eh battanians feel the squishiest to me, think the aesthetic doesnt help em in that regard. as for the vland cav its alright but with cactphracti they kinda get blown out the water.
They are squishy, they have the best archers in the game though with 280 prof and bows that do 90 damage with 200 2 handed prof and are fast, which is why i like Fians, that being said it looks like empire is probably the easiest to get into due to how flexible they are as i have heard.
I'd say this video is a good example of them and a good example of why you want a few dozen or more regular troops to act as a shield for them, though if you get enough of them i imagine cav may never get near you and even if they do it's probably only higher tier lancer that could potentially kill 1 or two, good to lose some cheaper easier to obtain soldier then a fian though.
so what do you guys run in your armies troop wise? iv gotten the most out of it with vlandian sergeants and merc crossbows with the occasional sturgian or aserai.
I use cheap Sturgian infantry as a shield wall (spearmen I think) and then supplement them with Khuzait horse archer and melee cavalry as well as a ton of merc troops of each branch, but mostly for aesthetic reasons. It has been working pretty well for me so far, but I think that can be said for most high tier unit groups.
i swear those fuckers are the grim reaper of bannerlord, any and every time a faction goes up against them the feed of captured lords is insane and they steam roll, then i gone in there with what i got and most of the time their a breeze, the exception being mongchun.
I spent all Sunday afternoon executing Sturgian nobles as a mercenary for Battania. I wiped out half of Sturgia's clans, killed 3 kings in a row... only to have half of Battania's clans defect to Sturgia. My headsman is going to need a vacation soon.
Currently still in the initial stages of making my "Merchant King" a reality. Mortimer Shekelstein is going to conquer the world with money. I still suck at combat, specifically mounted combat, so my goal is to make so much money than I can let my twinked army do the fighting for me. Just made it to 30k and am about to set up my first caravan. Anyone know the best area to start a Caravan from? Im thinking somwhere in the center of the map so that they can go in any direction, eventually having 3 caravans running from north center, center, and south center.
Currently still in the initial stages of making my "Merchant King" a reality. Mortimer Shekelstein is going to conquer the world with money. I still suck at combat, specifically mounted combat, so my goal is to make so much money than I can let my twinked army do the fighting for me. Just made it to 30k and am about to set up my first caravan. Anyone know the best area to start a Caravan from? Im thinking somwhere in the center of the map so that they can go in any direction, eventually having 3 caravans running from north center, center, and south center.
I already forgot where I put it, but after about a month and a half in game time its started making regular profits of 700+ dukats. I hate this game but I love this game, my jew ass literally has a legal pad out where I am keeping track of market pricing on goods and trying to get 150% profit margins. That being said, I am at Trade level 80 and am about to start opening workshops as well, already bounced back to 20k from the 18k hit I took on the caravan. Also forest bandits can eat a dick with their plucky arrows, though they have shown me the importance of fucking Calvary, hard to aim a pussy bow when you got mounted spearmen charging your bitch ass.
I've been playing this game several hours a day, back and forth on branches and different builds and what not. And jesus christ, it is not enjoyable. At all.
First of all, I really like Total War kind of games, and even more so M&B because it's the same tactical system on a smaller scale. It is a living hell trying to make units do anything logical, and then it's a complete gamble whether the enemy even sends their units at you or not. Survive their cavalry with smart positioning? Now enjoy walking towards their shield wall for 3 minutes to either get rolled or roll. At this point I'd gladly just use F6 to turn on AI for my troops if it means my hopefully superior composition and talents produce a better outcome.
Speaking of talents; they fucking suck. They've buffed the XP rate several times, and now, 300 days in, 5/5 focus in riding, always on horse, I've reached 105 skill. I'm at a x11 multiplier or so. I've yet to even get remotely close to unlocking any fun ones, and I've made entire builds around stacking intelligence for engineering.
Speaking of engineering; you can only gain XP in a clan role skill if you occupy that role. It is extreme suboptimal to have two of the same role, even if you switch between them and level both of them to max. You basically just need one companion/yourself covering each of the clan roles. Which is honestly boring. It makes the first hour a search for the best surgeon, recruit him, if they aren't bugged out of existence, assign role, done. Never think about that again.
I wanted to make an engineer; chose the starting culture that boosts build speed and everything. But wait, that means I shouldn't really try to find a second engineer, but that means I won't be leveling stewardship, which leads more into being a leader than utility. Basically, tough fucking luck if you want to gain any of the (personal) talents in a utility tree. You might as well just go steward/leadership, charm, and a weapon every run. I wanted to make a hyper utility leader but that is just not viable.
Then the game itself. It straight up teleports lords to you when you besiege a castle. I've been anxious to try to figure out this great new addition, only to be absolutely cucked and destroyed before I get a single construction out, hence my interest in an engineer build, as if that'd give me an edge. Guess not! At first it was theorized they give lords extra units to attack you as you siege, but it has somewhat been proven that instead, it teleports an existing lord to you if you start a siege. Now you better hope they don't gather up 500 units before you get to build a siege ram.
They change a lot between patches, I know they will be making good changes, but right now it feels more like they're slapping us around to see what they can get away with than raising the XP rate a few notches every patch to see when people are happy. And don't get me fucking started on leadership. As mentioned, I wanted to be a passive commander, so of course I wanted to max leadership, which requires you to "have high morale and lead armies". You need to buy lords into your temporary army and run around for half hours at a time, occupying several AI lords and the defense of your kingdom, to get 5-10 leadership points.
Stewardship on the other hand levels fast if you have a lot of varied food as a quartermaster. You know, the same way you should get leadership points from having a capped army size or something like it. Leadership is practically a mid-late game skill, if you ever fucking get any use of it, as you still get fuck-all experience in any skill as is currently. The game is worth $30-40 with the discount, sure, but only for future gameplay. Right now it's absolutely shite to sit through.
One of the most annoying bugs I've had is how NPCs spawned for quests don't disappear. The daughter finding quests are really lucrative and easy, but also spawns a literal skilless girl into the game, occupying a companion slot, and no way to be rid of them. At this point I need to scan all available companions from the first day to see if my playthrough is worth bothering with. My current 500 day one, there's not a single surgeon or engineer in the game to recruit. Not a single one, and it's impossible to teach or change the ways of your existing ones. Again, this'll likely change, but dear lord the amount of shit we have to deal with.
So, after watching Caladog be reduced to a single castle, I decided to evict him (via decapitation), form the Neo-Battanian Kingdom and marry his daughter. I’ve already taken over two cities (One from Vlandia and one from the Western Empire), in addition to a handful of castles and fiefs that I took to use as staging points for those sieges. Though the Vlandians outnumber me 8 to 1, it turns out that recruits are no match for Battanian Fians. So, all I have to do is send out my troops and watch my enemies get turned into pincushions.
For the few times I think I’m about to be overwhelmed, I simply make peace by giving the enemy king about 700 pairs of leather boots. He accepted, completely unaware that I murdered about half of his family in cold blood. Now that war-waging isn’t a problem (At least until one of my companions tried to pick a fight with someone, again), I’m trying to get Corein pregnant. How does childbearing work in this game?
Also, should I be worried about the conspiracy quest? It is at about 1300 strength for me right now.
I've been playing this game several hours a day, back and forth on branches and different builds and what not. And jesus christ, it is not enjoyable. At all.
First of all, I really like Total War kind of games, and even more so M&B because it's the same tactical system on a smaller scale. It is a living hell trying to make units do anything logical, and then it's a complete gamble whether the enemy even sends their units at you or not. Survive their cavalry with smart positioning? Now enjoy walking towards their shield wall for 3 minutes to either get rolled or roll. At this point I'd gladly just use F6 to turn on AI for my troops if it means my hopefully superior composition and talents produce a better outcome.
Speaking of talents; they fucking suck. They've buffed the XP rate several times, and now, 300 days in, 5/5 focus in riding, always on horse, I've reached 105 skill. I'm at a x11 multiplier or so. I've yet to even get remotely close to unlocking any fun ones, and I've made entire builds around stacking intelligence for engineering.
Speaking of engineering; you can only gain XP in a clan role skill if you occupy that role. It is extreme suboptimal to have two of the same role, even if you switch between them and level both of them to max. You basically just need one companion/yourself covering each of the clan roles. Which is honestly boring. It makes the first hour a search for the best surgeon, recruit him, if they aren't bugged out of existence, assign role, done. Never think about that again.
I wanted to make an engineer; chose the starting culture that boosts build speed and everything. But wait, that means I shouldn't really try to find a second engineer, but that means I won't be leveling stewardship, which leads more into being a leader than utility. Basically, tough fucking luck if you want to gain any of the (personal) talents in a utility tree. You might as well just go steward/leadership, charm, and a weapon every run. I wanted to make a hyper utility leader but that is just not viable.
Then the game itself. It straight up teleports lords to you when you besiege a castle. I've been anxious to try to figure out this great new addition, only to be absolutely cucked and destroyed before I get a single construction out, hence my interest in an engineer build, as if that'd give me an edge. Guess not! At first it was theorized they give lords extra units to attack you as you siege, but it has somewhat been proven that instead, it teleports an existing lord to you if you start a siege. Now you better hope they don't gather up 500 units before you get to build a siege ram.
They change a lot between patches, I know they will be making good changes, but right now it feels more like they're slapping us around to see what they can get away with than raising the XP rate a few notches every patch to see when people are happy. And don't get me fucking started on leadership. As mentioned, I wanted to be a passive commander, so of course I wanted to max leadership, which requires you to "have high morale and lead armies". You need to buy lords into your temporary army and run around for half hours at a time, occupying several AI lords and the defense of your kingdom, to get 5-10 leadership points.
Stewardship on the other hand levels fast if you have a lot of varied food as a quartermaster. You know, the same way you should get leadership points from having a capped army size or something like it. Leadership is practically a mid-late game skill, if you ever fucking get any use of it, as you still get fuck-all experience in any skill as is currently. The game is worth $30-40 with the discount, sure, but only for future gameplay. Right now it's absolutely shite to sit through.
One of the most annoying bugs I've had is how NPCs spawned for quests don't disappear. The daughter finding quests are really lucrative and easy, but also spawns a literal skilless girl into the game, occupying a companion slot, and no way to be rid of them. At this point I need to scan all available companions from the first day to see if my playthrough is worth bothering with. My current 500 day one, there's not a single surgeon or engineer in the game to recruit. Not a single one, and it's impossible to teach or change the ways of your existing ones. Again, this'll likely change, but dear lord the amount of shit we have to deal with.
I haven't really run into any of the issues on skills or companion availability that you're talking about, but have really only played as a combat/leader character so far since I tend to like that the most. I will say that the clan role position should just give a fat bonus rather than make that person be the only one who gains skills. That would fix a lot. It is early access after all. I'm sure a lot will be tweaked either through finished popular mods and normal EA dev.
My main issue is that the archer skirmish meta is just too strong even after they improved shields. It's not fun to have to approach battle the same way every time or get very very suboptimal results.
So, after watching Caladog be reduced to a single castle, I decided to evict him (via decapitation), form the Neo-Battanian Kingdom and marry his daughter. I’ve already taken over two cities (One from Vlandia and one from the Western Empire), in addition to a handful of castles and fiefs that I took to use as staging points for those sieges. Though the Vlandians outnumber me 8 to 1, it turns out that recruits are no match for Battanian Fians. So, all I have to do is send out my troops and watch my enemies get turned into pincushions.
For the few times I think I’m about to be overwhelmed, I simply make peace by giving the enemy king about 700 pairs of leather boots. He accepted, completely unaware that I murdered about half of his family in cold blood. Now that war-waging isn’t a problem (At least until one of my companions tried to pick a fight with someone, again), I’m trying to get Corein pregnant. How does childbearing work in this game?
Also, should I be worried about the conspiracy quest? It is at about 1300 strength for me right now.
The game will really get interesting once modders have had time to sink their teeth into it. It seems like a competently executed sequel and I'm more than happy with that.
It takes a bit to get used to. Spears can thrust overhead or underhand if they're a lance or you have a shield, otherwise you can swing them. Block and weapon attacks are mouse based, so basically jerk your mouse in the direction you want your attacks to come from. The shield bash/pommel strike/kick can break guards and/or push your opponent back to give you a little breathing room. Enable the attack direction arrows while you're learning if they aren't already, and remember that you can't just spam attacks since the weapon has some weight.
Blocking
- a last second block micro-stuns the enemy for longer than an attack blocked in advance giving you a larger window to attack. A long held block allows the enemy to feint much more effictively
- chambering at the right time has a similar effect and if done perfectly allows you to swing on in advance
Attacking
- you will probably see the AI feinting, this is a pretty useful skill in multiple player and somewhat in single. You do by holding attack to one direction then jerking your mouse to another and tapping block
- I think a held attack does more damage than an attack that wasn't
- momentum increases/decreases damage
- try not to attack into a block as it will micro-stun you. Try leading with a shield bash instead (particularly in single player) and following up with a quick strike
- the point in your swing that you hit increases/decreases damage, usually somewhere towards the middle to 2/3 of the animation
- stabbing does a better job against armor than slashing unless you have a blunt weapon, so go for the head or a stab if they have heavy armor
- you can chain attacks in some directions if you time it right, particularly right to left
- crush-throughs will probably be added at some point
- AI is pretty aggressive most of the time. Picking the right time to attack is key
You can tell they laid some groundwork for more relationship building especially with the laws, clans, and hero bios, but it's still very very barebones. For now, you are gonna have to headcannon a lot if you want a story like in the last game, and I can't imagine that aspect changing too too much without mods.
eh battanians feel the squishiest to me, think the aesthetic doesnt help em in that regard. as for the vland cav its alright but with cactphracti they kinda get blown out the water.
Imo Batt's biggest problem is the lack of mainline archer units the role being relegated to their elite unit which makes massing them both difficult and expensive. Contrast this with playing Vlandians where cheap crossbow units can be used in great number to devastating effect early on and can carry you into late game.
Honestly, in its current state it's not better than Warband. The game is still in early access and likely will be for some time. Meanwhile Warband has been out and finished for over a decade, and has a treasure trove of mods that add an almost infinite amount of replayability to the base game.
Bannerlord does bring some interesting new things to the table, like smithing and childbirth for instance, but a lot of these systems feel half-assed, and the game still has its fair share of bugs and jank. There's some good ideas in there, but overall it feels unfinished compared to its predecessor.
I'd say if you loved Warband, then support the dev and give it a shot. Otherwise I'd recommend waiting a year or so for the game to be a bit more fleshed out, and to allow time for modders to do their thing.
Well, it's been a while since anyone mentioned this game, so let me be the first one to shit on TaleWorlds this year.
If you played Warband you know that the game (just like STALKER series) managed to stay afloat only thanks to it's massive modding community. So it would be reasonable to think that Bannerlord would go down the same path, right?
But that's just wishful thinking.
On March 16th a user and a modder posted an open letter on the official TW forums on the behalf of the total-conversion mod community, which addresses all the roadblocks that prohibit the creation of any large-scale mods.
It got quite a lot of traction, with majority supporting it.
Of course it also received several replies stating the obvious - that 'it's in early access', but the main point is that the issues mentioned in the letter should not have existed in the first place, early access or not (and it's been in development for the last 11 years).
Some time after the initial post the community manager came by and made a statement addressing the letter and some of the concerns that were brought up as a result.
After that post the discussion continued, but died down on April 8th, only to be bumped few times by occasional lurkers with questions if any of the stuff mentioned was properly addressed.
Few days ago, on May 31 it got bumped again by Jance (the OP) who thanked for the response, but also shat all over whoever was behind all the internal keywords in the game's code.
I don't know of a single other game/studio that claims to support moddability, then purposely hamstrings the ability for those modders to make their mods (typically, they do the opposite). Until then, we're basically trying to write a book with only access to half of the alphabet.
Then, last week the same community manager came by and vaguely stated:
Which obviously raised the hopes, but then this happened:
So, they are going to remove few of them, but also ADD new ones?
As anyone can guess people got peeved.
We also got this:
And guess what, it's true (link to the mentioned post).
Back in 2020 TaleWorlds stated that custom, moddable servers will be available in 2022. It turns out that all it took was adding threelines of code to make it work and there was a community server standing just few hours after the initial statement. TW of course threw a fit over it and disabled private servers completely.
But back on topic.
Users of course started discussing the issue, few trolls and whiteknights arrived, so the topic got a lot of traction.
Eventually one of the devs stepped in.
This post prompted more shit throwing and another discussion about their bad coding practices. These two posts sum it up rather nicely.
In hindsight, this whole situation is an absolute mess.
Also:
Small edit to include this thread on the forum that does a good job at summarizing the entire Open Letter thread.
Well, it's been a while since anyone mentioned this game, so let me be the first one to shit on TaleWorlds this year.
If you played Warband you know that the game (just like STALKER series) managed to stay afloat only thanks to it's massive modding community. So it would be reasonable to think that Bannerlord would go down the same path, right?
But that's just wishful thinking.
On March 16th a user and a modder posted an open letter on the official TW forums on the behalf of the total-conversion mod community, which addresses all the roadblocks that prohibit the creation of any large-scale mods.
It got quite a lot of traction, with majority supporting it.
Of course it also received several replies stating the obvious - that 'it's in early access', but the main point is that the issues mentioned in the letter should not have existed in the first place, early access or not (and it's been in development for the last 11 years).
Some time after the initial post the community manager came by and made a statement addressing the letter and some of the concerns that were brought up as a result.
After that post the discussion continued, but died down on April 8th, only to be bumped few times by occasional lurkers with questions if any of the stuff mentioned was properly addressed.
Few days ago, on May 31 it got bumped again by Jance (the OP) who thanked for the response, but also shat all over whoever was behind all the internal keywords in the game's code.
Then, last week the same community manager came by and vaguely stated: View attachment 2242896
Which obviously raised the hopes, but then this happened: View attachment 2242898
So, they are going to remove few of them, but also ADD new ones?
As anyone can guess people got peeved.
We also got this: View attachment 2242929
And guess what, it's true (link to the mentioned post).
Back in 2020 TaleWorlds stated that custom, moddable servers will be available in 2022. It turns out that all it took was adding threelines of code to make it work and there was a community server standing just few hours after the initial statement. TW of course threw a fit over it and disabled private servers completely.
But back on topic.
Users of course started discussing the issue, few trolls and whiteknights arrived, so the topic got a lot of traction.
Eventually one of the devs stepped in. View attachment 2242976
This post prompted more shit throwing and another discussion about their bad coding practices. These two posts sum it up rather nicely.
Reminder that Rockstar/TakeTwo - one of the biggest ego studios and greedy publishers - actually gave $10k to the guy that more or less solved their loading problem for GTA Online.
TaleWorlds throws a hissy fit that they couldn't figure out they needed only three lines of code. The modders don't even want rewards, they just want it to work.
Reminder that Rockstar/TakeTwo - one of the biggest ego studios and greedy publishers - actually gave $10k to the guy that more or less solved their loading problem for GTA Online.
TaleWorlds throws a hissy fit that they couldn't figure out they needed only three lines of code. The modders don't even want rewards, they just want it to work.
That, and the fact that they "won't drop the conventions" of faulty codding practices even though it'd make them a ton o money is baffling to me.
Sure, that would take time, but it would be a step in the right direction towards making everyone happy.
Of course all that said assuming that the community worries about them just wanting to pull some nefarious financial scheme are unfounded. A DLC, no matter how amazing can only be played so many times, while total-conversion mods (and mods in general) would be popping up like shrooms after a rainy day if they loosened up their code to accommodate people who want to work on their game for free.
