Mount and Blade Post V1

[Stark]

I hope you guys are using the battlesizer; the maximum battle size is ludicrously small and for babies. If your systems can handle it, pushing it out to 200+ guys makes the game more interesting and larger parties (and numerical disparities) much more significant, regardless of what mod you use.

The mods that include formation systems are excellent. I can't remember the one I used, but it made tactics much more useful (although the lack of orders like 'go there' still annoys).

[Tolya]

I do use the battlesizer. Im currently at about 200, which with proper tactical advantage (and I do have Alyssa who has tactics on 7 with a +2 bonus) I can field my entire party.

Man, 60-rider charge through the plains is really fucking something. I just need to swap the music for something that gives the atmosphere better (I saw an MTW music pack somewhere).

[Stark]

Tactics is for girls. The game is so laughably easy actually trying to get an advantage is counter-productive (at least in vanilla, I haven't tried any mods since 1003). It's the kind of game you play, level a bit, become totally unstoppable and get bored and stop.

[Tolya]

Oh by the way. Stark, you can order your troops to go to a specific location. Just hit backspace, choose the type of troops and click on the overhead map. A "hold this position" flag will appear there.

[Tolya]

Tactics is for girls. The game is so laughably easy actually trying to get an advantage is counter-productive (at least in vanilla, I haven't tried any mods since 1003). It's the kind of game you play, level a bit, become totally unstoppable and get bored and stop.

Well, if hack'n'slash is all you're looking for in M&B then you're probably right. NE doesn't make it laughably easy, since even the lamest bandit parties that harass your level 1 character in the very beginning are about 30-40 in numbers and packing crossbows.

[Zablorg]

I'm glad I only had to pay 10 dollars for this at the time. The full price doesn't seem worth the value, at least for the vanilla game.

[Executor32]

You just need very high skill in archery and a lot of power draw. Get your power draw up to 7, 200-300 archery, and pack a longbow and watch your foes fall before you.

Yeah, it's just that getting it there is a problem, since first-level archer builds are so wimpy common bandits can assrape them (unless you get a horse from the start).

EDIT: Nothing beats riding right through enemy infantry formations when leading a cavalry charge. NOTHING.

Hell, I once single-handedly took out a 100-odd man party just by riding through their formations on a heavy charger, no lance even.

[Vympel]

Hell, I once single-handedly took out a 100-odd man party just by riding through their formations on a heavy charger, no lance even.

LOL. I would've thought sheer probabilities would've eventually killed your charger - it always cops a few hits whenever I ride through, and some of them, if you're unlucky can knock off quite a few HP from the horse.

Of course, I use a Spirited Charger with somewhat weaker protection - the extra maneuverability and speed is worth it, however.

It's silly that in vanilla MnB, the most dangerous opponents you're likely to face are Caravans - they've got so many caravan guards on horseback it's easy to get surrounded and killed if you're unlucky.

Of course, I've yet to fight the Khergits ...

[Tolya]

Right now Im engaged in war with Khergit Khanate. It's not that difficult, you cant however count on using a heavy charger to ride through their infantry, because, usually, there is none.

Get you quickest horse, form a cavalry unit and you are set. I haven't tested how an infantry + archer troop would fare against them, but I wouldnt hold my breath.

[PeZook]

Get you quickest horse, form a cavalry unit and you are set. I haven't tested how an infantry + archer troop would fare against them, but I wouldnt hold my breath.

I am currently in the process of being absolutely assraped by them. Which is quite realistic, if frustrating (Khergits are essentially Mongols, after all, and boy did Mongols force Europeans to change their strategy...), and my force was optimized to fighting Rhodesians or whatever their name is, who are archer heavy: so I have heavy infantry, archers and heavy cavalry. Hurts against the Khergits. A lot.

Though these fuckers are surprisingly dangerous even when dismounted, as I learned defending a castle. Doesn't help they're the only ones to concentrate their forces in singular, massive armies

I've been a Vaegir mercenary, but the massive Khergit horde that's about to descend on Vaegir may force me to run far, far away

[Tolya]

I managed to take a castle from Khergits. Wasn't at all difficult, considering it was a fresh capture on their side and they only had a 46 man garrison.

When fighting the horde you need to switch to a heavy cav party. Having some archers and infantry doesnt hurt, but knights on horses that don't get run over are what you are looking for.

[Tolya]

Khergit defended castle gives a new meaning to the word "rain of arrows". I once retreated from a siege tower when I saw how many arrows they are launching at me.

EDIT: spelling

[Artemas]

The formation system in mods is pretty awesome, and the morale system can be fucking hilarious.

Eagle and radiant cross has a 16th century Spanish-analog faction, so putting all those pikemen into a proper tercio is pretty cool. The morale system occasionaly get funny little things like:
"The enemy flees in terror!" quickly followed by:
"Your troops are wavering!"

The pike-bracing system pretty much prevents fucks any sort of melee cavalry force, turning them into a infantry force scattered amongst the enemy. Which can actually be useful. Like Paratroopers.

[Stark]

Oh by the way. Stark, you can order your troops to go to a specific location. Just hit backspace, choose the type of troops and click on the overhead map. A "hold this position" flag will appear there.

That's what I mean though; the UI should support this as an order. The orders system is horribly broken (not least because there's no UI element telling you who you're talking to, lol) but burying functions in the map annoys me. The whole thing was just hacked in around 900, and I paid $12 for the game, but still.

However, the idea that only 'hacknslash' players get bored of MnB is utterly absurd. The game has ALWAYS had a broken power curve; every patch old players reinstall, play for a few days (more now, of course, probably a few dozen days to get to the end of the game) and then get bored. The war is fine but it's hopelessly boring because everyone else is retarded. The item imbalance is so terrible almost every mod tries to fix it. The unit equipment/development trees are so top-heavy quality is all that matters. There is no scope whatever for any kind of metagame like diplomacy or even economy (even with 5000+ a week you can easily just burn villages that mysteriously have piles of silk). The combat part of the game is good and 'works', but the strategy/adventure side is a pile of broken.

Anyone who tells me I should just MnB, a game I've liked for years but has serious problems, more than I do because of mods can fuck off and die. I judge a game on it's merits, not the merits of after-market conversions. Of course mods try to fix problems; clearly then MnB has a powerful crafting system?

[PeZook]

Ah, yes - the battlemap. Not only does it manage not to make the situation any more clear, it's impossible to use if your enemy has more than two horsemen, because they'll be upon you before you set everything up.

I can second Stark on retardness of the strategic AI: I just became a Vaegir vassal, and got my own crappy village (I was given a lousy fiefdom right on the goddamned frontline with a Khergit Khan and his 300 man army running around. The King must really like me...). Before I could go there and look around, I get a call to arms from the marshall.

So I haul ass to a castle on the other side of the kingdom from where the actual fighting is, and get told to stay with the army. Cool, I think, seeing five 100 man stacks leave the castle, the Vaegir finally got their shit together. We gonna kick the Khan's ass!

So we ride to one of the two castles the Khergit took from us awesome Slavic guys. Upon the way, we stumble upon a Khergit lord with about 60 men. Fresh meat! But...the Vaegir lords immediately scatter to the four winds. The marshall, before he takes off, tells me to go and scout the castle. For later, you know. They're totally coming back, seriously!

As I ride away, I watch the Khan swoop in like a hawk...

Though to be honest, two days later the recon task was aborted, and the marshall was fired from his position by the King

P.S.

And wow, with the Native Enhancement Mod, I can now get totally assraped right from the beginning! YAY!

P.S.2

What's the deal with Khergit lords sitting around on piles of troops doing nothing while I ride into a village right next to them and loot it for a day or so?

[Zablorg]

P.S.2

What's the deal with Khergit lords sitting around on piles of troops doing nothing while I ride into a village right next to them and loot it for a day or so?

You're looting it sneakily

[Vympel]

Here's one thing I don't get - I held up a caravan the other day, and, as an experiment - said there was a toll for safe passage - the Caravan Master offered me 580 dinars.

I rejected it and attacked, and I'm positive that the aggregate of what I got from the dinars you get on victory, selling the arms and armor taken from the dead, and the paltry amount of goods (merely some food) was less. Shouldn't I have gotten 580 dinars, minimum?

It's very true that vanilla MnB gets boring - however post-V1 I'm still playing it for way longer since there's so much more to do and a lot more depth than usual. I don't like mods as a rule so I likely won't bother with them. I'm happy to just see the game keep getting updated.

[Duckie]

Maybe he ate the gold to prevent you from getting it.

Also, I'm not getting M&B until TLD is updated for 1.0+, unless someone can really convince me that something like Native Expansion is a good enough substitute. Mount and Blade is boring except as a modbase, but as a base for mods it tends to make really good games. Something like Paradox itself (IIRC they're marketing Mount and Blade).

[Stark]

Oh Vympel, your mods=bad thing is even funnier than usual withMnB since vanilla is so horrible. You're religiously opposed to 'make game look like Oblivion instead of Laser Squad'

That said, you're right. All this stuff was WAY worse pre-1000, particularly since they changed the time rate. It's still hugely unbalanced and unpolished.

MrDod, TLD is basically dead. It's a real shame because it was a great mod, including features not in native until much later. And wargs!

[Duckie]

That sucks.

Although it's an acronym, not a Mr. thing. I'd like to change the name (Who knew people would read it like that instead of a random collection of letters I assembled?) but I have no clue who to ask.

[Vympel]

Oh Vympel, your mods=bad thing is even funnier than usual withMnB since vanilla is so horrible. You're religiously opposed to 'make game look like Oblivion instead of Laser Squad'

Yup.

I just don't like mods. Can't explain it, save that there's always something in the mod I don't like which for some reason will turn me right off the mod, but, the thing in the vanilla game I don't like will never turn me off the game.

That's not to say I haven't fucked around with MnB at all. For example, I've upped the chances of enemy lords getting captured big time, as well as ransom offers. Escape after I skewer them with a big-arse lance? Think not.

MRDOD, just PM an authority figure re: a name change. It's done all the time.

[PeZook]

So...I switched to a mostly cavalry force via heavy hiring of caravan guards, and lo - suddendly, I'm not utterly gangraped by Khergit parties anymore! It's quite fun how the various armies interact with each other, which while not quite realistic is at least believable. Infantry is still really useful, but you have to time their attack just right: mix up the Khergit formation with cavalry, and the infantry attack will kill most of them rather quickly.

Also, it's pretty cool how knightly tournaments vary by kingdom: in Vaegir tournaments, there's a lot of bowsm javelins, swords-and-shields, etc., while in Swadia, tournaments are exclusively about using the couced lance. Nice touch.

News from the front: after I got my reconeissance task aborted, the Yaroglek called me to the capital and, being a selfish ass, told me to abandon the frontline and go kidnap a lord from the Khanate, so that he could exchange him for a relative of his who got himself captured. Yay, my men get to throw their lives away to save an incompetent noble!

So I sneak past a castle protecting the mountain pass between Vaegir and the Khanate (recently recaptured by the Khergits after they lost it to Vaegirs, has a small garrison that doesn't bother chasing me) and proceed to try and find a lord. After five days, I get frustrated (they won't come out of their castles to fight my measly 40 man party) and decide to lure them out via plundering villages.

This still doesn't bother them. Once, I looted a village not an hour away from a castle full of troops, and nothing happened. Then I snuck into the nearest city and sold all the goods I robbed from the peasants, just because I could.

I continue to ride around burning and pillaging, incredibly frustrated and finally - jackpot! A lord is fighting with steppe bandits! I camped out right next to the battle (since the game wouldn't let me join in for some stupid reason) and waited. Once he was done, I intercepted him and fought a battle.

He escaped. Several times, in fact, after being trampled, unhorsed and pounded on, knocked out with a club, skewered by spears, cut open with a bastard sword and shot full of arrows.

I got pissed off and savescummed my way through that obstacle, got back to Vaegir and to my surprise, Yaroglek got his shit together, gathered the lords and took back Ismirala castle! He let Curaw get besieged by the Khan and his doom-stack, though, but this situation is being handled. Then I finally got to my fief, the crappy little village in the frozen mountains, and took a look at the improvements I could build.

And wept...

[Stark]

Yup.

I just don't like mods. Can't explain it, save that there's always something in the mod I don't like which for some reason will turn me right off the mod, but, the thing in the vanilla game I don't like will never turn me off the game.

Broken logic, you can't KNOW that until you TRY it which means you're NOT mentally deficient when it comes to mods . I haven't bothered messing about with 1011 much, and GE2.5 doesn't seem to work properly (it's bits of Oblivion foliage and bits of barren vanilla emptiness), so I can't be assed playing at all. Vanilla is too broken, too ugly, too easy and too boring to play, and it's a shame the better mods from the 0700-0810 period don't work anymore. Craftmod was awesome, the old arena with selectable events etc was awesome, etc.

Did that guy ever finish his 'high poly buildings' project? That looked sexual, and no gameplay changes = Vympel can't avoid it.

[Tolya]

Stark, I agree that it's broken and badly balanced. Yet for some strange reason I cant stop playing it. Same for PeZook.

[PeZook]

It's a lot like HoI: That game was broken in many ways as well, but nobody else could pull it off even at that level. Infantry was overpowered, partisans didn't do anything, it was possible to take over the US playing as Mexico, Poland could bitchslap Germany with ease, etc, but it was still the best there was. Same goes for M&B: lots of flaws, several awesome elements, no competitors to compare it to. Hell, until recently, most devs and even gaming nerds said it was impossible to pull off mounted combat in a game. Whoops! A Turkish guy and his girlfriend prove self-appointed experts wrong!