Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord News

Greetings warriors of Calradia!

After a short hiatus with the developer blogs, we are back today with another one to discuss an overhaul to individual melee combat AI that was recently introduced to the game, including the ongoing multiplayer beta!

So, what exactly are we talking about when we say individual AI? Well, in a previous blog, we discussed the three different levels of combat AI that work alongside each other during battles, which we refer to as individual, formation and tactics. For those that missed that blog, you can check it out in its entirety here. But as a quick recap, we can break it down to say that:

• Tactics: Responsible for providing a battle plan for the entire army.
  
• Formation: Decides how the formation should try to carry out the battle plan as best as it can while prioritising and reacting to unfolding events.
  
• Individual: Controls the actions of each unit on the battlefield (independently of each other), such as attacking and blocking.
  

The recent AI melee combat overhaul that we will be taking a look at in this blog focussed specifically on the individual unit AI, i.e. the AI that controls the combat actions of bots on the battlefield. So, let’s jump into it, shall we?!

The individual AI in Bannerlord comes with its own combat/melee levels. This approach allows us to have a diverse range of fighters on the field of battle, with well-trained knights outperforming unskilled peasants, not just because of their equipment, but because of their proficiency in hand-to-hand combat.

However, it was apparent through our playtests that our previous individual melee AI was a little tame, appearing almost buggy and inactive at times with its actions by taking too long to make and act upon decisions, regardless of their combat level. It was clear that we needed to improve upon this to ensure that each encounter on the battlefield engages players in a way that feels more natural and challenging.

So, after many PvE duels to highlight the flaws with the old system, our AI team got to work on improving the individual AI! But, before we move along to discuss the changes that were made, let’s take a quick look at some of the different melee levels of the previous individual AI.



Clearly the AI was a bit lacking, even at the highest level. The decision making wasn’t as advanced as it needed to be, with the AI deciding to attack when it should be on the defensive, or falling for/failing to adjust to very simple attack feints.

In order to improve the performance of bots in combat, it was clear that the individual AI not only needed to be able to process and react to the constant stream of data being sent its way but should also consider additional factors when making a decision about what action to take.

So, to start, individual AI now considers its opponent’s blocking direction when deciding its own attack direction, and this applies at all melee levels. As the melee level begins to increase, the bot starts to have a greater understanding of the combat mechanics of the game and the fight which they are involved in. This includes stun durations, combat timings and enemy equipment, while also giving greater consideration to the orders issued to it by the formation AI that sits above the individual AI.

That all sounds well and good, but what does any of that actually mean? Well, allow us to give an example:

A bot has been told to hold in a shield wall formation, so it should act defensively and try to maintain its position. However, the defensive order given doesn’t affect how proficient the bot is in combat, i.e. it will still attack and defend according to its combat level, therefore, it should still try and exploit any opening that it gets and will attack if an opportunity arises. The formation order simply dictates that bot should play more conservatively/defensively.

The bot is then issued a charge order. The bot now decides to act in a more aggressive manner, pushing towards enemies to engage them rather than holding a position. During the fight, the bot is looking to see if there is a window for an attack, or whether they should defend an incoming attack. While making this decision, it is considering what their opponent is doing. If the enemy is holding an attack in place, the bot will respond with the correct block direction. If the bot successfully blocks the attack, it now knows that it has a window in which to reply with its own attack. However, while readying the attack the bot recognises that their opponent is blocking in the correct direction, and therefore decides to switch its own attack direction to avoid the attack being blocked (unless the enemy is holding a shield, in which case the bot will realise that switching their attack direction isn’t too important as the shield can block blows from different directions). Depending on the combat level of the AI, it will make and carry out these decisions in a quicker amount of time, albeit still with some slight variation to make it feel less robotic.

These changes definitely lead to more intense bot fights the higher the melee level gets, providing a much greater challenge experienced players. However, if all this sounds a bit scary to you, don’t worry too much as you will be able to change the combat skill of bots in the game options.

Rather than trying to explain it further, maybe it’s better if we just show you!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

And that’s it for this week’s blog. We will be back next week with an announcement about the Early Access release. The week after, we would like to answer some questions from our modding community, so if you have any questions you would like to ask about modding in Bannerlord, please leave a reply in the comments below and will pick some out to answer.


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Greetings warriors of Calradia!

With Bannerlord’s Early Access release on the horizon, we want to take the time to step back from the game for a brief moment to discuss some of the work we have been doing outside of the game to support our community -- more specifically, the overhaul of our official forums!

The forums have always been at the heart of the Mount & Blade community, serving as a platform where like-minded users can come together to discuss our games, share knowledge, seek support, form clans, organise events, and work on modding projects together. In addition to this, they act as the main point of contact between the community and ourselves, allowing us to engage with each other and share ideas in a relaxed environment, and ultimately, as we are sure many of Bannerlord’s multiplayer beta participants can attest to, create better games!

But, truth be told, our current forums were starting to feel a little dated. And while they are perfectly functional, they are perhaps a little lacklustre when it comes to providing the community with the features and tools needed to help the community thrive. We decided that it is time to really up our forum game and provide our community with an updated platform that caters to their needs.

So, with that in mind, we want to introduce you to some of the new features that you will have at your disposal when the new forums go live.

Home page:

• The forum home page acts as a hub where users can quickly and easily access game and support forums. It also houses featured content from across the forums which we feel deserves to be highlighted and presented to the entire community.

Social Groups:

• The new social group feature allows like-minded people to come together in their own dedicated forum. We think that this will be a welcome addition to teams working on projects together, such as modding teams and event organisers, as well as, clans and any other groups that are looking for their own space to hold discussions amongst themselves in a more structured area that they have total control over.

Modding:

• Modding has always been a major part of Mount & Blade games, and as such, we wanted to provide our modding community with a dedicated area where they can come together to share their knowledge and ideas with other modders and present their mods to the wider community. In other words, the modding section is a new hub for all things modding!

Media:

• The media section allows users to share their videos and screenshots in one place, with support for a number of different external media sources, such as Imgur, YouTube and Twitch, which is presented in a structured gallery that is easy for users to browse at their leisure.

Streams:

• Similar to the media section, the new forums also contain a dedicated streams section that displays Mount & Blade live streams from both Twitch and Mixer in a single place, allowing users to watch and engage with streamers directly on our forums.

Trophies:

• We have included a new trophy system with the forums which provides users with goals and achievements that they can work towards by being productive members of the community.

Badges:

• Badges are quite similar to trophies in that they serve no real purpose other than to show other community members just how awesome you are! However, the key difference with badges is that they are presented to people based on the contribution they have made or for something that they have achieved during their time within the community.

Tags:

• Users are now able to tag their posts, which should come as a welcome addition to any forumite. This should make locating specific topics of discussion much easier in the future!

Prefixes:

• Prefixes allow users to see the current status or subject of discussion for a post without having to open the topic and read it. For example, in our help section posts are set to automatically include an “Unsolved” tag which can then be changed to “Solved” when a solution has been found. Similarly, prefixes can be used to highlight something specific about a topic, such as if it is multiplayer or singleplayer related.

Question Threads:

• Question threads allow users to pose a question to the community with which they are looking for a specific answer. Once they are happy that their question has been answered, they can select the best answer to be highlighted for other users to see.

Steam Login:

• Users are now able to create a new forum account, or link an existing one, to their Steam account. Right now, this serves no other purpose than ease of access for users, however, there are a few ideas of how this could be expanded later down the line, so watch this space!

Reactions:

• We added the ability for users to react to posts, similar to what you can find on any typical social media site. Right now we have limited this to just positive reactions, however, we would like to include the community in this discussion and come to an agreement on what the scope of reactions should be. After all, the last thing we want to do is detract from the active discussions, debates and general engagement that our current forums facilitate and promote.

We also want to use this blog as an opportunity to warn our community that the forums will go offline on Monday (20/01/19) so that the update can take place. We expect that this process will take 2 days, and unfortunately, you will be unable to access or use the forums during the transition. However, once they are back online all of the features outlined above, as well as many more (such as quality of life improvements, a new forum structure, new guidelines and rules, and a number of other improvements that we will leave for you to discover) will be available to you. We will also be opening a topic to discuss these changes and listen to your feedback on ways in which the new forums can be improved, so if you have any ideas you would like to share or any new features that you would like to see, take a note and make sure to share them with us next week!

At this point, some of you might be wondering, or perhaps even a little worried about what will happen to the current forums and the wealth of content that has built up there over the years. Well, have no fear because our main requirement when deciding to go ahead with this change was to ensure that all of the current content would carry over to the new forums. So in short: nothing will be lost. However, if you still have concerns and if there is something of value there that you are worried about losing, you have until Monday to make your own backup!

Finally, we would like to thank our entire volunteer moderation team for the incredible amount of enthusiasm and work they have invested in creating the new forums! They truly champion the ideals of our community, and in all honesty, without them, our community wouldn’t be as amazing as it is today: thank you!


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Greetings warriors of Calradia!

The continent of Calradia is a hive of activity. From small bandit parties preying on merchant caravans to huge armies embarking on campaigns, Bannerlord’s dynamic sandbox campaign presents players with an ever-changing, albeit hostile, medieval world. And no matter if players directly involve themselves in unfolding events or if they simply watch on, the kingdoms, clans, and lords vying for power press on with their own ambitions and goals in mind.

In this week’s blog, we take a look at one aspect of Bannerlord’s campaign AI that helps to support this idea of a living, breathing world, ensuring that lords make sensible choices and prioritise their actions on the campaign map in a logical way that accounts for their abilities, limitations, and needs.

Just like the player, NPC lords spend much of their time traversing the campaign map as they go about their business. And unlike our previous game, Mount & Blade: Warband, in Bannerlord, NPC lords are bound by many of the same restrictions and rules as the player. This change in approach to NPC parties meant that we needed to ensure that NPC lords not only create and react to events in the world but can also perform many of the actions that players are required to do to maintain their party and ultimately progress through the game.

To find an appropriate solution, we first had to consider the different factors that would be important when making these kinds of decisions. The first (and only consistent factor across all possible actions) is the distance that the party would need to travel to perform the action. Naturally, the NPC lord will generally favour closer targets, providing its requirements can be met, of course. In addition to this, the NPC lord will also look at several other factors when deciding which action to select and how to carry that action out.

Go To Settlement
NPC lords will need to visit settlements to restock their supplies, recruit fresh troops and ransom prisoners. Lords may also decide to visit a settlement, especially if it is one of their own, if they have been out in the field for some time. After all, even NPCs deserve a little rest and recuperation! If a friendly settlement looks to be being threatened, an NPC lord may decide to lend their support to the settlement to try and dissuade the enemy from attacking, or if need be, defend it.

Patrol Around a Settlement
If a party’s needs have been met, and there aren’t any other pressing matters to attend to, NPC lords will lead their troops on a patrol around their clan’s settlements, prioritising ones where hostile troops have been spotted in the vicinity of recently.

Defend a Settlement
NPC lords will ride to the defense of settlements when the need arises, either with just their party in tow or at the head of an army. If the besieged settlement is particularly prosperous or is owned by the NPC lord, then they will be much more likely to make an effort to defend the settlement.

Raid a Settlement
Wars aren’t won on the defensive and under the right circumstances they can be quite fruitful. NPC lords, given the opportunity, will try to get in on the action! When looking at enemy settlements, the lord will check to see how valuable the production of the settlement is, as well as, the strength of the settlement. In addition to this, the lord will consider the relations between their clan and that of the owner of the settlement, favouring to attack ones that they are feuding with. Finally, a lord may decide to raid a settlement that is providing supplies to a connected castle, with the castle being the true target of the action.

Besiege a Settlement
NPC lords will try to lay siege to enemy castles when they are confident that they can succeed with the attack. While looking for a suitable target, Warband veterans will be pleased to hear that one factor that is checked is the proximity of the targeted castle to their own faction’s territory, which should help reduce the chances of those crazy expeditions deep into enemy territory to capture a castle they have little chance of holding on to. In addition to this, the strength of the castle is looked at in relation to the lord’s party strength, the prosperity of the castle, as well as, any enemy parties that are known to be in that region at the time.

Chase an Enemy Party
The final aggressive action that an NPC lord can pursue is to chase down enemy parties. If the enemy party is already being chased down then the lord may decide to safely ignore a particular party, however, if a hostile force is considered to be encroaching within the lord’s faction’s territory, especially if they advance near to a settlement, then the lord may decide to give chase. However, with that being said, a lord won’t foolishly chase after a party that it knows to be faster than their own party, at least not for an extended period. Finally, if an enemy party’s clan has low relations with the lord’s clan, then they might be seen as more of a desirable target that is worth giving chase to.

Sturgian Lords gather to break the siege at Ustokol Castle

And that's it for 2019! We will be back in the new year with more blogs and details about Bannerlord's early access in March so make sure to follow us on our social media channels to stay up to date with all of the latest news. We hope you all have a wonderful time over the holiday period!


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Greetings warriors of Calradia!

Medieval kingdoms were fraught with internal power struggles, and in many instances, the most powerful people in a realm didn’t sit directly on the throne. Instead, they wielded their influence to shape the kingdom in their image or changed the course of history completely by throwing their weight behind sweeping changes that eroded the power of those above them. Bannerlord’s kingdom decision system is a solution that allows us to represent these kinds of internal politics, leading to a more dynamic sandbox that evolves and changes throughout a playthrough as clans rise and fall. In previous blogs, we briefly touched on the subject of decision making, however, the rabbit hole goes a lot deeper, and so, in this week’s blog, we will be expanding on this topic by discussing how decisions are brought forward, and the outcomes and consequences of voting.

Kingdom decisions come in various types. Kingdoms may have to make decisions on which policies to enact as well as things like who will get a newly captured fief. In these cases, while the ruler makes the ultimate decision, all clans in the kingdom get to have their say by supporting one or the other choice by putting their influence behind one of the options.



When clan AI evaluates whether to put their weight behind a proposal, it will consider a number of factors:

• Interest in the outcome of a proposal: A clan will, of course, consider if the proposal is to its benefit.
  
• Available influence: Generally, a clan will be less likely to use influence to affect a decision if doing so will deplete its influence.
  
• The chance/cost to succeed: Clans will be unlikely to waste influence to support a lost cause.
  
• Time since the last vote.
  
• Relationship with sponsors: A clan may be more likely to support a proposal if it is on good terms with the sponsor. Conversely, they may reject if they hate the sponsor and want to spite them.
  

Before a clan leader can make a proposal, there is a check to see how much time has passed since the previous vote. This is done to help ensure that the system doesn’t become too overwhelming or disruptive for the player, nor create too much instability within a faction. If a sufficient amount of time has passed since the last vote, a decision type is selected randomly, albeit with weighted probabilities.

These types are:

• Kingdom Laws / Policies
  
• War / Peace decisions
  
• Annexation
  
• Clan expulsion
  

The system then checks if a clan has enough influence to propose and vote on the decision type, with varying costs per type. Once a decision has been selected, it is evaluated by the clan in question. This evaluation stage is partially unique, as the clan leaders determine their interest independently for each decision type, and with varying factors. If there is no interest in a decision, the evaluation ends without any further steps. However, if there is an interest in a decision, this represents value to the clan leader. This value is reviewed together with the chance that the proposal will succeed and the available influence.


If a proposal is made, the respective clan leader becomes the sponsor of the kingdom decision. Depending on the decision type, an opposition sponsor is then decided. In the case of annexation or expulsion, naturally, the opposition will be the clan leader that the action is targeted against. However, with kingdom policies and diplomatic actions, similar checks to those used to select the sponsor take place to determine the opposition.

Every decision has at least one sponsor and opposition sponsor. Some decisions, such as the distribution of fiefs, may have more. Supporters (other clan leaders) then vote in favour of their chosen sponsor. Once a vote is cast, a supporter gains relationship with the sponsor they vote in favour of, while losing relationship with the other(s).




Of course, Bannerlord’s decision system represents politics in a feudal kingdom rather than democracy, and therefore the ruler has the ultimate word. However, in order to overrule a decision, the ruler needs to spend influence that is equivalent to the difference between the majority and minority vote. Also, this does risk drawing the ire of their vassals. Consequently, the more support a decision enjoys, the more expensive it becomes to change it. Similarly, if there is a tie, the ruler can freely decide on whether they want to pass or reject the decision.



In the end, we feel that Bannerlord’s kingdom decision system goes a long way in helping to represent the dynamics and power struggles that were at the forefront of feudal kingdoms among the ranks of the nobility. It creates an additional strategic layer to the game that wise players can bend and subvert to achieve their own goals. Finally, it presents players with fresh challenges to assess and overcome throughout their playthrough as they rise through the ranks and attempt to cement their position among the ruling elite.


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Greetings warriors of Calradia!

In this week’s blog, we want to take a step back from Bannerlord (just for a brief moment!) to show you something we have been working on recently: our new look website! There are still a few small tweaks and touch-ups to do, but we wanted to take this opportunity to share it with you now so that we could hear your thoughts and feedback before decommissioning our current site.

http://betasite.taleworlds.com/

The new website is a little more with the times and brings with it some much-needed improvements over the current site, such as mobile and tablet support. The change has also provided us with a nice opportunity to show off some of our new artwork, which is never a bad thing! Overall, we think you will find the new site to be a little more visually appealing and user-friendly.

We look forward to hearing what your thoughts are on the site, so make sure to leave a reply in the comment section to let us know what you think!

Next week, we will follow up on this post by introducing you to our new forums, explaining what the changes will mean for our current forumites and detailing all of the new features that will be made available to you (spoiler alert: there’s a lot!).


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