Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

[Metro]

Fortunately they won't just cater to shitty mp-only fags like you and sheek.

 

[KidBoogie]

Fortunately they won't just cater to shitty mp-only fags like you and sheek.

have fun stomping an ai that's designed to be stomped

 

[Gregz]

Fortunately they won't just cater to shitty mp-only fags like you and sheek.

have fun stomping an ai that's designed to be stomped

1) Play cRPG mod
2) Get your ass beat by players who've been doing it for 2+ years
3) Come back to SP mode with tail between legs

 

[Metro]

More of a function of I like to play in a campaign type setting which MP doesn't give you... unless you play on those MMO/persistent servers (different than cRPG mod which is still just isolated battles). Anyway, it's a moot point since the developers are dedicated to supporting single player. If you want a game totally dedicated to MP I suggest you buy Chivalry.

 

[KidBoogie]

but chivalry suuuuuccckkks

 

[Machocruz]

So I should ask this here:

I'm playing Warband. I have a troop of 54, mostly Khanate with a few Swadian knights. It's going to be a while before I'm able raise Leadership skill and add more troops. I don't think what I have is enough to start taking cities or castles. I just got married. What is the next setpl towards advancement? Should I just keep riding around the map and grinding on enemy hosts until I'm able to get my troop count up? Btw, this is very slow going, as it takes a while to even find the enemy squads sometimes. Or is 54 enough to do regular sieges? I've done one or two, but those were against cities with the lowest personnel count i could find, and I don't seem to have benefited much from it. Should I keep winning tournaments (which I'm getting bored with)?

 

[Turisas]

You can always join one of the factions as a merc captain so you get to join in on the big fights (just don't be too diligent about it and steer the balance of power in favor of one faction too much). Recently captured places have very poor defenses, so you can try capturing those if you'd like.

 

[Metro]

^ That. It's extremely difficult to work your way up on your own. Best way is to be a mercenary and fight in larger battles/sieges and eventually become a vassal. You can always just renounce your allegiance after you've gained enough leadership. The two best ways are to work your way up in a faction (serving time as a Marshall, etc.) and then ask for a town you know you might not get from the king at which point if you renounce you can keep everything you have already and it joins your independent faction. Of course this can be a pain in the ass if your holdings are spread all over the map. If you want to go totally independent and start from scratch it's best to wait until one of the factions are close to elimination (only have a few towns/castles) and siege one with a small garrison.

Note that when you start your own faction every kingdom will have a pretty negative opinion of you as an upstart. You need to raise Right to Rule by winning tournaments, sending companions out to 'spread the word,' getting married adds to it so you've increased it some, etc. You also want to do quests for various lords you think you might want to add to your own empire as people with a high positive disposition towards you will be more likely to join you if you ask (provided you have high persuasion and land to give them).

 

[Ninjerk]

Sounds like you need to be sieging towns to make money.

 

[Metro]

Money is irrelevant in increasing your troop size.

 

[Severian Silk]

I wasn't impressed by the strategic side of the first game. I probably will be skipping this one.

 

[Machocruz]

Already did the mercenary captain and vassal thing. I have 439 reknown and 100 loyalty with Khergit Khanate, married to Lady Mechet. Was bestowed a village, but lost it to Veagir. Waiting for war to be declared with them so I can take the nearby castle back.

Just now found out that I maxed out the Leadership skill. Also just found out that you can send one of your companions to contact the other vassals and have them gather at your location, and they'll go along with you and help you fight. Was helpful in taking another castle ( I was doing it wrong before, by asking the vassals myself to follow, which they do but they don't help fight). But man, Rhodok is not a good match up for Khergit. Got chewed up pretty good by their crossbow rape mob. Their infantry isn't shabby either. Was gridlocked at the top of the siege ladder for a while.

If Sanjar Khan doesn't start rewarding my efforts soon, I'm done with these swarthy Mongols.

 

[Metro]

The Khergit are a pretty bad faction to recruit from/side with. It's all about castle/town siege and defense and they're pretty awful at that. The native expansion mod helps to even out faction unit imbalance although it also introduces new tiers of units which highlights each faction strength even more. Vaegir archers are brutal, nord melee absurdly tough, etc. etc. Adds a bit more flavor to the game (plus some tweaks to diplomacy and fief management) without radically altering things.

 

[Machocruz]

Khergit are fun out in the open, but I'm not feeling the unit selection anymore now that it's time for bigger and better things. They served their purpose. No reason to remain a faithful servant for too much longer, I reckon.

Thanks for the tips guys.

 

[Eyeball]

Design decision, gentlemen. As in the real World, Mounted mongol Archers ride roughshod over pathetic groundpounders, but the lighter armour and bows which make them unstoppable in field battles make them too squishy to reliably take Castles. The Rhodoks, on the other hand, suck ass in the field due to their complete lack of cavalry and slowly reloading crossbows but they're absolute murder when given a fortress to hold. So it kind of balances out.

Personally, I'd just recruit a sizeable Hired Blade Company and use that for taking Castles. Much better at it than most faction troops, but also extremely expensive.

 

[Metro]

You don't say? Next thing you'll tell me the Nords are based on... NORDIC VIKINGS!!!!!

 

[Eyeball]

Just pointing out that it makes sense in a historical context and that it's a design decision, snarky one.

 

[Overboard]

As in the real World, Mounted mongol Archers ride roughshod over pathetic groundpounders, but the lighter armour and bows which make them unstoppable in field battles make them too squishy to reliably take Castles.

And that's why Chinggis Khan never managed to take a fortified city or castle...oh wait.

 

[Zewp]

And that's why Chinggis Khan never managed to take a fortified city or castle...oh wait.

Ghengis won most cities through the use of siege weapons and prolonged sieges, if I'm not mistaken. You can probably do roughly the same in M&B, but most cities have enough supplies for 40 or 60 days, so rations is often an issue for an army large enough to keep up a siege for that long while also being attacked by lords coming to the defense of the castle.

 

[Eyeball]

Yeah, that's something I'd like to see rectified. It's more or less impossible to take a city by starving it out, which is really how most medieval Towns were taken. I would also like the opportunity to use a few dirty tricks to win sieges. Bribing inside traitors to lower the gate, poisoning the Water supply, using catapults to hurl diseased corpses over the city walls, all methods with which cities have been taken in the past. Might be a bit of a balance issue, though.

 

[Turisas]

Might be a bit of a balance issue, though.

Just tie those abilities to some skills and it should be just fine. The map and travel distances (enemy lords can reach you anywhere on the map in a matter of days) probably won't be large enough to justify a regular siege, and lowering the fort/city food supplies to compensate for that would be pretty lame, as well.

 

[Eyeball]

I would also like for it to be possible to Wear Down empires by looting their cities and killing their peasants. It always annoyed me in MB1 how you could roll into a faction's territory, completely destroy the local lord's army, burn all the villages and steal all the livestock and the lord owner would STILL come back in like 5 days with another bigass army. There is no economic impact for looting enemy cities at all, which makes long-term warfare a hard grind.

 

[Overboard]

Ghengis won most cities through the use of siege weapons and prolonged sieges, if I'm not mistaken.

Also flooding defending cities with refugees, severely reducing their ability to hold out, amongst other interesting strategies. My comment was more about stereotyping Mongols as purely horse mounted archers who were useless away from open fields.

Also siege weapons are there to soften up the defences, you still need troops to enter and hold the city, which would have been difficult initially due to the Mongol aversion to bloodshed.

 

[Emily]

I would also like for it to be possible to Wear Down empires by looting their cities and killing their peasants. It always annoyed me in MB1 how you could roll into a faction's territory, completely destroy the local lord's army, burn all the villages and steal all the livestock and the lord owner would STILL come back in like 5 days with another bigass army. There is no economic impact for looting enemy cities at all, which makes long-term warfare a hard grind.

that is not true, there is economic impact. If you beat down his armies and villages his next army will be filled with peasants

 

[Eyeball]

Don't actually think that's true. I can certainly recall several occasions of getting ambushed by lords I JUST defeated while raiding their fiefs and them bringing tougher armies than peasants.