Europe 1200 is a Mount & Blade: Warband mod (an obsolete version has been developed for the original version of the game), centered on the Europe of the beginning of the XIIIth century. It features more than forty factions (from the major ones like France, England, Venice, Castile, Holy Roman Empire, etc., to several very minor) and about thirty brand new hirable companions (some of theme are based on historical characters, fictional characters from medieval legends, or fictional characters from modern medieval-themed culture). It takes place in Europe from South of Scandinavia to the Mediterranean coast, and from Portugal to West of Russia. It also features the British Isles and the coast of North Africa.note
Other important changes include the possibility to cross the sea by boats and to fight on sea when two antagonist parties (enemy faction or brigands) meet on the sea.
Compare with Anno Domini 1257, another Mount & Blade: Warband mod set roughly in the same period, but with rather different mechanics.
More information and download links are here
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For tropes unchanged from the unmodded game, refer to the Mount & Blade page.
Europe 1200 Provides Examples Of:
- Action Girl: Eteriani, Beatrijs, Hildegard of Bingen, Margery Kempe. The player can play one, too.
- Alternate History: Since this is Mount & Blade: Warband, the AI will pursue random alliances and wars instead of sticking to actual medieval history, and the player is free to become a vassal to any faction (no matter how minor), then help it to prosper way better than it historically was. Or you can just create your own (unhistorical) personal empire in the middle of Europe.
- Artistic License – History: Some of the heroes are not characters from the beginning of the XIIIth century:
- The actual William Tell is a legendary character (or historically controversial, at best) who is involved in the fictionalized account of event from the XIVth century.
- Roger Godberd's birth date is not known, but the actual man died in 1276, making it unlikely for him to be adult in 1200.
- Hildegard of Bingen died in 1179. In 1200, she would be 102 years old.
- Margery Kempe lived in the end of the XIVth century and in the beginning of the XVth.
- More generally, a few of the historically-correct heroes look either too young (Blondel de Nesle was fourty-five years old in 1200) or too old (Ibn Arabi was thirty-five years old in 1200, but he appears as an old man) compared to how they would actually look.
- Badass Bookworm: Some of the hirable heroes are actually famous historical characters from the medieval intellectual world. For example, Hildegard of Bingen was a nun and a mystic, Ibn Arabi was a philosopher (ingame he is the most skilled character in engineering and tactics), and the modders plan to add later the mathematician Leonardo Fibonacci, the writer Wolfram von Eschenbach, and some other BadassBookworms.
- Badass Preacher:
- Hildegard of Bingen.
- Some factions have bishops or archbishops as lords and commanders. It means that there can sometimes be an army led on the battlefield by a prelate. It is Truth in Television.
- Dirty Old Monk: The prelates serving as lords have the same dialog as the other lords, which can lead to some interesting answers if a female player character tries to flirt with onenote . Truth in Television (but maybe
Accidentally-Correct Writing): although it wasn't so common in the Middle Ages, some prelates did have concubines and children. - Expy: Roger z Rykach is an obvious expy of Geralt of Rivia: he is a mêlée fighter starting the game with a leather armour and a two-handed sword. He also states that he is Polish (The Witcher is set in a Fantasy Counterpart Culture of Poland) and was left for dead (and amnesiac) after a meeting with a mob of angry peasants armed with pitchforks, like Geralt. Another clue is his weapon: he starts the game with a unique sword named "Watcher of the Old Sea Keep". "Old Sea Keep" is the meaning of "Kaer Morhen", the name of the witchers' fortress.
- Expy Coexistence: The available companions include Robin Hood and the historical English outlaws Roger Godberd and Fulk FitzWarin, who has been speculated to be among the sources of inspiration for the Robin Hood legend.
- Gratuitous Italian : How speaks Nicollo Antonio Pollo.
- The High Middle Ages: The setting of the mod.
- Historical Character's Fictional Relative: Nicollo Antonio Pollo is a fictional member from Marco Polo's family.
- Historical Domain Character: The faction leaders and lords. And some of the heroes, too:
- Fulk FitzWarin: An English nobleman who turned bandit during a part of his life.
- Eustace the Monk: French mercenary and outlaw.
- Francis of Assisi (as "Francesco d’Assisi"): Italian high-class commoner who later became a famous monk and preacher.
- Roger Godbert: English outlaw.
- Ibn Arabi: Arabian poet, mystic, and philosopher.
- Raimbaut de Vaqueiras : Provincial troubadour.
- Blondel de Nesle : French trouvère.
- Hildegard of Bingen (as "Hildegard von Bingen"): German nun, writer, and mystic.
- Margery Kempe: Middle class English woman considered by some to have dictated the first autobiography written in English.
- Among the heroes that the modders plan to add later, there are Dominic de Guzmán, Pierre Basile (the French who mortally wounded Richard Lionheart with a bolt, according to some sources), Geoffrey of Villehardouin, Wolfram von Eschenbach, Leonardo Fibonacci, etc.
- Fulk FitzWarin
- Historical Hero Upgrade: Some of the heroes based on historical characters are a badass version of famous people who actually were monks / nuns, trouvères / troubadours, or philosophers.
- Hyperspace Arsenal: Any party can cross the sea on a boat. How? Just reaching the sea automatically puts the party in a boat. It is not required to buy a boat, or carry a specific item in the inventory, or select an action in a town near the shore. No explaination from where this boat comes from.
- Kick the Dog:
- The lords occasionally give a quest in which the player has to slaughter several dozen revolting peasants.
- Of course, looting villages and raiding neutral caravans are gameplay features still in the mod.
- Knight Errant: The player can play like this.
- Never Mess with Granny: Eleanor of Aquitaine is one of the English lords. Historically, she is the mother of the then English king (John Lackland) and was 78 in 1200 (which was very old in this era). Ingame, she is like others lords, so she leads her troops on the battlefield and fight among them.
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Nintendo Hard: The player starts the campaign with less than 100 denars in his pocket (recruiting low-tier units costs 10 denars for each man), and some of the starting zones are plagued with brigand parties (which usually count a dozen members each). - Mutually Exclusive Party Members: Not implanted in the current version of the mod, but planned.
- Pirate: There are now bandits on the sea. Note that they are the same units than the land bandits, technically they are only land bandits traveling on the sea.
- Public Domain Character: Some of the heroes are characters taken from medieval folklore, legends, and literature:
- Robin Hood
- William Tell
- Ogier the Dane (as "Holger Danske"): A protagonist in several French epic works.
- Köroğlu (as "Koroglu"): The protagonist of a Turkish legend.
- Eteriani: The heroine of the eponym Georgian legend.
- Basileos Akritas: The protagonist of a medieval Greek poem.
- Beatrijs: Heroine of the eponym Dutch poem, itself adapted from a XIIIth century legend.
- Dobrynya Nikitich: Famous legendary Russian knigh-errant.
- Ivanhoe is planned to be added in future versions of the mod.
- Shout-Out: When you attack a party of heretics, the last dialog line of the leader is "Ia Cthulhu!".
- Shown Their Work
- Young Future Famous People: One of the heroes is a young Francis of Assisi.
