Been reading comments, and ye the title and thumbnail combination was a bit too clickbaity, I changed the original title to more fit who should use F. Bandits instead of F. Champs So basically the early to mid game when money is a big problem, F. Bandits would usually be the better choice, as many players would generate a big daily loss from running many F. Champs. The biggest limitation of Forest bandits is the fact that you have a party limit, usually around 250 or 300 in the end game so players gladly pay a premium to get Fian Champions to be able to win battles against larger armies more easily. I planned to include this in the video, but it was 3 am for me and I was rushing to finish it, so I failed to communicate this huge limitation. Also - The food consumption perk in roguery is currently broken (7:18), and instead, INCREASES food consumption for bandit troops by 50%, so ignore that perk!
I would say it like this:Fian Champions are really good,and forest bandits are decent if stacked up.But the time consumed to run around and clear hideouts are not really worthy of anything.Instead,you could just run from village to village and pick up a bunch of highbornes(that is,if you spend enough time at the start of the game grinding quests)and you get a ton of them.Just keep them alive long enough and you got yourself a big army of Fians,whereas Forest Bandits are just lower tier Fians,recruit them whenever possible but never go on a hunt for them,you will need a ton of perks to tame and quickly turn the conformity to your favor.Unless you want a hardcore challenge like bandits only on the video,I suggest doing quests at the start and get yourselves some decent stockade
@@vietnguyenhoang5795 Who the hell collects them by clearing hideouts? Just get bandit conversion perk, find a stack of 50 forest bandits and they'll just join you on the spot, it's honestly better to keep the hideouts around so that you can get more forest bandits to roam around
yeh well in the middle game you do not have the perks to auto-recruiting bandits and if your trying to keep it cheap keep your fians at t3-4 also in sieges high tier troops are better for increasing security and defence without eating up as much of the fief's food supply
and by your denar battle measurements, 1 denar peasant would be the best unit in the game but where trying to get the most for each unit because each unit costs not just money but food, speed and adds to our unit cap the same cost of FB would never catch the same in fians because they'd be so much faster than them
Something that you didn't touch upon, if you you have the Veteran's respect perk you can upgrade your forest bandits into Fian Champions. All the FB's in my army were originally bandits. I didn't need to recruit nobles from villages.
I had to do this because trying to field a large amount of them with how rare the nobles are was impossible and in 1 game (Before I knew I could get them from forest bandits) I just went with imperial palantine guard
As a rule of thumb, bandit troops are great for garrisons, because they stop upgrading at T4 (garrisoned troops tend to keep upgrading to T5/T6 on their own, which quickly skyrockets garrison wages) and are just as strong as other same tier troops on the auto-resolve. Forest bandits are good, cause they're archers, but steppe bandits are even better, because (1) horse archers have higher effect on security, and (2) they'll hardly ever upgrade past T3 on their own, because that requires war horses, which makes them even more cost-effective (in regards to wages, maybe not so considering food consuption). Other troops that I tend to use in garrisons to prevent wages skyrocketing: Militia troops (the best, never upgrade, but hard to come by), Vigla recruit (stops at T2), Khuzait Noble's son/Qanqli (stop at T3, mount archery effect), looters and peasants (stop are T1, but suck).
Finally another person who loves putting bandits as garrison troops. I just did it for fun. Having ex criminals to help maintain public order just fun for me. A bit remind me of Jim Raynor in Starcraft, a criminal turned to lawman..❤
@@anlozge1788 Yes, wage caps are a must, but they don't prevent troops from upgrading in the first place. If the troops keep upgrading the game will start discarding some every day to keep the wage constant, and in the end you'll have a garrison filled with few high tier troops instead of many low tiers - which is not nearly as effective. The only REAL way to prevent troops from upgrading is using troops that can't be upgraded.
@@iamdanieloliveira I did not know the game continue to upgrade troops and discarded troops when it passes the wage cap. I thought it just stops upgrading and recruiting them when it closes the wage cap. Thanks brother! this is handy.
@@jason200912 Currently, SH axemen are actually the second best shield unit. With my every t5 infantry unit vs each other series, I tested the SH axemen vs every other T5 infantry unit and their total k/d ratio was 1.09, the second best from all shield units, while the Legionary was the best with a K/D ratio of 1.30. These K/D ratios also includes fighting against two handed infantry and since the series is only for melee capabilities, the SH axemen didn't use their throwing axes (which suck against T5s with high armor anyway). - czcams.com/video/ynDwqILx6qg/video.html
With a lack of armor as an infantry unit, don't think they will heavily beat the cost-effectiveness of the Sturgian Heavy Axemen nearly as much as the Forest Bandit VS the Fian Champ.
@@Mr.Chicken Hey, is it true that now the banner knight is stronger than the elite cataphracts? I tested it, and my knights were always stronger, I don’t know, maybe I did something wrong, that’s why I wanted to ask you
True, forest bandits are more cost effective, and that's a good Consideration for early to mid game. But late game often times it's not the money that limits you (if you doing it right) it's troops capacity. So fian still has a place in the game. Very good game design.
One thing i kinda wished you also discussed is their armour and survivability against being ahot at or charged Forest bandit values range as being 16 22 16 16 for 18 weight Fcs have 48 64 20 28 for a weight of 24 This will make these guys SIGNIFICANTLY tougher and i believe their athletics is through the roof comparatively But i am absolutely sold on using forest bandits for garrison troops... Also can you do the steppe and desert bandits as well?
Forest Bandits have 5 presets not one. All 5 presets have the same 4 slots of weapons/bows but armor heavily changes. One preset like wolf knight mentioned, doesnt even have a headpiece, while another preset has 67 total body armor, while the Fian Champ has 64 total body armor. The same preset also has better total leg armor at 40, while the F champ only has 28. All other presets are inferior, but the average body armor of the F. Bandit is 45.8, which is kinda insane where the difference is only 21.2 between them and the FC. The FB does have far worse head armor tho which is their main weakness, aside from a one handed weapon vs a great two handed one.
money is normally not the problem... The problem is that you are often times one against many. You will want your every single troop to be the best of the best.
yeah, it gets to the point where I constantly get into battles with odds of 1:3 or worse and so the best troops are a necessity. Good thing is with battles that large you end up with mountains of gold to easily hire a whole army again.
SO basically Fian Champs are better than forest bandits in every way except cost. That makes sense. More powerful units are supposed to cost more. The reason Forest bandits cost less is because they aren't as good. Army's have limited spots, so it makes sense that if you can only have 100 troops for example you would want to get 100 of the best troops which would cost more than 100 weaker troops. This video just shows the game being balanced in this regard, but the title is VERY misleading and click bait. Forest bandits are NOT better than Fian champs, they are just a weaker troop choice that costs less.
while I agree that the title is a bit clickbait, but I think what the video is trying to show is that you can get far more bandits quickly and cheaper than the fians. In even numbers the fians will win every time, but if you are on a real budget (which shouldn't be a problem but in case it is) they can perform better because of their numbers.
Acutally gotta praise Devs here, the utmost elite units being 'decision to make' rather than plain upgrade is good planning. You canmake those Fian Champs pretty early in game, but can you maintain them? Won't they eat your income? Interesting analysis.
honestly even on the hardest difficulty having to constantly hire new units I have never had an issue money wise. It's just so easy to get millions of denars quickly even without using the methods people usually bring up like smithing... I actually don't even know how much you really can make with smithing as I've only ever done it for the extra attribute points as I've never needed the cash anyways.
@@thing4826 Answer on smithing is: much less than on 1.0.3 and prior. Still tens of thousands daily easily. Yeah, at 'some point' it is easy to get loads of cash, way more than a single army you might manage will cost. only while having some really devastated fiefs and 3+ armies led by other clan members did I ever come at times close to the red... but bumped back easily. Though at very beginning the smithing seems like easiest way to go, cause otherwise You are bound to be a bit short on cash for a while... Add to it mods and: while some add ways to earn more cash, others introduce items worth hundreds of thousands cash... weapons get ridiculous as you might leard to make em (mostly as 250+ smithing thing) but armor is not possible to produce (the only mod which provided possibility is not up to date atm). So ironically I would say mods help with 'burning the cash' in later game.
I think having Forest Bandits as Fief archers and Fian Champions as your main army archers is the meta after watching this, although I will probably use forest bandits as my early game archers instead of hiring noble archers from settlements from now on.
I'd use FBs early game potentially, then switch to FCs once the denar balance is above say 3mil. I'd much rather have FCs during seiges for instance, given that when I'm using them i tend not to overly concentrate on recruiting infantry and focus on cavalry more. Nothing better than putting your FCs on a hill to rain down death upon them as they approach and then send a massive cav charge at their rear flank 😂 Awesome video man. Clearly a lot of work went into testing. Do you think at some point you might include audio? You've got a new subscriber anyway, but it's always jarring in the modern landscape of content creation without audio.
In your main army, money doesn't matter - given that money is pretty easy to obtain in large ammount. But one good point is, that I like to have large garrissons and for them it might be appealing to reduce the cost and have them self-sustaining.
Interesting question, but wages barely matter. The time it takes to get them and the party size they take up relative to their strength is more important in my opinion. The part about garrisons was unexpected, and good to learn about.
I see the real potential of Foreat Bandits today thanks to watching a video of the character named Agnar the Bandit today. Although cost effective in the long run for the Bandits, I personally will take the Fian Champion due to their versatility as Archer/Infantry mix, and they are great defenders and assaulters of walls, though the Vlandian Sharpshooters are.... a close second when not in melee.
The limiting factor to me is not money but party size. I'll always want Fian Champions in my party over bandits. Maybe early game I would consider them but I tend to go cavalry in my starts.
The auto resolve in Bannerlord is as bad as the auto resolve in Total war games. If you fight yourself you get an overwhelming victory and lose maybe 300 men, do auto resolve in total war and you lose 2000 men and the whole battle. Just like in Bannerlord where you have 100 Fian Champions against 30 looters and somehow 3-4 fian champions suddenly die during auto resolve.
@@CoeGr I also barely ever use it, but if you get injured during battle and your health goes under 20% you are forced to auto resolve the second battle. Really annoying sometimes.
Forest bandits of course, aside from the cheaper upkeep they are also almost ad good shooter as fian. However,the main problem is they mostly spawn in western Calradia... in eastern map like southern empire the most common bandits are mountain bandits. Thanks for this vid! I was an accountant, i love it when people supporting their presentation with actual numbers thus Help a lots in making decision❤
My favorite army in this game is Forest bandits and highwaymen. Highwaymen dismounted make a good jav unit that can hold its own in sheild wall while another section stays mounted and javs the rear of enemies while the forest bandits rain down. Its good for confusing the AI and also for drawing big sections of cavarly out. The highwaymen can destroy cav when mounted and dismounted groups join together.
Late game, party wages are not a problem, rather the party size is. I could pay 600 T6 troops at that point so maybe FB are viable middle game, though at that point I want speed, so steppe bandidts or harami? As for garrisons, true they protect the fief better, but late game I tend to recruit from the garrison rather than the village so again, maybe middle game they are viable. Overall, wages are not a problem, but vinning battles, is. I'd ratter pay more but not suffer a loss, than paying less and losing more.
Bandit troops are amazing early game to mid-game because they can help you stack roguery exp, on top of being cost-efficient powerhouse. By the time you gain a decent amount of roguery with them, you can afford to switch to Battanian Fian Champions for more firepower. Personally, early game I like to solo horse archer a bunch of looters, become a mercenary and raid villages using T4 archers and meatshields, capture a rebelling town with a stack of T5 archers, then take a second town with T6 archers. And now you'll always have positive income. Staying under budget early game can get you to middle/end-game faster, so for that role, forest bandits are amazing.
I've been using the FB for a long time,after I encyclopedia them after one 1 headshot from 100m,I was surprised to see they got T5 stats for a T4. This seems to be the norm for all T4 bandit troops. Though the nature of bandits having very different armours can screw the player. More so,I RP as a Battanian lifting the spirits of the impoverished and oppressed fellows Battanians...and driving out the Scourge known as Vlandia and their inbred ways! So,naturally,I was merciful and let bandit troops join me,and boy were they many...so I decided to get the Veteran's Respect and suddenly more than 200 Fians in my party and Fiefs combined. I stopped recruiting for myself Highborns and just roamed with some cavalry for Forests Bandits.
FC are expensive but profitable, if you play a match only with FC even more. They are level 6, that means that when you enter a battle between two armies, they will be the first line (it can be configured in options not to be like that too). You enter a 1000 vs 1000 battle with 150 FC and most of the archers in the battle will be yours, you will be left with approximately 80% loot. Of course, if you dedicate points to roguery and leadership, you will have the option to "recruit" FC in almost all areas of the map by converting FB to FC. It would be good if you made a video testing the % of economic efficiency of the troops in army fights, as I said, I used to get rich using the second most expensive military unit, only 2 denars cheaper than the stinking mercenaries.
Smaller parties travel faster. At party limit, better troops will be much stronger. Decisively stronger armies will lose fewer troops (unless using autocalc). That battle against infantry proves I need something else than Fians (or some way to backstab the shield infantry).
concluding: fian champions are better at everything, but not very better. also fian champions much and much more expensive to have, while forest bandits have much lesser wage and food consumption. so if you have practically infinite amount of money, then there is no need in forest bandits. but if you playing some kind of partisan style of warfare without decent supply or you have 200+ troops limit and for some reason dont have much money at this moment, then try forest bandits.
Crossbow perk at 250 you can cut Fian Champions cost in half. Also a perk in steward which lowers it another 5%. While it would also cut Forest Bandits by the same, I'd say it's still not even close. With those you are looking at ~ 8 denars per Champion. That is nothing. Especially if going the Steward route and plan to near max it out, or at least get to 300 for even more cut. FB's might be a good pick up to begin with in the early game, but FC's still outperform quite hard. EDIT: Auto Resolve is also broken right now. It sways WAY more towards if you have more troops, rather than giving High tier troops a better advantage. Not the greatest for determining strength. Strat gaming shows this off with nothing but Looters lol
Forest Bandits make good budget alternatives to Fian Champions, but if money is no object, then Fian Champions are probably the better choice, especially if you're running a small force of elite units or your only real limit is party size.
Looking at my Poachers guarding the walls. They'll do my broke ass. Level 2, a Longbow + 54 arrows. Skill doesn't matter so much when the bow shoots flat and they cost bugger all. Before 1.7, back when they could skirmish properly - we took over half the map with just Poachers for ranged and Sharpshooters-made-Infantry for forming unbreakable shield walls..
Hey, I think with the new updates Forest Banditws now have 2 stacks of arrows and are even better troops now. Maybe you should do the comparison again if you have time?
Hmmm, that title was a bit clickbaity for my taste, actually. They're not BETTER than Fian Champions. They are objectively worse in every aspect. They are simply more cost effective. Period. This makes them preferable for garrisons, but that's it. Money isn't that big of an issue in the late game.
Alright if your mad at this, read this Reason to yse forest bandits: its easier to train them, and at there max rank with a certain skill they can become fians, so dont get pissed at him, just read this.
Try the forest bandit boss, they're tier 5 troops, better than forest bandit. Although harder to get but you can get a bunch of them while making money and making friends clearing bandit hideouts while knocking them out in a duel, taking them prisoner and eventually recruiting them.
Yeah, I might consider using Forest Bandits instead of Fian Champions... If i upgrade my roguery skill and need to make economy (even without using smithing and currently using all the weapons/armors i loot to upgrade my army, i am still making thousands of denars even if I afk :p)
Fians (along with Khan's Guard) are the only s-tier troop types in the game... they are absolutely OP in siege defense and are lethal in ground battles. Bandits are like the troops you give your little bro or sis if they are riding shotgun in your army
Bandits work well until the unit cap starts to matter. early game the bandits probably better, but if you have 300 v 300 the higher quality starts to actually help. I tend to not upgrade many troops past teir 3 or 4 depending on how effective that upgrade is until I really need to get higher quality.
So essentially for the most part, forest bandits give more bang for your buck. But fian champs are like the luxury if you can afford it. Never knew this, thanks!
I like to play by only recruiting bandits initially because I think its silly that anyone can stop by a town and take their young men away from home to die in some battle. I find bandits are very effective early on and I try to wait until I own a settlement or become a member of a kingdom before I recruit actual units. I wish there was a mod that restricted recruitment more so that non kingdom members couldn't recruit unless it was by force.
I started a bandit only play through and I’m having a lot of fun with it especially after getting the perk that allows you to recruit so easily. In your play through what was your ratio between your infantry and your archers? Right now I have about a 2 to 1 ratio in favor of infantry to protect my archers.
I don't remember, don't think i had a set ratio i would try to keep, so pretty much 3 forest bandits to 1 sea raider or vice versa. But i usually had more first bandits since sea raiders would die first
The main problem i have with FB's is that when they go down, they usually just die. Fian champs have a high chance to just be injured because of their higher tier. What i like it do is have both of em, and sort them to have the bandits behind the fians until they run out of ammo, after which i'll set them to melee and put them infront of the fians in case my frontline crumbles.
Yes, but i know exactly what villages spawn FCs and FBs are random, also they might be more expensive, but they are way more efficient more arrows more dmg, also denars are not such a big issue late game for me atleast. But yeah great alternative.
While forest bandits have lower wages, keep in mind the party size limit. If you have enough money, FCs are better considering you could max out your party with elite troops.
Main party>> FC Because>> troop limit. Fief>> FB. Because wage. But, i personally never struggle with denars because smithing. If i want to play with no smithing "exploit" i would consider to hire FB into main party, but i highly doubt it.
Зачем это обсуждать. У Фианов в разы больше стрел, в перестрелках они терпят в разы меньше за счет армора, могут отмудохать в мили пехоту. Это не обсуждается, а нанять их проще в разы, деньги вообще не проблема в этой игре.
Every big battle is very long smaller battle. Enemy keep spawning and you keep destroying it, regrouping over and over. If you don’t just charge and pray, quality is very important. I appreciate champ’s two handers very much because it helps with hordes of vlandian heavy cavalry and empire cavalry, that keep invading my archer formation and getting stuck here. With champions, its a quick way to heaven for cav.
Just a side note take into the account of your characters skills for bandits etc my skills are all relevant to bandits only to maximise their benefits not all results would be the same i think
khans guard should win every fight. Cav vs Cav testing isnt great as they will just get stuck in each other. Check out this video at 0:13 czcams.com/video/4bPE-bGYRG4/video.html. The Vlandian Banner knight did receive various buffs since that video was posted, and minimal updates to cavalry AI, but Khans guard should still beat them.
Now In my play through i use only Forest bandits. Why? Because Fian Champions are definitely too strong and when I play with them in army, I feel like a cheater and all fun goes down. Developers should nerf them. Playing with 200-300 Battanian Fian Champions is too easy and not challenging. It's like a smithing - I do not sell crafted weapons, because then earning money is too easy and it's makes game boring. With Forest Bandits you must be more tactical, because when enemy run to them to fast, they all slaughtered in seconds. Ps: Sorry for my English :p
So BC's are way better but u can get more BF's. Considering ur party size is limited, wouldnt it be better to carry better troops instead of more, weaker, cheaper version?
Very educational! I hadn’t considered that FB’s make far better garrison than FC, I had monkey brain going “better archer better defense” rather than “affordable archers, more archers, better defense.”
in the later game, you can afford more fians and are easier to recruit if you are in batanian lands than to find a forest bandit hideout, so if you are in the later stages, the forest bandits can be replaced by the champions
Auto-resolve cares much more about quantity. With AIs only sieging settlements that have less troops than their party, it's also important to remember about the intimidation value
By the time you even have access to a lot of fian champions money wont be a problem and probably hasnt been a problem for a while so I think its kinda weird that the video relies on money so much
Those two unit's can't really compare. The bfc is way better than any other archer. In an extended fight they are way more usefull than the bandit due to their arrow capacity. They are way more accurate on long distance shot. The money should not even be a problem, the difference is the bfc will be able to cover your infantry on a longer distance, more accuratly and way longer due to their arrow capacity, that bring less loss of infantry troops , that you have to paid and upgrade to. If you do a test where troops start out of reach of each other bfc will win because they'll start hit their target way sooner and more accuratly. Half of those test aren't relevant of each unit real effectiveness. Bandit unit are not professional unit's here the difference. Put the bandit archer into a professional situation like a real fight and you'll see that you paid way to much for. If you want a defensive simply use vlandian crossbowman or any crossbow unit. Extended fight crown belong to the bfc. Defensive fight unit's can fetch arrows so any unit can do the job.
really appricate your work again but sadly, wages do not matter in our current state, WHATSOEVER. the economy is STILL one of the major issues in bannerlord. it sadly doesnt matter if a troop has wages of 5 or 50, since you are a billionaer anyways. but when they will FINALY fix it, a LOT of troops become MUCH better/viable. we literally have todo another tier list of troops when wages come in handy. keep up your work
I absolutely want hiring, upgrading, and wages to also be a calculation in difficulty. Forcing you to actually be far more creative with your money rather than having a whole army of T6 units as they are simply best.
@@thing4826 yeah, i wouldnt mind an extra difficulty setting for money. but even then, in our current state, thats not possible. there are so many flaws and ways to get TONS of money, that i dont think they can fix all of them in the near future.
@@MohammedAbdulNoor Bro same, I facepalmed when the Sturgian Noble Infantry turned out as a mere joke. It would be cool to have a Sturgian noble footman that can beat the Fian Champions in melee.
Nice video, but a bad strategy. In all games, you need to minimize the impact of negative constraints in order to win. For your army and garrison you are LIMITED by the number of troops and that troop limit is, in fact, your real constraint, not income. In Bannerlord, simply put, you want every single troop in your army to be of highest possible quality since you are limited in quantity.
fb is mroe cost effictient fc is mroe pop efifcient, sizne party size does exist and a full aprty size of fb vs fc fc wins. cost mroe but its mroe quality then quanity
Man this vid really show how good Forest Bandits are, cause i just aim for the champions but have aloways struggled with the cost. Nc now have a much better alternative.
Been reading comments, and ye the title and thumbnail combination was a bit too clickbaity, I changed the original title to more fit who should use F. Bandits instead of F. Champs
So basically the early to mid game when money is a big problem, F. Bandits would usually be the better choice, as many players would generate a big daily loss from running many F. Champs.
The biggest limitation of Forest bandits is the fact that you have a party limit, usually around 250 or 300 in the end game so players gladly pay a premium to get Fian Champions to be able to win battles against larger armies more easily. I planned to include this in the video, but it was 3 am for me and I was rushing to finish it, so I failed to communicate this huge limitation.
Also - The food consumption perk in roguery is currently broken (7:18), and instead, INCREASES food consumption for bandit troops by 50%, so ignore that perk!
I would say it like this:Fian Champions are really good,and forest bandits are decent if stacked up.But the time consumed to run around and clear hideouts are not really worthy of anything.Instead,you could just run from village to village and pick up a bunch of highbornes(that is,if you spend enough time at the start of the game grinding quests)and you get a ton of them.Just keep them alive long enough and you got yourself a big army of Fians,whereas Forest Bandits are just lower tier Fians,recruit them whenever possible but never go on a hunt for them,you will need a ton of perks to tame and quickly turn the conformity to your favor.Unless you want a hardcore challenge like bandits only on the video,I suggest doing quests at the start and get yourselves some decent stockade
This was the only thing I missed in the video, now it is complete. Good job, very nice summary and tests.
@@vietnguyenhoang5795 Who the hell collects them by clearing hideouts? Just get bandit conversion perk, find a stack of 50 forest bandits and they'll just join you on the spot, it's honestly better to keep the hideouts around so that you can get more forest bandits to roam around
yeh well in the middle game you do not have the perks to auto-recruiting bandits and if your trying to keep it cheap keep your fians at t3-4 also in sieges high tier troops are better for increasing security and defence without eating up as much of the fief's food supply
and by your denar battle measurements, 1 denar peasant would be the best unit in the game but where trying to get the most for each unit because each unit costs not just money but food, speed and adds to our unit cap the same cost of FB would never catch the same in fians because they'd be so much faster than them
Something that you didn't touch upon, if you you have the Veteran's respect perk you can upgrade your forest bandits into Fian Champions. All the FB's in my army were originally bandits. I didn't need to recruit nobles from villages.
I do the same with steppe bandits to get kharn guard.
But I keep them as prisoners to replenish deaths.
While away fighting wars.
I had to do this because trying to field a large amount of them with how rare the nobles are was impossible and in 1 game (Before I knew I could get them from forest bandits) I just went with imperial palantine guard
As a rule of thumb, bandit troops are great for garrisons, because they stop upgrading at T4 (garrisoned troops tend to keep upgrading to T5/T6 on their own, which quickly skyrockets garrison wages) and are just as strong as other same tier troops on the auto-resolve.
Forest bandits are good, cause they're archers, but steppe bandits are even better, because (1) horse archers have higher effect on security, and (2) they'll hardly ever upgrade past T3 on their own, because that requires war horses, which makes them even more cost-effective (in regards to wages, maybe not so considering food consuption).
Other troops that I tend to use in garrisons to prevent wages skyrocketing: Militia troops (the best, never upgrade, but hard to come by), Vigla recruit (stops at T2), Khuzait Noble's son/Qanqli (stop at T3, mount archery effect), looters and peasants (stop are T1, but suck).
Finally another person who loves putting bandits as garrison troops. I just did it for fun. Having ex criminals to help maintain public order just fun for me. A bit remind me of Jim Raynor in Starcraft, a criminal turned to lawman..❤
You can also cap the max garrison wage amount for each fief you own.
@@anlozge1788 Yes, wage caps are a must, but they don't prevent troops from upgrading in the first place. If the troops keep upgrading the game will start discarding some every day to keep the wage constant, and in the end you'll have a garrison filled with few high tier troops instead of many low tiers - which is not nearly as effective. The only REAL way to prevent troops from upgrading is using troops that can't be upgraded.
@@iamdanieloliveira I did not know the game continue to upgrade troops and discarded troops when it passes the wage cap. I thought it just stops upgrading and recruiting them when it closes the wage cap. Thanks brother! this is handy.
just pay wages, what are you poor?
sea raiders vs sturgian axe man next?
*sea raider chief
That'd be neat but sturgians axe are already one of the worst infantry in game
@@jason200912 Currently, SH axemen are actually the second best shield unit. With my every t5 infantry unit vs each other series, I tested the SH axemen vs every other T5 infantry unit and their total k/d ratio was 1.09, the second best from all shield units, while the Legionary was the best with a K/D ratio of 1.30. These K/D ratios also includes fighting against two handed infantry and since the series is only for melee capabilities, the SH axemen didn't use their throwing axes (which suck against T5s with high armor anyway). - czcams.com/video/ynDwqILx6qg/video.html
With a lack of armor as an infantry unit, don't think they will heavily beat the cost-effectiveness of the Sturgian Heavy Axemen nearly as much as the Forest Bandit VS the Fian Champ.
@@Mr.Chicken Hey, is it true that now the banner knight is stronger than the elite cataphracts? I tested it, and my knights were always stronger, I don’t know, maybe I did something wrong, that’s why I wanted to ask you
True, forest bandits are more cost effective, and that's a good Consideration for early to mid game. But late game often times it's not the money that limits you (if you doing it right) it's troops capacity.
So fian still has a place in the game. Very good game design.
Good point.
So you are saying to be cost/effective? To do that you would assume i have a brain that can paly this game right
One thing i kinda wished you also discussed is their armour and survivability against being ahot at or charged
Forest bandit values range as being 16 22 16 16 for 18 weight
Fcs have 48 64 20 28 for a weight of 24
This will make these guys SIGNIFICANTLY tougher and i believe their athletics is through the roof comparatively
But i am absolutely sold on using forest bandits for garrison troops...
Also can you do the steppe and desert bandits as well?
Also I'm pretty sure there is a chance that they don't spawn with a headpiece at all, lowering their survivability even more
Forest Bandits have 5 presets not one. All 5 presets have the same 4 slots of weapons/bows but armor heavily changes. One preset like wolf knight mentioned, doesnt even have a headpiece, while another preset has 67 total body armor, while the Fian Champ has 64 total body armor. The same preset also has better total leg armor at 40, while the F champ only has 28. All other presets are inferior, but the average body armor of the F. Bandit is 45.8, which is kinda insane where the difference is only 21.2 between them and the FC.
The FB does have far worse head armor tho which is their main weakness, aside from a one handed weapon vs a great two handed one.
Really appreciate the effort you're going to with presenting this stuff. It's clear, interesting and looks good at the same time. Thank you!
money is normally not the problem... The problem is that you are often times one against many. You will want your every single troop to be the best of the best.
yeah, it gets to the point where I constantly get into battles with odds of 1:3 or worse and so the best troops are a necessity. Good thing is with battles that large you end up with mountains of gold to easily hire a whole army again.
What I got from this video is to use FBs in garrisons. Lower cost and more effective in auto resolve. Since you cant defend every spot.
@@MuffHamGarrisons are unnecessary. Battania gets a bonus on militia, that with the right perks makes garrisons unnecessary.
SO basically Fian Champs are better than forest bandits in every way except cost. That makes sense. More powerful units are supposed to cost more. The reason Forest bandits cost less is because they aren't as good. Army's have limited spots, so it makes sense that if you can only have 100 troops for example you would want to get 100 of the best troops which would cost more than 100 weaker troops. This video just shows the game being balanced in this regard, but the title is VERY misleading and click bait. Forest bandits are NOT better than Fian champs, they are just a weaker troop choice that costs less.
while I agree that the title is a bit clickbait, but I think what the video is trying to show is that you can get far more bandits quickly and cheaper than the fians. In even numbers the fians will win every time, but if you are on a real budget (which shouldn't be a problem but in case it is) they can perform better because of their numbers.
@@Wolf_knight5 to do that whole "bandit parties always offer to join you" you need to build for that. It is not free, just another way to play.
Acutally gotta praise Devs here, the utmost elite units being 'decision to make' rather than plain upgrade is good planning. You canmake those Fian Champs pretty early in game, but can you maintain them? Won't they eat your income?
Interesting analysis.
honestly even on the hardest difficulty having to constantly hire new units I have never had an issue money wise. It's just so easy to get millions of denars quickly even without using the methods people usually bring up like smithing... I actually don't even know how much you really can make with smithing as I've only ever done it for the extra attribute points as I've never needed the cash anyways.
@@thing4826 Answer on smithing is: much less than on 1.0.3 and prior. Still tens of thousands daily easily.
Yeah, at 'some point' it is easy to get loads of cash, way more than a single army you might manage will cost. only while having some really devastated fiefs and 3+ armies led by other clan members did I ever come at times close to the red... but bumped back easily.
Though at very beginning the smithing seems like easiest way to go, cause otherwise You are bound to be a bit short on cash for a while...
Add to it mods and: while some add ways to earn more cash, others introduce items worth hundreds of thousands cash... weapons get ridiculous as you might leard to make em (mostly as 250+ smithing thing) but armor is not possible to produce (the only mod which provided possibility is not up to date atm). So ironically I would say mods help with 'burning the cash' in later game.
Thanks for this im getting more Fian champions!!!
I think having Forest Bandits as Fief archers and Fian Champions as your main army archers is the meta after watching this, although I will probably use forest bandits as my early game archers instead of hiring noble archers from settlements from now on.
I'd use FBs early game potentially, then switch to FCs once the denar balance is above say 3mil. I'd much rather have FCs during seiges for instance, given that when I'm using them i tend not to overly concentrate on recruiting infantry and focus on cavalry more. Nothing better than putting your FCs on a hill to rain down death upon them as they approach and then send a massive cav charge at their rear flank 😂
Awesome video man. Clearly a lot of work went into testing. Do you think at some point you might include audio? You've got a new subscriber anyway, but it's always jarring in the modern landscape of content creation without audio.
you should make a bandit tier list, it would be kind of usefull for starters
In your main army, money doesn't matter - given that money is pretty easy to obtain in large ammount. But one good point is, that I like to have large garrissons and for them it might be appealing to reduce the cost and have them self-sustaining.
Interesting question, but wages barely matter. The time it takes to get them and the party size they take up relative to their strength is more important in my opinion.
The part about garrisons was unexpected, and good to learn about.
bro you are the best Bannerlord creator for sure!
Since watching your bandit playthrough I have been making sure to recruit more forest bandits
I see the real potential of Foreat Bandits today thanks to watching a video of the character named Agnar the Bandit today.
Although cost effective in the long run for the Bandits, I personally will take the Fian Champion due to their versatility as Archer/Infantry mix, and they are great defenders and assaulters of walls, though the Vlandian Sharpshooters are.... a close second when not in melee.
The limiting factor to me is not money but party size. I'll always want Fian Champions in my party over bandits. Maybe early game I would consider them but I tend to go cavalry in my starts.
The problem is that you can only spawn 200ish troops during massive army battle. I'd want all the advantages to every single one of them😏
What? I can have up to 1000 troops on the field at any time. What fucking potato are you playing on?
when gold is not an issue, get the best of course.
You can set battle sizes to 1000 in the game settings, I regulary field around 400-600 troops at once depending on enemy army size
Those are rookie numbers. You gotta pump those numbers up.
Why did people thumbs up you for saying clear misinformation?
The auto resolve is stupid anyways, it's been proven that the quality of the troops don't matter, just the quantity.
The auto resolve in Bannerlord is as bad as the auto resolve in Total war games. If you fight yourself you get an overwhelming victory and lose maybe 300 men, do auto resolve in total war and you lose 2000 men and the whole battle. Just like in Bannerlord where you have 100 Fian Champions against 30 looters and somehow 3-4 fian champions suddenly die during auto resolve.
@@sebasstein7014 I can't remember the last time I used auto resolve in Bannerlord and by the sounds of it, Total War's auto resolve is somehow worse.
@@CoeGr I also barely ever use it, but if you get injured during battle and your health goes under 20% you are forced to auto resolve the second battle. Really annoying sometimes.
Love the test man, i have never considered using FB instead the FC the FC troop wage are considerably a pain in the a$$
Forest bandits of course, aside from the cheaper upkeep they are also almost ad good shooter as fian. However,the main problem is they mostly spawn in western Calradia... in eastern map like southern empire the most common bandits are mountain bandits.
Thanks for this vid! I was an accountant, i love it when people supporting their presentation with actual numbers thus Help a lots in making decision❤
My favorite army in this game is Forest bandits and highwaymen. Highwaymen dismounted make a good jav unit that can hold its own in sheild wall while another section stays mounted and javs the rear of enemies while the forest bandits rain down. Its good for confusing the AI and also for drawing big sections of cavarly out. The highwaymen can destroy cav when mounted and dismounted groups join together.
Late game, party wages are not a problem, rather the party size is. I could pay 600 T6 troops at that point so maybe FB are viable middle game, though at that point I want speed, so steppe bandidts or harami?
As for garrisons, true they protect the fief better, but late game I tend to recruit from the garrison rather than the village so again, maybe middle game they are viable.
Overall, wages are not a problem, but vinning battles, is. I'd ratter pay more but not suffer a loss, than paying less and losing more.
Bandit troops are amazing early game to mid-game because they can help you stack roguery exp, on top of being cost-efficient powerhouse.
By the time you gain a decent amount of roguery with them, you can afford to switch to Battanian Fian Champions for more firepower.
Personally, early game I like to solo horse archer a bunch of looters, become a mercenary and raid villages using T4 archers and meatshields, capture a rebelling town with a stack of T5 archers, then take a second town with T6 archers. And now you'll always have positive income.
Staying under budget early game can get you to middle/end-game faster, so for that role, forest bandits are amazing.
wow great bannerlord content, glad I found and subbed
Man, this guy should work for me as a CFO. He would cut costs while maintaining efficiency at the same time!
I've been using the FB for a long time,after I encyclopedia them after one 1 headshot from 100m,I was surprised to see they got T5 stats for a T4.
This seems to be the norm for all T4 bandit troops.
Though the nature of bandits having very different armours can screw the player.
More so,I RP as a Battanian lifting the spirits of the impoverished and oppressed fellows Battanians...and driving out the Scourge known as Vlandia and their inbred ways!
So,naturally,I was merciful and let bandit troops join me,and boy were they many...so I decided to get the Veteran's Respect and suddenly more than 200 Fians in my party and Fiefs combined.
I stopped recruiting for myself Highborns and just roamed with some cavalry for Forests Bandits.
FC are expensive but profitable, if you play a match only with FC even more. They are level 6, that means that when you enter a battle between two armies, they will be the first line (it can be configured in options not to be like that too). You enter a 1000 vs 1000 battle with 150 FC and most of the archers in the battle will be yours, you will be left with approximately 80% loot.
Of course, if you dedicate points to roguery and leadership, you will have the option to "recruit" FC in almost all areas of the map by converting FB to FC.
It would be good if you made a video testing the % of economic efficiency of the troops in army fights, as I said, I used to get rich using the second most expensive military unit, only 2 denars cheaper than the stinking mercenaries.
Smaller parties travel faster.
At party limit, better troops will be much stronger.
Decisively stronger armies will lose fewer troops (unless using autocalc).
That battle against infantry proves I need something else than Fians (or some way to backstab the shield infantry).
concluding: fian champions are better at everything, but not very better. also fian champions much and much more expensive to have, while forest bandits have much lesser wage and food consumption. so if you have practically infinite amount of money, then there is no need in forest bandits. but if you playing some kind of partisan style of warfare without decent supply or you have 200+ troops limit and for some reason dont have much money at this moment, then try forest bandits.
Crossbow perk at 250 you can cut Fian Champions cost in half. Also a perk in steward which lowers it another 5%. While it would also cut Forest Bandits by the same, I'd say it's still not even close.
With those you are looking at ~ 8 denars per Champion. That is nothing. Especially if going the Steward route and plan to near max it out, or at least get to 300 for even more cut.
FB's might be a good pick up to begin with in the early game, but FC's still outperform quite hard.
EDIT: Auto Resolve is also broken right now. It sways WAY more towards if you have more troops, rather than giving High tier troops a better advantage. Not the greatest for determining strength. Strat gaming shows this off with nothing but Looters lol
Forest Bandits make good budget alternatives to Fian Champions, but if money is no object, then Fian Champions are probably the better choice, especially if you're running a small force of elite units or your only real limit is party size.
Ok but what about The Chosen Wolf?
Pre good video on the versatility of the forest bandit
Looking at my Poachers guarding the walls. They'll do my broke ass. Level 2, a Longbow + 54 arrows. Skill doesn't matter so much when the bow shoots flat and they cost bugger all. Before 1.7, back when they could skirmish properly - we took over half the map with just Poachers for ranged and Sharpshooters-made-Infantry for forming unbreakable shield walls..
Hey, I think with the new updates Forest Banditws now have 2 stacks of arrows and are even better troops now. Maybe you should do the comparison again if you have time?
Hmmm, that title was a bit clickbaity for my taste, actually.
They're not BETTER than Fian Champions. They are objectively worse in every aspect. They are simply more cost effective. Period. This makes them preferable for garrisons, but that's it. Money isn't that big of an issue in the late game.
weird to compare them on a cost basis. Of course the game will prefer 200 tier 5 troops to 76 tier 6 troops.
The cost basis is basically showing how much more bandits you can get than the fians, showing a somewhat equal time to grind for each.
Amazing!
Alright if your mad at this, read this
Reason to yse forest bandits: its easier to train them, and at there max rank with a certain skill they can become fians, so dont get pissed at him, just read this.
Try the forest bandit boss, they're tier 5 troops, better than forest bandit.
Although harder to get but you can get a bunch of them while making money and making friends clearing bandit hideouts while knocking them out in a duel, taking them prisoner and eventually recruiting them.
they have a bow that is a bit worse
Yeah, I might consider using Forest Bandits instead of Fian Champions... If i upgrade my roguery skill and need to make economy (even without using smithing and currently using all the weapons/armors i loot to upgrade my army, i am still making thousands of denars even if I afk :p)
Fians (along with Khan's Guard) are the only s-tier troop types in the game... they are absolutely OP in siege defense and are lethal in ground battles. Bandits are like the troops you give your little bro or sis if they are riding shotgun in your army
I think that in terms of costs in deniers, two forest bandits are equal to one champion, now it's a question of recruiting consumption and ETC.
Bandits work well until the unit cap starts to matter. early game the bandits probably better, but if you have 300 v 300 the higher quality starts to actually help. I tend to not upgrade many troops past teir 3 or 4 depending on how effective that upgrade is until I really need to get higher quality.
So essentially for the most part, forest bandits give more bang for your buck. But fian champs are like the luxury if you can afford it.
Never knew this, thanks!
I like to play by only recruiting bandits initially because I think its silly that anyone can stop by a town and take their young men away from home to die in some battle. I find bandits are very effective early on and I try to wait until I own a settlement or become a member of a kingdom before I recruit actual units. I wish there was a mod that restricted recruitment more so that non kingdom members couldn't recruit unless it was by force.
Bannerlord testing is it's own science
I started a bandit only play through and I’m having a lot of fun with it especially after getting the perk that allows you to recruit so easily. In your play through what was your ratio between your infantry and your archers? Right now I have about a 2 to 1 ratio in favor of infantry to protect my archers.
I don't remember, don't think i had a set ratio i would try to keep, so pretty much 3 forest bandits to 1 sea raider or vice versa. But i usually had more first bandits since sea raiders would die first
I’m running 100 fians and 25 legionaries, it’s pretty funny
@@quartqwertbudisgoodarmored minigun
I think you should make a vid like this comparing the sea raider chief and sturgian heavy axeman to go with this one.
The main problem i have with FB's is that when they go down, they usually just die. Fian champs have a high chance to just be injured because of their higher tier. What i like it do is have both of em, and sort them to have the bandits behind the fians until they run out of ammo, after which i'll set them to melee and put them infront of the fians in case my frontline crumbles.
FB's are more expendable then FC's so it doesn't matter that much when FB dies faster than FC
I approve very, VERY, true.
I love this content just wish there was a mic good videos tho
Don't really matter if you have a banner that does 8% or 15% more damage for archers also I have this banner
Yes, but i know exactly what villages spawn FCs and FBs are random, also they might be more expensive, but they are way more efficient more arrows more dmg, also denars are not such a big issue late game for me atleast. But yeah great alternative.
While forest bandits have lower wages, keep in mind the party size limit. If you have enough money, FCs are better considering you could max out your party with elite troops.
Main party>> FC
Because>> troop limit.
Fief>> FB. Because wage.
But, i personally never struggle with denars because smithing.
If i want to play with no smithing "exploit" i would consider to hire FB into main party, but i highly doubt it.
Зачем это обсуждать. У Фианов в разы больше стрел, в перестрелках они терпят в разы меньше за счет армора, могут отмудохать в мили пехоту. Это не обсуждается, а нанять их проще в разы, деньги вообще не проблема в этой игре.
quantity vs quality. But in big battles, quantity and troop management is more important
Every big battle is very long smaller battle. Enemy keep spawning and you keep destroying it, regrouping over and over. If you don’t just charge and pray, quality is very important. I appreciate champ’s two handers very much because it helps with hordes of vlandian heavy cavalry and empire cavalry, that keep invading my archer formation and getting stuck here. With champions, its a quick way to heaven for cav.
Very fun!
It's probably harder with vanilla bandit amounts but still they are free to draw up and cheap
Just a side note take into the account of your characters skills for bandits etc my skills are all relevant to bandits only to maximise their benefits not all results would be the same i think
Do a best cavalry 2 video but make the opponents only against other mounted cav or horse archers. No cav v infantry testing
khans guard should win every fight. Cav vs Cav testing isnt great as they will just get stuck in each other. Check out this video at 0:13 czcams.com/video/4bPE-bGYRG4/video.html. The Vlandian Banner knight did receive various buffs since that video was posted, and minimal updates to cavalry AI, but Khans guard should still beat them.
What do you use to test these scenarios? Is that a mod?
Money is never a problem in Sp
Now In my play through i use only Forest bandits. Why? Because Fian Champions are definitely too strong and when I play with them in army, I feel like a cheater and all fun goes down. Developers should nerf them. Playing with 200-300 Battanian Fian Champions is too easy and not challenging. It's like a smithing - I do not sell crafted weapons, because then earning money is too easy and it's makes game boring. With Forest Bandits you must be more tactical, because when enemy run to them to fast, they all slaughtered in seconds.
Ps: Sorry for my English :p
For early to mid game forest bandits are probably better but in the end game when I've got millions the fian champions are definitely worth it
So BC's are way better but u can get more BF's. Considering ur party size is limited, wouldnt it be better to carry better troops instead of more, weaker, cheaper version?
Yea try joining an army and you see why easy to replace troops are better as ai has tendency to suicide
can you tell about mostly costeffective melee infantry and cavalry too?
I do it so that the champs are in my army and the bandits come to my castles/towns
Yes, FB are really good for early years and they are upgradable to FC. Later game its not so important.
You convinced me.
Very educational! I hadn’t considered that FB’s make far better garrison than FC, I had monkey brain going “better archer better defense” rather than “affordable archers, more archers, better defense.”
in the later game, you can afford more fians and are easier to recruit if you are in batanian lands than to find a forest bandit hideout, so if you are in the later stages, the forest bandits can be replaced by the champions
Auto-resolve cares much more about quantity. With AIs only sieging settlements that have less troops than their party, it's also important to remember about the intimidation value
they could be a viable choice if it was hard to get denars or exp for troops. its just way too ez in bannerlord. go 500 fian brr
just a bit of smithing and you can pay an army of kahn's guard and fians before you are even clan tier one
How can i get that mod, can you help me? I mean, speed battle and rts camera..Or some other mod that i don't know from that
Which mods are you using for testing?
By the time you even have access to a lot of fian champions money wont be a problem and probably hasnt been a problem for a while so I think its kinda weird that the video relies on money so much
Those two unit's can't really compare. The bfc is way better than any other archer. In an extended fight they are way more usefull than the bandit due to their arrow capacity. They are way more accurate on long distance shot. The money should not even be a problem, the difference is the bfc will be able to cover your infantry on a longer distance, more accuratly and way longer due to their arrow capacity, that bring less loss of infantry troops , that you have to paid and upgrade to. If you do a test where troops start out of reach of each other bfc will win because they'll start hit their target way sooner and more accuratly. Half of those test aren't relevant of each unit real effectiveness. Bandit unit are not professional unit's here the difference. Put the bandit archer into a professional situation like a real fight and you'll see that you paid way to much for. If you want a defensive simply use vlandian crossbowman or any crossbow unit. Extended fight crown belong to the bfc. Defensive fight unit's can fetch arrows so any unit can do the job.
Ok but where am I going to get 200 FBs let alone enough to fill my garrisons.
Just started a new play through all im using is fb
Is it me or t2 and t3 bandits cant get exp at all. Absolute pain to upgrade
First comment love ur vids
really appricate your work again but sadly, wages do not matter in our current state, WHATSOEVER.
the economy is STILL one of the major issues in bannerlord.
it sadly doesnt matter if a troop has wages of 5 or 50, since you are a billionaer anyways.
but when they will FINALY fix it, a LOT of troops become MUCH better/viable.
we literally have todo another tier list of troops when wages come in handy.
keep up your work
I absolutely want hiring, upgrading, and wages to also be a calculation in difficulty. Forcing you to actually be far more creative with your money rather than having a whole army of T6 units as they are simply best.
@@thing4826 yeah, i wouldnt mind an extra difficulty setting for money. but even then, in our current state, thats not possible. there are so many flaws and ways to get TONS of money, that i dont think they can fix all of them in the near future.
That +50% loot wrecks your cargo mid war
how about sea raiders VS forest bandits?
Anyone know if I can use Improved Garrisons mod to fill my garrison with Forest Bandits?
What are your thoughts on the other bandit troops like steppe bandits or sea raiders
vlandian
@@TheSturgian I don't know why you focus on them so much the khuzaits are the real enemy of the sturgians
It was legen... Wait-wait... DARY!)
I use fc's instead of fb's just bc of their drip lmao
I am the 1000th like i feel so special..😢🎉😊
There limit in this game how many army u can take with u in battle field there no point to safe some coins and just take Best in slot unit.
Why not forest bandit boss?
Dude, after a some time, we don't need money. It can earn easily.
Bro can you test strurgian huscarl champion
That unit doesn't exist, it was an April fools video bro
@@Mr.Chicken what da helllll bro 😭😭😭😭 fr I thought they were real and I was sad for fians and excited for sturgians 😭😭😭😭
@@Mr.Chicken why did ya gimme the ❤️ ?
@@MohammedAbdulNoor Bro same, I facepalmed when the Sturgian Noble Infantry turned out as a mere joke. It would be cool to have a Sturgian noble footman that can beat the Fian Champions in melee.
@@TheSturgian yeah 😭
Nice video, but a bad strategy. In all games, you need to minimize the impact of negative constraints in order to win. For your army and garrison you are LIMITED by the number of troops and that troop limit is, in fact, your real constraint, not income. In Bannerlord, simply put, you want every single troop in your army to be of highest possible quality since you are limited in quantity.
Imagine a Looterer
fb is mroe cost effictient fc is mroe pop efifcient, sizne party size does exist and a full aprty size of fb vs fc fc wins. cost mroe but its mroe quality then quanity
Man this vid really show how good Forest Bandits are, cause i just aim for the champions but have aloways struggled with the cost. Nc now have a much better alternative.
This game offers so much in terms of income, how come you struggle?
If you have a large army, seek large armies to kill. The more men you have, the easier the game. That's how you make easy money.