History VideoGame / MountAndBladeIIBannerlord

* SkewedPriorities: If a hostile lord is chasing a looter gang before meeting you, they will continue to chase that gang instead of focusing on you. This may allow you to avoid many unwinnable fights by simply letting the lord engage the looters while you slip by him.

** Depending upon one's playstyle, it can be worthwhile to rescue villagers and caravans that are attacked by bandits. This gives you a good relationship with whomever they answer two.

** In General, it's possible for Companions and Family Members leading their own parties or caravans to be captured by hostile forces. You can pay a ransom, rescue them yourself, or they might free themselves, or someone else might beat those that took them captive.

* TheComputerIsACheatingBastard: The heroes of non-player clans are capable of being governors and providing benefits without being physically present. The player's governors, have to be present in the settlement, making it impossible for them to lead a party or participate in battle.

* MultiMeleeMaster: It is very possible to walk around with a one-handed weapon, a shield, a two-handed weapon, and a polearm.

** Depending on Perks, the Steward skill, Clan Tier, and possibly Kingdom Policies, a Player can only have so many troops in their party. While this can gone over for a brief period, troops will desert at a certain point, unless placed in a party lead by a Companion, or placed in a garrison of a town or castle, preferably one controlled by the Player.

* ArmyOfThievesAndWhores: Difficult to do so but possible, if you hire captured Looters and Bandits as troops. Doing so, however, tanks your army morale as your regular troops don't like working with the same people that used to extort, kill or rob them when they were peasants (unless you invest some points in Roguery). And they're usually [[RedShirt crappier than recruits]] before being upgraded into proper troops.

* BowAndSwordInAccord: Oh yes. Not only is it a very viable strategy, but only a fool isn't carrying a melee weapon for back-up. Low-tier ranged units usually carry a simple mace or a hatchet, but high-tier ones might be better equipped (and armoured) than your infantry. For added benefit, crosbowmen carry a shield as well, making them extremely effective in a variety of situations.

** Aserai: Technical. A mix of pikes, spears and javelin-equipped infantry backed by archers, both on foot and mounted. While very flexible and less prone to hard counters, they come with a hetfy price tag for their war horses and don't fare very well against heavier or more-specialized opponents. Tactical flexibility and quickly reading the tide of battle is a must for them.

** Vlandians only use crossbows - weapons good for sniping, but lackluster for volley fire that decides the battles. The shorter range, slower rate of fire and terrible grind of low-tier crossbowmen into something that can hit enemies at all makes them lacking in ranged department despite technically being the best damage-dealers.

* LuckilyMyShieldWillProtectMe: Shields can negate range attacks entirely and block roughtly 19 out of 20 attacks aimed in your general direction, unless you deliberaly misalign your position. This is one of the main reasons why two-handed weapons are usually a bad idea - you're trading away vital protection for minimally bigger damage output.

* TheTourney: Many cities will host Tournaments, where Nobles, and Sellswords, can compete against each other for a prize. Some Tournaments feature team events, while others are one-on-one.

** Vlandia and the Empire units can train into those who use Crossbows, while most others use bows or javelins, for when it comes to ranged troops. That being said, most cavalry archers use bows, as only one Sword Sister version uses a mounted Crossbow unit (and only use the weaker Light Crossbow, which is the only crossbow that can be reloaded while on horseback). Of course, most higher tier crossbow users have a shield for protection, while other archers do not use one.

* CoDragons: In many ways, your Companions are this. If your troop types consist of Melee Foot, Foot Archers, Melee Cavalry, and, of course, Cavalry Archers, but you only wish to focus on being a Horse Archer sort, it would be a good idea to recruit Companions who can lead the different troop types. In fact, if one has a Companion that's good with regular bows, and one that's good with crossbows, both can co-lead the same formation, so that bow infantry and crossbow infantry can benefit from the Companions' perks, especially if they have different perks that can boost the troops' effectiveness further, such as having the one Companion be good with one-handed weapons, and the other be good with two-handed weapons.

** Battania specialised in skirmishing foot troops... which leaves them with ''no'' regular archers, ''no'' real heavy infantry and ''terrible'' cavalry. As if that weren't enough, they lack armour, regardless of unit tier or type. It is outright advised to ignore native cavalry and hire replacements from just about any of the neighbouring nations. Human players tend to just compose armies out of Battanian Fian Champions, which, while easily one of the best units in the game, shows how narrow the specialisation of Battania really is.

** Vlandia and the Empire units can train into use Crossbows users, while most others use bows, for when it comes to ranged troops. That being said, most cavalry archers use bows, as only one Sword Sister version uses a mounted Crossbow unit. Of course, most higher tier crossbow users have a shield for protection, while other archers do not use one.

* SecretAIMoves: Only NPCs are capable of being governors. As such, governor perks are useless to the player.

* AnnoyingArrows: Subverted. Bows are the scariest weapons in the game to be staring down, and every elite archer enemy is considered a formidable opponent.
** That said, because arrows remain embedded in their targets regardless of the damage they do, warriors who survived a few grazing hits can fight at full strength with a half-dozen arrows sticking out of their chest.

* BoomHeadshot: Any attack aimed at the head deals extra damage by default. In most cases, this means near-death or instant kill of the target. And there is a variety of perks that further increase "headshot" damage.

* HelmetsAreHardlyHeroic: The Sword Sister mercenaries do not wear helmets, no matter what. This is to show off that they are women. That being said, they, and anyone else not wearing any helmets, are more susceptible to headshots compared to those wearing some.

* BladeOnAStick: Polearms are a separate category of weapons, consisting of anything from simpliest pikes to halberd-type weapons. They deal a crapload of damage, especially when further compounded by momentum of mounted, but are also slow, unwieldy and require a ''lot'' of free space to use them at all.

* InfinityMinusOneSword: The fine steel menavlion is a cheap widely-available Imperial BladeOnAStick that can be acquired minutes into the game. It's also one of the few polearms that can be used on horseback and swung from side to side, and that swing is easily capable of killing anything from bandits to elite troops in one hit while also having a long reach. Only the highest-tier weapons will outperform it in combat.

* DifficultButAwesome: Horseback archery, both in terms of gameplay and game mechanics. At low level of the Bow skill and without bunch of perks, you are lucky to hit targets at all, especially if as a player you lack practice. Once you get the hang of how archery works and the character being 150+ in Bow skill, each arrow can be turned into a guaranteed kill and enemies being utterly unable to retaliate against the HorseArcher, with the number of arrows being the main limiter.

* OneHitPolykill: If the first target is slain, then the sweep movement of the weapon will continue, hitting another one within its reach. This means certain two-handed polearms are ''mowing'' enemy troops by the dozen, as they deal enough damage to kill even well-armoured target in single hit. On horseback, long glaive and war razor are some of the most dreaded weapons, since ''nothing'' can survive being swept by them, including a three-rank-thick line of heavy infantry with shields pointed in harm's way.