Mount&Blade Warband Catch-all

So, compared to the original....

Equal or better? If better, how so?

I see lots of love, but I'm not sure why I should buy this. Don't get me wrong-- I will buy this, though not in the near future-- I just want to know how it compares in fun factor.

It's better in a lot of ways right now, but at the same time, some of the new features aren't fully implemented and it still feels like a beta. I keep backing up my character for fear that the next patch will render my saves incompatible.

The Kingdom of Akyria has been born! Led by the Bandit Queen Kyra! It consists of Derchios Castle and Tosdhar village so far, and sits on the borders of some very pissed Vaegirs, my lovely new castle's previous owners. So it may very well be a short lived kingdom, especially considering my claims of rulership are a little shaky. I couldn't resist the lightly defended castle however, so it's time to bunker up and make as many friends as possible before the vengeful Vaegirs come knocking asking for their castle back pretty please.

demonbox wrote:

So, compared to the original....

Equal or better? If better, how so?

I see lots of love, but I'm not sure why I should buy this. Don't get me wrong-- I will buy this, though not in the near future-- I just want to know how it compares in fun factor.

I'm finding it to be a more balanced version of M&B (only a few hours in). There are not a ton of drastic changes in the early game, but the multiplayer has been fun.

demonbox wrote:

Equal or better? If better, how so?

Better. The difference is not huge. Sort of like going from Fallout to Fallout 2. Better art assets, extra faction, extra equipment, more missions, etc. But deep down it's still the same game.

Redwing wrote:

I couldn't resist the lightly defended castle however, so it's time to bunker up and make as many friends as possible before the vengeful Vaegirs come knocking asking for their castle back pretty please.

Heh. I don't think anybody will want to be friends with you. None of them look kindly upon new upstarts taking the castles from established nobility. Even if that nobility is their sworn enemy.

I got offered another cattle rangling mission... d'oh

MoonDragon wrote:

Heh. I don't think anybody will want to be friends with you. None of them look kindly upon new upstarts taking the castles from established nobility. Even if that nobility is their sworn enemy.

Actually no one seemed to want to pick on me initially and things were going well... I actually had to pick a fight with the Saranids to try to take another castle. Unfortunately I got dropped by a lucky archer which set back my siege plans, and then their counter attack took my castle.

I'm slowly building back up, but the Nords have taken Derchios now, as well as the castle I was planning to take second, and they're my strongest allies. Bah!

All these lords changing factions are starting to give me a headache. I went after a Rhodok army only to go up against Khergit and Swadian troops.

Edit: No, seriously, this sh*t's confusing. My father-in-law just got kicked out of the Kingdom of Swadia and joined the Nords. I bet the wife will find some reason to make it all my fault even though I was out buying groceries for a feast at the time.

I've decided to ally with the Nords, and have just begun a fiefdom with them. It's early, and I've stumbled many times getting here, but I think I'm on the path to righteousness. Unfortunately I'm finding the Nords to be an interesting folk to use in battle.

Druidpeak wrote:

I've decided to ally with the Nords, and have just begun a fiefdom with them. It's early, and I've stumbled many times getting here, but I think I'm on the path to righteousness. Unfortunately I'm finding the Nords to be an interesting folk to use in battle.

You may be doing this already, but make sure you use the terrain and the commands effectively. I've got a Nord Jarl that I'm playing, and I find its important to form and hold a shield wall with the infantry, while the archers shoot over the head (preferrably from a rise behind you).

Tighten up the line against cavalry, spread them out against archers, and let the enemy infantry come to you and die. As you're more mobile, it helps for you to circle around the flanks of any infantry that engage your shield wall. When you've blunted their charge, counter-charge yourselves and the flanks of your line will close on the center of theirs.

The exception to that is against Forest and Tundra Bandits, where I find its important to close quickly to minimize their arrows and darts (of outrageous fortune?)

Well I may have lost Derchios, but now I have one of the Sarranids own castles in retaliation, Caraf Castle, along with it's village Mit Nun (which is an awesome name for a village I might add). What's more, my advisor at the keep is no longer warning me about my complete lack of any claim to rulership, and I even managed to fend off a 250 strong Sarranid assault on my castle with a motley crew of 70 or so various Rhodoks, Nords and mercenaries. Soon I'll have Teramma Castle as well, and from there I hope to launch an assault on a Sarranid town.

My only problem so far is that I've lost one of my companions... I assigned Klethi as my advisor back at Derchios castle, and when it was captured, she disappeared off the face of Calradia. I've slowly found all my old companions, but even the handy travellers don't know where she's gotten to. I hope the Sarranids didn't string her up.

[quote=My only problem so far is that I've lost one of my companions... I assigned Klethi as my advisor back at Derchios castle, and when it was captured, she disappeared off the face of Calradia. I've slowly found all my old companions, but even the handy travellers don't know where she's gotten to. I hope the Sarranids didn't string her up. :([/quote]

Does this mean i will gradually lose my companions as i capture castles?
I also had something happen that i'm not sure is a bug or behaving as intended. I was a mercenary and captured a castle. I then went and swore vassalage to the Rhodock king, when i went to the castle it said i was an independent kingdom and i needed to assign an advisor. I do not want to pursue an independent kingdom at this time so i quit without saving. I'm thinking perhaps the timing between capturing the castle and swearing allegiance to the king through it for a loop.

Markly wrote:

Does this mean i will gradually lose my companions as i capture castles?
I also had something happen that i'm not sure is a bug or behaving as intended. I was a mercenary and captured a castle. I then went and swore vassalage to the Rhodock king, when i went to the castle it said i was an independent kingdom and i needed to assign an advisor. I do not want to pursue an independent kingdom at this time so i quit without saving. I'm thinking perhaps the timing between capturing the castle and swearing allegiance to the king through it for a loop.

I don't think you lose your companions, from what I can tell, you only have the one advisor or whatever they're called at your capital, although you can grant your companions fiefs and I guess then they can go about their own business as well.

Also, I have to stop posting about my Castles, I'm under attack by around 400 Sarranids now, I think that's pushing my defensive abilities somewhat...

Edit: Goodness, I repelled them with my valiant 99... Caraf castle is an interesting castle to defend, I recommend everyone give it a go.

More Edit: Aaaaand I lost it to another yet bigger attack. The Sarranid are dicks... doesn't help that my tiny kingdom is the only faction they're at war with.

Prozac wrote:

Still not a massive fan of the couching, so my latest character Quixano is mainly using his War Cleaver (which looks brutal) to mow down foes. This is after finding out the polearm version of the great axe only thrusts when used on horseback, making it pretty useless.

What the heck happened with couching? It used to just happen when you got your horse up to speed and your lance would come down, now I have to do the ole' hold and thrust. Did they add a special key for couching?

OG_slinger wrote:
Prozac wrote:

Still not a massive fan of the couching, so my latest character Quixano is mainly using his War Cleaver (which looks brutal) to mow down foes. This is after finding out the polearm version of the great axe only thrusts when used on horseback, making it pretty useless.

What the heck happened with couching? It used to just happen when you got your horse up to speed and your lance would come down, now I have to do the ole' hold and thrust. Did they add a special key for couching?

It was like that in the beta and early release, but the recent patches should have reverted it back to the way it was. Only difference now between this and the old M&B is that the cooldown is longer.

You can go to options and switch from auto couch (which is just hold w, kill badguys) to manual couch (which requires pushing the x key to go into couch mode) and back.

And the AI's gotten a lot better at couching, too. Damn Mamlukes.

OG_Slinger, they also changed which weapons you can couch. Now, only Lances can be couched. If you equip a weapon that can be couched, you'll see a gray (red) dot next to its icon (bottom right of main screen). When the dot is gray, you are ready to couch. When it's red you're still on a cooldown. If you're using manual couching, the key can be remapped (I find X to be very inconvenient).

For all the bashing of the multiplayer I did, I sure am playing it quite a bit. Somehow I don't suck really badly at it any more. On a full server, over an hour or so, I can now post about 3:1 kpd. But I have to play cavalry. Anything else and I'm dead meat. I'm not very keen on the Counter-Strike like buying system. Especially since this game gives you major advantages with items. Having a faster horse and a longer lance than the other guy most likely means he can't touch you. That being said, I still come across people who swing their 2h weapons faster than I can swing my 1h super fast sabers.

I don't even use a lance on horseback (in singleplayer) I just pull out my good ol' warspear and start stabbing away.

It's too bad they don't let you couch at least spears and pikes. I mean, what's the difference between those and lances? A counterbalance?

A grip, probably.

You know, I just thought of something. Those pikes that infantrymen carry. It would be awesome if they could jab them into the ground, as the cavalry is bearing down on them. Running into one of such grounded pikes should mean insta-death for a horse.

MoonDragon wrote:

A grip, probably.

You know, I just thought of something. Those pikes that infantrymen carry. It would be awesome if they could jab them into the ground, as the cavalry is bearing down on them. Running into one of such grounded pikes should mean insta-death for a horse.

That's how it worked in pike formations. I think eventually the the doctrine sorted out where the pike was supported by the shoulder of the person in front of you, and the person behind you was fixing the end of your pike in the ground with his foot. Made it so that you had a large, large block of very pointy things locked toward you.

MoonDragon wrote:

A grip, probably.

You know, I just thought of something. Those pikes that infantrymen carry. It would be awesome if they could jab them into the ground, as the cavalry is bearing down on them. Running into one of such grounded pikes should mean insta-death for a horse.

Pikemen command: Hold.
Pikemen command: Hold.
Pikemen command: Now.

I just remembered a neat event from last night's PvP. I was mounted and bearing down on a guy on foot. He dodged my lance and managed to spear me. But as I fell off my War Horse, it continued and ran the guy over, thereby killing him. We both got credits for the kills.

FedoraMcQuaid wrote:

You can go to options and switch from auto couch (which is just hold w, kill badguys) to manual couch (which requires pushing the x key to go into couch mode) and back.

Thanks, Fedora and Moon. I guess I have manual couch on because I was left trying to do the ole spear-stabby thing with a big, slow lance the other day. It was just about impossible to get the timing down right since there was such a huge delay between releasing your mouse button and your thrust.

May be a bug, but in the span of two minutes, five Swadian lords either defected or ran like hell to the Sarranid Sultanate, with whom we are at war with. I ran into one and talked him into coming back, but I'm starting to wonder if I should take my one town and strike out on my own, if the game will let me do that.

Edit: Long live the Goodjer Empire! All right, so it's only just Veluca and the outlying villages, but it's a start.

Taleworlds got around to making the new boards.
http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.p...
Is the one for Warband mods. Nothing significant yet. Though those who are into multiplayer may want to check out Hunt Mod once it's ported. I played it a bit in beta and it was pretty fun.

IMAGE(http://labean.tripod.com/hunt.jpg)

Hunt Mod.

Yeah, just with more guns and wolf-people.

It's too bad they don't let you couch at least spears and pikes. I mean, what's the difference between those and lances? A counterbalance?

Spears would tend to be heavier with a bladed head, not really suitable for high speed impacts on horseback. They're used in later periods by lancers (ironically enough) as stabbing weapons, but not couched. Note that the game's lances look like spears (if I'm seeing them correctly) rather than actual lances. I'll have to double check this. And the term "lance" was later used for a cavalry spear.

In spite of their in-game appearance, the only lances that would be used "couched" were those that were made for it specifically. They had stops and hand guards and pointed solid metal heads (for penetration) and were designed to shatter on impact, impaling the opponent hopefully without ejecting the attacker from his seat on the horse. They were only used in battle for less than 50 years, as almost every single mass cavalry charge done by heavily armored knights with lances failed in the field, and the tactic was given up very quickly, putting cavalry back into it's traditional role as screen and pursuit. The game seems to take a fictional approach to this weapon, but it's reuseability makes it great fun. I guess the cooldown is to get a new lance from your invisible squire, who is probably following you around a bundle of these.

This kind of lance did survive longer in tournament fights, but without the metal point (duh) and with even lighter shafts to ensure more safety. Still, they were decently lethal - I believe a king or prince of France died in a challenge when one of these slid in through the vision slit in his helmet. Yuck.

Both spears and lances were much shorter than pikes, which were exclusively foot weapons due to their length. You don't want to ride around with a heavy metal point on a ten to twenty foot piece of wood that sags due to it's length and weight. And imagine the force you'll receive when the hit occurs, you'd be lifted out of the seat and catapulted. That just would not do.