What to do in early midgame?

[FM Helldiver Radio]

I've reached what I consider to be early midgame.
My clan level is 4 and has 11 active members. I´m a vassal to a king and I´ve got 1 castle.

The game is pretty much running itself. Kindoms declare war and make peace. My influence is far from playing a role in that game. The bigger kingdoms grow bigger as they got more troops and with ever kindom running the same AI it´s just a game of numbers. The kingdom I belong to is loosing and there is not much I can do. If I join an army we get slaughtered sooner or later. If I don´t, I could hunt small bandits, clear hideout or sell some cattle or all the other little things one does in early game.

I don´t really see what I´m supposed to do. I´m vassal to a dumb AI and doomed to go down with it. Of course I could switch sides and win along with the same dumb AI as it got the bigger numbers but that wouldn´t have anythnig to do with me as well.

So what "I" can really do in this state of game?

[GalacticSin]

Use clan members and form parties with them, provide them cheap recruits to bring them into your army. You can have an army full of your own clan member's parties and it cost 0 influence to maintain this army. So you can have several parties and a decently sized army, only costing upkeep and of course food. Find the small victories where you can, and focus on getting loot from battles so that you can sell. Once you've gotten to the point where influence isn't a problem for you, you can start pulling allied Lords and forming bigger armies where you can have more of an impact.

[FM Helldiver Radio]

Hmm... how do I have "impact".
Money and influence is no problem as far as I can tell.
To be honest I don´t really know what to do with my money. I could spend 120k to get a new Items that are a tiny little bit better but I don´t think its worth it.

I´ve got enougth influence to summon an army with nearly all troops that haven´t already joined the other armies of my kingdom. But that doesn´t change the overall troop count "my" kindom can support and we are outnumberd.

[Action Man]

Pick your battles. With the AI being dumb as you put it, use it to your advantage. As you get better at the battles, you'll find you can take out enemy forces that more than double your troop count.

The AI will hold onto armies forever, even as their numbers dwindle to nothing. You can spend a small amount of influence to force an army to break up - you take a small relationship hit with those involved, but it's not too bad. The AI detects there are a lot of parties out there with no army? Boom, new army formed.

The game really expects you to be the dominant power. As your faction captures more fiefs, you'll see more and more being pushed on to you. Not at first, as everyone is trying to get some, but eventually you'll probably find yourself with half the strength of your whole faction.

If you aren't being active and helping, your faction is gonna get smashed.

Or if you're struggling, side with Vlandia.

[WTigerTw]

OMG i love that reply's last sentence: "Or if you're struggling, side with Vlandia.". It really reflects how this game is designed to let Vlandia being crazily overpowerd by spawning infinite troops in the late game and your faction's normal AI will never be able to win unless you step in.

[Kael]

Originally posted by WTigerTw:

OMG i love that reply's last sentence: "Or if you're struggling, side with Vlandia.". It really reflects how this game is designed to let Vlandia being crazily overpowerd by spawning infinite troops in the late game and your faction's normal AI will never be able to win unless you step in.

Vlandia gets regularly beaten to death in my games.

[Action Man]

Originally posted by 🅶 I|I Kael π:

Originally posted by WTigerTw:

OMG i love that reply's last sentence: "Or if you're struggling, side with Vlandia.". It really reflects how this game is designed to let Vlandia being crazily overpowerd by spawning infinite troops in the late game and your faction's normal AI will never be able to win unless you step in.

Vlandia gets regularly beaten to death in my games.

Yo man, can I get some of your games? While the rest of the factions play out differently with different ones being dominant, Vlandia is always crushing it in mine.

[FM Helldiver Radio]

yep. Is also Vlandia crushing everything in my game. They have tripple the troops.

[WTigerTw]

Originally posted by 🅶 I|I Kael π:

Originally posted by WTigerTw:

OMG i love that reply's last sentence: "Or if you're struggling, side with Vlandia.". It really reflects how this game is designed to let Vlandia being crazily overpowerd by spawning infinite troops in the late game and your faction's normal AI will never be able to win unless you step in.

Vlandia gets regularly beaten to death in my games.

I think every round the game has its own mechanism to determine which kindom tends to behave better. However,, based on 12 rounds I have placed already ((but of course some are modded and some are vanilla ), Vlandia became the most troublesome enemy for 10 rounds out of the 12. Batania somehow always got beaten to death within 10 yrs of the in game year. The default AI lord troop spawn mechanism probably is the issue since they keep spawning free cavalry. If your factions lord lost just one battle they will only bring those cheap peasant when respawn while the Vlandia spawns their light cavalry

[Action Man]

I set up a new game to put Vlandia at war with the four neighboring factions, and while they lost ground at first, they were starting to push back. It wasn't until I starting mercing for one of the factions that Vlandia lost all their territory.

I used console commands to put the factions at war, and a mod to prevent suing for peace.

[Morkonan]

Originally posted by Gooru:

... I´m a vassal to a king and I´ve got 1 castle....
So what "I" can really do in this state of game?

Get Town fiefs by any means necessary. Focus your efforts on those closest to your castle.

"By any means necessary" includes not supporting the defense of an allied Town, allowing it to be captured by the enemy, then recapturing it yourself so you can increase the likelihood you could be selected for the Vote.

Are you married?

If not, you're behind the curve and need to get married, pronto. The player-character should get married as soon as is possible. (Depending on whether or not the player is trying to target specific spouses.) The choice of spouse doesn't matter, just so long as the union can produce tiny little Butterlord poop factories in abundance.

What's your income/cash reserves? You should have a number of sources of income, including Workshops and maybe Caravans (I don't like Caravans, but may players swear by them.)

(IF you're Blacksmithing For Profit, know that once you have over 50k or so monies in your pocket, you're losing a significant boost for being selected for a fief - The game thinks you're financially stable, at that point, so you get no bonus for "being poor," though the amount and/or even the mechanic may not be in the game as it was originally during EA. You want Strong Garrisons and low cash-on-hand and captured fiefs near the ones you already own for your best chances. You can have an inventory full of Tier 5 armor and still be seen as poor, btw.)

Joining Lord Armies has never been a wise thing for the player to do unless that Army is attacking a known target fief that is obviously not defended well. Lords are barely functional morons who have inherited their titles and lands from parents with oddly shaped skulls framed by conjoined eyebrows... A Lord leading an Army gets a bonus to their AI that, apparently, overflows into negative numbers, just like the Rep Hit glitch TW's staff of interns dumped into the last patch... Do not join an Army expecting a quick, victorious, expedition. Only join Armies in desperation or when you have no other choice to advance yourself or to gain piddling amounts of influence that are... one of the emptiest currencies in the game. (But, still necessary to accumulate. Yay?)

What's your party size? Too low? That's bad. Work on that. You can not afford to be vulnerable to hedge-knight Lords that respawn with default party members nearly larger than your fully party size. Use Companions to boost your numbers by allowing them to lead parties that join yours. Get Companions that have the traits necessary to make good combat-party leaders. ("Good" being relative - No NPC in the game is safe when left up to its own devices.)

You have no friends... No Lord or King cares about you at all and every single one of them would gladly slit your throat and occupy your fiefs, puzzling over magnets while sitting in your throne-room waiting for an advisor to tell them which nostril to pick. If you want to "win," you must treat them the same way. This is the wholesome world of Calradia, where life is cheap and the average NPC's intelligence quotient is only slightly above room temperature.

IF you are doomed if you support your King, then... don't. He is not going to send you birthday cards. So, if he's doomed, feel free to leave... (And, on the off-chance it's Rhagaea, she's a @$@ and a professional failure, so... Why are you supporting her? :)) If you're not strong enough to support your own bid as a new faction leader, then don't - Join another faction, instead. It is a perfectly viable strategy to join a second faction if the one you're currently in has all the staying power of damp toilet paper. (In fact, at most levels of gameplay, the player is largely ineffective on the World Stage and can not push back against the overpowered and omnipresent RNG... You can not save anyone from themselves. It's practically not until one has overwhelming strength that one can affect change in Bannerlord. Until that moment, the player is playing the game's game.)

[FM Helldiver Radio]

thanks for that great answer.

I really hate the AI. I did anything to have an "impact" and managed to turn the tides.
But then we outnumberd our enemy, had 2 times more cityes and 3 times his castles our lords and the kind SURRENDERD and now we have to pay tribute.
WTF?

[Horked]

Completely off-topic but rather fascinating!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unibrow