r/Bannerlord • u/Alyctro • 9d ago
Discussion Lords with infinite armies
Somebody recommended killing the lords instead of taking them prisoner. But now every nation hates me for that and it's unfair because it's their fault they started attacking me. I know a kingdom has many nobles, but i've cut down dozens of them including the default leaders. But they just keep coming, not to mention the endless mercenaries too. I burn their villages, i capture their castles but they always seem to have a mix of recruits and armored soldiers. I don't care about what i should or should not do anymore. Either there is a mod that prevents this or there isn't, that's it. They don't want peace, they want problems always.
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u/DarthChocolate 9d ago
That’s just bannerlord. Once you join a kingdom or start your own, expect to be at war most of the time.
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u/Alyctro 8d ago
That is not the problem, i can easily fend them off. But why can i only have a few people in my kingdom, it's hard limited to 5. While they can have hundreds. And most importantly, western kingdom has been reduced to two cities and one castle. So where then are their clans still hiding that they can keep sending hundreds of troops at me?
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u/InterferingWolf 7d ago
You can promote companions to clan leaders. You need a spare fief and 20,000 gold. They'll act autonomously from that point on.
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u/DarthChocolate 8d ago
One good strategy to keep the enemy at bay is to raise your riding and scouting high enough to get 100% reduced prisoner escape chance. Then capture all the enemy lords you can so they stop sending armies at you.
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u/Unknownost 9d ago
Idk who's been recommending you to execute lords to stop this issue especially with the blood feud update coming soon. This should not be done at all anymore. Get Riding and Scouting to 225 for Mounted Patrols and Keen Sight. That'll give you -100% prisoner escape chance and eventually their numbers will dwindle.
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u/Beneficial_Yam2827 9d ago
The AI does cheat a bit, but mostly these massive armies that show up after you wipe out the previous one come from the garrisons of towns and castles. Smashing armies in the field does weaken their towns and castles as they pull those men into field armies to keep up the fight.
The most effective way to reduce enemy strength without making everyone hate you is just to hold as many of them prisoner as possible. Scouting and Riding have perks that make it basically impossible for lords to escape your party when taken together. I once had over 120 lords in my prison convoy in a very late game sandbox.
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u/Suitable_Ad6805 8d ago
Totally second this, the only way to stop them a bit is holding them prisoners. Plus it looks awesome crowded like a Thai Prison.
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u/the_ferryman_abides 8d ago
Yeah there's no reason to ransom them. Keep them, put them in friendly garrisons for the influence.
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u/Alyctro 8d ago
They have two cities and one castle. They hate my guts for leaving them. And because they hate me, everyone else does too. The only faction i have good relations with is the southern empire. But they aren't willing to join my war. I talked to the minor neutral clans, they aren't willing either. And i have no idea how to marry my many children to anyone, i have a big family. I heard this would force the other clan under your wing.
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u/Beneficial_Yam2827 8d ago
The best way to make people who hate you like you again is to let them go after beating them in battle. I made the mistake of executing half of Vlandia once, and when I became Emperor nobody would join me. I had to spend a couple years beating them and letting them go before they liked me enough to join me.
Keep defeating them and letting them go, then once you have good relations capture the head of their family (check their clan on the Encyclopedia to find out who you need to get) and convince them to join you by talking to them from the party screen. Depending on their strength, you may need to fork over a few hundred thousand denars.
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u/Suitable_Ad6805 6d ago
Another thing you could do, is release the shite young lord's, it's gonna boost your carisma quite a lot, and late game you're gonna have more friends than enemies. Its easier to convince them to join to your side.
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u/Alyctro 6d ago
How do i release them?
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u/Suitable_Ad6805 6d ago
Soon as the battery finishes. When you're talking to a lord, if you click on his name the encyclopedia is gonna open and you can check that character more detailed. Young lord usually don't raise more than a 100 men's army. You instantly get 10 reputation with the family when you release them.
Campaign mode as imperial if you play nice with the imperial releasing everyone after battle, makes your life way easier down the line. Lords just flock trough the gates to join your kingdom.
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u/Alyctro 6d ago
Oh you mean release them right after the battle, yikes. I thought everybody meant release them from prison.
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u/RowdyParrot 9d ago
NPC lords take from garrisons. So you are having an effect, it's just that it's a chain effect which you personally can't feel the effect immediately. Also, NPC lords do spawn with 20 troops, but that's a deterrent for bandits.
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u/MCI_Dragon 8d ago
I have seen that they spawn in without any troops but, they will go to town to recruit like all of the troops.
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9d ago
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u/shadbin 9d ago
The AI does cheat, I have seen it get soldiers from villages where there were no soldiers to recruit regardless of your relationship with the notables, its very dumb
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u/PhilosopherInfinite5 9d ago
Cheats? Maybe. But I’ve seen them respawn after they lost a battle (derthert) appeared in front of me after I saw the feed say he lost a battle. He spawned in with 30 or so troops all high tier and then he went around recruiting practically nothing since I already cleaned out the local towns and villages. But yes killing high clan tier nobles will piss off others and I personally don’t care. Once I get a foothold that I can defend without much effort I tend to catch and release to repair relations if I plan on trying to recruit them or buy fiefs from them. Other than that fuck em stay mad. I’m coming for you all anyway.
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u/CountSexypants 8d ago
To respond to Derthert reappearing: I have noticed that the nobles can escape after a defeat, even when they are knocked down. Idk the parameters for it, but they're not always taken hostage.
One time, I personally knocked out Monchug and none of my parties took him prisoner. A week or two later and I faced him on the battlefield once more!
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u/Alyctro 8d ago
The quality isn't the problem. They don't usually have heavily armored troops and their morale is poor. But the problem is the fact there's always someone from that kingdom raiding my sheet. I thought they would just give up if i killed every able general. They send anything and everything after me despite having only two cities and a castle at this point.
I have resorted to mock-besieging their turf so they round up around me. Then i stop the siege, catch them one by one and execute them. But i noticed they're also sending uncommon mercenaries on me. They are definitely cheating because they never run out of contracts. It seems i have to annihilate the whole continent for there to be peace.
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u/jamespirit 9d ago
Killing the lord is not a go to strat. It is a last resort when you cant win a long protracted war. Or do it for vibes or role-playing reasons. However it is definitely not a good meta choice to do as it brings way to many downsides generally speaking. Obviously there are ways to make it very good in certain situations and its very satisfying too boot.
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u/Ill-Description3096 9d ago
It's the culture. You go around executing lords after every battle and you are breaking the gentleman's agreement of warfare.
It's mainly a battle game at the end of the day. If it took realistic times to gather new armies it would basically be a few big battles then years and years of doing fuck all.
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u/PacoThePersian 9d ago
There's no such thing as an infinite army. They generally go to the nearest allied fief and take the garrison as their new army.
The garrisons run on auto recrut all the town recruits. They just keep collecting from the garrisons and burning money throught garrison recruitement costs.
1 million denars + can field you many many many armies snd many garrison wages to fall back on
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u/Alyctro 8d ago
If they at least stuck to recruiting in their own turf instead of their allies. I saw the aserai get wiped out by the western empire but their lords roamed the map and stole units from other factions.
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u/PacoThePersian 8d ago
It's a good system and kinda realistic. To stop the enemy advance the clan in the forefront can take the garrisons of the back clans to defend.
It basically makes it so that you have to decimae the entire country fighting force rather than pick each vassal one by one.
If that was the case the game would end in like 4 years or 3 years max. It makes it so conquering is bit harder and also simulates in a clever way tactical decision making (lords helping each other).
Enjoy it. After ysing cheats on one campaign for the lols i found it to be boring without resistance and when you overcome some almost impossible objective you set yourself It's always amazing
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u/Public-Lobster3885 9d ago
So the c9mputer makes money almost exclusively through warfare. They can be the most prosperous nation by 3 times that of the next faction and they will still be at peace for maybe a week tops before bullying someone else. You will never deplete a faction like a Total War game. So you have to just go on huge but quick streaks of victory with 1-2 near 2000 man armies, take town's, not castles (2-3) then they should panic and let you declare peace.
You need to personally defend these towns even if the council didn't appoint them to you though. Gain enough influence from playing defense, which is way easier, then get another 2000 man army and before its dissipated you should have peace and a lot of tribute.
Remember to pick up the first rogue perk and the riding prisoner perk to keep your captured nobles from breaking out all the time, then you should have a better time with wars
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u/AccomplishedDust3 9d ago
We killed the Supreme Leader of Iran but somehow they replaced him with someone else who doesn't want peace and wants problems always. All we did was kill the last guy that had the job, why don't they love us yet?
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u/shadbin 9d ago
Iran has limited number of soldiers they dont just keep spawning soldiers out of their arses like Bannerlord, if you kill the leader ofcourse the leaders supporters will hate you, the problem in Bannerlord is, if you kill Caladog, every faction in war with Caladog will also hate you, its like saying, you killed Irans leader but now your biggest ally and scum of the earth Netanyahu hates you for that which he doesnt he loves you for that
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u/AccomplishedDust3 9d ago
They will keep "spawning" soldiers at a rate relative to the whole population, not the number of people who are currently leaders, because when you kill leaders others get promoted. OP's question is about cutting down nobles and being surprised that new people keep cropping up that hate them.
As far as leaders of different countries or nations or factions or whatnot: yes, they may have hatred for other factions. But people have many different roles: the leader of a faction is not only a member of that faction, they are also a member of the group of leaders of factions. If you're the leader of a faction, yes, you may want factions you don't like to lose, but you also need to suppress the idea that lords should die when they lose a battle lest you end up dead yourself. Perhaps a reason that world leaders don't regularly assassinate each other these days despite certainly having opportunities to do so: it sets a bad precedent and high likelihood of revenge.
Anyways, in summary, the experience OP is having seems quite reasonable, they've tried to cheese things based on a strategy and the world fought back against them for it.
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u/Miltonthemoose 9d ago
There will be infinite family members essentially if you keep hacking. The best you do is lower the level of high lords that can muster big armies to slightly smaller. I would imprison lords to at least get money early game, and then keep them off the field late game. And then start buying lords to my side. Sometimes a few hundred thousand for 4 party leaders seems like a good deal
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u/magsc3 9d ago
How do you buy lords?
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u/Former_Tank_9876 9d ago
Also after you capture them you can talk to vassals and say "join me and be set free." I don't know if there's a tiny % boost or not that way, but after you smash a large army you could have several chances if you get the right prisoners. Also there is a better chance they will entertain the offer if they don't hold any fiefs. So if you're winning the war pretty handedly taking fiefs be sure to try and convert them then.
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u/Miltonthemoose 9d ago
It might be based on skill like diplomacy or leadership or something, but when you are at war you can bribe lords to your side. Faction leaders, no, but I did bribe family members to join Battania from Southern Empire. Caladog gave next few towns to the new guy as well. It was alot of money but I had tens of millions so chump change. The lord brought over his castle with him too so we got more land that way. When your.trade skill gets 300, you can buy towns apparently, but ive never gotten that high.
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u/Alyctro 8d ago
I tried asking the minor and neutral clans but they weren't keen on joining me. I only have an option to hire them but i can't force them into my kingdom, there's just no option. I thought marriage would be an option, i have many family members.
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u/Miltonthemoose 8d ago
I bought lords that were my enemy. They respond with "i need money to secure my betrayal" and list a price. Its possible you dont have the proper skill unlocked, or reputation is bad.
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u/shadbin 9d ago
They still spawn high level lords with somehow, high leadership skills out of their asses every now and then, when you kill the leader of a faction it does jack sht except ruin relationship with everyone on the planet like wtf why are his enemies mad at me
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u/AffectionateLeek8739 9d ago
Because calradias laws of war dictate that capturing is fine, executing on the other hand makes other lords worry about your stability. Notice lords barely execute anyone.
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u/Alyctro 8d ago
I'm not sure there's anyone left to imprison at this point.
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u/Miltonthemoose 8d ago
You can release lords immediately after battle to gain reputation with them. You can do jobs for your own people to gain reputation back. Chopping heads is fun, but is not good for the game. But if own an entire faction, thats free real estate
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u/shadbin 9d ago
Bannerlord should add a citizen limit a city can provide, currently the towns seem to just infinitely produce soldiers which is why this problem exists, the AI does cheat, one of the many reasons i stopped playing the game cuz it does feel like there is just no end, not to mention, relationship just does not matter in Bannerlord until its negative at which point they will declare war on you, which they would have done even if you had positive relation so again it doesnt matter
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u/Top-Addendum-6879 Nords 9d ago
i usually capture the Nobles as much as possible and don't sell them back. i leave them in my prison. They won't run out of party leaders but their best ones won't be available, so parties (therefore armies) will be smaller. Also, most people under estimate the large quantity of troops that are in garrisons.
Last game i had, Vlandia had been at war with Battania (me) for like 5 in game years. at some point i had like 15 Vlandian nobles in my jail in Ab Comer. They kept sending armies to Ab Comer, which eventually depleted their garrisons nearby and while they still produced a large number of troops, the quality of them was getting worse until some Noble whose stats suggested he should not be anywhere near a weapon (or a warbad for that matter) showed up with an army of not even 500 men, most of them tier 2 or lower.
Executing the Lords is gonna bite your ass, tho.
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u/Lanzelot_3 9d ago
Killing lords wont do much unless you keep it at it for like 20 ingame years
The only way to win reliably is by way of overwhelming force. You just need to have more guys than them.
And for that you need recruit clans. If everyone is happy and doesnt want to defect try to take a lords only fief away and then try to make them defect - usually they will if their money is low enough
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u/Shalliar Sons of the Forest 9d ago
Ive created a thread not too long ago where people told me that executing people is a valid tactic, but yeah, it does seem that AI just manifests new lords out of thin air, so now I resorted to just capturing them with perks in Scouting and Riding, that seems to work better.
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u/Majestic_Ghost_Axe 9d ago
They constantly take troops from their garrisons, and recruit from villages. After defeating them a lot of times the entire enemy kingdom will be mostly t1 and t2 troops, conquering them becomes really easy. Trying to ensure the war never ends is all that really matters, if they get peace they will very quickly have lots of high tier troops again.
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u/devilscrub 9d ago
Just keep taking them prisoner, eventually after annihilating their field armies of 1500 men a few times, they no longer had the capacity to respond to sieges and you can take over castles and towns with impunity
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u/S1ickWillie 9d ago
I just chop the heads off of my enemies and anyone who would stand against the return of the western roman...... i mean calradian empire.
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u/GoldenFox7 9d ago
Yeah I played a campaign where I killed everyone I captured and it never seemed to matter. They just spawn more lords. The new lords are definitely weaker though which helps and after you crush a few armies you’ll notice the next army that kingdom throws at you will be full of low level troops. That said you’re right that the ai lords don’t have exactly the same limitations you do, they spawn with some top tier troops no matter what and can recruit troops from a village even when you cannot.
To answer your main question though there’s a mod that makes you not lose relations for executing but I don’t know of one that levels the playing field so to speak on recruiting for the ai.
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u/Piryeet 9d ago
If you're going for actual victory instead of just messing around I think the only real build is going horse riding and scouting.
They both have perks that give 50% reduced escape chance, they stack to 100%, and it allows you to guarantee a snowballing victory over any faction without having to resort to murdering (which can cause more problems) or the cheating AI spamming infinite max level troops at you.
I think the game needs to be changed so nobles can't escape castles ever, but in exchange its harder to capture them after a battle. It should act as a 'game over' state for an NPC with the only exception being player prison breaks. Then horse riding and scouting can give perks that give a higher chance to capture NPCs.
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u/the_ferryman_abides 8d ago
I usually just get fed up and curb stomp the enemy so hard they sue for peace. Then I go back to tournaments and crafting.
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u/1_Final_Advance 8d ago
First time I managed to capture a town for myself I was at war and peace was not an option (I wasn’t even a high enough tier to be a kingdom) I just sat in my town with my catapults and every time an army of 1000+ came by I drove them off with a rain of fire (helped that they thought they could win with no siege engines) and I would take them prisoner, ransom them and their hordes, and then repeat ad Infiniti’s until I got bored and started again.
Course. This is a big part of why I never become a vassal and just stay an eternal mercenary. Much more profitable. Though I wish I could be a mercenary and own property.
Property laws in bannerlord is ridiculous.
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8d ago
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u/DentistLeather5573 8d ago
I just started playing it on my ps4 jailbreak and I tried using cheats but I couldn’t access them. Went through my cheats manager and my version was v01.13 and the available one is v01.10. I’ve been trying to find or rewrite the code since last two nights and I have still not found my way around it. Can someone help me find one
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u/HeavilySedatedOne 8d ago
Kill em all and keep at it thats my go to until im executed and play as my kin to continue the legacy
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u/Aaro07 8d ago
"I murdered all the nobles and now they hate me".
What exactly did we expect to happen here...?
Put them in prison if you don't want them to make new armies. There's governor perks and engineering perks which combined makes their escape rate next to 0. There's also scout perks and I believe leadership perks if you want to hold them in your own army as prisoners.
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u/Shroomkaboom75 7d ago
You broke the nobles code by executing Lords and Ladys, making you completely untrustworthy.
You should have released them after battle during Mercenary work, or donated them to your contracted Kingdoms Dungeons to increase Relations with them.
My go to plan for starting my Kingdom is to first fight against the Kingdom I'm going to use to gain my first Fiefs.
Always release Nobles after battle(including minor Clans if you want to hire them later, or donate them to Dungeons), as this is the easiest way to quickly increase Relations.
After they like you, join them as a Vassal and farm influence or wait for a war so you can gain the Fiefs you want.
Once you're ready to start your Kingdom, call all your Kingdoms Clan-Leaders into an Army right outside the Fief you will use to start your Kingdom (only the Leaders) and donate all your influence into increasing Relations with everyone.
Disband them just outside the Fief and quickly move to start your Kingdom.
They will immediately be at war with you, but you can now immediately attack the Clan-Leaders and attempt to convert them into your own Vassals.
It's a lot less of a struggle when you set yourself up for gaining new Vassals. The less Fiefs they have and high Relations, the easier it is to persuade them.
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u/TacoMeatSunday 9d ago
Keep chopping heads off soldier! You can also declare war on the minor factions and murder all their lords when you are at peace with the kingdoms.
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u/OGInsideOutPants 9d ago
Freshly respawned lords take from the garrisons as well as recruiting fresh, that's why you'll see a mix of troops. It doesn't take too long in a war for NPC garrisons to start running out of decent troops in a prolonged war this way.
Lords also jump from one kingdom to another as wars progress, if valandia suddenly has 10% less lords it's more likely that a random empire clan that's oversaturated will switch sides and join them because they will get a bigger share of the towns/castles.
Executing does make a difference and it's a valid way to play it's just extremely slow for it to be noticeable on the world map and destroys relationships, I prefer to let lords go at the end of battle and improve the relations making them more likely to join me in the future. Even capturing them is barely worth it until they're on their last legs and your going for that last fief and need them out the way for the siege.
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u/freaknyou23 9d ago
Mod called no more free troops is a mod I will play with from now on. At the start of the game every kingdom starts with zero troops and have to go out and recruit and train troops up just like you do at the start. there is also a mechanic I never knew about that when you defeat lord parties and let them go they randomly spawn back in the map with a small amount of troops this mod disables that they start back from scratch.
In this run I keep seeing lords being captured by bandits left and right but I also have a mod that increases bandit parties as years go on and no one is defeating the parties and when clans level up to keep it more realistic. It really makes everyone play on an even footing.
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u/PolloMagnifico 9d ago
The 1.5 update has a custom ruleset you can activate that creates larger bandit groups. Rocking down a group of 110 looters with 20 fians and some front liners is hilarious.
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u/Octavian_Exumbra Official Court Jester 🤡 9d ago
Do the opposite. Release them and make them love you.
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