Mount and Blade General

I find myself resorting to heavy cavalry just to ignore the really poorly designed troop handling. I mean it's rather realistic in that instead of well-trained soldiers executing the best laid plans it's more like herding cats with fifteen different herd buttons nestled in four submenus.

Just spent three hours reviving an early save of my warrior princess, I upped the damage and decided to go for a full domination run. I managed to grab three cities and a bunch of castles while also getting a few lords to flip over to my side. Something about being a woman with her own faction makes lords really hard to get. I was practically drowning in my other run as a guy but this time I I've got like half my territory lordless.

In the two days I have played Mount & Blade & Warband I've come to the conclusion that the Nords are asshats who invade everything in sight and will not stop a chase EVER, the Vaegirs love declaring war on every one and everything and then complain that everyone is fighting in war rather than killing the bandits, the Khanate is never where you expect them to be; sieging your objectives, and the Swadians/Rhodoks are just kind of there...

edited 20th Feb '14 4:48:39 AM by Blackcoldren

the swadians are usually losing cities to the multiple countries they end up fighting with, actually.

in my current file, swadia only has it's capital left; the nords took the other 3 cities and declared peace on them, and in the meanwhile the kherjits are leading their entire combined army towards the capital and my career as a nameless elite in king harlaus's army swiftly came to an end when he decided to not wait around and instead attack them head on. alone.

swadia is so doomed.

Swadia needs luck or an expert player to survive. I'm a defensive player, I just like setting up fire bases and kiting the enemies in front of my forces. I'm obviously a Rhodok at heart.

Funny, that — in my current game, the Swadians are actually expanding. They've lost a castle or two, but they've taken away the old Vaegir city of Khudan (which they stole from the Sarranids, of all people — in this particular game, for some reason, the AI has taken a particular liking to stealing isolated little enclaves deep in enemy territory).

@ Blackcoldren:

One of my favorite LPers is doing a rather successful one, actually.

I'll give the let's play a go.

How did I know that would be Kikoskia?

When I actually buy the games in a week or so I'm going to start a kill list.

My demo list's current solo occupant is Lord Brula of Dusturil 'Khergit Khanate' for "whipping me like a dog" as such I will make sure he is shot like a dog.

Can one finance their way to victory? In this Let's Play the guy is starting businesses, if one were to make enough money could they say buy a castle rather than siege one?

edited 20th Feb '14 5:36:40 PM by Blackcoldren

Not in the base game.

I've never heard of buying a castle. I know of one mod that requires you to own the Title to a castle before you can take it (I don't remember the name. It's the one where villages have levies and the only way to recruit from them is to own the village and raise the levy for three weeks.) but I don't know if it's possible to buy said Title. Even then you'd have to evict the current occupant, so you'd still need an army of your own to deal with it.

I've recreated my go-to Rhodok character: A black haired, mustachioed man named Luigo! Right now he and his band of four followers are still low leveled, but they're growing with every victory. Currently just slaying bandits and looking for a sixth warrior to unlock the tutorial quest, but we'll build up until the Rhodoks accept us as equal members of their nation.

Bump!

Oh, about that whole "Maining intelligence makes giving those skills to your companions useless" thing . . . it's not true. Going for the obvious, if you're knocked out, your scores won't count until your health's out of the red. You'll need those companions to kick in during that time.

For the less obvious: If you and one of your companions shares a skill, whoever has the higher score will have all their points count for the team. The person with the second highest score will still have HALF their points count as a bonus on top of their higher teammate's. So, if you have level ten engineering for some odd reason, and you've got Artimenner running at eight, your team's score will actually be fourteen, not ten.

I don't run on an intelligence build. Usually it's charisma. But I still know the value of an intelligent character if I've got the points to make one.

that...is very, very nice to know.

incidentally, while i usually focus on strength (followed by agility- although thats raised first) without any intent of touching int or charisma till late game

this time in floris i decided to go for all the religious backgrounds leading to a predominantly charisma-int character; points into agility untill 14 as usual, followed by strength untill 14, with the occasional Int for double points to increase surgery and something else that isnt as high as i'd like it, and from then on its charisma all the way (im using tactics more this time around so overall strength isnt as necessary- and it wont matter much anyway; without plate mail im always going to get shot in the face with a million arrows by every group of archers i just cant seem to avoid running into), which has helped me make quite a bit of money because prisoner management is inexplicably a matter of charisma for some reason.

nice to know that the dozen of so companions i have (that i have standing at the back of any battle because none of them are combat built) are actually helpful for more than just the trainer skill.

Since you can't build every skill to ten anyway, don't worry about trying. Just get yours up to four and you can skip six levels of intelligence in each companion. They'll sit at eight skill points, with a +2 from you, giving the party skill level ten. Then you can start building them up to slug it out. You'll only need intelligence above twelve if you want to rush the four points per skill, or if you're trying to see how useful Persuasion can be at max, since that's personal, not party.

Otherwise go Charisma once you get your physical stats up. I tend to stop strength at nine for a while, since I only want it for the 50 hitpoints that Iron Flesh level 3 gives. Once I get charisma thirty, I go back and fill in strength levels until I can wear or wield the fancy gear I want. The rest goes to intelligence to bump up trainer and whatever skill suites I think could use a boost.

So Xena has managed to completely overrun swadia. I managed to raise fortyish housecarls on top of my hundredish knights, grabbed some nearby lords and went on a rampage. They'd recently been decimated by rhodok forces so Praven and suno were actually really easy fights.

Next up was moving my forces/court to praven, grabbing all the newly free counts and bolstering my forces. Around this time I got to thinking that I should wipe out the rhodok now instead of when they have half the world's nobles on their side.

Managed to capture six counts (and their king!) before the vaegir declared war. Now there's no bloody way I can fight both armies on opposite sides of the world so I did the sensible thing and released my lords from the campaign. The plan is that they'll defend from vaegir incursions while I continue my trademarked plan of grabbing all the nobles and throwing them in a pit. Hopefully I'll eventually have most of their forces locked up and then I came come back home and start taking vaegir lands.

Way to go. Aren't you glad there's only seven factions? (Six plus yours.)

In the meantime, Luigo's running a warband of twelve. Himself, six Companions, a trio of Huntresses and a couple Watchmen. We're taking down forces three times our size these days, mostly without too much trouble. We've only had a total party (not counting Luigo) knockout three times, and Luigo managed to clean up the messes before getting his people safely into taverns to rest.

Tried to walk thro' Swadia by my lonesome, on foot and without a fight. Six days and 3 kidnappings later I arrived at my destination. Albeit horseless, crossbowless and coinless. Either they can steal your stuff or I did something very stupid. Either way was a fun trip.

Also, this Kikoskia guy is awesometastic.

edited 21st Feb '14 11:09:09 PM by Blackcoldren

The answer you're looking for is both. When you're taken prisoner, you lose a percentage of your cash, and there's a chance they'll steal your stuff. Did you really just go solo ON FOOT? unequipped your horse and just walked? That's bold. Foolish, but bold.

If you're strapped for cash you could go to the fighting arena in a city. Depending on how good you do you could end up with a fair amount of money, at least, competing repeatedly.

Yeah I did it on foot. I don't know if I'll keep this save for anything other than laughs however as I am in debt, horseless and the Swadians did not take lightly to my one man attack of Suno.

In debt to who? If it's a Lord, you have all the time in the world. You don't have any soldiers if you're going solo, so I doubt they'll care. And the arena's useful for grinding proficiency points and cash.

I was in debt when I had soldiers, still new 'ere not sure what's kept track of and whats not.

Now I'm getting tired so I best run off to sleep for now before I start blathering gibberish. TTFN.

I don't know either, to be honest, but if you don't have any soldiers now, I don't know who would come to collect. I avoid debt if at all possible.

Trying to play Mn B the 1st. Just ran into complete and absolute bull. My small group of 16 just saved a village from bandits. I ended up with 2 deaths and half health. When I go to recruit people from the town right afterwards...I am attacked by bandits..... The ones I just fudging killed. And much to my annoyance the game is to stupid to realize I never sheath my shield or my blade for fear crap like this would happen. Thus I was suddenly in-front of two very angry crossbow men completely unarmed and mountless. I rage quitted upon being two-shotted trying to reequip my gear the game for no reason unequipped.

As far as I'm concerned, there's no reason whatsoever to ever play the original Mount and Blade. Warband is a flat upgrade.

Oh yeah. I think Warband is the best of the 3.