Mount and Blade General

I 'unno. I'll probably get it next time it goes on sale.

Viking Conquest is fun when you get into it. I've gone far enough into the main quest that I have to talk to Sigurd Snake in the Eye on my own. So I said fuck that for a while and went raiding in Ireland. I've got three ships, with the shipwright in Dubh Linn building me a worthy flagship. After that, who knows? In the meantime I'll finish the next step of the main quest while I wait for the ship to finish, and then move on to building farmsteads in Scandinavia to fund my military. Then we'll go back to raiding and see about maybe settling Ireland.

Bump!

So I started playing the Bellum Imperii mod, and I have to say it's really fun. Think Brytenwalda expanded to cover all of Europe during the second century AD. It's still in Alpha, and very clearly built out of the Brytenwalda mod itself, since there's plenty of features that are directly from it, and the companions are the same.

I'm currently playing as a German merchant who learned horse archery from the Persians and is running around the German tribes doing quests and helping out the locals to build fame and reputation.

you know, it'd be nice if the next game had an option to split your forces apart temporarily (lead by you or a (playable) companion of course) so you can chase after those smaller forces that run away too fast for your larger army to catch up.

I've rarely used it, but it's possible in some mods. Brytenwalda had spies you could send out to slow down enemies, and Mercenary Captains you could supposedly send out with detachments. Plus the old Sword of Damocles mod for original M&B had mercenary parties you could hire to follow you.

ETA: What I'm saying here is that the engine allows it, so there's no real reason Taleworlds couldn't implement it as long as they know the fans want it.

edited 28th May '15 6:31:37 AM by Journeyman

It's especially terrible when you first start up your own nation and you've got to roll out in full force on the off-chance you get some time to hit a castle. Sure I can grab land but approximately 15 seconds later a village is getting hit or i've got to run to my other castle and shoo away the groups I can't catch. I eventually just went with 100 knights/companions for everything for the speed boost. Huscarls may be better for sieging but they slow your group down something fierce.

Queen Talia invested heavily in training for herself and her companions. It sort of feels like a Magikarp Power as all of a sudden I can train peasants up to knights in a week. I've got like 300+ of them sitting in Dhirim looking incredibly bored. Also I double dog dare some mofo to attack my city. If my 300 knights dont take you down my 200 dorky sharpshooters will.

Some new footage and info has been released at Gamescom regarding the big sequel, Bannerlord. It's all here.

It looks so much better than the first games.

With dedication, passionate work into the engine, and hiring more people, improvements are bound to happen. This game is shaping up beautifully.

Also, I have been consodering creating a page for Bannerlord since it is Mount & Blade II, worth a shot when I get around it?

Sure.

If this comes out before Christmas and my computer can run it, I'm going for it. If not, I'm upgrading my computer and getting the game for my birthday.

ETA: Also, that background music seems to incorporate some of Globus's work. They're a good orchestral band, and a lot of the mods for Warband used some of their songs.

edited 11th Aug '15 8:19:25 PM by Journeyman

Bannerlords itself isn't out yet, but there's a bunch of Devlogs. Last week at E3 they even gave us a siege demo.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iObwq1WaxQ8

I'm hoping that's stable and stays in the game, because that makes this look like the on-the-ground style Total War game a lot of us want the series to be. The video's only 7 minutes long, so it's not a time intensive watch.

I'm glad that now it looks like sieges are less of a slog with multiple siege engines other than ladders and one siege tower.

I know. I'd probably spend the early siege using those ballistae to knock people off the walls before letting my soldiers close in. It's similar to what I already do anyway.

I'm assuming from the nature of the game that we'd have to build those engines before we could place them. Wonder how that will work. It would be awesome if we could bring and deploy them in field battles too.

Well that was always the frustration in the base game - You sat around a castle for a week "Building siege engines" and then when you go to storm the place you've got one sodding ladder.

The fact there are doors to smash down and potentially ways to destroy walls (Otherwise what's the point of catapults) means that we can't just be the master archer on the wall with Huscarls holding the one ladder. Now you have to actively think about defence etc.

The way you can lay out troops beforehand though and setup the siege weapons would seem to indicate they've improved the battle prep elements potentially.

I'm so going to lose hours to this. Looking forward to Prophecy of Pelanor or Warhammer mod for this one!

Hell, I'm just looking forward to Vanilla right now. After I get my fill of that, I'll see what the Brytenwalda/Viking Conquest team has in store for us. You just know they're going to get tagged to do a DLC after pulling off VC.

Very true. Vanilla will be awesome - the fact it has crafting and some really in depth looking social options as well looks amazing. Like crime and real options for subterfuge now.

This can't come out quickly enough.

Hell, the economy and logic behind it is getting a boost. Playing as a store owner actually has merit beyond "sit back, earn cash for nothing, and maybe, if you want to get even richer, go out and buy/earn ingredients yourself instead of relying on your manager to do it." If you wanted to run a commercial empire in the old games, all you really NEEDED to do once you earned enough for the first shop was either win tournaments in cities you've never won them in before, or do the occasional mission to earn some good will.

I never really tried the merchant / shop owner route. Plus the cumbersome vassal system meant I never really got far conquering as my own nation. I enjoyed the early game mercenary stuff and the odd bit of vassalage. The stupidity of the Kings in running campaigns, or even the Marshalls was always a stopper for me. Every time we conquered a city they never bother continuing on or really pushing.

Will be interesting to maybe try an economic push and try to be the Iron Bank instead of The Mountain...

See, I think the devs knew there were problems with the campaign AI, and that's why they erased the penalties for not following the Marshall when they made Warband. I use the slack they gave me to make up for the AI's mistakes. My most successful campaign had me singlehandedly take two cities and at least one castle from the Vaegirs. Made a nice little nation called The Order of the Blue Phoenix. I did this in tandem with and in support of the Nord invasions into Vaegir territory. Between the two of us and a Khergit seizure of Khudan, we wiped them out. And then when the Swadians tried to invade me, I swore allegiance to the Nords.

I did all of this as a woman because I knew no woman was going to be granted territory of her own when she first joined a nation. After we wiped out the Vaegirs, I joined the campaign against the Khergits and used my own skill and army to make up for their buggy planning. The main army swept into the Ichamur valley without securing Sungetch castle, which I knew was going to be a raider haven against our caravans. So I ignored the quest to stay with the Marshall and instead put my troops to use securing Sungetch for the Nords to protect our supply lines.

We won that war.

ETA: Actually, while I don't remember the exact wording, I know the Devs explained this as the in-game reason for relaxing on the Marshall penalty. Marshalls will tell you something akin to "I know you will do whatever you think is necessary for our Kingdom, so if you choose not to follow me, there's no hard feelings."

edited 1st Jul '16 7:27:06 PM by Journeyman

See I sometimes forget the broader strategy. Also, I tend to go WITH the vaegirs at times, just for those amazing archers of theirs. Nord Huscarls are pretty nifty of course - a mix of those and castle defences are pretty much impenetrable. I think I need to boot it up again. Shame it's not exactly easy to use via Steam Big picture (Doesn't like controllers)

I seem to rely too much on the AI rewarding me, and tend to misjudge the right time to demand things. Plus favour is a right pain to build up and companions to outfit... so much to worry about!

I need to get better at finding the engineer guy, building the merc band, just WORKING for a nation for a bit, like you, and then swearing fealty after carving out some minor territory / strongholds. It's just the wages. And defending villages from constant raids which destroy all the upgrades you've made.

There is a steam sale for mount and blade franchise on right now. It is about $11 bucks US.

http://store.steampowered.com/sub/50292/ Courtesy link.

So I've been playing this again. Mostly it's just reminding me of how much I want to play Bannerlord already.

Just watched that siege video. I gotta say, that looks so good compared to what we got now. I especially like how you no longer have to struggle with your own men in order to actually get to the fight. Or, more accurately, how I won't have to worry about getting shoved off the siege towers by some over-eager huscarls.

Exactly - plus the options for rock flinging and having castle based siege weaponry.

The pre-battle setup looks a lot more streamlined too.

Far as I know those raids destroy wealth but not upgrades. I've never had to rebuild upgrades after raids.

And yeah, getting acquainted with the overall strategy is a good thing. It minimizes future problems.

edited 24th Aug '16 6:09:24 AM by Journeyman