Mount & Blade mods

[Jimmious]

So I got the whole collection and I want to try the game. I think I'll go vanilla Warband first to learn the basics.
My question however is if there are good visual mods to improve a bit the graphics of the game... anyone?

 

[Jimmious]

asfasdf what did I say that was retarded?

 

[attackfighter]

The graphics of the base game are colourfully vivid. Most mods that change graphics use similar colour-desaturated graphics which are bland and make it harder to discern figures on the overmap. If you for some reason like the desaturated style you will doubtlessly enjoy, for instance, the Floris mod which makes use of them. Otherwise I'd stay away from mods which change graphics.

 

[Jimmious]

So the Floris mod is not recommended for example? I saw that it's popular.
Also saw this "sweetfxmod" but I guess that falls in the category of "desaturated" style?

 

[attackfighter]

I haven't played it, but from screenshots it's not what I'm talking about. It looks okay. It's been awhile since I played, but I think the desaturated graphics are found in Floris, Dickplomacy, and Warband Enhanced. I'd suggest just trying out a motley of mods and going with what you like best. It's easy to install and switch between them.

 

[Metro]

1) Start with Pendor.

2) Get wrecked.

 

[agentorange]

Floris seems like one of those giant mess of a mods. But I've never used it. I can't even tell what it adds, but some of the screenshots look pretty ugly.

If it's your first time playing the game then I think you should just play vanilla. Maybe with some convenience/sensible mods like Diplomacy.

Maggot

 

[Maggot]

Floris is a bloat mod, would not recommend. Diplomacy is a must though and most mods implement it.

 

[Metro]

I used to tell people to avoid Pendor if they were new to M&B but I don't think it's an issue anymore. The only thing you need to know going in that is radically different from vanilla M&B is that elite troop tiers are significantly stronger than the fodder you have access to early in the game. You might have 50ish guys but you can still lose to 5 Anaconda Knights. It makes for a far more interesting early/mid game experience.

It's also the most visually impressive mod out of any other M&B mods. The graphics got an overhaul yet again in the 3.9 update. If you don't want to jump in to Pendor right away then just play around with Vanilla for a bit and ignore the antiquated graphics. But Pendor is the preeminent single player mod. All the others pale in comparison.

 

[unfairlight]

Almost all of them make the graphics look even shittier. Don't bother.

 

[Aemar]

There used to be several graphics mods that helped improving the visuals of the vanilla version quite a bit, but I guess most of them are no longer supported. You can try this mod if you want, but I have no idea if it still works:

https://www.moddb.com/mods/mountblade-retexture

These days I'm playing A Clash of Kings, and must say the visuals are not that bad, at least most items look way better than what you can usually find in Prophecy of Pendor for example.

 

[Alienman]

I really like Floris and would recommend it. It's the vanilla experience but expanded and a lot harder in some places. But the standard look of it is ugly as fuck as attackfighter stated. It's a rather easy fix, you just have to replace a few textures from vanilla. Takes a bit of time to mess around with the name changing but it's for the best.

Indeed, the darker texture is used in all editions. To get the original Native textures, you'll need to do the following:
- Backup the Floris textures you're going to replace (in case you don't like the native ones after all)
- Copy the appropiate textures to the Floris Mod folder.
- Rename these textures to the name the Floris textures had.

You want to replace the ground textures, I understand. In Floris, they all start with 'min_env_ground'. So:

min_env_ground_desert.dds = desert.dds
min_env_ground_dry_grass.dds = dry_grass.dds
min_env_ground_earth.dds = ground_earth.dds
min_env_ground_forest.dds = ground_forest.dds
min_env_ground_mountain.dds = mountain.dds
min_env_ground_ocean.dds = ocean.dds
min_env_ground_path.dds = ground_path.dds
min_env_ground_plain.dds = plain.dds
min_env_ground_river.dds = river.dds
min_env_ground_snow.dds = snow.dds
min_env_ground_stone1.dds = ground_stone1.dds
min_env_ground_village.dds = ground_village.dds
min_env_ground1.dds = ground1.dds
min_env_ground2.dds = ground2.dds
min_env_map_steppe.dds = map_steppe.dds

Just rename and replace and be done with it

.

From this thread:

https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php?topic=217598.0

 

[attackfighter]

Floris is a bloat mod, would not recommend. Diplomacy is a must though and most mods implement it.

I have several reasons to dispute this. First, some of the fixes that Diplomacy was originally useful for correcting, such as lords respawning with zero soldiers and running rampant on the map, have been corrected in the base game. Secondly, Diplomacy changes the gameplay in certain ways that aren't strictly beneficial. For instance, you do not need to raise your relations with villages for the late game, which is something some people actually enjoy (even if others regard it as boring grind). Thirdly, while it does contain many quality of life improvements, overall these are not super impactful, only mildly so. And fourthly, the changes in kingdom management it adds aren't necessarily useful to all people -- depends on your playstyle and what aspects of the game you like to engage with. Diplomacy is definitely a good mod, but I didn't find it to be a no brainer.

 

[track02]

Not a visual mod but I always liked Freelancer - it lets you join a lords army as a regular solider and work your way up through the ranks gaining exp, relation and equipment
It does take away control of your character outside of battles (until you leave the army) but I think it's a nice way to start, serving some time in an army before leaving or deserting to wander around on your own.
You also get to be part of some really big battles early on which can be a nice change from the small skirmishes you usually see early game when 'solo'

 

[Alienman]

Yup, it's a cool mod. You just have to hope the lord you serve will actually see any battles

It's in the Floris mod as well.

 

[Jimmious]

After all the comments I'm torn between starting pure vanilla, with Diplomacy only or with Floris and with the funky edits Alienman proposed.
I guess I should try the pure vanilla and mod my way from there on, a bit like RimWorld

*The Freelancer mod sounds fun indeed

 

[Jimmious]

By the way I already tried Floris, Prophecy of Pendor and A Clash of Kings.
Floris is OK but it has some "features" that are .. questionable. But I guess it gave me a good initial experience, close to Native with lots of little stuff added.
Prophecy of Pendor is amazingly made but, yeah, HOLY SHIT IT'S HARD. Fuuuck.
A Clash of Kings seems great so far. Didn't get too far into it, but the quest system and the special locations are already really cool. Plus OK, the lore is fucking awesome.

What an addictive game.

 

[Sjukob]

Prophesy of Pendor isn't as hard as it's just annoying. The mod's moto is essentially "No fun allowed". Salzber in this thread covers the problems pretty nicely. At the moment I'm too lazy to write what's wrong with the mod. Just don't buy into it's "The most balanced and polished and bestest mod evah" (it's actually true to an extent).

 

[Sjukob]

Ugh fuck it, let's go:

1) The whole qualis gem system is retarded. You need qualis gems to get strong shit (gear, units, stats) to beat OP enemies and conquer Pendor. How do you get qualis gems ? You have to beat OP enemies and there's only a chance that you'll get something. Have fun leading 800+ armies that move at the speed of snail into marshall armies that might just run away from it. Oh and developers removed the only reliable way of beating them in 3.9 that is using noldor lords. So much fun!

2) Speaking of qualis gems the gear you get for them is pretty shity for the effort you have to put in. Armor is only slightly better than noldor stuff but requires a shitload of time to get, the weapons are decent but you must get 3-4 qualis to get one ?! Lol. If you try to do any fighting by yourself here you are very likely to get killed anyways.

3) Combat balance is retarded. Cavalry is op and there is fuckloads of it, seriously, everybody is on the horse. Armor means nothing as even elite knights get destroyed by mid-tier crossbowmen with basic weapons. Javelins will oneshot almost anything and bows are just broken machines of death after troops/player reach certain point of skills and weapons masteries. Overall the damage is absurd and armor is like a thin foil. What's even worse developers know about and actively use all this shit to put player in annoying scenarios, "Play the way we intended" they say.

4) This comes from the previous point you either play the intended way or you are going to be handicapped and feel like a punchbag for local war parties. Don't want to be friends with noldor ? Lol. Don't want to use bows ? Lol. Don't want to ride a horse ? Lol. Don't want to abuse broken ranged and other units ? Lol. Wan't to fight enemies just like your soldiers do and not just sit behind lines shooting your bow ? You have been raped by the homing javelin of death for 9000 damage. Lol.

5) Penny economy where enterprises and fiefs barely provide you with cash but maintaining an army is pretty expensive, so you have to fight, fight, fight non stop.

6) Looting is laughable, even with skill at 10 you get no rewards if you beat an army comparable to size of yours. You have to bring a small party and fight outnumbered to get anything decent.

7) Timesink in general - a lot of things take so long to get. Weapons and armor upgrades at knighthood order stronghold, CKO, qualis, rune armor, elite troops etc.

8) Whoever thought that snake cult hideout and it's were well designed must be forced to beat that shit alone with a 2h melee weapon for the rest of his life.

 

[Alienman]

Sounds like it is in dire need of some micro transactions

 

[Jimmious]

Thanks Sjukob . Admittedly being crushed in the first couple of battles consistently didn't allow me to get a deeper look in the mod :p

 

[Jimmious]

By the way has anyone tried this: https://www.moddb.com/mods/native-redux ?
It claims to be as faithful to Native as possible but with improvements all over the place. The problem is that I can't find WHAT improvements exactly..

 

[Black Angel]

So, between waiting for Bannerlord getting patched and my brother sitting in front of his new PC that's capable of running it properly, the other day I tried going back to my abandoned Silverstag playthrough. But then it just keeps crashing every time I tried to do something. I looked it up and apparently the mod is dead.

And so I wish to ask; is there any good Warband mods as big as Silverstag out there? And I don't mean something like Floris or PoP. My ancient piece of laptop can't handle them in long playing hours. I got Dickplomacy installed and luckily it didn't require WSE, but I still wish to know if there's bigger but not as big as Floris or PoP mods out there that's worth playing.

 

[Lilura]

Brytenwalda

 

[Black Angel]

Brytenwalda

Damn, a non-native altering big mod that's allegedly twice the size of the native. Seems like my laptop won't be able to run for long playing hours without overheating, but thanks for the recommendation anyway

By the way has anyone tried this: https://www.moddb.com/mods/native-redux ?
It claims to be as faithful to Native as possible but with improvements all over the place. The problem is that I can't find WHAT improvements exactly..

This seems like what I'm looking for. If you want to know what improvements it brought, open the Files tab, then click on any of the redux version/patches. Finally, click 'read more' on the descriptions.