Mount and blade 2: Bannerlord Early Access, Discussion

[Gmd]

So, I've played nearly 100 hours of the new mount and blade so here are my thoughts:


It's pretty much everything i wanted, a more polished and graphically superior warband. They still have a lot of content to add, primarily in the character building, diplomacy and dialogue options. Combat wise its perfect, almost identical to warband but with improved animations and accuracy.


The AI, especially from the commands you can give them is incredible. You have the option to let your troops make their own tactics where they seek high ground switching formations of archers to infantry as troops aproach, but my personal favourite is that cavalry now actively charge, disengage then form up to charge in again all by themselves. Nothing is more satisftying than sweeping through 200+ infantry with 100 cavalry and rinse and repeat until victory. Also horse archers are hell to deal with as they actively harass then run away.

Sieges as well are top tier, especially in multiplayer, with multiple seige weapons all able to be manned.

Graphically, this is a beautiful game from deserts to lush grasslands which soon become covered in snow during winter, characters are well animated and weapon animations have never been smoother.


Not to mention multiple quality of life changes to towns and cities, along with a lot of political options for kingdoms and an actual storyline of quests.


So what does everyone else think? I think it has quite a way to go at the moment, but its truly impressive.

[Tusky]

I agree with all of those points.

At first I was thinking that maybe it was a little too similar to warband. But I have changed my mind and am enjoying all of the many things that are different, and am impressed with how it has kept that kernel of what made the first game excellent.

For example I like the new army system, especially when you can build it from your own parties so you could have a massive horde lead by you and your companions rumbling around the map.

The seiges feel more realistic, so you have to build the items that you want to use etc

The dialogue system is a lot of fun, but I feels a little clunky and random - but then since it's still early access it's tough to criticise things since they may be changed or improved. Well at least I haven't yet succeeded at persuading anyone to do anything difficult.

Same as you: I love how nice it looks. Very glad I invested in some new hardware to run it on

I am aware they put a big focus on making it "moddable", so look forward to seeing what the community comes up with!

[Gmd]

Yes! Just the thought of playing a lord of the rings or song of ice and fire mod of it has me so very excited. The community will be what turns the game into a masterpiece. I think they need to work on the dialogue options and flesh out some of the diplomacy a bit more before we start seeing much form the community though. But these I'm sure are next to be added.

I've been impressed at the rate they are updating it aswell. Pretty much a new patch with fixes and adds every few days.

[Jubal]

I should get it soon, though I don't know when I'm ever going to have the wrist capacity to play M&B again, my mouse hand is a mess and a half. :/

[Phoenixguard09]

I've been playing it off and on since my birthday and really enjoying it. The combat is a lot like Warband, but I am finding it slightly more difficult. Probably a good thing at that.

Definitely still needs a fair bit of work, but it is early access, so that is to be expected.

Loving the sieges, just wish that there was the possibility to break the siege from outside, rather than having to sacrifice troops to get inside and then sally out. I believe Warband had the same problem though.

[Tusky]

just wish that there was the possibility to break the siege from outside, rather than having to sacrifice troops to get inside and then sally out. I believe Warband had the same problem though.

I swear I've broken a seige by engaging the camp. I'll have to go check!

Edit: yep, definitely can. Make sure you're at war with them maybe?

[Gmd]

You can definitely break a siege by attacking directly from outside, but i think phoenix means defending the castle from the inside once they attack. It's only possible at the moment if you are already in the castle when its attacked or you break in (sacrificing alot of troops). I suppose it makes sense an army of 100 people cant just waltz in through the siege into the castle.

The main downside is defending a castle is one of the best combat experiences the game has to offer and I'd say its one of the rarest fights you get to do, as often sacrificing 50% of your troops isn't worth it when you can just attack the siege camp outside. Plus in my experience I've sacrificed my troops to get inside only for the attacker to leave, making me lose all my troops for nothing.


I think one amazing addition would be to actually have a battle where you have to break through the siege camp into your castle. Would be fun to command your troops around an enemy army into your castle gates.

[Gmd]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4Yldd_BT3A
Thought this was pretty cool

[Jubal]

Finally spent a good few hours playing. Some thoughts.

Biggest downside: even minimising the graphics settings, battles don't run smoothly, even small ones. The main thrust of the game, combat, is therefore really quite limited as an experience for me, because the high chance of lags and glitchiness just means I can't fight properly. I spent most of my time trading and doing minor quests... even then, though, the missions that force you into personal combat like bandit hideouts reliably screwed me over. I did finally get my clan to level one though.

Other stuff: I really like the boardgames and range of boardgames, and might write tutorials on a couple of the easier ones. I felt the companions had interesting backstories but were a bit silent/nonevents after being hired, which felt a pity (though maybe coming to this after Dragon Age Origins wasn't ideal for judging companion depth). Smithing seemed fun but the smithing stamina metric and the way it forces you to just wait around for a while is frustrating. Trade seemed interesting, but the frustration of that was that the suggestions given were for places I'd recently been only, rather me being able to find suggestions about places I wanted to go towards, which made longer distance caravanning pretty hard, this may change I guess with more perks later in the game. Taverns could do with more of a range/variation - it's excessively predictable that there's exactly one each of musician, boardgamer, tavern maid, ransom broker, mercenary, and prospective companion, and makes the taverns feel formulaic which isn't ideal.