Any ways to make wars fun?

[CrazyCracker]

I kind of hate the way the wars are in this game. You have all these giant kingdoms and everyone is declaring war but its typically ended after one or two castles are taken which gets annoying after awhile. I understand snowballing is an issue but since the player typically wins most fights after a couple of wars and the faction you joined is strong enough to just conquer everyone on their own. I feel like there's no real back or forth with wars even when I make the game as hard as I can. Feels like its not completely thought out and having wars resolved after a couple fights is so anti climatic almost like siblings fighting but they ended up getting over it 10 mins later.

Anyone else feel this way and is there any mods that could make wars more grand?

[Action Man]

You can try various mods to help, but the nature of how wars work in this game is ultimately the same.

A popular mod is Diplomacy. It does quite a lot. One of its features is War Exhaustion. If you use it, wars are not allowed to end until specified conditions are met, which are set by you. Various actions in wars - defeating soldiers, raiding villages/caravans, successful sieges, capturing/killing enemies - add to the Exhaustion. When it hits 100%, that side surrenders. You can adjust how much each of these activities adds to the exhaustion meter, so customize it how you want.

It has is war duration. You can set a minimum amount of time wars must be waged, from 0 to 500 days. If you set wars to last 100 days, neither side can declare peace until 100 days have passed - with the exception of Exhaustion. If that hits 100%, the war ends. However, if your opponent hits 100% before you do, you can refuse to accept the surrender and keep fighting. If your side hits 100%, that's it for that war.

It also has war cooldown. Set by you, once a war ends, the two involved factions cannot be at war again for a set amount of days, between 0 and 500. If it's zero, they can go right back to war.

It also offers Non-Aggression pacts - neither side can declare war on the other until the pact expires. You can also create Alliances, so any faction you are allied with will also declare war against any faction that declares on you - NAPs/War Cooldown will stop this part. You can change the desire of the AI to try to form these. If you kick Alliances up to the max, you will set off world wars constantly. It can be fun for a lot of chaos.

However, none of this helps with troops. Factions need time to replenish, so you either need to let them have some time to recuperate, or try something else. I sometimes use the console to give every lord a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ of gold so they can always recruit and pay for troops. You may need other mods that have recruits replenish and train faster, if you want harder battles.

You can try to Reinforcements mod. It's still a WIP, but it allows AI parties to join battles you are a part of. As the battle goes on, further and further parties that weren't part of the initial fight may jump in to help their side. I like it because player isolated battles are a busted mechanic, and this helps. It doesn't work with siege (yet), and there are some issues with morale/retreating (much larger forces leaving because the weaker party at the start got smacked hard), but I'm hoping to see more from it.

Reinforcements mod - https://www.nexusmods.com/mountandblade2bannerlord/mods/6501

Diplomacy mod - https://www.nexusmods.com/mountandblade2bannerlord/mods/832

[justfaded]

Difficulty in this game doesn't affect campaign difficulty. Warband had a nominal campaign difficulty setting but all it did was make the ai cheat more.

That's actually a general problem in 4x type games, where increasing difficulty just results in ai cheating to keep pace with the player. I don't think these devs are the ones who are going to fix that.

[TREAD]

You need mods to make wars less silly... if you beat a lord they just get ransomed and then they appear with a massive army again 5 minutes later. Even if you don't ransom any lords, the AI will, so battles feel meaningless. Again, there are mods that fix this, this game is basically unplayable vanilla.

[kristianjakob]

Hmm, we clearly have different experiences with the game.

That the player is the single biggest gamechanger is a given for sure.

But your faction conquering the world on their own? It would be more the opposite way around. If you dont actively do something to assist your faction then any faction you join is pretty much ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[kristianjakob]

Originally posted by TREAD:

You need mods to make wars less silly... if you beat a lord they just get ransomed and then they appear with a massive army again 5 minutes later. Even if you don't ransom any lords, the AI will, so battles feel meaningless. Again, there are mods that fix this, this game is basically unplayable vanilla.

You probably missread the thread. The OP seems to be concerned that there is no comeback and that you can essentially just walk over the AI. Your problem would be the opposite of that.

[Action Man]

Originally posted by TREAD:

You need mods to make wars less silly... if you beat a lord they just get ransomed and then they appear with a massive army again 5 minutes later. Even if you don't ransom any lords, the AI will, so battles feel meaningless. Again, there are mods that fix this, this game is basically unplayable vanilla.

If you don't take the lord prisoner, the game still considers them 'active', so they will appear next to their fief and start recruiting immediately. If you take that lord prisoner, a different lord of that clan becomes active and does the same thing. This isn't really an issue. The game is giving you someone to fight.

Lords do spawn with ~19 or so troops so they aren't immediately captured by bandits, but everything else, they have to recruit and train. What you should notice is the quality of those troops dropping dramatically, because those 2nd/3rd wave armies are low tier trash to mow through.

[Urmel]

Originally posted by kristianjakob:

But your faction conquering the world on their own? It would be more the opposite way around. If you dont actively do something to assist your faction then any faction you join is pretty much ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

this.
your faction cant "win" any wars alone (maybe with lowest game difficult and some mods?)

the bigger your faction, more wars will start. and the towns will rebell. most fiefs are worthless if you dont manage security / culture penelty with strong kingdom polices.

and your clan / mainchar must have a good amount of experience like clan lvl 4+ and char lvl 30+ to have any impact in a war.

[RJboxer]

Originally posted by Urmel:

Originally posted by kristianjakob:

But your faction conquering the world on their own? It would be more the opposite way around. If you dont actively do something to assist your faction then any faction you join is pretty much ♥♥♥♥♥♥.

this.
your faction cant "win" any wars alone (maybe with lowest game difficult and some mods?)

the bigger your faction, more wars will start. and the towns will rebell. most fiefs are worthless if you dont manage security / culture penelty with strong kingdom polices.

and your clan / mainchar must have a good amount of experience like clan lvl 4+ and char lvl 30+ to have any impact in a war.

This This.

In addition, to what he said. The AI, now attacks en masse any faction you join, almost immediately when u join. If you aren't fighting, they get smashed.

[Ruffio]

Originally posted by RJboxer:

Originally posted by Urmel:

this.
your faction cant "win" any wars alone (maybe with lowest game difficult and some mods?)

the bigger your faction, more wars will start. and the towns will rebell. most fiefs are worthless if you dont manage security / culture penelty with strong kingdom polices.

and your clan / mainchar must have a good amount of experience like clan lvl 4+ and char lvl 30+ to have any impact in a war.

This This.

In addition, to what he said. The AI, now attacks en masse any faction you join, almost immediately when u join. If you aren't fighting, they get smashed.

Not jist that, but the faction you join would be like "Hey, we got player on our side now, lets start wage war with everyone" -)

[RJboxer]

Originally posted by Ruffio:

Originally posted by RJboxer:

This This.

In addition, to what he said. The AI, now attacks en masse any faction you join, almost immediately when u join. If you aren't fighting, they get smashed.

Not jist that, but the faction you join would be like "Hey, we got player on our side now, lets start wage war with everyone" -)

Yes, Another highly misunderstood concept by many people. You got it right.

When I used to help new people in Private Chat figure the game out, I'd tell them "look at your faction. now click on CLANS, not your clan. CLANS. in the kingdom tab. See their power???? one clan has 145. one has 240. The king has 550 etc. Now look at your clan. WHOA!!!!! you have 2400 power. "

That means your "kingdom" thinks they are 2400 points higher (out of their 9k total power, for example) and assume you will be fighting.

If you don't, the kingdom is basing decisions (badly) on a 9k power, but they really only have 6600. And their decisions are even too aggressive for 6600. LET ALONE 9k.

[Action Man]

This is why I don't overextend myself with fiefs. Let other clans get stronger, so when they get it in their head to open another front, they can deal with it.

This game is predominantly about combat. Before you join a faction (or make your own), you have access to every war on the map. Live that mercenary life. When you join a faction, your options are much more limited, so the AI is going to try to give you things to do. Patrolling the world map during peace time isn't very fulfilling.

[RJboxer]

Originally posted by Action Man:

This is why I don't overextend myself with fiefs. Let other clans get stronger, so when they get it in their head to open another front, they can deal with it.

This game is predominantly about combat. Before you join a faction (or make your own), you have access to every war on the map. Live that mercenary life. When you join a faction, your options are much more limited, so the AI is going to try to give you things to do. Patrolling the world map during peace time isn't very fulfilling.

Also, "one of my tips" to new people.

They always think "I needz 8 towns, and 6 castles".

No. That is a great way to NOT be able to conquer the map without murdering everyone.

You need strong allies/vassals, or they can't field parties. You can't be all over the whole map, nor even your "14" fiefs. You can't defend anything, and even if you could... all you'd be doing is defending your fiefs, and not expanding.

I like 2-3 towns. and 2-3 castles. Then I give castles away to people I recruit. Eventually I give developed towns away too.. and work on the frontline garbage I just "won" in a vote.

I'll defend/stock/fix that town/castle. then give away MORE of my back line fiefs.

That's the main way to "conquer" the map, without cheating influence, or murdering everyone. Or using Smith/CheatTradeTo300 and buying Calradia.

[Ruffio]

Originally posted by RJboxer:

Originally posted by Action Man:

This is why I don't overextend myself with fiefs. Let other clans get stronger, so when they get it in their head to open another front, they can deal with it.

This game is predominantly about combat. Before you join a faction (or make your own), you have access to every war on the map. Live that mercenary life. When you join a faction, your options are much more limited, so the AI is going to try to give you things to do. Patrolling the world map during peace time isn't very fulfilling.

Also, "one of my tips" to new people.

They always think "I needz 8 towns, and 6 castles".

No. That is a great way to NOT be able to conquer the map without murdering everyone.

You need strong allies/vassals, or they can't field parties. You can't be all over the whole map, nor even your "14" fiefs. You can't defend anything, and even if you could... all you'd be doing is defending your fiefs, and not expanding.

I like 2-3 towns. and 2-3 castles. Then I give castles away to people I recruit. Eventually I give developed towns away too.. and work on the frontline garbage I just "won" in a vote.

I'll defend/stock/fix that town/castle. then give away MORE of my back line fiefs.

That's the main way to "conquer" the map, without cheating influence, or murdering everyone. Or using Smith/CheatTradeTo300 and buying Calradia.

Many claim castles is bad, but If you got a town, you really want the neighbour castles too, as the villages bound to the castles will trade with your town. That in turn help buff your town.

I find no need to invest to much in garrisons for fiefs I give away, because most of the time it seems the clan I give the fief to will slim down the garrison if they donj't have the income to maintain it.

Should also be picky about how many fiefs you give to other clans deppending on their tier, but also how many adult members they have. The AI clans is limited just as you are to how many clan parties they can field.

[RJboxer]

Yes.

I DO, leave a decent garrison. But not an impregnable bastion of troops.

What happens late game (as I'm sure you know) is your allies (and enemies) die..... a lot. Their troops that is. They respawn and now try to rebuild with their 20 free troops, and as many RECRUITS as they can grab. This turns them into "farms" for the enemy to use to level their troops.. or YOU to use (if we are talking about the enemy) and farm them. Either way, there comes a time when MOST lords only have garbage troops. Whoever wins the "first" garbage battle between each other has a huge advantage next battle.

If I sit on 200-300 tier 5-6 troops in garrison (I know. people say don't spend that much, I never have issue with money, I can afford 400 if i wanted) I will slowly take out 100 or so, and give them to my companion parties, or move to another town further towards the action. I then give someone my old town (100 decent troops, 100 recruits). The town is built up so he can afford them. And he can "draw" from that garrison when he needs it.

As to castles. They don't rebel, so they are GREAT to give to a potential lord u are recruiting. Even if the idiot sticks in wrong governor and has wrong culture himself, it wont rebel. I then get him a town (Hopefully his culture) so he can afford a decent party for the rest of the game.

Needing a castle to "feed" resources to the towns nearby doesn't seem as important to me as it was in old old patches. Now a days, all towns can feed themselves and get decent sized. Now a days... the resources from castles are mainly for trade... I don't focus on trade, or tariffs etc.. for my economy late game.

But if I was very very early game, and didn't have tier 5 or 6 renown, I'd keep a castle. I use workshops for free renown. I'd want that castle and his villages to feed my workshop, and keep it "profitable" until I hit clan tier 6. then I don't care about any of it.