where one of these two cases is true:
1. Prisons are revolving doors for heroes.
2. A very specific build doesn't have to worry about keeping lords imprisoned.

I'd honestly prefer a system in which neither of these two things happened, but if I had to choose between the two, the 2nd one looks like a very strong choice.

[flyingscot1066]

Governor skills:
Level 225 Riding
Mounted Patrols
PARTY LEADER / GOVERNOR
Prisoners in your party are 50% less likely to escape.
Prisoners in governed town are 50% less likely to escape.

Level 50 Engineering
Prison Architect
ENGINEER / GOVERNOR
Ranged siege engines are 25% less likely to be hit while bombarding settlements.
Prisoner escape chance from dungeons are decreased by 25%.

Level 25 Roguery
Sweet Talker
PLAYER / GOVERNOR
Bandits are 20% easier to convince to leave in peace while bartering.
Prisoners are 20% less likely to escape from towns.

Depending on if these are applied additively or multiplicatively, a governor with very high Riding skill and a small investment in Roguery and Engineering will either reduce noble escape chance by 95% or 75%. I'm guessing the latter is probably true. I looked through the whole perk list and I don't think there are any other perks for governors to reduce escape chance.

[Zerosaiko]

Yeah, those are the governor ones. They are applied additively, so escape chances will be reduced to 5% unless the prisoner has a perk that increases their escape chance (perks that increase escape chance and perks that decrease it are all additive with each other)