Mount and Blade II Bannerlord

cybrxkhan

Asian Xwedodah
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About a year ago the sequel to Mount and Blade was announced, called Mount and Blade II Bannerlord and just a little while ago they released some of the first screenshots for it: http://www2.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Media

Not as graphically stunning as big titles like Skyrim or whatever but still very nice in my opinion.

Original Mount and Blade was and is quite a fun game so I hope to get a bit out of this next one as well.
 
M&B Warband was my favorite game a few years back, it completely occupied my summer.

Great example of a game where gameplay really trumped graphics.

Also an interesting game in the sense that it had some major flaws IMO, which were fixed by certain mods - it's the only game I've played where I felt like mods were required for a complete experience.


So yeah, I'm eagerly awaiting Bannerlord. I hope they do a good job with it.
 
Oh nice, I've been waiting for Mount and Blade II, got addicted to the first one for like a month.
 
If it is like like Warband and the original, it'll be buggy for a year and yet marvelously fun to play for hundreds of hours. As far I'm concerned, my $30 or whatever is prepledged.
 
One of my favorite games. Combats are awesome. The feeling of charging the enemy along your troops is amazing. Maybe lacking a bit of variety in the campaign (always the same missions etc) but very much improved by the mods. Hope this new version gets better on that.
 
Also an interesting game in the sense that it had some major flaws IMO, which were fixed by certain mods - it's the only game I've played where I felt like mods were required for a complete experience.

Hmm, that is a good point. Usually I'm one of those people happy with vanilla or those that use at least mods that keep things similar to vanilla, but for Mount and Blade even the mods that kept things similar to vanilla made big improvements over the old game.

In the original M&B:W it was pretty easy for me to get to a level where bandits posed no threat since I could swarm them with better troops at some point (sometimes outnumbering them to ridiculous amounts), but with the mods I have they now actually pose a threat to me even if I'm full of elite units.
 
One of mods, I think Floris, you could be a soldier in one of the lordly armies, so I signed up since all it was was battle battle battle, and it was a blast.

But the bandit armies did grow. I know at one point, before I personally went looter busting, there were stacks of 400 bandits with dozens of prisoners in each stack roaming the open plains of Swadia.
 
I was a big fan of the Diplomacy mod.

There's one simple issue in vanilla that was a deal breaker for me; if you get knocked out during combat, you lose the battle. Doesn't matter if your troops vastly out-number and out-class the other guys, you still lose. Diplomacy included the fix where even if you get knocked down, you can still watch your troops and wait for a victory. This allowed you to set up a good fray however you wanted, and then lead your troops in the charge. If you were stupid or unlucky and ended up in the dirt, the whole battle wasn't necessarily a loss as a result.
 
I was a big fan of the Diplomacy mod.

There's one simple issue in vanilla that was a deal breaker for me; if you get knocked out during combat, you lose the battle. Doesn't matter if your troops vastly out-number and out-class the other guys, you still lose. Diplomacy included the fix where even if you get knocked down, you can still watch your troops and wait for a victory. This allowed you to set up a good fray however you wanted, and then lead your troops in the charge. If you were stupid or unlucky and ended up in the dirt, the whole battle wasn't necessarily a loss as a result.

Yeah, I tried the mod where the battle continues if you die.

Then I got into a siege, and died within the first 10 minutes.

Cue 2 and a half hours of 30 men waves out of a stack of 400 endlessly fighting cause I want a victory.
 
Yeah, I tried the mod where the battle continues if you die.

Then I got into a siege, and died within the first 10 minutes.

Cue 2 and a half hours of 30 men waves out of a stack of 400 endlessly fighting cause I want a victory.

Haha yeah, pretty sure you could hit tab and forfeit the battle if you wanted (which you probably knew, but like you said you wanted the victory).

Sieges were another thing that needed work. They were fun the first handful of times, but it got kinda silly when it became about how many elite troops you could shoot in the face while everyone stood on the ladder screaming.

The game really shined in the mounted open combat, and the world-layer wasn't bad either.
 
Huh. I've never tried any mods for M&B:W. Which ones would you all recommend?
 
Huh. I've never tried any mods for M&B:W. Which ones would you all recommend?

If you want something close to vanilla but still an improvement (ie augmented vanilla, so to speak) I would recommend Native Expansion. I exclusively play it, as I tend to like mods that stick to vanilla (for any game, not just Mount and Blade Warband).

Floris is also another popular one, but it's changes to vanilla are much, much,much more.

Then of course there's plenty of complete overhauls. Prophecy of Pendor seems to be the most popular one, but there are plenty more from different time periods and settings, including Sengoku Japan, 1860s America, WWII China, medieval Europe (the largest and best of which would be the 1257 mod), Ancient Rome, and others.

Ifn case you don't know about it, here's the official forums for Taleworlds Mount and Blade mods: http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/board,165.0.html?PHPSESSID=vc1iappb3ctqlifq34ehcc6n34
 
There's also a Game of Thrones total conversion, if you're into that sort of thing.
 
Is the sequel still going to be completely open, no innate plot/story? No objectives whatsoever? That's what turned me off from the original, too open, I never knew where to go or what I was doing, I felt like an aimless wanderer. I need some direction. I guess you can get quest mods but meh.
 
Is the sequel still going to be completely open, no innate plot/story? No objectives whatsoever? That's what turned me off from the original, too open, I never knew where to go or what I was doing, I felt like an aimless wanderer. I need some direction. I guess you can get quest mods but meh.

I think the whole point, and the uniqueness of the game, as well as why it is so popular, comes from the fact that it is that open-ended and sandbox. You can do whatever the heck you want within the world's confines once you understand the basic game mechanics. I mean, I think it is way more open ended than TES, and some people are turned off and/or don't understand TES' "freedom", so I understand why some might not enjoy this open-ended sort of thing. I couldn't understand why reviewers kept saying the game had a steep learning curve - I found it pretty easy to understand, even if I'm not that great at it 9Coming from games like TES, the Sims, and SimCity, however, where open-endedness is the name of the game, Mount and Blade was easy for me to pick up) - but now I understand what they mean is that the open-endedness of the game can be daunting for those who are more used to more structured, story-heavier games. Anyhow, I'd rather not have them build in a "main quest" or some sort of plot or story, as I feel this would ruin the whole basis and appeal of the game in the first place.

What I do think the sequel needs, and what I think will reduce the sense of aimlessness, is to provide more variety. Have more quests, first of all, and not just "kill X doodz" or "bring this letter to X". Have a greater variety of character customization in terms of background (I find creating your character at the beginning of the game largely unimportant and irrelevant save for the male-female distinction), as well as different personalities for the NPCs. Perhaps also tweak the mechanics so the player has different career options - make trade more lucrative, allow players to fight as a common soldier (as some mods have done), etc. And, have more variety amongst the different factions - at some point the factions aren't wholly different, sure they have different advantages and disadvantages militaristically, but they're essentially big blobs ruled by a king with 3-4 cities - perhaps have factions of varying strengths, more pronounced military advantages/disadvantages, different mechanics in the internal politics. Stuff like that.

The base game feels like a extremely good foundation, gameplay-wise, a foundation that has been improved upon by a lot of mods, but we'll see how much improvement we get in this sequal on that foundation.
 
Oh it's definitely more open than TES. TES is still quest based and story driven, only what makes it open is there's no levels so you can go anywhere, start any questline at any time pretty much. It's story driven because you're always playing out some story, there's just a ton of different threads to unravel. Which is cool to me, you get going on a particular quest line, you have direction. Yet you can still wander and uncover new stuff.

Without mods mount and blade you just uncover new cities but not really interesting stories or different things to do. Of course this is in my very limited experience, I probably didn't give it enough of a shot. But hopefully the sequel is open but has storylines to follow even if they aren't presented in neat questlog like form.
 
Yep, a deeper and more role play oriented campaign would be nice but I will be happy if there is a campaign to play at all. I hope they do not discard it completely and make the game for multiplayer only like the last releases. That would be catastrophic. Is the single player campaign confirmed?
 
I suppose in a way there is already a sort of main goal in Mount and Blade, which would be to unite Calradia either by becoming Emperor yourself, or to support an existing ruler or claimant to achieve such a goal.

I would anyhow rather they not have a main quest in M&B. It'd basically undo the game's very foundation. However I wouldn't mind if there were some more dedicated story side quests thrown in. Currently all the side quests are essentially like the radiant quests of Skyrim, except there's so few you'll probably come across all of them in less than an hour or something. So more variety of side quests, a few longer, involved story-heavier side quests, and I think that's good enough for the game without ruining its core principles and appeal.


I hope they do not discard it completely and make the game for multiplayer only like the last releases. That would be catastrophic. Is the single player campaign confirmed?

Well, the official site does say this:


A hero who can master the art of single combat, of leading armies in battle, of plotting ambushes and raids, and of exploiting the rivalries of noble houses and tribal clans may be able to unite this Empire -- or, alternately, to deal it the final blow that sends it crashing down.


Which sounds like normal single-player stuff in M&B you can't do in multiplayer.



EDIT:

What does interest me is that the official site also implies that there are only three main factions, instead of the original six in M&B:W. From the screenshots it looks like these three will be analagous to a Middle Eastern, Byzantine/Italian/Mediterranean, and some Western or Central European one. The other factions in M&B:W might be represented as the bandit lords and nomads mentioned on the official site, but that would be a pity the number of factions is reduced. However, on the other hand, this does mean it's possible they're intending to flesh out the factions more and make them more unique, which isn't a bad thing if that is the case.
 
It only implies that there are three barbaric factions, which are the Nords, Khergits and Sarranids. The Rhodoks, Swadians and Vaegiers were all part of the Calradic Empire and are native to Calradia.
 
It only implies that there are three barbaric factions, which are the Nords, Khergits and Sarranids. The Rhodoks, Swadians and Vaegiers were all part of the Calradic Empire and are native to Calradia.

Looking at it again, I think the official website only implies at least three factions but not necessarily any more; the only certainty is that it only suggests there are three "imperial" factions descended from the defunct Calradian Empire. It does say there are "warlike tribes" and "client kingdoms", but it's impossible to tell at this point in my opinion whether this means that the "three jealous [Calradian] factions" mentioned count include these two groups (the tribes and client kingdoms) or whether they are indeed separate factions, and it necessarily imply these tribes and kingdoms are even playable or are fully fleshed factions - for all we know the tribes and kingdoms could be the mercenaries, bandit lords, and nomad groups mentioned in the last sentence of the first paragraph (nomads in particular would make sense as possible warlike tribes and client kingdoms).


Oh, what am I saying, I'm reading too much into this. :lol:
 
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