Is there any way to turn a companion that you made into a lord back into a companion? A couple of them have turned out to have Sadistic personalities, and that's just a PITA to deal with.
Also, holy shit are the stats for the your CKHO sergeants terrible. Like, 10 Strength even after I've improved the Order several times? I'm trying to set them up as heavy foot archers, to help defend my archery lines against attackers - Ravenstern Rangers on steroids, basically. They're stuck using Hunting Bows, though, because I can't get their strength or their Power Draw up. Noldor arrows for them, though, so while they aren't great archers, they can occasionally hit like a truck.
Companion to Lord is one way AFAIK. It's really not worth it in most cases in PoP as so few are of noble birth and with easy to deal with personalities.
Lords Ediz, Lethaldiran, Roland, and Diev and Ladies Boadice and Julia have been pretty awesome, though. It's Sara the Fox and Alyssa who are making a stink about things.
With a lot of them, it's not so much the personality so much as they have crappy stats compared to the AI lords in terms of stats AI lords benefit from. Plus you need a lot of them as companions to train a custom knighthood order if you plan to use one.
Roland is a notable exception as he's actually a respectable level, has decent skills compared to AI lords, gets special units as a lord, and has a good personality. Plus not having him in the party makes it easier to keep Alistair as a companion for use as a trainer in pretty much the exact same skills, stats, and weapons. Boadice may also qualify as she has a really good leadership score for her level and comparable hitting things stats and skills to higher level lords.
Sir Jocelyn on the other hand continues to be a pain as a lord. Not to Alyssa or Sara levels, but it turns out he's not a noble so my other vassal bitch about him being landed when I talk to them in peace time on top of him losing relationship when other lords get landed. I'm guessing that PoP removed the daily relationship gain for hosting a feast as well so that tactic only let's me boost my relationship with him 2 every few days so I'm really not sure how feasible it will be to keep him around long term.
Well it appears the AI really wants me to speed up this game. After wiping out Sarleon I'd been at peace for 2 or 3 weeks and spent that time mostly holding feasts until I decided it was time to redistribute my garrisons in major cities plus one border castle I'd not yet given out. During my rather fast war with Sarleon (going into it holding about half of what Sarleon started out with and having high enough relations with about a third of their original, non-jerk lords to recruit them made it a pretty fast affair) Avendor, Marleons, and Laria had all built up a surplus of knights and Sarleon and that one castle on the border between old Sarleon and D'Shar had drawn a bunch as well. So I had really quick access to a whole bunch of Clarion Call, Ebony, Silvermist, Lion, and Dawn knights when both the Empire and the D'Shar declared war.
The D'Shar are pretty big. They've taken half of the Empire away though lost some as well. The Empire obviously is in much worse shape but both have gotten an infusion of lords from Ravenstern and Sarleon vanishing (though Sarleon briefly appeared when one of its jailed lords that had not yet found a new kingdom for whatever reason escaped). In fact, 5 of the assholish lords from Ravenstern are going off on an Empire raiding party separate from their marshal who I doubt gets along with them. They're going pretty deep into Pendor territory too so that won't be ending well for them. But first I have a D'shar host to disrupt.
Well, disrupt further. Turns out one of the first of the 5 lords I knocked out in succession as they crossed my border was their marshal so they've now got a bunch of lords panicking as my campaigning lords just caught up, many of whom are really close by since they were just leaving a feast.
This should be interesting. One sided, but interesting. My realm is much more unified due to only recruiting certainly personalities of lords (minus Jocelyn who was a mistake but not the worst mistake), my vassals have much bigger forces on average due to each getting more fiefs to compensate for having fewer of them, those fiefs are close together to speed up troop recruitment and travel times when they're on their own, and each of them has access to a knighthood order's troops due to my habit of establishing an order not requiring a Qualis gem in every castle without an existing order before I hand out the fief. As a result, a lot of my vassals have over 200 troops with about 10% of them knights or sergeants.
The tough part about this two front war is really going to be deciding where to hit first (Janos is a priority due to the existing knighthood order there plus it was recently sacked by Maltise before I Iured her to a Noldor army and told her to GTFO Pendor) and then garrisoning the new places.
Throwing feasts when you have a moment of peace is great. It gets all your neutral and friendly lords together for relationship boosts. The tournaments that occur multiple times a day are great. Lords that arrive will drop off any prisoners they have with them in your holding's prison which can be a great source of money or recruit fodder. And having all those lords in one place makes starting a new campaign really effective.
Throwing feasts when you've recently declared war on the player who has just started making inroads into your territory after having repulsed waves of attacks and raids and holding said feast on a castle on the border while the player's assembled lords are the next city over is not so smart.
I'd taken Ethos from the D'shar, Rela Keep from the D'shar, and Janos from the Empire when the D'shar decided to throw a feast in Maras Castle. After the siege, about 5 of the D'shar lords were thrown in prison with a handful of good natured, martial, and upstanding lords let go for relationship gains. The massive amount of prisoners made for a quick if still somewhat light garrison but everyone seems to think they can siege Ethos even if they're a lone lord that I've captured multiple times with fewer troops than the garrison.
With so many D'shar lords now imprisoned and others needing to rebuild, they're unable to mount a meaningful campaign and I've started recruiting their more honorable lords over. Ditto the Empire's after I knocked out Shieldstorm Keep just to capture the high relation lord who retreated inside of it before riding down to Cez where I disrupted a newly formed campaign before taken the city.
Sieges against the Empire are awful given the strength of their troops. Their lack of lances suddenly isn't an issue but they have some of the strongest knight orders in the game on top of their crossbowmen and good infantry. Cez had to be attacked twice to take it due to being knocked out in the street battle. But now they are cut off from most of their orders and I have access to Shadow Legion Centurions, often regarded as the strongest non-custom order in the game.
I also decided to just bite the bullet and improve my custom order with money and prestige since they'd hit the limit of where my companions could train them in terms of stats and their skills were pretty good. 3 or 5 boosts later and they finally have proficiency levels worthy of a knight. Too bad the sergeants will continue to suck forever.
And now Fierdsvain has declared war. I rode across the map to break their siege of Valonbray and recruited one of their lords over. I could have attacked Javiksholm but it feels smarter to carve out new holdings from the D'Shar given what sorry shape the Fierdsvain were already in. Destroying them would disperse their lords to the D'shar or Empire. I'm probably just going to let these wars wage until the game ends as it lets me keep enemy lords in jail indefinitely. Garrisoning stuff is still kind of a pain as I get further out from Laria but there are not going to be a lot of enemies that can threaten a city at this rate.
After having logged over 720 hours into Warband with over 650 of those being in some version of PoP I finally finished a game of it last night.
My three front war was pretty uneventful after having thrown the majority of jerk personality lords into my prisons. I went deep into Southern D'Shar territory sooner than I thought I would but the few enemy lords still running around were getting 30ish prisoner trains from bandits and that made garrisoning the two towns simple while cutting off their ability to reinforce their numbers quickly. The final D'Shar holding was what had been a former Empire castle. Then it was the last Empire holding, a former D'Shar castle. The final conquest was a Fierdsvain castle though they still had two or three lord armies I had to chase down afterwards.
Despite having good relations with 3 of the remaining D'Shar lords, they all jumped ship to the Empire and then the Fierdsvain before joining my faction after all AI factions were wiped out because Mount and Blade loves to screw the player over. Of course by then I was out of fiefs to give out so they sat just chilling at Laria.
I wasn't done yet though. One Jatu army had been wandering about since before I became a vassal and I dealt with it the traditional way by luring it to a Noldor army but I didn't bother joining in. The Snake Cult was marked as healthy so I camped Cez and Janos to whack their parties as they popped up. I started talking to rumor sources again and got two cult armies to spawn which took them from Healthy to Weakened and then to Crushed. No more armies spawned after that so it became a matter of just jumping parties as they spawned until they finally got marked as destroyed. After that, I just traveled for a few days until the little victory screen popped up.
I think I can finally leave the game alone until Bannerlord arrives.
Some thoughts:
The amount of running around the player has to do is ridiculous. Managing garrisons especially is a pain compared to how the AI automatically recruits units each day. This was the biggest benefit to giving fiefs to AI lords as they'd add 100 troops to whatever I left them within a pretty short period of time. I had no issue using cheats to teleport to my steward or holdings with heartbeat quests to deal with matters of state that would otherwise require me to run all around the world map.
My custom knights ended up performing really well but I really should have just enabled the cheat menu that let you tinker directly with them to at least make them start with the stats of what they upgrade from. By the time I just dropped a whole lot of money to make their weapon skills useful, I had so many Rangers of the Clarion Call and Doom Guides already for horse archers and Knights of the Dawn for heavy cavalry anyway.
Doom Guides are really great units. I regret not capturing and recruiting Seer Favorites/Initiates earlier. Not as strong as Hero Adventurers but more consistent in equipment and faster to train up.
I should have boosted First Aid to 10 on my PC sooner. Makes a big difference in long fights like armies or sieges to recover 70% of the health you lose in the previous fight instead of only 50%.
The game really snowballs fast when you declare independence. I was basically at war constantly except for a tiny break of 2 weeks until I had wiped everyone else out. That meant no time for tournaments or Qualis Gem hunting. Thankfully I had plenty of the latter by then. It does make me wish for alternate victory conditions for M&B in general though as conquest really gets to be a slog as all the AI lords you don't recruit join a smaller number of factions.
A lot of the new castle maps in PoP are really dumb. Movement is a pain, layout is confusing, and the AI has trouble navigating them.
Some of the formation movements the AI pulls off in PoP are really dumb as well. Whoever added in that stupid thing AI cavalry will do where they ride back and forth in front of their own skirmisher line and get themselves shot at by your skirmisher line needs to experience having a horse fall onto them to realize why it's a stupid, video gamey idea.
Large battles in general are such a slog. Between how quickly a lucky spear strike or crossbow bolt can knock you out and reduce you to waiting so many battle maps are full of hills that units don't navigate well. And no matter how much mod makers try to improve on the tactical AI scripting, this is a far cry from Total War.
Really looking forward to Bannerlord which will hopefully polish up a lot of this stuff because oh man is M&B janky in so many ways but it's still a unique thing in gaming.
Final synopsis of the blog post is ... not much new info, if any, if you've been following along with their media presentations at previous events and flipped through the PCG article.
But the screenshots are pretty sweet, and I'm whipped enough that I'm happy they finally posted something!
Final synopsis of the blog post is ... not much new info, if any, if you've been following along with their media presentations at previous events and flipped through the PCG article.
But the screenshots are pretty sweet, and I'm whipped enough that I'm happy they finally posted something!
Nothing new but still good info. I've previously mentioned how being a bastard has no real reward given that it will destroy your ability to recruit troops so hearing that it could open up opportunities instead in Bannerlord is welcome. In fact, if it can open up different types of troops compared to being on the straight and narrow it might be worthwhile taking different approaches in different towns to open up variety.
KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited April 2017
Hey this game looks neat. It's got a Mount and Blade looking overmap and the graphics are remniscent of Warband. Though it looks more RTS and I'm not sure if you can take control of the characters directly, but I would love this kind of destruction in Bannerlord sieges.
After owning this game for years and never playing it, I gave this a whirl a few days ago
Now I only care about mount&blade
I need to mainline the internet's collective knowledge of this directly into my brain
I have managed to get a band of 50 lightly upgraded dudes without going bankrupt and i have a brewery in a city. It seems like if I could get a few businesses going I would be able to break even on their wages.
There is a lot going on in this game.
+1
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kaliyamaLeft to find less-moderated foraRegistered Userregular
After owning this game for years and never playing it, I gave this a whirl a few days ago
Now I only care about mount&blade
I need to mainline the internet's collective knowledge of this directly into my brain
I have managed to get a band of 50 lightly upgraded dudes without going bankrupt and i have a brewery in a city. It seems like if I could get a few businesses going I would be able to break even on their wages.
There is a lot going on in this game.
download the prophesy [sic] of pendor mod and never look back.
After owning this game for years and never playing it, I gave this a whirl a few days ago
Now I only care about mount&blade
I need to mainline the internet's collective knowledge of this directly into my brain
I have managed to get a band of 50 lightly upgraded dudes without going bankrupt and i have a brewery in a city. It seems like if I could get a few businesses going I would be able to break even on their wages.
There is a lot going on in this game.
download the prophesy [sic] of pendor mod and never look back.
I love PoP but it is drinking from the fire hose. Specifically a fire hose that has been designed to strangle the holder and attempt to drown them.
It's a great mod with a lot of thought and polish but it actively hates the player.
I did install and try the Japanese and Star Wars mods briefly
Okay first question about M&B: how do I do everything
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KadokenGiving Ends to my Friends and it Feels StupendousRegistered Userregular
edited May 2017
Build up by three ways: trading commodities (buy low, sell high), mercenary work, and good 'Ol fashioned fighting. If a bandit group is coming at you, that's a bad fight. If a bandit group is ignoring you or running away, that's a good fight. Remember that lords hate bandits too and will often chase them or at least help you.
Except for relations, city quests suck. I would try to get chummy with lords before becoming a vassal by doing quests for them. Tournies, if you win, are a half decent way to earn money. Buy lots of enterprises, but try to make sure their in your chosen faction's cities. Enemy factions will stop them from giving you money.
Companions are the best. You want to train up rad doctors, rad trainers, and rad pathfinders first and foremost. Engineers are good when you're a lord and when you're sieging. If you're not using that army number mod thing to put up battle sizes to a thousand men like me, a good tactitian is also kind of vital for lord vs lord fights as the game will fuck you over with the numbers.
Gotcha. I do have one companion who has good medical / surgery type skills which is great. Last night I hired another who seems like he's some sketchy bandit. So I will give them gear as I get it. The monk I assigned to a new group that I tell to stay at the starting zone per the advice of a forum thread about companions.
I did buy some flax and sell it at a decent profit before signing up as a mercenary with a neighboring dude from Swadia. Then a day later the swadians declared war on the Nords, where my brewery and such were so I just quit without saving for the night.
I think I will stay away from entanglements if I can and try to be a bit of a freelance capitalist while I get better at combat and at ordering my little dudes around.
I did install and try the Japanese and Star Wars mods briefly
Okay first question about M&B: how do I do everything
step 1) get a horse and a blunt lance.
Fixed that for you.
Blunt weapons knock out the target, allowing you to take them prisoner and ransom them for boocoo bux. It's great way to make money at, basically, all stages of the game.
Re: Mercenary Contracts: Merc contracts will generally pay you enough to cover your entire payroll plus a bit of profit, so don't worry if you don't have access to your businesses at that time. Missing the profit from the businesses sucks, but they guaranteed income is usually better.
Plus, sometimes, acting as a Merc you can capture enemy lords and then they'll ransom themselves from you (if they don't escape first). Ransoms are usually a lot of money.
i'm at the training ground drilling polearm on horse
so bad ;_;
One of the biggest things to remember about combat in the game is that the engine is really just a physics simulator with mounts and blades strapped on top of it. Among other things this means that the relative velocity of the part of your weapon that impacts your target plays a significant role in damage done. This includes rotational velocity of swiping the mouse in the direction you're swinging in to make your character turn during the attack adds a bonus. When you see something like +30% bonus in the combat log, you've probably rotated into the swing at a target not moving very fast. When you see a -50% malus display, you probably swung into someone that was moving away from the blow at the time of impact. When you see a +120% bonus, you probably did something like speared someone from horseback while riding at high speed while your target was riding at high speed towards you but not paying enough attention to block.
Because polearms don't thrust very quickly, they tend not to do a lot if you aren't traveling at a good clip when you attack with them and if you hit during the early part of the thrust. But it gives you a lot of range when you can pull it off and can be the key winning a lance duel.
i'm at the training ground drilling polearm on horse
so bad ;_;
One of the biggest things to remember about combat in the game is that the engine is really just a physics simulator with mounts and blades strapped on top of it. Among other things this means that the relative velocity of the part of your weapon that impacts your target plays a significant role in damage done. This includes rotational velocity of swiping the mouse in the direction you're swinging in to make your character turn during the attack adds a bonus. When you see something like +30% bonus in the combat log, you've probably rotated into the swing at a target not moving very fast. When you see a -50% malus display, you probably swung into someone that was moving away from the blow at the time of impact. When you see a +120% bonus, you probably did something like speared someone from horseback while riding at high speed while your target was riding at high speed towards you but not paying enough attention to block.
Because polearms don't thrust very quickly, they tend not to do a lot if you aren't traveling at a good clip when you attack with them and if you hit during the early part of the thrust. But it gives you a lot of range when you can pull it off and can be the key winning a lance duel.
I was assuming it was something like that because I made the feeblest spear attack and looked down and saw "-97% effectiveness"
Also I read a summary on couching lances but I don't think I have the technique down yet
The AI hit me with a couched lance and it was staggeringly effective though
Also you guys werent kidding about ransoms -- I ended up becoming a merc for the Nords and jumped in some fights. I captured a Lord and his people paid me $2750 to let him go.
Uhhh I want to kidnap everyone with that kind of ROI
I may have sold some captured soldiers into slavery also >_>
prophesy of pendor when you want to die to an asshole in full plate that you can't dent.
Mon-Fri 8:30 PM CST - 11:30 PM CST
+2
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AxenMy avatar is Excalibur.Yes, the sword.Registered Userregular
edited May 2017
Floris is an easy mod to recommend since it just, for the most part, improves on everything. I certainly can't play just vanilla M&B anymore.
Prophesy of Pendor is another one I enjoy, but certainly more designed for veterans then newer players.
I know there was a Warhammer mod that was really fun, no idea if it is still updated. For the record both Floris and Pendor (last I checked) still get updates.
There was another mod I loved that I cannot for the life of me find again or remember its name. It was a total conversion, took place in a fictional land (with a eastern/indian/arabic vibe), dealt with the fall of the old ways and the rise of the industrial age. So you'd have some factions more or less based on Meiji era Japan (with more feudal styled units and some musket), another faction had a more Russian feel to it (to me anyway). There was a big Empire or two that had colonies that would eventually fight for independence. Anarchists, Jacobins, etc "bandit" forces. Various factions would slowly upgrade from pre-industrial to industrial nations. Most annoyingly though, the movement speed was severely cut down. I mean moving your men around the world map would take ages. I remember editing the .ini to be more forgiving. At anyrate I fucking loved the mod and have been jonesing for it recently.
edit- Oh yeah Anno Domini 1257 is a mod I really enjoyed. It is also super big. Probably one of the biggest game worlds out of all the M&B mods I'd wager.
As evidence here is the list of Factions:
1. Teutonic Order
2. Kingdom of Lithuania
3. Golden Horde
4. Kingdom of Denmark
5. Polish Principalities
6. Holy Roman Empire
7. Kingdom of Hungary
8. Novgorod Republic
9. Kingdom of England
10. Kingdom of France
11. Kingdom of Norway
12. Kingdom of Scotland
13. Gaelic Kingdoms
14. Kingdom of Sweden
15. Kingdom of Halych-Volhynia
16. Kingdom of Portugal
17. Crown of Aragon
18. Kingdom of Castille
19. Kingdom of Navarra
20. Emirate of Granada
21. The Papal States
22. Roman Empire of Nicaea
23. Crusader States
24. Kingdom of Sicily
25. Mamluk Sultanate
26. Latin Empire
27. Il-khanate
28. Hafsid Dynasty
29. Kingdom of Serbia
30. Kingdom of Bulgaria
31. Marinid Dynasty
32. Republic of Venice
33. Jotvingians
34. Prussians
35. Curonians
36. Samagotians
37. Welsh
38. Republic of Genoa
39. Republic of Pisa
40. Guelphs
41. Ghibellines
42. Kingdom of Bohemia
Axen on
A Capellan's favorite sheath for any blade is your back.
prophesy of pendor when you want to die to an asshole in full plate that you can't dent.
Or when you want to be that asshole in full plate others can't dent while swinging around a sword or axe strong enough to cut down a horse and its rider in one swing.
i'm at the training ground drilling polearm on horse
so bad ;_;
One of the biggest things to remember about combat in the game is that the engine is really just a physics simulator with mounts and blades strapped on top of it. Among other things this means that the relative velocity of the part of your weapon that impacts your target plays a significant role in damage done. This includes rotational velocity of swiping the mouse in the direction you're swinging in to make your character turn during the attack adds a bonus. When you see something like +30% bonus in the combat log, you've probably rotated into the swing at a target not moving very fast. When you see a -50% malus display, you probably swung into someone that was moving away from the blow at the time of impact. When you see a +120% bonus, you probably did something like speared someone from horseback while riding at high speed while your target was riding at high speed towards you but not paying enough attention to block.
Because polearms don't thrust very quickly, they tend not to do a lot if you aren't traveling at a good clip when you attack with them and if you hit during the early part of the thrust. But it gives you a lot of range when you can pull it off and can be the key winning a lance duel.
I was assuming it was something like that because I made the feeblest spear attack and looked down and saw "-97% effectiveness"
Also I read a summary on couching lances but I don't think I have the technique down yet
The AI hit me with a couched lance and it was staggeringly effective though
Couching lances is actually really easy. There are two ways you can make it work in your game.
The first is "Automatic," which is the easiest. If you're on a horse with a couchable lance and going fast enough, you'll just automatically lower it into position. Hit the enemy with the tip (don't press the attack button, just keep riding by) for MASSIVE DAMAGE. I've found it's easiest if I aim just a bit to the right of the horse's head and run past the enemy on the left, but whichever side works for you.
The second way is "Manual," and comes in hard and easy varieties. In these cases, you actually need to push a button to start your lance lowering, and the button does nothing until you're going fast enough. After lowering your lance, you'll only be able to hold it in place for a certain amount of time before you automatically pick it back up again. The duration is based on whether you picked hard or easy, with easy letting you couch for longer, naturally.
i'm at the training ground drilling polearm on horse
so bad ;_;
One of the biggest things to remember about combat in the game is that the engine is really just a physics simulator with mounts and blades strapped on top of it. Among other things this means that the relative velocity of the part of your weapon that impacts your target plays a significant role in damage done. This includes rotational velocity of swiping the mouse in the direction you're swinging in to make your character turn during the attack adds a bonus. When you see something like +30% bonus in the combat log, you've probably rotated into the swing at a target not moving very fast. When you see a -50% malus display, you probably swung into someone that was moving away from the blow at the time of impact. When you see a +120% bonus, you probably did something like speared someone from horseback while riding at high speed while your target was riding at high speed towards you but not paying enough attention to block.
Because polearms don't thrust very quickly, they tend not to do a lot if you aren't traveling at a good clip when you attack with them and if you hit during the early part of the thrust. But it gives you a lot of range when you can pull it off and can be the key winning a lance duel.
I was assuming it was something like that because I made the feeblest spear attack and looked down and saw "-97% effectiveness"
Also I read a summary on couching lances but I don't think I have the technique down yet
The AI hit me with a couched lance and it was staggeringly effective though
Couching lances is actually really easy. There are two ways you can make it work in your game.
The first is "Automatic," which is the easiest. If you're on a horse with a couchable lance and going fast enough, you'll just automatically lower it into position. Hit the enemy with the tip (don't press the attack button, just keep riding by) for MASSIVE DAMAGE. I've found it's easiest if I aim just a bit to the right of the horse's head and run past the enemy on the left, but whichever side works for you.
The second way is "Manual," and comes in hard and easy varieties. In these cases, you actually need to push a button to start your lance lowering, and the button does nothing until you're going fast enough. After lowering your lance, you'll only be able to hold it in place for a certain amount of time before you automatically pick it back up again. The duration is based on whether you picked hard or easy, with easy letting you couch for longer, naturally.
Hope that helps!
Pressing the key to shift the view to first person so you don't have your body blocking your view helps a lot when aiming a couched lance.
The only bad thing about Floris is that you have the music stuck in your head for hours.
Our glorious Vaegir leader declared war on the Swadians. I have captured, lost, and recaptured several of their cities. The siege I had to pay my way out of ended was followed by the other lords (FINALLY) catching up to me and helping me curb stomp a few of the besieging lords.
Going to be fun to wipe out the Swadians a few months after wiping out the nords (again). Especially after I merc'ed for the Swadians and helped them come back from the brink.
Little bit more info and some screenshots. 3 of them are showing off the seasonal changes.
1. Epic battles with up to 500 characters on screen (I assume they mean SP) - they say, it might go up to 1000, when the game releases, they got to play 250 vs. 250 in their preview.
2. The physics - they now use realistic physics - they describe charging into some bandits with 200 horsemen, saying, the bandits lost balance.
3. The worldmap - Bannerlord is supposed to be 4 times as large as Warband - with dynamic seasons, which are also displayed on the world map.
4. Lively villages etc. - in some towns, there are sub-factions, such as "Gangsters", merchants, peasants and so an. There are supposed to be lots of quests for each faction, which impact your relation to the others.
5. The sandbox - you can be everything, according to this article. a mercenary in an army, a successful gladiator, a merchant, knight, count. You can "build" your own castles, armies and trading-empires. You can forge weapons, trade, barter and abduct people.
All that stuff sounds good, but number 2 has my interest thoroughly fucking piqued. If they have it so you properly knock people about in combat that would be so awesome.
Little bit more info and some screenshots. 3 of them are showing off the seasonal changes.
1. Epic battles with up to 500 characters on screen (I assume they mean SP) - they say, it might go up to 1000, when the game releases, they got to play 250 vs. 250 in their preview.
2. The physics - they now use realistic physics - they describe charging into some bandits with 200 horsemen, saying, the bandits lost balance.
3. The worldmap - Bannerlord is supposed to be 4 times as large as Warband - with dynamic seasons, which are also displayed on the world map.
4. Lively villages etc. - in some towns, there are sub-factions, such as "Gangsters", merchants, peasants and so an. There are supposed to be lots of quests for each faction, which impact your relation to the others.
5. The sandbox - you can be everything, according to this article. a mercenary in an army, a successful gladiator, a merchant, knight, count. You can "build" your own castles, armies and trading-empires. You can forge weapons, trade, barter and abduct people.
I could really do with a release date by now.
I think I'm most intrigued by 5. In M&B, you pretty much played the same game every time, but if they do this right, then it will add even more replayability. I always wanted deeper RP elements in the game, and this might just do that.
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Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
With a lot of them, it's not so much the personality so much as they have crappy stats compared to the AI lords in terms of stats AI lords benefit from. Plus you need a lot of them as companions to train a custom knighthood order if you plan to use one.
Roland is a notable exception as he's actually a respectable level, has decent skills compared to AI lords, gets special units as a lord, and has a good personality. Plus not having him in the party makes it easier to keep Alistair as a companion for use as a trainer in pretty much the exact same skills, stats, and weapons. Boadice may also qualify as she has a really good leadership score for her level and comparable hitting things stats and skills to higher level lords.
Sir Jocelyn on the other hand continues to be a pain as a lord. Not to Alyssa or Sara levels, but it turns out he's not a noble so my other vassal bitch about him being landed when I talk to them in peace time on top of him losing relationship when other lords get landed. I'm guessing that PoP removed the daily relationship gain for hosting a feast as well so that tactic only let's me boost my relationship with him 2 every few days so I'm really not sure how feasible it will be to keep him around long term.
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3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
The D'Shar are pretty big. They've taken half of the Empire away though lost some as well. The Empire obviously is in much worse shape but both have gotten an infusion of lords from Ravenstern and Sarleon vanishing (though Sarleon briefly appeared when one of its jailed lords that had not yet found a new kingdom for whatever reason escaped). In fact, 5 of the assholish lords from Ravenstern are going off on an Empire raiding party separate from their marshal who I doubt gets along with them. They're going pretty deep into Pendor territory too so that won't be ending well for them. But first I have a D'shar host to disrupt.
Well, disrupt further. Turns out one of the first of the 5 lords I knocked out in succession as they crossed my border was their marshal so they've now got a bunch of lords panicking as my campaigning lords just caught up, many of whom are really close by since they were just leaving a feast.
This should be interesting. One sided, but interesting. My realm is much more unified due to only recruiting certainly personalities of lords (minus Jocelyn who was a mistake but not the worst mistake), my vassals have much bigger forces on average due to each getting more fiefs to compensate for having fewer of them, those fiefs are close together to speed up troop recruitment and travel times when they're on their own, and each of them has access to a knighthood order's troops due to my habit of establishing an order not requiring a Qualis gem in every castle without an existing order before I hand out the fief. As a result, a lot of my vassals have over 200 troops with about 10% of them knights or sergeants.
The tough part about this two front war is really going to be deciding where to hit first (Janos is a priority due to the existing knighthood order there plus it was recently sacked by Maltise before I Iured her to a Noldor army and told her to GTFO Pendor) and then garrisoning the new places.
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3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Swadians have two cities and several castles.
Nords are bloody, I'm looking at the rePublic and sultanate war and considering which one needs to be taken down a peg.
Edit: goody, recruit black knights from desert bandits, lose a dozen of them to a sultanate attack.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
Throwing feasts when you've recently declared war on the player who has just started making inroads into your territory after having repulsed waves of attacks and raids and holding said feast on a castle on the border while the player's assembled lords are the next city over is not so smart.
I'd taken Ethos from the D'shar, Rela Keep from the D'shar, and Janos from the Empire when the D'shar decided to throw a feast in Maras Castle. After the siege, about 5 of the D'shar lords were thrown in prison with a handful of good natured, martial, and upstanding lords let go for relationship gains. The massive amount of prisoners made for a quick if still somewhat light garrison but everyone seems to think they can siege Ethos even if they're a lone lord that I've captured multiple times with fewer troops than the garrison.
With so many D'shar lords now imprisoned and others needing to rebuild, they're unable to mount a meaningful campaign and I've started recruiting their more honorable lords over. Ditto the Empire's after I knocked out Shieldstorm Keep just to capture the high relation lord who retreated inside of it before riding down to Cez where I disrupted a newly formed campaign before taken the city.
Sieges against the Empire are awful given the strength of their troops. Their lack of lances suddenly isn't an issue but they have some of the strongest knight orders in the game on top of their crossbowmen and good infantry. Cez had to be attacked twice to take it due to being knocked out in the street battle. But now they are cut off from most of their orders and I have access to Shadow Legion Centurions, often regarded as the strongest non-custom order in the game.
I also decided to just bite the bullet and improve my custom order with money and prestige since they'd hit the limit of where my companions could train them in terms of stats and their skills were pretty good. 3 or 5 boosts later and they finally have proficiency levels worthy of a knight. Too bad the sergeants will continue to suck forever.
And now Fierdsvain has declared war. I rode across the map to break their siege of Valonbray and recruited one of their lords over. I could have attacked Javiksholm but it feels smarter to carve out new holdings from the D'Shar given what sorry shape the Fierdsvain were already in. Destroying them would disperse their lords to the D'shar or Empire. I'm probably just going to let these wars wage until the game ends as it lets me keep enemy lords in jail indefinitely. Garrisoning stuff is still kind of a pain as I get further out from Laria but there are not going to be a lot of enemies that can threaten a city at this rate.
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3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
After having logged over 720 hours into Warband with over 650 of those being in some version of PoP I finally finished a game of it last night.
My three front war was pretty uneventful after having thrown the majority of jerk personality lords into my prisons. I went deep into Southern D'Shar territory sooner than I thought I would but the few enemy lords still running around were getting 30ish prisoner trains from bandits and that made garrisoning the two towns simple while cutting off their ability to reinforce their numbers quickly. The final D'Shar holding was what had been a former Empire castle. Then it was the last Empire holding, a former D'Shar castle. The final conquest was a Fierdsvain castle though they still had two or three lord armies I had to chase down afterwards.
Despite having good relations with 3 of the remaining D'Shar lords, they all jumped ship to the Empire and then the Fierdsvain before joining my faction after all AI factions were wiped out because Mount and Blade loves to screw the player over. Of course by then I was out of fiefs to give out so they sat just chilling at Laria.
I wasn't done yet though. One Jatu army had been wandering about since before I became a vassal and I dealt with it the traditional way by luring it to a Noldor army but I didn't bother joining in. The Snake Cult was marked as healthy so I camped Cez and Janos to whack their parties as they popped up. I started talking to rumor sources again and got two cult armies to spawn which took them from Healthy to Weakened and then to Crushed. No more armies spawned after that so it became a matter of just jumping parties as they spawned until they finally got marked as destroyed. After that, I just traveled for a few days until the little victory screen popped up.
I think I can finally leave the game alone until Bannerlord arrives.
Some thoughts:
The amount of running around the player has to do is ridiculous. Managing garrisons especially is a pain compared to how the AI automatically recruits units each day. This was the biggest benefit to giving fiefs to AI lords as they'd add 100 troops to whatever I left them within a pretty short period of time. I had no issue using cheats to teleport to my steward or holdings with heartbeat quests to deal with matters of state that would otherwise require me to run all around the world map.
My custom knights ended up performing really well but I really should have just enabled the cheat menu that let you tinker directly with them to at least make them start with the stats of what they upgrade from. By the time I just dropped a whole lot of money to make their weapon skills useful, I had so many Rangers of the Clarion Call and Doom Guides already for horse archers and Knights of the Dawn for heavy cavalry anyway.
Doom Guides are really great units. I regret not capturing and recruiting Seer Favorites/Initiates earlier. Not as strong as Hero Adventurers but more consistent in equipment and faster to train up.
I should have boosted First Aid to 10 on my PC sooner. Makes a big difference in long fights like armies or sieges to recover 70% of the health you lose in the previous fight instead of only 50%.
The game really snowballs fast when you declare independence. I was basically at war constantly except for a tiny break of 2 weeks until I had wiped everyone else out. That meant no time for tournaments or Qualis Gem hunting. Thankfully I had plenty of the latter by then. It does make me wish for alternate victory conditions for M&B in general though as conquest really gets to be a slog as all the AI lords you don't recruit join a smaller number of factions.
A lot of the new castle maps in PoP are really dumb. Movement is a pain, layout is confusing, and the AI has trouble navigating them.
Some of the formation movements the AI pulls off in PoP are really dumb as well. Whoever added in that stupid thing AI cavalry will do where they ride back and forth in front of their own skirmisher line and get themselves shot at by your skirmisher line needs to experience having a horse fall onto them to realize why it's a stupid, video gamey idea.
Large battles in general are such a slog. Between how quickly a lucky spear strike or crossbow bolt can knock you out and reduce you to waiting so many battle maps are full of hills that units don't navigate well. And no matter how much mod makers try to improve on the tactical AI scripting, this is a far cry from Total War.
Really looking forward to Bannerlord which will hopefully polish up a lot of this stuff because oh man is M&B janky in so many ways but it's still a unique thing in gaming.
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3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
HOLY SHIT, THEY ACTUALLY KNOW HOW TO UPDATE IT!
https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/17
Still reading it (and SA's post above) ...
Whatever else one might say about Bannerlord, it is looking pretty damn sweet.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
But the screenshots are pretty sweet, and I'm whipped enough that I'm happy they finally posted something!
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Nothing new but still good info. I've previously mentioned how being a bastard has no real reward given that it will destroy your ability to recruit troops so hearing that it could open up opportunities instead in Bannerlord is welcome. In fact, if it can open up different types of troops compared to being on the straight and narrow it might be worthwhile taking different approaches in different towns to open up variety.
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3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Steam Profile
3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
http://store.steampowered.com/app/601540/agecheck
Now that I'm looking at it a bit more it's more like Stronghold. Though the overworld map is very mount and blade and so are the graphics still
Now I only care about mount&blade
I need to mainline the internet's collective knowledge of this directly into my brain
I have managed to get a band of 50 lightly upgraded dudes without going bankrupt and i have a brewery in a city. It seems like if I could get a few businesses going I would be able to break even on their wages.
There is a lot going on in this game.
download the prophesy [sic] of pendor mod and never look back.
I love PoP but it is drinking from the fire hose. Specifically a fire hose that has been designed to strangle the holder and attempt to drown them.
It's a great mod with a lot of thought and polish but it actively hates the player.
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3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Okay first question about M&B: how do I do everything
Except for relations, city quests suck. I would try to get chummy with lords before becoming a vassal by doing quests for them. Tournies, if you win, are a half decent way to earn money. Buy lots of enterprises, but try to make sure their in your chosen faction's cities. Enemy factions will stop them from giving you money.
Companions are the best. You want to train up rad doctors, rad trainers, and rad pathfinders first and foremost. Engineers are good when you're a lord and when you're sieging. If you're not using that army number mod thing to put up battle sizes to a thousand men like me, a good tactitian is also kind of vital for lord vs lord fights as the game will fuck you over with the numbers.
step 1) get a horse and a lance.
I did buy some flax and sell it at a decent profit before signing up as a mercenary with a neighboring dude from Swadia. Then a day later the swadians declared war on the Nords, where my brewery and such were so I just quit without saving for the night.
I think I will stay away from entanglements if I can and try to be a bit of a freelance capitalist while I get better at combat and at ordering my little dudes around.
Fixed that for you.
Blunt weapons knock out the target, allowing you to take them prisoner and ransom them for boocoo bux. It's great way to make money at, basically, all stages of the game.
Re: Mercenary Contracts: Merc contracts will generally pay you enough to cover your entire payroll plus a bit of profit, so don't worry if you don't have access to your businesses at that time. Missing the profit from the businesses sucks, but they guaranteed income is usually better.
Plus, sometimes, acting as a Merc you can capture enemy lords and then they'll ransom themselves from you (if they don't escape first). Ransoms are usually a lot of money.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
so bad ;_;
Being a lancer is tough - it's actually pretty hard to time your strikes as you ride by for MAXIMUM IMPACT.
That's why you get a lance you can couch - then you just ride fast more-or-less directly at your target!
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
One of the biggest things to remember about combat in the game is that the engine is really just a physics simulator with mounts and blades strapped on top of it. Among other things this means that the relative velocity of the part of your weapon that impacts your target plays a significant role in damage done. This includes rotational velocity of swiping the mouse in the direction you're swinging in to make your character turn during the attack adds a bonus. When you see something like +30% bonus in the combat log, you've probably rotated into the swing at a target not moving very fast. When you see a -50% malus display, you probably swung into someone that was moving away from the blow at the time of impact. When you see a +120% bonus, you probably did something like speared someone from horseback while riding at high speed while your target was riding at high speed towards you but not paying enough attention to block.
Because polearms don't thrust very quickly, they tend not to do a lot if you aren't traveling at a good clip when you attack with them and if you hit during the early part of the thrust. But it gives you a lot of range when you can pull it off and can be the key winning a lance duel.
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3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
I was assuming it was something like that because I made the feeblest spear attack and looked down and saw "-97% effectiveness"
Also I read a summary on couching lances but I don't think I have the technique down yet
The AI hit me with a couched lance and it was staggeringly effective though
Also you guys werent kidding about ransoms -- I ended up becoming a merc for the Nords and jumped in some fights. I captured a Lord and his people paid me $2750 to let him go.
Uhhh I want to kidnap everyone with that kind of ROI
I may have sold some captured soldiers into slavery also >_>
More organizational tools as well.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
Prophesy of Pendor is another one I enjoy, but certainly more designed for veterans then newer players.
I know there was a Warhammer mod that was really fun, no idea if it is still updated. For the record both Floris and Pendor (last I checked) still get updates.
There was another mod I loved that I cannot for the life of me find again or remember its name. It was a total conversion, took place in a fictional land (with a eastern/indian/arabic vibe), dealt with the fall of the old ways and the rise of the industrial age. So you'd have some factions more or less based on Meiji era Japan (with more feudal styled units and some musket), another faction had a more Russian feel to it (to me anyway). There was a big Empire or two that had colonies that would eventually fight for independence. Anarchists, Jacobins, etc "bandit" forces. Various factions would slowly upgrade from pre-industrial to industrial nations. Most annoyingly though, the movement speed was severely cut down. I mean moving your men around the world map would take ages. I remember editing the .ini to be more forgiving. At anyrate I fucking loved the mod and have been jonesing for it recently.
edit- Oh yeah Anno Domini 1257 is a mod I really enjoyed. It is also super big. Probably one of the biggest game worlds out of all the M&B mods I'd wager.
As evidence here is the list of Factions:
2. Kingdom of Lithuania
3. Golden Horde
4. Kingdom of Denmark
5. Polish Principalities
6. Holy Roman Empire
7. Kingdom of Hungary
8. Novgorod Republic
9. Kingdom of England
10. Kingdom of France
11. Kingdom of Norway
12. Kingdom of Scotland
13. Gaelic Kingdoms
14. Kingdom of Sweden
15. Kingdom of Halych-Volhynia
16. Kingdom of Portugal
17. Crown of Aragon
18. Kingdom of Castille
19. Kingdom of Navarra
20. Emirate of Granada
21. The Papal States
22. Roman Empire of Nicaea
23. Crusader States
24. Kingdom of Sicily
25. Mamluk Sultanate
26. Latin Empire
27. Il-khanate
28. Hafsid Dynasty
29. Kingdom of Serbia
30. Kingdom of Bulgaria
31. Marinid Dynasty
32. Republic of Venice
33. Jotvingians
34. Prussians
35. Curonians
36. Samagotians
37. Welsh
38. Republic of Genoa
39. Republic of Pisa
40. Guelphs
41. Ghibellines
42. Kingdom of Bohemia
Or when you want to be that asshole in full plate others can't dent while swinging around a sword or axe strong enough to cut down a horse and its rider in one swing.
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3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
Couching lances is actually really easy. There are two ways you can make it work in your game.
The first is "Automatic," which is the easiest. If you're on a horse with a couchable lance and going fast enough, you'll just automatically lower it into position. Hit the enemy with the tip (don't press the attack button, just keep riding by) for MASSIVE DAMAGE. I've found it's easiest if I aim just a bit to the right of the horse's head and run past the enemy on the left, but whichever side works for you.
The second way is "Manual," and comes in hard and easy varieties. In these cases, you actually need to push a button to start your lance lowering, and the button does nothing until you're going fast enough. After lowering your lance, you'll only be able to hold it in place for a certain amount of time before you automatically pick it back up again. The duration is based on whether you picked hard or easy, with easy letting you couch for longer, naturally.
Hope that helps!
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Pressing the key to shift the view to first person so you don't have your body blocking your view helps a lot when aiming a couched lance.
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3DS: 3454-0268-5595 Battle.net: SteelAngel#1772
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
You have to use space shift to get anywhere
Our glorious Vaegir leader declared war on the Swadians. I have captured, lost, and recaptured several of their cities. The siege I had to pay my way out of ended was followed by the other lords (FINALLY) catching up to me and helping me curb stomp a few of the besieging lords.
Going to be fun to wipe out the Swadians a few months after wiping out the nords (again). Especially after I merc'ed for the Swadians and helped them come back from the brink.
http://www.fallout3nexus.com/downloads/file.php?id=16534
Yeah, the rate of development coupled with the rate of data release is paaaaiiiiinnnnnfullllllll.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Little bit more info and some screenshots. 3 of them are showing off the seasonal changes.
I could really do with a release date by now.
AniList
http://steamcommunity.com/id/pablocampy
I think I'm most intrigued by 5. In M&B, you pretty much played the same game every time, but if they do this right, then it will add even more replayability. I always wanted deeper RP elements in the game, and this might just do that.