[Perisno] Strategy discussion

I've been experimenting around with the first hundred days of Perisno and wanted to start a discussion on strategy. This mod has a difficult learning curve for the new player and a lot of the decision making early on has increasing impact later on.

Character creation

Notably, by picking the Bandit/Stealing/Thief background options you can create a starting Looting 10 player character. This is pretty powerful but it leaves your character deficient in charisma, and renders some of the companions who are designed to cover it useless.

I think it comes down to an understanding of which skills are useful and which ones aren't.

Persuasion - there are very strict, obscure rules for prisoner recruitment and rescue (they're different). Outlined here: https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,374955.msg8937963.html#msg8937963, it's basically worthless.

Weapon Mastery - very useful, there's a starting option that gives WM 4, and at day 80 I have >200 proficiency in one-handed, polearms, and archery. Because of how the scaling works I think early investment in WM makes sense.

Power Draw - there are decent bows at Power Draw 7/8.

Riding - useful, I'd say 5 is bare minimum and somewhere in 6-7 is optimal and allows you to ride horses that can survive a big battle. The jump from 3 to 4 is negligible but each increase after that gives you access to superior horses.

Shield - useful, level 4 gives you access to the top tier shields with 30+ resistance. Shield 5 allows use of the Aegis from the Red Immortals quest which is the best shield in the game.

Leadership - useful, less so in the early game but potentially critical later on. In the beginning the bulk of the monetary impact is in the cost of upgrading units which Leadership doesn't affect. It also makes it faster to walk through the Mercenary Guild.

Athletics - this actually is useful in tournaments. Your team will get murdered and you'll have to backpedal, but if it's only 1, it's not fast enough to avoid getting double hit in 2 v 1 situations.

Prisoner Management - questionably useful, you have a higher chance of capturing lords, but you don't have the option of ransoming directly through the party menu like in Pendor. Meaning they'll just escape before you get a ransom offer from their kingdom. However, you make more money from prisoners which is a legitimate factor and there are accessible units with blunt weapons, and common blunt weapons you can give to your companions.

Because Perisno doesn't have something like the qualis gem mechanic like in Prophesy of Pendor, you're in the old school model where your character build is important, you can't specialize in everything. So it makes sense to assign the party skills to your companions.

My thought is that a charisma/agility/strength character emphasizing combat and leadership is the best way to quickly level up. The cavalry archer build works great in this game.

Acquiring the first level ups, making bank early

The arena is extremely nerfed as you don't get dick unless you win the whole thing. This entails waiting for several minutes as the AI spawns in 1 opponent at a time, until you clear out thirty of them, making it too long to be practical. I think Tolrania is a good starting location as it has your classic bandit/robber parties, albeit very few of them. Just enough to get that first level up. Similarly, chasing deer/boar/goat/donkey herds is impractical as it takes far too long.

But fighting is extremely viable. I think Tolrania is a good starting location as it has your classic bandit/robber parties, albeit very few of them. Just enough to get that first level up.

Once they're gone, I search for a cheap lance (the impoverished noble starting option gives you this for free, but it's the shitty double-sided lance which is only the length of a sword). Then I go to Maccavia and search for deserter groups of Maccavian infantry. If you're lucky you'll run across Maccavian swordmasters who have no protection against couched lance. The same applies to Tolranian footmen deserter groups. Parties like the Snowcrawlers are ALL ranged so will kill your horse unless you have the patience to wait for them to shoot 30+ arrows before going in. With a 200+ reach lance, you can solo Divine Aethlings which are worth 800 experience a pop.

The goal is to get that initial equipment upgrade. Helmets are common, and while I was lucky in spiking the Maccavian swordmaster body armor, I've also gotten surcoats in the 40s range.

The upside of playing solo is you get amass early renown and a windfall of aurums.

Which leads to the question of:

What to spend money on

In Perisno, cities only allow you to set up enterprises when you have +15 relationship with them. To make this difficult, the only guildmaster quests I've gotten are the "Hunt down bandit/deserter" groups the first several times, which are impossible to locate on the worldmap without cheating, or even with CTRL+T.

The alternative is to buy land. Roughly 22k will net you 8 acres which will generate 1k in income each week. However, you must visit each city and visit the landowners/moneylenders dialogue option to collect. Bear in mind that the Zann invasion begins on the Maccavia coastline and spills over into Tolrania and Reich des Drachen. I formulated a route in Elsinore, Tolrania, and Hakkon for my land ownership.

But, is this the wisest use of funds?

Companions

With your early cash from soloing parties you easily have enough to pick up a few key companions. Shi Jin will join you for free, as will Agnare Stormcloak. There are a few affordable mid-level companions who each party movement skill coverage until you pick up a specialist.

Marcus or Dietrich cost ~20k and Silvethiel cost 8k. Picking them up lays the foundation of your army-building capacity as they have high Trainer skill and won't break the bank.

Tamaris costs 50k, and I was able to scrape together enough to hire her. So I recommend stockpiling 80k aurums for these 3. She does have 7 Pathfinding/8 Spotting, so decide early if you want to hire her and if so, if you're ok with her being the tracker/movement companion so you can switch one of the low-level companions to something else.

The trio of Marcus, Silvethiel, and Tamaris are enough to make recruiting from villages viable as they quickly level your troops right up till the second or third from highest tier unit, then the last one or two upgrades take a little longer. You'll be able to train an army superior to any non-king/queen's within a week.

Raiding

Another source of funds is raiding, easily 10k-18k per village depending on your trade skill. I've read that the devs made it it so that raiding is encouraged in this mod. However, I think it's outdated information. There's a mechanic allowing you to gain honor by going to Maccan's castle and talking to the New Gods Believer. However, there's an insanely punitive Renown penalty of -60 per raided village that's so severe that Prophesy of Pendor encourages raiding more, which is some feat. It should make you MORE renowned, not less.

But if you're trying to rush 100k to hire Aracanus, that's the way to go.

Miscellaneous tips

Give Shi Jin a lance, he's always murdering with it.

Agnare is the level 1 guy with a head start in Str, so has great potential to be your caveman secret weapon.

Fountain Hall has a good two-handed blunt weapon in the chest, enter, go right, past the stalls and fence and there'll be a chest nestled up against the wall. I like to give it to Thrak, the giant companion. He can use a bow too.

When you sign a mercenary contract, you get access to the faction's noble units by going to their castles and towns, the menu option will have a "Hire nobles" option. However, the mercenary payment does not pay the entire wages of your company, more like 25% of it, so don't count on it to pay the bills.

Tournaments are broken. Ulistai is throwing + dagger, which is just the mods having fun. Forniron is insane, your team will get wiped out in the crossfire spawning between two teams where you can't find cover. You have to get lucky three times in a row to avoid that, but Round 4 onwards is very easy. Murdenholl is just lances, they forgot to add in clubs or sidearms.

Maccan is the only one I've seen that's foot melee with shields guaranteed. This is my most consistent tournament. The key is to avoid being outnumbered, so use the F1-F2 command to have people follow you or F2-F2 to retreat them back behind you so that you engage first. With the shield you can aggro them before your teammates charge, and when their swing animations are cut off, you can finish them off. The named arena heroes have maxed ironflesh so your strikes will do <20 damage even with 8 power strike. Their proficiencies are high enough that even after a successful block, they will still be able to attack you sometimes.

However, by finding those juicy battles like soloing Divine Aethlings with lance or bow, you can easily get your character to tournament contention status.

Submitted October 27, 2018 at 07:43PM by BannerlordAdmirer https://ift.tt/2PWQk8o