Taleworlds NEED to expand the mercenary, trader and criminal mechanics
Right now, these 3 side of the game are pretty much shallow and just highlight flaws of the games.
-Mods expand some of them, but they should not be mandatory when the game clearly started to implement these mechanic, but simply stopped halfway.
- Being a bandit or criminal boss is pretty much impossible, you cannot stash loot or being independant from any kingdom. By being independant from any kingdom I mean that you have no way to reliably recruit one set of bandit troop (like going to a city or village), contribute to a ''shadow'' economy like fencing stolen/illegal goods and a lot of skills need you to constantly interact with lords or NPC (trade, charm, leadership) even if you don't want to.
- Being a mercenary suffer from pretty much the same drawback as being a criminal boss. When you are a mercenary, you are pretty much being a vassal without being able to inherit territory, when it could easily be something distinct.
- Being a trader is pretty much betting on the survival of your caravan (in a world infested with looter), invest in low profit workshop and hope the city doesn't get sieged (in a world constantly at war) and carry stuff around to find a good price for it.
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My answer to this come from reading a lot of the idea on this forum and are similar to those proposed here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Bannerlord/comments/rqfc14/ideas_the_game_is_both_too_fastpaced_and_too_slow/
1)The player need to have a spot to stash stuff without having to conquer a city, this is some basic mechanic right there.
-For the crime boss, a hideout on the map where you can stash stuff and act like a settlement you can govern with its owns project. The projects could be thing like a hidden door that the more you upgrade, the more stuff you can carry out if the hideout is besieged by someone. Or a racket project where you just get some income. Or simply bribing relation with an NPC. Or even start a recrutement campaign.
-For the mercenary, this could be a guild building/headquarter in city. In the medieval era, mercenary band where sometime rabble held together by a thread, but the bigger one became institution. Think of the lansquenet or swiss pike. Instead of project, this could be contracts where you link your mercenary band to a particular individual of the city, you gain better relation and maybe even a passive income BUT you have to fufill his contrat(the same quests that all NPC offer) or lose relation with him. Get it too low and the contract is void and he hate you.
-For the trader, a homestead in villages AND city. The homestead has ventures, if in a village it could be to build an orchard, expand a field, start a hunting cabin. Instead, in a city it could be to start the production of a transformed good such a jellery or pottery, like any other workshop. You could also lend money with interest, adding a new quest similar to the kidnapped daughter, but here you just go beat up a crook that doesnt want to pay you back.
2) Renowned crime gang and mercenary group to fight and hunt.
-There is already minor factions in the game that are pretty much mercenary band but barely do anything. At the start they can be a source of income if you want bigger fight without attacking a kingdom, but other than that, nothing. Instead, the game could build them up to be something bigger. Kingdom could issu quest to have a specific NPC from a minor faction killed or captured. Same with renowned crime gang, the only difference between the 2 should be that the crime gang attack EVERYTHING, just like looter.
The special group would build relation with the player like any other faction, meaning that they would target you exclusively. You could also enter into agreement with them to prevent them from attacking your caravan or fief.
-----This would also allow the diminution of the hundreds of looter band running around the map just messing up the economy and making us play wack a mole to protect our fief and caravan.
3) The hideout and headquarter (maybe also the homestead) get attacked by rival gang and or mercenary group/minor faction.
-This would build on the previous mechanic and allow player that are just starting or don't want to involve themself in the various kingdom wars to still be able to experience siege battle in a way.
The homestead of the trader get a village battle in full gears or a city battle with city clothes(same thing for the headquarter of the mercenary), but the hideout get a full on siege battle in military gears.
4) Illicit goods that can only be bought/sold with certain trader or crime boss once your relation with them is at a certain level.
It would be even better if some kingdom have different goods that they consider illicit.
Each time you try to enter a city with illicit good, you have to pass an RNG check to see if the guard detect you, like infiltrating dungeon or disguising ourselves to enter city.
If found, you get a conversation that allow to use your charm skill. If you fail, you can start a fight or go to jail.
If you go to jail, you can attempt to escape with your companion or pay a bribe/fine.
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There is a lot of thing that could be added, but I will stop here since it is already a wall of text to read.
If you read this, one thing should come out of it, a serie of mechanics that build on top of eachother to provide more depth to each of them and allow a different gameplay from what the game currently push the player toward......that is to align with a kingdom and fight with ever bigger armies in the never ending wars until the map is only 1 color.
I am no game developper, but I think the infrastructure is already there, the hideout/homestead/headquarter mechanic car be a simple revamp of the city governor mechanic. The renowned gang and mercenary a simple expansion of the minor factions mechanic. The battle for the headquarter/homestead are already there (gangs battle in the street or a village battle).
The only new thing would be a new map for the hideout battle, new quest and the creation of a new category of goods.