We’ve just implemented that parties on the worldmap actually get slower the larger they are. Like you said, this makes it a bit more feasible for the player to outrun large armies, especially at the beginning. Also, AI parties are now less likely to chase each other forever, as one will either catch up in time or the other will lose the party chasing it. It’ll be included in the next update.
Not unlike Mount & Blade we also want to introduce parties on the worldmap leaving footprints. This allows the player to both track down parties and follow them back to their base, and to stay clear off of larger parties in the vicinity without them needing to be in visual range.
Finally, as others have already said, we the way we’ll go about worldmap utility upgrades is probably with non-combat followers, not by making the player decide between combat and non-combat perks for Battle Brothers.
I really enjoyed Expeditions: Conquistador btw.
