Mount & Blade - duff game or duff gamer?

An awesome game.

I would suggest you persevere with the tutorial. Fighting in the arena in the towns will also allow you to buff your skills before venturing into the real world.

The combat is simple but difficult to master. Some weapons are harder than others. I love the simplicity of smashing peasants faces in with a two handed axe! Swords are arguably harder to master than axes.

Once you get the hang of things it is a truly amazing game, I racked up more hours on this than any other game last year (~200!)
 
It's o.k. I'd prefer being able to pick which section of the tournament you go into like the way they worked in "A Knight's Tale" a decent mouse a surface are pretty critical to a decent combat experience too.
 
itsari said:
^ yeh the lance tournaments are annoying imo. Great game though overall, once you get going it gets a lot better.
Click to expand...

They are great money earners at the beginning if you're decent in combat. Lots or reloading required if you're unlucky though :( you know the game is cheating when it gives you bow and arrows versus cavalry lancer at the final fight :mad:

Great when you're charging down the final archer though :D
 
I got mount & blade in a 2 for £15 deal at game and not knowing anything about it i just got it because thats all they had lol

But after i played it i never stopped playing it and i forgot about the game i went to town in the first place for :)

I have warband now and a few mods probs one the best games i own.
 
Is Warband a better game for SP, then? I thought I'd read in reviews that it was not such a good SP experience, and was mostly notable for its MP element. Is this not right? Would it be better to get that and jump straight in?
 
Its not a bad game, I personally find it gets a bit repetitive after a while. In singleplayer I've got stuck into a rut, where my army scares everyone away, but isn't big enough to take over towns.
 
Ok, got quite into it after the words of advice I read here and elsewhere. The mounted combat part of the game is really excellent. Love couched lance damage!

I'm also in a bit of a rut where I just don't really know what to do. Don't have quite enough money to build an army capable of more than banditry or killing raiders, but doing that is only really keeping me ticking over. I seem to have milked most of the trade routes I knew dry, and I don't want to join a faction yet.

Still, I'm glad I persevered with the initial combat learning curve...
 
You really need to join a faction!

I joined the Vaegirs. I built up my rep within the faction by going on campaign with them and eventually I was made Marshall. When you are marshall you can direct the campaign, i.e the other lords of that faction will follow you and join you in sieging cities/castles.

When you conquer a city/castle you can request that the king awards it to you. Initially he will every time, but eventually he will refuse and this will give you the opportunity to rebel and start your own kingdom.
That what I did, I now own 75% of the map! When you have you own kingdom you can recruit other lords to join you. (your chance of successfully recruiting is aided by them liking you and having a high honour rating).
 
Pfft, the Swadian king never gave me anything other than a crappy village. After about the 5th castle I captured for him I kept it myself and he's currently languishing in its cells. I've just kept the first castle to myself and given the others I capture to Vassals.

Only thing I struggle with is capturing the cities. I get a couple of vassals with me and ask them to follow me but when I get to a city and start beseiging it they run off. Any ideas?
 
I find lords will often run off if it is a city that requires a siege engine (rather than ladders). The only way round it is to do it yourself. Get some good siege troops, the best are nord huscarls + some top tier archers/crossbowmen. You should by now have a companion who is a healer - I forget the name of the skill (maybe first aid?), but one of the skills increases the chance that your soldiers are injured in battle rather than out right killed. If you siege a city multiple times the defending army will repair much slower than yours, and eventually you will outnumber them and take the city.

I would reccomend getting good with a crossbow or bow and arrow. I reckon i personally kill 40-50 defenders myself in any siege. I go for their archers to try and minimise my sides casualties. I don't bother with a shield for sieges, I bring a two handed axe, a siege crossbow and two large packs of steel bolts.
 
In my experience you have to Mod M&B to some extent to make it playable, you get to a point where you're desperately trying to take over towns and win tournaments just to pay for your 80 strong army which can't take over anything worthwhile.

It's best played (i find) with some of the following altered / turned off.

Morale Effects
Payment
Arena Payouts
Tournament Payouts
Max Party Size
and ..
turn off companion interaction, so you can have them all.

It becomes much more enjoyable then, this is coming from someone who played it normally until day 480 or something...

Bought warband the other day and enjoying that - here's a link for easy modding: http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?topic=101731.0
 
Yes that is true. I used a program called tweakmb it can be found on the taleweworlds forums.
I tweaked my part size, increased the chance of capturing lords after battle and slightly reduced the chance of the escaping.

I also use a mod called diplomacy. As the name suggests it provides more diplomatic options. It also adds a lot of nice features. E.g you can hire a constable who will handle recruitment for you. That takes a lot of the ball ache out of the game.

I wouldn't consider tweaking a game like m&b to your taste to be cheating. It is made by a very small studio and I doubt it received too much qa testing prior to release. For example I doubt anyone played it through to completion.
 
EdwardTeach said:
You really need to join a faction!

I joined the Vaegirs. I built up my rep within the faction by going on campaign with them and eventually I was made Marshall. When you are marshall you can direct the campaign, i.e the other lords of that faction will follow you and join you in sieging cities/castles.

When you conquer a city/castle you can request that the king awards it to you. Initially he will every time, but eventually he will refuse and this will give you the opportunity to rebel and start your own kingdom.
That what I did, I now own 75% of the map! When you have you own kingdom you can recruit other lords to join you. (your chance of successfully recruiting is aided by them liking you and having a high honour rating).
Click to expand...

Right. I thought it was a bit early for that, since I'm only level 13 and have a company of 18. Just about turning a profit from trading and bandit hunting. Would joining a faction increase my income enough to actually do anything useful? Any suggestions on which faction? I was leaning to Swadia originally, but they have lost a bit of territory since then. The Rhodoks and Vaegirs also look good possibilities due to only having one hostile border...
 
Started playing 'Blood and Steel'. Really like the archery changes! Arrows are far less accurate, but lethal. Makes it so much more interesting than vanilla game archery, the aim becomes thinning the ranks of large groups rather than targeting specific troops. Volleys against tightly packed infantry or charging cavalry are rightly lethal.
 
STILL in deep with this game! Got to day 150 or so on vanilla, then decided the game needed some extra features, so started again by importing my character into Native Expansion.

Had a complete riot! It really irons out some of annoying kinks in the game. I found I was able to recruit a larger army, and eventually got the balls to try a blitzkrieg attack on the Rhodoks. Pretty epic war ensued, with my rag-tag band just about holding together by the time we took their last castle. Then the Khergits demanded Veluca and declared war when I refused.

Much frantic recruiting of defeated Rhodok lords, distributing fiefs, and making a huge raiding party with Nizar saw me just about hold off their first attacks, and then had a big showdown with their entire campaign group. Lost a lot of men (and women), but ended with over half the Khergit lords imprisoned in my tower at Jelkala. And that was the Khanate finished as a fighting force. A trivial matter to roll over their remaining towns and castles. Epic stuff!

By this time I had a core of 170 crack troops - all levelled Merc Captains, Cavaliers and Counts - and a massive secondary army led by Nizar following me around. The Swadians never knew what hit them! Came across a huge war group near the Khergit border and decided to take them on. Just got to the stage that Swadia is no more. Now... do the Nords or the Vaegirs fall next? :)

Really engrossing gaming. Having a blast!
 
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