Massive Party cost, no obvious reason?

[Scoob]

Hey all,

I've been playing this game for a few hours now on a Friend's PC (Sandbox mode) and am enjoying it for the most part but there are some things I don't understand, in particular the topic title.

Basically, I set up a second Party as I was quite keen to see them roaming around like I am, killing Looters and the like, taking their stuff, making money and Renown. That sounds pretty cool to me and I'd hoped would accelerate my progress.

I limited the wage of this new party to 308 (darn slider) with an actual wage of 257 currently, it's not changed in ages. This Party has been active for a while now, so number of troops has not changed - the costly recruitment and stocking up phase is long over. Additionally, while this party does roam around, they've not once been involved in any Combat - I've been following them, I know - yet they are incurring MASSIVE daily Expenses and I cannot see why.

To be clear:

They are NOT recruiting more troops - I keep checking, zero changes.
They are NOT buying supplies - they did initially but they haven't for a while as I follow them around.
They are NOT upgrading troops - I'm checking this and they've not been in a single fight to earn an upgrade.

So, what gives?

I'm finding Parties utterly pointless thus far, as they don't actually do anything productive for me, despite many hours effectively (using the speed-up button) of them wandering. I see them frequently totally ignore small groups of bad guys, not once attacking.

Note: I just installed the Party AI Overhaul mod as it's supposed to make Parties work better, with more options, but it's not really changed anything for me. They keep ignoring stuff and costing me lots of money. It is installed correctly, with the Harmony prerequisite, and I have the new dialogue options. Problem remains though, with this excessive money drain exceeding my earnings. I was at over 50k not so long ago, but this issue has drained that to 15k, despite me still wandering around earning money (loot and ransoms mostly) at the same rate as before.

Oh, I did try giving them a load of horses, thinking they might be simply too slow to catch any of enemy parties roaming around. However, despite locking it in their inventory, they'd actually SOLD (or lost, no income reported) them next time I checked.

Anyway, very new to this and wasn't really aware of the Mount and Blade games until a friend showed it to me. So, any guidance welcomed.

[I Throw Spears.]

Basically your companion parties will ignore looters. They will join friendly armies if you've a mercenary contract/vassalage. They will defend attacked settlements of yours. They will attack enemy kingdom parties. They will NOT manage their own troops well, and often will have fairly low tier troops. They will donate troops to your settlement's garrison. They will take and sell prisoners.

[Scoob]

Thanks for the reply. I'm quite early-game, I'm not a Mercenary nor a Vassal and have no settlements etc. of my own. This second party is just wandering around randomly - never going into a Village / Settlement like they did when recruiting - doing nothing worth-while, yet my expenses are way too high. I simply cannot see what is draining my money so quickly. My personal party is under 500 a day, this second one is under 300 a day, yet my daily expense is *reported* as over 1,000 and is regularly higher than that reported figure, despite nothing happening. It's confusing!

[RJboxer]

1- Welcome to Bannerlord (Mount and Blade series). it is fun,
2- Sadly, it is easy to start, and DIFFICULT to master
3- I say that, because "parties" is not as simple a topic as it seems
4- Nor are expenses.

5- That being said, you are DEFINITELY on the right track (checking the Upgrades, additional numbers etc). Those would be my first guess.
6- Other things it could be is FOOD, The AI buys food for its troops.
7- You "giving horses" and them SELLING is exactly as I'd expect. (they hold very very very little inventory.. ever). but you NOT seeing a boost in revenue is odd.

As "I Throw Spears" said, companion parties have many different "things" they like to do, and what you can expect.

I will say this:

A- Don't do sandbox. It is not harder, nor easier. It only makes the game much much longer in the early-game. And for many people Early, MID, is where the most fun is. Why drag out the "fun" stuff you can do, because you don't have Siblings. (to clarify.. u will be in early game longer, but NOT be able to be strong, or efficient in it, until u get governors, captians, party leaders etc.. which your siblings are great at)
B- Which brings me to why go campaign. In campaign you get 2 brothers and a sister. They are INCREDIBLE. The brothers can marry wives. This means You, wife, Bro, wife, Bro, wife, Sister.. is SEVEN highly customizable and strong characters.
C- You will get this many and MORE in sandbox as well.. but much much much later (after you have a wife, and make babies, and the kids grow up. AND THEY get married etc).
D- So... sandbox will always be much slower to do things.. Such as Make money
E- Which leads us to party expenses. This is pretty much a non-issue for most of the game.
When you are low low level, with weak economy you shouldn't even be making them. When you are mid game, you COULD, but why? When it is late game, you will make 1-2-3 extra parties, and not even notice if their daily expense is 2k or 10k... You will be uber rich.

Parties do as I-Throw_spears says. They tend to get captured. A lot. They donate NOT only to your garrisons, but to ANY garrisons in your faction. Even worse, if you are king, the OTHER lords will not donate to ANY fief when it is taken (since it is YOURS).. but your lovely companion party in their army will. In fact, he might donate 80 troops from his 130.. Then the vote comes up.. and you dont get the fief... someone else does.. and you bought their garrison for them.
Again, the cost wont be the issue, it is the time, and effort needed for that companion to refill his troops, re-level them etc.

For this reason it is USUALLY best, when u make a companion party to make sure you are rich, or can get rich whenever u want/need to. And, you make an army and invite your companion to it. You can make it only you and him.. no influence cost.. and now he wont donate all your troops away every day.

This makes partys less useful, but alas... it is what it is. If you let him run wild. Expect lots of added troops, lots of donated troops, lots of extra food bough, lots of down time where they arent killing since they cant catch much, and lots of upgrades.

If he is in YOUR party.. and you have say 300 guys, he has 150.. you now have an army of 450... (boosting your leadership score), costing zero influence. AND you can fight random armys of 600 or so.. since u are faster, and since it is you with the companion, you guys should win, quite easily.

~cheers

[I Throw Spears.]

Originally posted by Scoob:

Thanks for the reply. I'm quite early-game, I'm not a Mercenary nor a Vassal and have no settlements etc. of my own. This second party is just wandering around randomly - never going into a Village / Settlement like they did when recruiting - doing nothing worth-while, yet my expenses are way too high. I simply cannot see what is draining my money so quickly. My personal party is under 500 a day, this second one is under 300 a day, yet my daily expense is *reported* as over 1,000 and is regularly higher than that reported figure, despite nothing happening. It's confusing!

They are prolly buying food or something. Either way, having a second party early is not a great idea, as youve seen. Its better to save up the 22k and have them create a caravan with the upgraded troops. This gets them lots of scouting skill, and instead of costing money, they MAKE money, which is very nice. Later on when you find the proper companions (https://www.reddit.com/r/mountandblade/comments/g13gqh/all_bannerlord_wandererscompanions/), you can take back your companion and have them lead a party instead.

[Scoob]

Thanks for the detailed post @RJboxer.

I don't think they're buying anything as they're never visiting any settlement or village like they did during the recruiting phase. I've followed them around (alt + left click) for ages with the game sped up and they just move a short distance, stop, move again, stop & repeat. They say they're "Patrolling" or something like that, but that's not what I call patrolling if they ignore all hostiles lol. I've tried all three settings - Neutral, Defensive, Aggressive - and no difference is apparent.

Oh, I did play with the Campaign initially, but I wanted to start a Sandbox game without all the Bonuses of that start.

I did have over 50k before I set up the second party. I might reload - which is gonna be trial and error - to just before I set it up and I was rich... Then set up a Caravan instead.

[Scoob]

Right, I found my save from just before setting up the second Party and have now set up a Caravan instead - the 22k one with the the better troops. The leader of this Caravan is a "the Spicevendor" Wanderer, and has 102 Trade (which I assume is good for a Caravan) as well as 129 Steward, so I *guess* she can grab more Troops if needed? Looks like she's already taken a bit of a beating (literally five minutes after setting up the Caravan) as she's down to 27 / 30 guards... I might follow her around for a bit...