Nerf Vlandia

[Jack Niggleson]

Vlandia is still absurdly unbalanced as a faction. Playing as Sturgia I've just gotten done mopping the floor with 6 Vlandia doomstacks consecutively and when I finally turf them out of my territory and start marching towards theirs I'm notified that two of my castles are under siege by, you guessed it, two more full strength Vlandian armies.

I have no idea why TW decided to hand one faction every conceivable advantage. Their roster is pretty good, but then on top of that they have more lords than anyone else, more starting towns (including some of the most prosperous real estate in the game) and their backs to the sea. Fighting them is such a miserable repetitive slog that it just saps the fun from the game. I've fought basically the same army, with the same unit comp commanded by most of the same lords half a dozen times now and I'm about to do it all over again. Even with a dozen of their lords in jail, there is zero impact on the number of armies they actually field. By the time I chase down a new stack, one of their jailed lords has escaped and spawned a new one.

There is no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ reason at all that they need eight cities or that many lords. Swap out one of their clans for mercenaries, give one of their towns to Battania and the campaign experience would improve immeasurably.

[Jack Niggleson]

Alternate suggestion. Make an exception to the Calradian Geneva convention allowing you to execute Vlandian lords without penalty. They have 40 bajillion of them, who's going to notice a dozen less.

[galadon3]

Funny, in my actual game they have been beaten back to their northern cities while the south was for a while in Asserai hands and is now held by a great-battania. All without my intervention by the way, I am busy in Khuzait-lands, and the adjacent empire lands as well as eastern Asserai desert.

[Clovis Sangrail]

Sounds like someone got their ass handed to them by Vlandia.

[Jack Niggleson]

Originally posted by galadon3:

Funny, in my actual game they have been beaten back to their northern cities while the south was for a while in Asserai hands and is now held by a great-battania. All without my intervention by the way, I am busy in Khuzait-lands, and the adjacent empire lands as well as eastern Asserai desert.

People say this, but I don't know how it ever happens in game. Usually the Aserai do nothing until mid game then get spitroasted by Vlandia and the Khuzait simultaneously. Rn the Khuzait own everything east of Iyakis. Vlandia used to have Quyaz and its adjoining castle, but the Aserai actually managed to take it back while the Vlandians were swarming me in Battania. I'm hoping Vlandia actually bothers to respond so that I can take back Ostican and Rovalt without having to ping pong back to defend my own holdings every ten seconds.

[Action Man]

In most of my games, Vlandia tends to dominate. They have the (arguably) best map position, they have the most starting fiefs, and the most starting clans. They're also super aggressive in their wars.

This used to bug me, now I just look at them as Easy mode. If you want to conquer the world, Vlandia/Khuzait are seemingly the best factions to do it. If you want a harder campaign, try Battania/Northern Empire. The others fall somewhere in the middle, although I'd say Western/Southern Empire are slightly better off than Sturgia/Aserai.

If you want an easier game, join the stronger factions. If you want a harder game, join the weaker factions, or create your own.

[Jack Niggleson]

Originally posted by Action Man:

In most of my games, Vlandia tends to dominate. They have the (arguably) best map position, they have the most starting fiefs, and the most starting clans. They're also super aggressive in their wars.

This used to bug me, now I just look at them as Easy mode. If you want to conquer the world, Vlandia/Khuzait are seemingly the best factions to do it. If you want a harder campaign, try Battania/Northern Empire. The others fall somewhere in the middle, although I'd say Western/Southern Empire are slightly better off than Sturgia/Aserai.

If you want an easier game, join the stronger factions. If you want a harder game, join the weaker factions, or create your own.

I get what you're saying, but it's supposed to be Bannerlord, not Economylord. I'm not asking for the game to be easier, just more balanced, so that I can do other things as Sturgia other than beat up the same copy pasted Vlandian army over and over again.

[Action Man]

I'm not speaking to the quality of the game, just that this is how I see the game handling difficulty.

I sometimes dabble in Total War: Three Kingdoms. When you start the game, you choose your faction, and the game tells you the supposed difficulty. Bannerlord doesn't tell you, but as you play, you get an idea which factions tend to be stronger, and which are weaker.

Every faction being perfectly balanced wouldn't work past the first war. One side will win, one will lose, and the imbalance will start.

One of the things I do in my games is I start with the World Peace console command. The initial wars go a long way to shaping the power balance, so stopping those wars allows the factions to war with whoever they want. It creates more variance. There are still trends - Vlandia has a dominant position - but it helps me enjoy the early game more.

[Raymond]

dunno what you talking about. Sturgia is broken asf and their infantry line easily demolish any other infantry line from every other factions. They are the only faction I struggle to fight on equal number.

[Jack Niggleson]

Originally posted by YariMurai:

dunno what you talking about. Sturgia is broken asf and their infantry line easily demolish any other infantry line from every other factions. They are the only faction I struggle to fight on equal number.

The Sturgian roster still sucks ass, but it isn't hard to beat Vlandia in actual battles because they always throw away half of their cavalry blob charging your shield wall in the first few minutes of the battle.

It's irrelevant anyway since my complaint isn't about units, it's about the busted economy that lets Vlandia field infinite full strength armies no matter how many you destroy, how lords you jail or villages you burn.

[The Mau Corporation]

Originally posted by Jack Niggleson:

Originally posted by YariMurai:

dunno what you talking about. Sturgia is broken asf and their infantry line easily demolish any other infantry line from every other factions. They are the only faction I struggle to fight on equal number.

The Sturgian roster still sucks ass, but it isn't hard to beat Vlandia in actual battles because they always throw away half of their cavalry blob charging your shield wall in the first few minutes of the battle.

It's irrelevant anyway since my complaint isn't about units, it's about the busted economy that lets Vlandia field infinite full strength armies no matter how many you destroy, how lords you jail or villages you burn.

They aren't busted, they're just rich in your game cause they weren't raided early. Can happen to just about any faction.
I think you might be basing conclusions on a very tiny data set.

[Action Man]

Originally posted by The Mau Corporation:

They aren't busted, they're just rich in your game cause they weren't raided early. Can happen to just about any faction.
I think you might be basing conclusions on a very tiny data set.

I've had quite a few playthroughs, and through my own observations, Vlandia can easily become dominant.

The following is based on my own observations in my playing of this game. YMMV.

They can get a busted economy because their northern half of their territory is almost never in danger. The only faction that really tries for it is Sturgia, and that's rare, because Sturgia already has bad map placement with how spread out they are. Vlandia is much more closely linked.

The Western Empire and Aserai can pester Vlandia from the south. Even Battania rarely attacks the northern half. I've seen Vlandia lose quite a bit of territory...for a while. Pretty much every other faction has to worry about attacks on other borders. Vlandia doesn't. Even the Khuzaits have multiple points they have to defend. Vlandia can afford to be aggressive because they have so few points their territory can be invaded. This is also the advantage of having more clans and nobles - and therefore more clan parties - than other factions can put together.

Because of this, their prosperity starts growing and never really stops, especially the northern half. As a player, I have to make focused efforts to kick Vlandia's teeth in to cripple them. As Vlandia expands, it becomes harder to defend their new territory, but their starting point is almost always safe, especially compared to other factions.

I don't think they should really be changed (although you can certainly find posts I made on this forum before similar to this topic), because they're how the game handles difficulty settings. Join Vlandia for Easy. Fight Vlandia for Hard.

[Ardariel]

Originally posted by Jack Niggleson:

Originally posted by Action Man:

In most of my games, Vlandia tends to dominate. They have the (arguably) best map position, they have the most starting fiefs, and the most starting clans. They're also super aggressive in their wars.

This used to bug me, now I just look at them as Easy mode. If you want to conquer the world, Vlandia/Khuzait are seemingly the best factions to do it. If you want a harder campaign, try Battania/Northern Empire. The others fall somewhere in the middle, although I'd say Western/Southern Empire are slightly better off than Sturgia/Aserai.

If you want an easier game, join the stronger factions. If you want a harder game, join the weaker factions, or create your own.

I get what you're saying, but it's supposed to be Bannerlord, not Economylord. I'm not asking for the game to be easier, just more balanced, so that I can do other things as Sturgia other than beat up the same copy pasted Vlandian army over and over again.

i kinda disagree.
Its like saying, that "elite" is not supposed to be about economy.
Economy was always big part of series. It is not good BGE, for sure, not even close to elite series, but still, it was always bigpart of it, so its kinda expected.

So, i agree, that economy is far from being statisfactory, but i disagree, that it should not be big part of game.

[The Mau Corporation]

We're talking asymetric balance, right? I'm gonna largely void empire factions in this argument cause they will just conflate unnessarily stemming from a more complex balancing pass (being of the same culture).
Some comparisons to consider:

Everyone has 8-9 castles and 8-9 clans. Vlandia has 11 clans (I'll get back to this in a min).
Vlandia has 8 towns and 22 villages, but three of these towns have only 2 villages.
Sturgia, Khuzait and Battania have 7, 6 and 5 towns but all have roughly 17 villages. Battania seems poorly balanced until one realises their towns have 3-4 villages and are protectively huddled.
Aserai, more importantly, shares Vlandias share of the economy with 8 towns and 22 villages.

Fewer villages means a lower prosperity cap. So while Vlandia may seem to have a more powerful economy, it largely remains flat because they are also blessed with the most fertile bandit lanes (much like khuzait and Aserai). I do believe they are built for a starting sprint.

More clans also means less to go around, but on top of this recruiting lords to armies costs 20% more in vlandia so they are built differently. This needs to be taken into consideration cause Vlandia generally fields one more army but they are all smaller.

Battania, in comparison, is built for turtling and going tall. They have a very strong town/village ratio. Seonon, for example, can truly boom under certain conditions (like sturgia taking it with all surrounding castles). I've done this, and it is sturgia that is best placed to take advantage the most from having so little. I love playing as sturgia for this reason.

Sturgia has fewer of everything pretty much, but, like Battania, aren't meant to actually do well in the canon so it makes a lot of sense for them to be built to fail (so to speak).
Having said that, I've seen quite a few games (Ive also played dozens of campaigns) where the Ssturgians have raided all the way to the Aserai coast before Khuzait causes enough problems at Tyal for things to change.

[The Mau Corporation]

I believe having a mathematically and geometically equal map with equal starting everything would actually detract from the experience and get old fast. What we should be asking for is more (balanced) differentiation like what we have been given.

[galadon3]

Yepp theres some bias towards certain factions having good chances, but none of that is set in stone even without the players actions plus ofc the players actions can very much upset the balance of power.
In my game now as I said theres a pretty big battania, controling most of Vlandias original south and expanded a bit into imperial territory, wich as far as I can tell I had nothing to do with.
And the third big power (besides Battania and me) atm is Sturgia, wich I guess I DID have a hand in, since I was a Vassal of the Southern empire before going independent and mostly weakend the nothern empire and especialls the Khuzaits, wich took pressure off the Sturgians (they even managed to grab and, after many revolts, finally keep Balthakand).