Mount&Blade Warband Catch-all

Moggy wrote:

I think I need a little help with the battles. When I outnumber looters 2-to-1, I *should* be able to scrape a victory together and yet can't.

When you first start the game, hire heroes from taverns (the named NPCs). You should be able to find some cheap ones. They don't die in battles, you can equip them with better gear, and they level up and improve their skills. They also add certain skills to yours to help out with the overall gameplay (like healing, world map vision and movement speed, etc). Once you have 2 or 3 of those guys, the game should get a bit easier.

Then pick maybe 5-10 recruits. Not more than that. Go to a Training Field and fight your dudes in melee fights. This will give you practice as a player, and will actually give you and your guys xp. Not much, but during early levels every little bit helps. Once you feel more comfortable, start roaming the world.

In the beginning there should be groups of bandits < 10 in size. Make sure you keep them busy while mounted, and allow your dudes to swarm them one by one (while you keep the rest busy). That way you shouldn't lose too many men. And every battle you win will give you loot to upgrade your equipment and will give your troops xp so you can upgrade them. Once they stop being raw recruits, they'll be much more resilient against the bandits.

If you're desperately short on cash, there are two get rich quick schemes. One is tournaments, and the other is trading. Tournaments are going to be tough if you are new to the game and your character is low level. Different cities use different weapons for their tournaments, so you can get really gimped if your skills are very low. Save before you start a tournament, then bet on yourself for maximum cash. If you lose, reload.

For trading, you'll have to get a sense of prices. I can't give you more than that. You have to know what's a good price for a particular good. It also helps to know which cities produce and demand which types of goods. Then start doing rounds around the map. At first, if your starting capital is low, you won't be making much per trade, but soon the money accumulates as you reinvest your profits.

When I started Mount and Blade I trained my character up quite a bit in the Arena fights at the very beginning. By the time I went out into the world by guy was significantly stronger, and, more importantly, I was a much better player as well.

Suggested companions are Firentus (specialize him in asskickary), Artimer (specialize him in engineering, surgery, and wound treatment), Borcha (specialize in pathfinding, tracking, and looting). Those are the guys I ALWAYS get.

Some other good ones are Lezalit (great trainer/tactician, good for if you keep a fairly large party that you have to constantly restock, trains new guys a lot faster), Jeremus is ok but he's really just a healer and you can spec Artimer for that, Bunduk is a pretty cool guy too you can really go anyway with his support skills and he's a great addition to a crossbow line.

I never get Ymira, Nizar, Matheld, or the rest. They just don't seem all that useful. Remember, companions affect moral so the more of them you have, the more you have to do to keep your troops happy.

FedoraMcQuaid wrote:

I never get Ymira, Nizar, Matheld, or the rest. They just don't seem all that useful. Remember, companions affect moral so the more of them you have, the more you have to do to keep your troops happy.

As I said, Matheld's upside is that she's from nobility so if you're looking to pawn a fief off on someone quickly but don't have the time to race back to your main thief or to one of your other lords and without severely ticking people off for giving a fief to a commoner. Other companions like Ymira and Nizar can be useful as emissaries so that you don't have to temporarily give up one of your better companions.

Well I've been going with if anybody has a problem with the way I roll they can answer to my morningstar, but yeah they could work as good lords and such so that my guys can stay with me and cut up anyone who has a problem with it.

Firentus may have a ridiculous mustache but he will mess some dudes up.

FedoraMcQuaid wrote:

Firentus may have a ridiculous mustache but he will mess some dudes up.

He killed his own brother over a woman; I'd say you really don't want to f*ck with him.

FedoraMcQuaid wrote:

Well I've been going with if anybody has a problem with the way I roll they can answer to my morningstar...

I'll take you up on that. With my heavy lance and a warhorse. I'll let you pick a server.

Horses are for kings and little girls.
But if you're going horseback, I use my trusty Warspear instead.

All good advice. Thanks! I'll let you know how it goes. Won't be until the weekend - back to school for the week and I don't take the gaming machine to avoid the distractions...

MoonDragon wrote:
FedoraMcQuaid wrote:

Well I've been going with if anybody has a problem with the way I roll they can answer to my morningstar...

I'll take you up on that. With my heavy lance and a warhorse. I'll let you pick a server.

FedoraMcQuaid wrote:

Horses are for kings and little girls.
But if you're going horseback, I use my trusty Warspear instead.

Pistols at dawn! Oh, wait, 1866 hasn't been ported to Warband yet.

Rat Boy wrote:
MoonDragon wrote:
FedoraMcQuaid wrote:

Well I've been going with if anybody has a problem with the way I roll they can answer to my morningstar...

I'll take you up on that. With my heavy lance and a warhorse. I'll let you pick a server.

FedoraMcQuaid wrote:

Horses are for kings and little girls.
But if you're going horseback, I use my trusty Warspear instead.

Pistols at dawn! Oh, wait, 1866 hasn't been ported to Warband yet.

I am waiting for this!

And that's a second kingdom down the drain. I'm thinking this whole forming your own faction on your own is something you shouldn't try to do until very late in the game when you can easily persuade lords to jump over to your side.

So I left the Rhodoks so I could go and help out the Swadians.
I signed up as a merc for them and went around reclaiming territory for them.
After a little while I notice that 2 or 3 of his few remaining lords have now left Swadia. I check and as it turns out he awarded everything I got back to himself.

Is he just an incompetent douchebag in every game?

Also, SWEET MOD: http://forums.taleworlds.com/index.p...
Erm... I think

FedoraMcQuaid wrote:

I check and as it turns out he awarded everything I got back to himself.

Is he just an incompetent douchebag in every game?

I think it may be a bug; it's only after you start racking up reputation points or influential lords start defecting to a kingdom before a king stops giving himself fiefs.

I'm starting to think I should go back into my saves further to back to just before I cut out on Swadia. I'm hoping to expand Swadia's power, grab some more fiefs, make more friends, and bide my time until I can find a way to turn on King Hapless without sacrificing my towns and villages.

Rat Boy wrote:

I'm starting to think I should go back into my saves further to back to just before I cut out on Swadia. I'm hoping to expand Swadia's power, grab some more fiefs, make more friends, and bide my time until I can find a way to turn on King Hapless without sacrificing my towns and villages.

I'm thinking I made a huge mistake ditching out on the Nords when I did. Of course, when you are a blood thirsy warrior, and your kingdom ISN't AT WAR it makes things difficult.

So I left them, and took up with the Lady of Suno, of course no one in Swadia knows me, so it is a bit difficult to persuade them to join me, with the no land.

Psych wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

I'm starting to think I should go back into my saves further to back to just before I cut out on Swadia. I'm hoping to expand Swadia's power, grab some more fiefs, make more friends, and bide my time until I can find a way to turn on King Hapless without sacrificing my towns and villages.

I'm thinking I made a huge mistake ditching out on the Nords when I did. Of course, when you are a blood thirsy warrior, and your kingdom ISN't AT WAR it makes things difficult.

So I left them, and took up with the Lady of Suno, of course no one in Swadia knows me, so it is a bit difficult to persuade them to join me, with the no land.

Then beat them into submission like a real blood thirsty warrior.

Psych wrote:

I'm thinking I made a huge mistake ditching out on the Nords when I did. Of course, when you are a blood thirsy warrior, and your kingdom ISN't AT WAR it makes things difficult.

Dude! If your kingdom isn't at war, you START a war!

I still have the first one chilling in my steam list, but I've yet to boot it up. I'm so unmotivated to pick up a new game right now, but at the same time this game looked really good.

If you get Warband, vanilla game becomes irrelevant.

MoonDragon wrote:

If you get Warband, vanilla game becomes irrelevant.

Agreed, but if you haven't even played the vanilla and already own it there's little reason to not play that and see if you hate the game or not. Of course, the game is so awesome casual_alcoholic is gonna love it.

I'm having a problem getting quests. I swore vassalage to the rhodocks and now all the lords say they don't have any important jobs for me. We went through a long period of peace with everyone and i wanted to do quests to improve my relations with the various lords but no one will give me a job.

Markly wrote:

I'm having a problem getting quests. I swore vassalage to the rhodocks and now all the lords say they don't have any important jobs for me. We went through a long period of peace with everyone and i wanted to do quests to improve my relations with the various lords but no one will give me a job.

Quintin_Stone wrote:

Dude! If your kingdom isn't at war, you START a war! :D

Of note, though, is that your King will probably get mad at you, but there'll be a lot more people to kill.

Markly wrote:

I'm having a problem getting quests. I swore vassalage to the rhodocks and now all the lords say they don't have any important jobs for me. We went through a long period of peace with everyone and i wanted to do quests to improve my relations with the various lords but no one will give me a job.

Talk to the tavern keepers about jobs, she'll tell you if there's any lords who are looking for bigger work.

You can still always do town guildmaster quests and vilage elder quests

garion333 wrote:
Quintin_Stone wrote:

Dude! If your kingdom isn't at war, you START a war! :D

Of note, though, is that your King will probably get mad at you, but there'll be a lot more people to kill.

Maybe even the king.

So I went and reloaded the save where I was still a vassal and played from there. Tried hosting a feast at Veluca but no one came; a lot of booze was consumed, but all the food I had was mostly still there. With no wars (there was a minor spat with the Sarranids, but that ended without incident), I spent most of my time wandering the land, building up an army of Rhodok sergeants seeing how I didn't want to risk going all the way down to Nord territory lest the Rhodoks decided to try retaking what I conquered from them. I did get a notice that there was an "incident" between Swadia and Rhodoks, but much later nothing came of it and the Rhodok counts are apparently disillusioned with King Graveth, but they're busy fighting the Khergits right now. But, war did come, this time with the Nords. I loaded up my army with my best troops and headed in the direction of Tihr, but as I passed by Swadian-occupied Jelbegi Castle, I spotted a huge Nord army besieging it. Knowing that the second I besieged Tihr they'd be coming for me, I decided not to reshuffle my troops (I usually place my cavalry at the bottom for sieges) and waited for the inevitable. Sure enough, a couple Nord armies came after me and I broke the siege to intercept me. After dispatching them, then the army came. Fortunately, thanks to Borcha's high pathfinding skill, we stayed ahead of them all the while our marshal (a former Nord jarl) besieged Knudarr Castle and the army stopped following me. Tihr was easy pickings and I saved thinking that would be the end of my fun for the evening.

But, as I was watching LOST that night, I felt like I was coming down with a cold. You know how it is; coming down with a cold at night before going to bed is the worst. My plan was to endure V and call it a night, but I realized that I'd be spending hours trying to fall asleep, so instead I fired up Warband again and went to town on the Nords. Eventually, all their towns fell and all but one of their castles before I finally packed it in at 1 am. Unfortunately, that last castle will be a bear to take; I'm running low on high-end Swadian and Rhodok infantry and because of the new morale system, I can't retain Nords for very long. Every couple of game hours I'll get a message that a Huscarl, Veteran, or Warrior has bailed on me. Hopefully the marshal will wise up and send the army my way, otherwise I'll have to pick off the remaining jarls one by one until I can finish off the Nords once and for all. But, knowing Warband's propensity for throwing monkey wrenches into my plans, someone else will declare war on Swadia and start storming into the lightly defended former Nord settlements.

I got married to Lady Gwendel and her bro didn't approve (even though I got our friendship up to like 28 he still preferred another guy, the dick). I only lost like 5 rep with him but I'm hoping they'll be some sort of plan up his sleeve to try and bring me down, just so I can go and kick his all for saying Count Raichin was more fit then me. COUNT FREAKIN RAICHIN, I've seen the guy puss out of at least 3 castle defenses.

Anyway, the Saranid war is getting pretty boring and I sort of wish it would end just so they'd leave my damned villages alone. They are just raiding them non-stop and there's nothing I can do about it. Most of the main fighting has been going on at Carif Castle at the border. It's been going back and forth so much but it's been stopping either side from making a big territory push. They're all so intent on capturing it but apparently too lazy to defend it.

I hosted a feast in my town and got a bunch of people to come but before they all arrived it ended... All that searching around for food varieties and spice for nothing, at least I've got tons of leftovers and got some nice renown for it.

Keep Lady Gwendel well protected. Beorulf is gunning for her.

FedoraMcQuaid wrote:

I got married to Lady Gwendel and her bro didn't approve (even though I got our friendship up to like 28 he still preferred another guy, the dick). I only lost like 5 rep with him but I'm hoping they'll be some sort of plan up his sleeve to try and bring me down, just so I can go and kick his all for saying Count Raichin was more fit then me. COUNT FREAKIN RAICHIN, I've seen the guy puss out of at least 3 castle defenses.

Give it time: both bro-in-law and Raichin will either get kicked out or defect and after you capture them in battle, you can force them to watch in irons while you f*ck Lady Gwendel's brains out.

Psych wrote:

Except the entire Vaegir kingdom is ruled my little school yard wimps.

To be fair, half of them have asthma.

Yeah, it sucks that there's always one side that doesn't want to engage the other and runs. I never see two parties charge head on, unless I'm one of them.