Looters in the North West

[ViktAhri]

So I have started a co-op campaign with a friend, I am playing as Ma Teng, who has a rather hard start. Now not only do I need to take on threats from all sides, when I finally expand to the north west I have a triple stack off looters spawn every 2/3 turns. So far away from each other I need to keep 2 full armies just to stop losing towns. I can't afford another army to expand, and earn more money, and I cant build my defences because all my money goes on keeping those 2 armies funded.

meanwhile my friend playing as Sun Jian is able to expand southward with no resistance. What am I doing wrong? What am I supposed to do?

[Fried Noodles]

Try wiping out Han Sui.
It's probably just a coincidence, but I have an active Dong Zhuo campaign and my own faction council seems to want to fund raiders and looters in Han Sui's territory every single year.
I don't take that mission myself, but I very often see looters coming out of Wuwei, which is still Han Sui territory.
I sometimes catch them heading towards Anding and Shuofang and must stop them with my bandit Sentinels.

Maybe the AI factions also love funding pirates to attack Han Sui.

[Fanest]

No CA introduced another stupid mechanic called Looters. These guys spawn evey few turns and are very annoying specially in this NW area where Ma Teng is. There is no way to fix this unless CA removers this stupid "feature". In my capaign I also wasted quite some time trying to fix this problem but the issue is this mechanic is not tied to public order or any such stat its just random.

[Fried Noodles]

I was talking about Looters.
Looters can be spawned by the new faction council system.
Some of your council members will provide you with a choice of two "nearby" enemy counties that you can fund a bandit raid or something on.
This council mission then immediately spawns a looter army at the chosen location.

AI factions have access to the same council missions and can spawn looters every Spring if they want.

[ViktAhri]

Originally posted by Fanest:

No CA introduced another stupid mechanic called Looters. These guys spawn evey few turns and are very annoying specially in this NW area where Ma Teng is. There is no way to fix this unless CA removers this stupid "feature". In my capaign I also wasted quite some time trying to fix this problem but the issue is this mechanic is not tied to public order or any such stat its just random.

That's how it feels, if it were a mechanic once I earned a certain amount, or had a certain amount of land, or even if it scaled. But it doesn't, it's just every 2/3 turns, another full stack on the river. Ma Teng is such an weak faction I don't get why he needs a nerf

[ViktAhri]

Originally posted by Fried Noodles:

Try wiping out Han Sui.
It's probably just a coincidence, but I have an active Dong Zhuo campaign and my own faction council seems to want to fund raiders and looters in Han Sui's territory every single year.
I don't take that mission myself, but I very often see looters coming out of Wuwei, which is still Han Sui territory.
I sometimes catch them heading towards Anding and Shuofang and must stop them with my bandit Sentinels.

Maybe the AI factions also love funding pirates to attack Han Sui.

He is my friend in this campaign, and if I went to war with him, I'd lose my other land to the looters.

[Dirge]

I'm doing a Ma Teng play through and it's impossible to hold the NW for any length of time right now, even as I reach kingdom size and can have 10ish active armies, they can literally spawn a doomstack in and attack on the same turn so I have no chance to react. The only answer is to waste the money and have armies waiting in each "one turn" territory. This is feasible for a large faction maybe, but is Wu Wei worth that investment?
Right now your best bet as Ma Teng is to head south into Shu or east into Jing and then return to the NW when you have the gold to waste on fighting constant looter spawns.

Can anyone tell us if the other corners of the map, NE, SW and SE have these units spawning in with such fervour?

[ViktAhri]

Originally posted by Saint Scorpio:

I'm doing a Ma Teng play through and it's impossible to hold the NW for any length of time right now, even as I reach kingdom size and can have 10ish active armies, they can literally spawn a doomstack in and attack on the same turn so I have no chance to react. The only answer is to waste the money and have armies waiting in each "one turn" territory. This is feasible for a large faction maybe, but is Wu Wei worth that investment?
Right now your best bet as Ma Teng is to head south into Shu or east into Jing and then return to the NW when you have the gold to waste on fighting constant looter spawns.

Can anyone tell us if the other corners of the map, NE, SW and SE have these units spawning in with such fervour?

Okay great, so its imbalanced, I'm not just trash. I have only seen looters spawn in the NW. My friend Sun Jian has expanded SE and NE and nothing is spawning in for him.

I'd be fire with looters if they spawned in like rebellions and gained strength, even if they did it 2x the speed of the yellow turbans. but to spawn in a triple is just too much. I cant even hit Marquis and my friend is about to claim a seat.

[Crimsomrider]

Unfortunately the new update made Wuwei and Shuofang provinces uninhabitable for both the player and AI due to Looters, but I think I found a way to stop them from spawning.

In my current 210+ campaign as Lady Zhurong, I've been observing their presence on the map at all times. It seems like they do not spawn nor expand if they control a settlement. In my campaign they own 2/3 Wuwei since the 50th turn. 150+ turns later and they're still there just chilling and doing nothing.

So I think as long as they are not wiped out and have a settlement, they won't spawn at all anywhere else. So I let them have Wuwei for now.

I am close to conquering the entire map as Lady Zhurong and then I will wipe them out once there are no more factions left. I am curious to see if they will still spawn after I'm the only one standing.

[Dirge]

Originally posted by ViktAhri:

Okay great, so its imbalanced, I'm not just trash. I have only seen looters spawn in the NW. My friend Sun Jian has expanded SE and NE and nothing is spawning in for him.

I'd be fire with looters if they spawned in like rebellions and gained strength, even if they did it 2x the speed of the yellow turbans. but to spawn in a triple is just too much. I cant even hit Marquis and my friend is about to claim a seat.

You're definitely not trash if you're struggling with the looters, haha. They're no joke.
Honestly, with Ma Teng being the border warrior, the warden of the west, I wouldn't mind the "barbarian (looters, why looters) invasion" mechanic if we just had that time to react to some degree. The fact that they can spawn in with some pretty high tier units as well, doesn't help. You'd think a bunch of "looters" would be a ragtag group of angry peasants and farmers, not Yi Archers and Tiger Cavalry.

[ViktAhri]

Originally posted by Saint Scorpio:

Originally posted by ViktAhri:

Okay great, so its imbalanced, I'm not just trash. I have only seen looters spawn in the NW. My friend Sun Jian has expanded SE and NE and nothing is spawning in for him.

I'd be fire with looters if they spawned in like rebellions and gained strength, even if they did it 2x the speed of the yellow turbans. but to spawn in a triple is just too much. I cant even hit Marquis and my friend is about to claim a seat.

You're definitely not trash if you're struggling with the looters, haha. They're no joke.
Honestly, with Ma Teng being the border warrior, the warden of the west, I wouldn't mind the "barbarian (looters, why looters) invasion" mechanic if we just had that time to react to some degree. The fact that they can spawn in with some pretty high tier units as well, doesn't help. You'd think a bunch of "looters" would be a ragtag group of angry peasants and farmers, not Yi Archers and Tiger Cavalry.

Yeah it doesn't make sense however you look at it, I think its a cool idea, but it's been implemented very badly, like the scheme system.

[Madd Martigan]

it would be fine if it was a event that lasted a couple turns but it doesnt stop and at early game its crippling if you migrate there

[Taisen]

I m playing a Dong Zhou campaign and I am also here to complain that a full stack spawn coming out of no where is kinda ♥♥♥♥♥♥, I mean I would understand if it was a council action on a settle that had bad public order but this is just ridiculous.

[Sqrt(-1)]

I haven't yet experienced the looter spam since I didn't play Ma Teng, but it sure sounds frustrating. I like that they made the border less secure, but I feel the problem is you can spawn looters even against people you are not neighbouring. It makes sense if Dong Zhuo convinced the Qiang to rise up against Ma Teng, but not if Sun Ce does it for no good reason. That should massively reduce the spam.

Also, I would prefer if they had better names, why not call them "Qiang Raiders", "Xianbei Raiders", "Bohai Pirates" etc and also give them more sensical units.

[noelwym]

Originally posted by Sqrt(-1):

I haven't yet experienced the looter spam since I didn't play Ma Teng, but it sure sounds frustrating. I like that they made the border less secure, but I feel the problem is you can spawn looters even against people you are not neighbouring. It makes sense if Dong Zhuo convinced the Qiang to rise up against Ma Teng, but not if Sun Ce does it for no good reason. That should massively reduce the spam.

Also, I would prefer if they had better names, why not call them "Qiang Raiders", "Xianbei Raiders", "Bohai Pirates" etc and also give them more sensical units.

It's generally poorly implemented. It's fine that they are there to make corner camping difficult, but as it stands, they spawn will full stacks filled with quality troops, which is not only unrealistic but also demands that the player have a veteran army in the northwest on standby at all times. What CA should have done is 1.) give warning that a Looter stack is about to spawn shortly 2.) have them spawn in a mustering state, allowing the player to gather their own forces to wipe them out before being a credible threat 3.) provide the Looters with peasant/bandit units rather than Heavy Shield Guards. (Where on earth are these Looters getting these military veterans from?)

[Sqrt(-1)]

Originally posted by noelwym:

Originally posted by Sqrt(-1):

I haven't yet experienced the looter spam since I didn't play Ma Teng, but it sure sounds frustrating. I like that they made the border less secure, but I feel the problem is you can spawn looters even against people you are not neighbouring. It makes sense if Dong Zhuo convinced the Qiang to rise up against Ma Teng, but not if Sun Ce does it for no good reason. That should massively reduce the spam.

Also, I would prefer if they had better names, why not call them "Qiang Raiders", "Xianbei Raiders", "Bohai Pirates" etc and also give them more sensical units.

It's generally poorly implemented. It's fine that they are there to make corner camping difficult, but as it stands, they spawn will full stacks filled with quality troops, which is not only unrealistic but also demands that the player have a veteran army in the northwest on standby at all times. What CA should have done is 1.) give warning that a Looter stack is about to spawn shortly 2.) have them spawn in a mustering state, allowing the player to gather their own forces to wipe them out before being a credible threat 3.) provide the Looters with peasant/bandit units rather than Heavy Shield Guards. (Where on earth are these Looters getting these military veterans from?)

If they do all that though, what's the point of spawning looters if I get the option in my council? I think forcing the player to have an army on stand-by near what should be the Chinese border is reasonable, but making you play whack-a-mole with constant frustrating spawns is not.

Heavy spear guard doesn't make any sense, yeah, but I think giving them Qiang or Xiongnu cavalry alongside low-tier infantry is fair. If they are all peasants, muster slowly and you get a notice in advance they are pretty much just free money and experience just like the Yellow Turban rebels.