Mount and Blade General

Still working on the Swadian rebellion over here. The Kerghits finally got tired of the back-and-forward between me and them, so once they'd claimed some border fortress I barely remembered I had I got an offer of peace, which I happily accepted because I'd like to focus on the war that I might actually win.

Made some good ground against Swadia. Took three castles and Suno, after which they only had two castles and Praven left. I felt like I had them seriously on the ropes and could almost smell that Girl Power achievement.

Then the Rodocks attacked. Bugger it. I've been fighting those guys all day, and let me tell you, Rodocks are tough. Sure, Nords have huscarls, but not so many and they're mixed in with way squishier troops. Rodocks, on the other hand, has well-armoured infantry across the board, and loads of gaddang crossbows. So. Many. Crossbows. Not a good time to be a horse archer, that's for sure.

But, after flipping Suno over and over again, they too finally got sick of it and called it off with only one castle to show for it. Considering their advantage in numbers, lands and troops, I think that was an acceptable result.

So now all that's left (fingers crossed) is to drag Harlaus out of Praven and declare victory for Isolla. Which is also proving a little tougher than anticipated, because the guy may not have much land left, but he still has over twenty lords. I can beat them down quite easily in the field, buy every time they just head back to Praven and spawn a bunch more units for free. Also, Praven has got to be one of the most annoying cities to siege, even when not occupied by the regular (300+) garrison and about a dozen lordlings.

I think I'm going to see if I can get some points in Persuasion. See if I can just talk some of those jackasses out of my way. I've been doing the catch-and-release long enough now, so you'd think they'd be willing to listen.

One actually good thing that happened today: I got myself a Masterwork Strongbow, and it does amazing work. I can kill anything up to and including Nord Warriors with only a single shot to the body. Beautiful. My damage output felt pretty respectable before, but now things just die whenever I look at them. Had to scramble to gain the funds in time and still went bankrupt, but it was totally worth it.

edited 4th Sep '16 9:31:11 AM by Kayeka

Huh, that's weird. Suddenly I can't turn the game on. It worked fine last night, too.

Did you ever get that fixed?

My Mercia game heated up when there was a border incident on East Engle's part. Gave me a CB against them, so I took it and gathered a small portion of my vassals to take them on. Should have waited for more. We took out two of their six lords, but then my forces scattered. If I hadn't been in such a hurry to siege land, I probably could have held my forces together to fight off at least one more of their Lords. I should have gathered more of my troops before going in, but we were rushing to defend a castle under siege.

Wheeee. I finally took Praven, with some help from one of my peers who finally decided he had rested enough to provide some extra manpower to my efforts. Swadia has been erased from the map and replaced by the Swadian rebellion.

Yet I'm still at war with Swadia. Which sucks because I'd really like to get working towards my solo tour. How am I supposed to finish this? There's only three Swadian lords left, of which two are in my prison and the third doesn't even have an army. He's just raiding villages by his lonesome, and goes all Speedy Gonzales when I try to get him to cut that shit out. Harlaus himself hasn't been in ages and I half-half suspect that he's sitting in the dungeon of some of my stronger peers after I gave him a beatdown near the gates of Praven.

So what more does the game want from me before I get to declare victory for Lady Isolla already?

1. It takes time to declare victory.

2. Take out Speedy Gonzales. If you have land of your own, park most of your army but your companions in it, and run down Speedy.

I don't know what's wrong with it, personally. It was working completely fine and now suddenly won't work.

Bang! Victory is mine! Lady Isolla is now in full control of Swadia as it's proper ruler, and I got both my Kingmaker and Girl Power achievements. Next stop: Queen and Empress! After doing the vassal thing for a bit and save up money, that is.

Was a bit surprised to find Harlaus chillin' it at Suno, however. I assumed he'd leave the continent, or become a wandering claimant himself. I didn't expect him to "Oh, shucks, you beat me fair and square" and become just another vassal under Lady Isolla. Or the fact that the game still refers to him as King Harlaus. Is that normal?

Oh well. For now, nothing to do but wait for someone to declare war on Swadia. It's been a while since I had no one to fight, so I don't really know what I'm supposed to be doing. Maybe just travel around and grind quests for villages for the sake of having enough warm bodies when the opportunity to a crown presents itself?

edited 6th Sep '16 1:27:42 PM by Kayeka

Yeah, game is borked for me, which sucks -_-

Sorry, man. Did you try verifying your game cache?

I assume "King Harlaus" is in fact his full name as defined by the game. If I remember correctly, vassals actually get "Lord/Lady" or something else added to their name depending on realm culture, but the overlords' names are not working like that - neither is your own so I tend to rename myself into "King (insert name here)" when claiming/forming a kingdom.

edited 6th Sep '16 1:44:16 PM by DrunkenNordmann

Yes, I tried that. It found nothing wrong.

Well, I was gonna try Viking Conquest, but it seems to crash every time I start (automatically talks to the boat captain, then CTD), so back to vanilla (well, modded vanilla) I go.

There's a trailer out showing M&B: Warband on PS 4 / XBOX. Whole new generation of players gonna be like "Wut dis?"

Here's hoping they embrace it!

It seems like the sort of game that would be good to play with a controller, even if my beloved horse archery would suffer for it.

Shame about the no mods thing, though. I like having an Amazon Brigade, even if the modbin question also includes the kinda obnoxious Kinalga, what with their 150-250 strong all-cavalry doomstacks. At least they only use blunt weapons, meaning that beating them is great for training fresh recruits, since they won't die.

Well, ai got Viking Conquest sorta working. I mean, entering any area seems to have a chance of crashing, but sandbox is at least somewhat playable.

And pretty much my first order of business was beating the tar out of some jarl when he disrespected me. I mean, he hates me now, but at least he should know that I am a serious person who is going to go places. I also bought a pony to act as a battle taxi (I could only use my seax from horseback, not my axe or bow, though I later got a sword, though it's still smaller than I would like), as VC battlefields seem larger than vanilla.

And then I got some monks to teach me to read and write. For their helpfulness, I decided to not raid their monastery... this month. Still gonna smash some Christian skulls and spread paganism.

A Pagan who can read is a Pagan who can spread glorious propaganda about Odin and Thor around Britain. Though that's not how it works in-game. I wish conquering the local area would allow you to convert monasteries into Norse temples so you could get some non-raidy use out of them. Like Berserkers.

Turns out that Viking Conquest remains basically unplayable, so now I'm trying Gekokujo and rounding up a little warband of my own. Probably gonna sign up with Oda or Asakura at some point, but for now, I just want a balanced changdao, or even just one without the heavy modifier (125 range + no stab attack makes it very appealing to me as a cavalry sword, but the -2 speed on a weapon that already has marginal speed isn't very appealing to me). On the upside, I found a very fast nodachi, though I wish it was a little longer.

Also, turns out that you can couch yaris, which I did not expect. But only some of them, and it's not entirely clear which ones.

Also, muskets rule, even if I can't reload whilst on my trusty steed.

All of this kind of makes me wish that a future Mount And Blade has a Wutai kingdom because having knights and samurai fighting sounds fun. Or some other eastern Fantasy Counterpart Culture.

edited 12th Sep '16 7:44:00 PM by Balmung

You don't use a musket when riding a horse. You use a carbine, like a dragoon.

And yeah, maybe if someone wanted a mod like that they could make a For Honor mod.

edited 12th Sep '16 6:49:07 PM by theLibrarian

Well, with Swadia and the Nords, we're already 2/3 of the way there.

And there are no carbines or pistols in Gekokujo, only various makes of Tanegashima muskets, so I get one shot, then nothing, or I dismount and reload.

Ah, okay.

Having a Japanese / Chinese themed Empire would be good. Especially now that with M&B 2 having more intricate sieges, you could mod in the modular design of sieges that the Japanese favoured, falling back through various defensive lines.

May have to try this mod.

I'm loving the caravan system in With Fire and Sword. If only, again, I was allowed to set up businesses in towns. They don't allow that in W Fa S either. I guess that would break the system, but it would allow you to simulate the entirety of being a businessman in-game. Add in some negotiations here and there to help others set up businesses too, and it would be pretty awesome.

Got a companion named George, and I think he's Dubya - he has a Texan accent long before Texas was a thing and he laughs his ass off at Obama Castle.

If there's one thing that annoys me in Gekokujo, it's that I need to get to 5 relation with any given guild master to set up an enterprise. I don't know if it's because my character is female, but it means a LOT of caravan escorts and bandit pixel hunts. At least it gives me an excuse to track down more mobs with female peasants as captives to bolster my Onnabushi (their final level, Elite Onnabushi, are basically Sword Sisters, but with a bow instead of a horse) - about a quarter of my roughly 100-strong warband are Veteran and Eiite Onnabushi, while most of the rest are companions, samurai cavalry, samurai gunners, and a handful of Ashigaru (non-samurai forces). If I knew which Daimyoships generated gunner Ashigaru skirmishers instead of bowmen, I'd recruit heavily there.

Other things of note include all tournaments being in identical dojo instead of open and varied arenas. This means absolutely no cavalry in tournaments, and due to an armament choice, archers are very dangerous - while the small arena works against them, their yumi are powerful and instead of knives or a tanto, they get a very swift wakizashi, which can also block. On the other hand, getting the kanabo or yari means basically a free win for the human. The kanabo is devestatingly powerful and can ignore guards, while the yari has amazing reach and can be swing quickly.

EDIT: Just re-recruited George on a second character after making a few tweaks to the mod to try out some mod tools. He's definitely Dubya, specifically the version from The Legend of Koizumi (he mentions knowing Japanese due to his friend, Junichiro and alludes to coming from another time).

edited 15th Sep '16 2:24:56 AM by Balmung

Update on Gekokujo: fuck Monk Rebels. Pretty much all of them have guns and spears, most of them have good armor, and they come in pretty large groups. Also, they seem to show up near most places the fucking Ikko Ikki have fortresses, and several of those are scattered far away from their main lands.

Since I'm pretty sure the Ikko Ikki are actively egging them on, I've opened personal hostilities with the Ikko Ikki and eagerly await signing up with someone and making real war against them.