Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord

[Fireman]

 

Developer/Publisher: TaleWorlds Entertainment

Platform(s): Microsoft Windows

Release Date: 31st of March 2020 (Early Access)

 

I noticed there wasn't a topic for this yet (surprisingly, since it's one of the most fun games you

can play/mod), so I created one, a bit of info about Mount & Blade:.

 

 

Quote

 

Mount&Blade is an immersive medieval action/tactics game taking place in a fictitious land named Calradia. Enriched with RPG elements, Mount&Blade offers a captivating environment, beautifully detailed with hundreds of castles, towns, and villages to explore.

 

Master your mounted and on foot combat skills, choosing from a vast arsenal of medieval weaponry including polearms, axes, swords, bows and many more. Serve as a vassal under a powerful king, or raise your own armies and compete for domination of Calradia.

 

 

After the original Mount & Blade, came Mount & Blade: Warband, for most players a replacement of the original as it featured a better map, more troops, better combat and more advanced gameplay. An expansion to M&B Warband came called With Fire and Sword, which featured a different time (17th century) and thus different weapons and possibilities with the arrival of gunpowder. The last (multiplayer) expansion "The Napoleonic Era" expands on the weaponry with cannons, mortars and sniper rifles.

 

And now Mount & Blade: Bannerlord is being made, as a sequel to Mount & Blade: Warband.

Not much has been posted so far except the following:

- Three factions (though "Warlike tribes" are also mentioned)

- Location: Calradic Empire

- Time: Unknown (probably medieval times, but not confirmed)

 

I hope they implement a lot of the stuff made by modders over the years, Mount & Blade modding community is gigantic and they've created a huge amount of (completed!) total conversions, including a Star Wars universe conquest, Lord of the Rings universe, other timelines (1257AD, 16th Century mods, Shogun empires, completely reworked and expanded troops with more than 800 different troops, etc; check taleworlds.forums.com for mods).

 

Early Access trailer:

 

 

 

Edited February 27, 2020 by Fireman

[TEoS]

Only 3 factions? LAAAAAME.

 

I have sunk probably hundreds of hours into Mount&Blade and Warband. Possibly one of the most addictive games I've ever played.

[Fireman]

Only 3 factions? LAAAAAME.

 

I have sunk probably hundreds of hours into Mount&Blade and Warband. Possibly one of the most addictive games I've ever played.

 

I'm not certain, the literal quote is:

 

The once-mighty Calradic Empire is in a state of decline. Warlike tribes have seized swaths of its territory. Client kingdoms have declared their independence. The Emperor has died without leaving an heir, leaving three jealous factions to scramble for power. Mercenary companies, bandit lords and nomads hover on the sidelines like vultures waiting for a meal.

 

 

 

Seems like there are other factions, but they don't fall under the original factions.

 

Aye I've been busy with this game the last 2 years, not only is the gameplay addictive and fun the modding is too.

Edited November 1, 2013 by Fireman

[TEoS]

There's nothing quite as satisfying as starting out your own empire with just a single castle, and slowly taking more and more, breaking and bending other lords to your will. I will say that vanilla Warband is a bit hard to play once you've added some of the good mods like Diplomacy, which adds some much missed features. Hopefully this new title will incorporate some of the great ideas the modding community put forth.

[Fireman]

Taleworlds has been keeping up a blog for the development of Bannerlord:

 

Blog 1: Hairy Artists

 

Comparison between M&B: Warband and WiP for Bannerlord:

 

Blog 2: Painted Plants

 

The blog about scene editing and how the scenery will look while going through hundreds of different and unique locations.

 

Images:

Scene: Tribal Village

Scene: Battanian Town

Scene: Battanian Town at Night

[El Dildo]

I'm surprised I haven't seen any other topics on Mount & Blade.

Warband is probably the single best indie game on the market after Minecraft, especially given the huge modding community that supports it. it also features the best sword fighting of any game that I think I've ever played, especially on horseback.

 

personally can't wait for Bannerlord.

[Fireman]

I'm surprised I haven't seen any other topics on Mount & Blade.

Warband is probably the single best indie game on the market after Minecraft, especially given the huge modding community that supports it. it also features the best sword fighting of any game that I think I've ever played, especially on horseback.

 

personally can't wait for Bannerlord.

 

What drew me most to M&B is the scale of the fights, the combat feels good and when you swing something it doesn't feel like you swung a foam sword. And those fights with 100+ men, trying to take a castle by walking up three small ladders to breach the walls and almost half of them getting shot down before anyone makes it inside.

 

It also looked good, though in it's current state Bannerlord is a bit behind on the graphics (not like I mind, my PC can abrely handle big fights in Warband).

 

The modding scene is indeed amazing, like 50+ total conversions? Including Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, Star Trek, etc. Such amazing mods as well.

[El Dildo]

I usually play Warband with the Floris Mod Pack or Gekokujo.

 

Floris Pack is a massive mod group that includes hundreds of large and small features. updates the graphics, gameplay, items, sound effects, countless stuff.

Gekokujo is a Japanese Shogun mod that changes the whole map into the mainland Japanese Islands and converts all weapons / armor to ancient Samurai-style.

[Frank Brown]

I usually do Napoleonic Wars line-battles and it's a ton of fun. Can't wait for Bannerlord, honestly.

[Fireman]

I couldn't get into With Fire & Sword, it was simply too slow for me (and not to mention it was only online, though there are singleplayer mods for Warband that add the same weapons/cannons).

 

Reloading takes sooo looooooong.

 

I also use Floris Mod Pack + random armor/weapons from other mods which I've added and I made some Custom troops (everything editable by notepad is always a plus).

[Fireman]

Blog 3: Unexpected Parties

 

Blog is about the new UI and how their development teams co-operate.

 

The image shows you some interesting things:

 

Character slots for:

Head

Shoulders

Chest

Gloves

Legs

Boots

Horse

Horse Armor

Four weapon slots (hopefully with dual-wield).

 

You already had Horse Armor in certain mods and I always loved the idea of upgrading your armor and horse seperately, so that's a nice addition.

Edited December 20, 2013 by Fireman

[El Dildo]

did they actually say that there is going to be separate horse armor?

because that screenshot alone could just be showing you how much armor value your horse comes with. it doesn't necessarily show that you can change it.

[Fireman]

did they actually say that there is going to be separate horse armor?

because that screenshot alone could just be showing you how much armor value your horse comes with. it doesn't necessarily show that you can change it.

 

Look at the slots below the boots, there's a horse slot and a horse armour slot, no reason to have those seperate if it was one horse.

[El Dildo]

I see the slot, but I'm just sayin'.

 

unless they've made a point about separate horse armor, that could still just be an icon to represent the kind of armor on the horse you bought.

and since all horses come with some kind of armor, the number could just be showing the armor value.

 

I still can't tell from that screen alone that the horse armor can actually be upgraded on its own, separate from the horse itself.

that would be awesome, don't get me wrong. but have they confirmed it?

[Fireman]

No it hasn't been confirmed yet (I don't think they respond to the topics).

 

It would be VERY weird if they added a seperate slot for horse armor, while it's attached to the horse (and a pointless slot as well, since you can't put anything in it then if it depends on the horse).

 

Either way it would be cool to have something like this, which the mod Heroes of Calradia already did:

[Fireman]

There's a new blog up at Taleworlds, read it here.

 

It's about the expansion of the siege battles and how they want to make them more complex. The screenshots basically only show the same clusterf*ck as M&B: Warband had, but it's all WIP so I hope they turn it into great sieges such as in Total War 2:

[Fireman]

Last few blogs have been about the engine and level editor, they're doing a lot of stuff for modders and the new engine looks great, can't wait for 100+ battles. Here's the video of the latest updates:

 

 

[make total destroy]

I usually do Napoleonic Wars line-battles and it's a ton of fun.

I'm usually the dickhead playing bagpipes whilst surrendering.

[Frank Brown]

 

I usually do Napoleonic Wars line-battles and it's a ton of fun.

I'm usually the dickhead playing bagpipes whilst surrendering.

 

 

You're the type of person I bayonet.

[Fireman]

There is finally some actual footage that was shown at gamescom;

 

 

 

 

Verdict:

Animations: Ayy lmao, Fallout 4 style.

Graphics: Good enough.

Gameplay: 2000/10

 

 

The new blog also tells us that towns, cities and castles will be customisable with different economical or strategic choices (for example you can build a castle inside a town, but it will take away a production slot).

Edited August 20, 2015 by Fireman

[Tchuck]

I usually play Warband with the Floris Mod Pack or Gekokujo.

 

Floris Pack is a massive mod group that includes hundreds of large and small features. updates the graphics, gameplay, items, sound effects, countless stuff.

Gekokujo is a Japanese Shogun mod that changes the whole map into the mainland Japanese Islands and converts all weapons / armor to ancient Samurai-style.

 

Oh man, thanks for that. I had no idea Gekokujo was a thing, now I'll give it a go when I get home. This game is excellent fun.

[Fireman]

A lot more information was released at 21 December. Read the full blog here. Or read a summary below

 

The game does take place in Calradia, the same place Warband took place in. Most of the map info;

Bannerlord shares the setting of Calradia with Warband but takes place 200 years earlier. The map is also expanded to include regions further to the east and south of that in previous games, resulting in a map which is around three times larger. Land features and even some settlements from the previous games are recognisable. By sharing the same world, the two games become part of the lore of Mount & Blade in a wider sense. While the series' lore was kept to a minimum in Warband, being left to hints in dialogue, Bannerlord features its own storyline that will add some additional depth to the factions

The topography of the map is not entirely consistent with Warband, in fact Bannerlord's map is somewhat more mountainous. The effect of this is an increase in the number of choke points. It will be hard to avoid conflict, for instance, when traversing narrow passes through mountain ranges that may be riddled with ambush spots or enemy patrols. Tactically, the map offers many more options for controlling areas that serve as trade routes. Battles are often fought in the game to contest key choke points with the goal of securing passage for trade caravans and other parties. As a player, it is important to consider what kind of warfare you are likely to end up in, before sacrificing relations with a faction. If your speciality is skirmishing on foot over rough terrain, you might for example avoid engaging the Aserai, who will have higher mobility in the open desert.

The map is changed, not just by the activity of the player and NPCs but also by the passage of time. Changing seasons affect the weather and transform the landscape sending snow creeping south during winter. Significant gameplay effects, of the changing conditions, are felt in the effectiveness of different troop types. Cavalry and ranged units in particular will have a harder time in rain or snow. One major change from Warband is how time progresses; the yearly cycle has been shortened to twelve weeks, which adds more importance to the changing seasons and ageing of characters.

 

For a video of the overhead map and seasons, check this video; https://www.taleworlds.com/Images/Blog/bannerlord_blog_12_visual_full.mp4

Factions have also been announced, definitely more than three! Though not all of them are empires;

 

Blue – Sturgia

Green – Battania

Pink – Northern Empire

Orange – Western Empire

Red – Vlandia

Dark Grey/Brown – Bandit

Brown (just about visible) – Khuzait

Edited December 30, 2015 by Fireman

[Zapp]

Bannerlord is the only game I'm looking forward to right now.. Can't wait.

[Zapp]

 

 

Bannerlord at 3:02:10

 

The combat animations don't look a lot different from Warband, the graphics look a lot better and the character customization looks great.

[Fireman]

The animations are less clunky as before and the scenery looks fantastic.

 

Still Warband isn't ment to be graphically impressive (which it isn't), but gameplay-wise it is!

 

The simulated economy looks solid, the influence system as it is in some of the mods is great, lots of new stuff besides the stuff that was already added into Warband by mods.

[Fireman]

More news, showing the character customisation and some gameplay, read the entire blog here.

 

 

Edited May 3, 2016 by Fireman

[Fireman]

I totally forgot to post this here; huge improvement to the sieges and still great AI of EVERYONE running in at one time, E3 Siege Gameplay;

 

 

Edited June 28, 2016 by Fireman

[Fireman]

New siege gameplay and you can now follow the progress/news on Steam

 

Here's the video;

 

[El Dildo]

I actually got back into Mount n Blade recently, when I was waiting for Mafia 3.

it had just been awhile and there were some new mods that had been released. also, for f/ckin' 5 bucks I picked up Mount n Blade with Fire and Sword when it was on sale and it's been a lot of fun, especially multiplayer. to this day I'm not sure there's any game that does what Mount/Blade does anywhere near as well as Mount/Blade does it. it's kind of amazing how simple yet effective the combat system is.

 

I can't think of any game that goes so seamlessly between on-foot and horseback combat.

it just works so well. everything works and feels very intuitive. sword and shield. 2 handed blade. lance. polearm. bow. crossbow. throwing knives, axes, etc. flint and matchlock muskets and pistols. all the different armor combinations and how they affect your movement. and that's just the combat. Mount/Blade is akin to playing one of those big RTS games like Total War or Civilization but where you can personally control both the grand diplomatic stuff AND fight as an individual soldier on the battlefield.

 

definitely looking forward to MnB 2.

considering how complex the game already was, it's awesome to see how many improvements they're still making.

[Fireman]

More screenshots from PC gamer;

 

 

 

 

Knowing how Mount and Blade works and how big the battles will be, the graphics are really impressive, wonder how good your PC will have to be though.