In Progress Let's Play Mount & Blade: Europe 1200

[Oesophagus]

Yup, that's right. M&B is still fun, and it's even more fun with a nifty little mod called Europe 1200

You get a completely new world map, with all the major factions from the high middle ages. They didn't implement the holy land, which is a bit of a letdown, but I guess the focus is on Europe, and not on the crusades. Each of the factions also gets a unique troop tree.

Just a few notes on this LP:

- it probably will be abandoned at some point, and that's because you can't really "finish" MB. I may give myself some goal, like conquering the HRE or sth, at which point I'll consider the game "done".

- I'll be using a few tweaks. Most significantly, leadership and renown give more towards party size. That's because in the vanilla MB, if you want to have a large party with you, you have to invest all your level points into charisma and leadership. The way I've done this, you still have to invest in those, but a lot less is required. Also, I've had to tweak how morale works, because the game isn't designed towards the player having more that 70-80 soldiers with him, so I'd have to spend all my time on grinding bandits and buying food. Obviously, I've also increased the battle sizes, so now they're at 300. You can have even larger battles, up to around a 1000 I think, but that requires a shit ton of memory, and will probablly make the game crash anyway

- there will be hivemind choice and conequence later on

So, let's get this show on the road. I give you:

 

[Oesophagus]

The birth of a bastard

Right, we obviously start with creating a character. A refreshing take on that: he will not be a hero, he will not be a valiant defender of the faith. He will be a ruthless, conniving, two-bit, sonuvabitch conqueror. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Our first choice:

Only two choices here. Obviously this game was made by socially-backward homophobes

Second choice:

No "hitman", so I take the next best thing

Obviously, we will be a gentleman. We may spend most of our time burning down villages and raping women, but there's no reason to be uncivilized about the whole affair.

finally:

The only noble motivation. All else is folly.

Next we distribute our stats:

Riding of 2, will need to increase that, but is not a pressing issue
Surgery, Trainer and Trade are p. much the most useful skills. Things like Ironflesh, Athletics and Power strike come in handy, but we can make up for that with equipment. What's most important is that we have a good bunch of hard, pipe hittin' niggas well trained soldiers.

Also, our brave warrior's name reflects his super-human awesomeness

Next, the inanity of haircuts:

Clicking "randomize" ten time always results in a handsome, well groomed gentleman. No different this time

Being from the Baltic region, and Lithuanian, we obviously start in...

... the Venetian / Hungarian border. Whatever, we need to go pop some moles at the training field to get our first level up.

At the training field we find a wise old veteran.

You bet your ass

Basically the only difference between the training fighters is their stats, they all fall for the same lithuanian tricks.

Bring it, bitch!

In yo face!

Fast forward through the fights:

All 12 training dummies get their collar grabbed. Piss easy

I will, sensei! I will tell everyone I meet that an unnamed man standing in the middle of an empty field taught me how to fight!

Um yeah... I'll call you

Next update: we start making our mark

 

[SerratedBiz]

I haven't delved into other M&B mods since the latest TLD came out (and, even before that, I frankly saw too little of interest in Europe 1200 to get it).

Looking forward to seeing what new features it has.

 

[Oesophagus]

Peasant Warfare

Right, our training complete, let us see where we should start our quest for glory

We're about half way between Zagreb and Venezia. Venice, by the way, is one of the weakest factions in the game. One town and one castle, which they should lose to the Lombard League very soon. With that in mind, let's preserve a sample of venetian forces before they become extinct.

On the way we gain the attention of some looters. They're no better than animals, so let's not have any misgivings about killing them.

Our dress sense is superb

The looters don't last long. Hopefully they drop some hat to cover our rather ridiculous haircut.

Nope. But at this stage anything is an upgrade to what we have. We may look like a hobo now, but when the story of our greatness is written, we shall erase all memory of these unfortunate circumstances. Also, note what my character was wearing on his legs. I guess I was wrong about the designers being homophobic.

We reach some Venetian villages. Let us see if we can find any valiant warriors willing to join us.

You lot will have to do

Next, we visit Venice, since it's nearby

I only at this point noticed the book in my inventory. It's by far the most valuable thing we own. We won't sell it, though. Not yet.

We rest through the night, since I took a few hits from the looters, and with our current trainer skill, we manage to smack two of the filthy peasants into shape.

We travel back to Hungary, to recruit some magyar peasants. They can be quickly turned into cheap but decent infantry.

After that, we grind some more smaller bandit parties:

They cannot stand against the flood of peasant meatshields

a smaller group of mountain bandits:

Eventually, we we get some better gear:

Our troops are starting to look a bit more threatening as well

We travel north, towards the Kingdom of Potato. On the way we fight our first band of:

there's only 7 of them, so we should whoop their asses.

Losses were small as well. These guys are always dangerous, and I was expecting them to kill a good number of my brave, but largely hopeless peasants.

We reach the land where the potato never sets

While recruiting some potato farmers, we run into some audacious motherfuckers. YOU want to fight ME?

Oh yeah? Well prepare to have your ass agriculturalized!

Look at them. Glorious. Ferocious. Fucking pathetic

To take down these fools, I utilize the ol' Lithuanian "come and get me" trick. Half of their forces go after me, while the other half gets slapped by my numerically superior boy scouts. I do get a bit of a kicking, but that's not important.

Acceptable losses

First decent unit

We travel further north, to Denmark. On the way I got careless, and got ambushed by:

Yikes. This can end badly. We shall need to use our cunning.

I order the troops to hold position. When the raiders get close enough, I'll aggro them, run past their lines, and order the troops to charge while their backs are turned. They should be able to take a few of them down with that.

Success! The loot is also decent:

First chainmail armor. It's still nothing great, but better than wearing a bath robe made of animals.

On the way to Denmark:

Following? Surely they got confused. We'll annihilate them!

This is what happens when you don't follow health and safety. These forest bandits got bows so they took me down. However, unlike in vanilla MB, the troops keep fighting the good fight without me:

They take down the bandits with acceptable losses. Lootain timez:

Holy sweet Jesus! Look at the price on that armor! It's a worse than what we've got, but it should bring in some nice cash.

We finally reach Slesvig in Denmark. And not a minute too soon, we had some Sea Raiders on our tail, and with the state our guys are in, we would get our collar grabbed, badly.

Time to patch our wounds. I also remembered that the game has a few extra options:

Spearwall is on. It means that charging into spearmen while on horseback is a bad idea. I leave it on
I also turn morale on. It's not the same morale that you have on the world map, this one applies to combat. Basically, the more losses an army takes during a battle, the lower their morale gets, untill eventually they break and start running for it. If this happens to your army, you have to rally them by taking down a few of the enemies. For now, I'll have it on. You can also turn npc complaints off, meaning that you can have as many of them as you like. I'll keep them on, as I'm not planning on having too many of them with me.

Also, about that book we had:

And the future king of the world, in all his glory:

Next up: We do some inane quests and start creating jewgolds

 

[Lindblum]

A great read, will be following this.

 

[Fafnir]

Indeed. I hope to see this to the end

 

[Oesophagus]

Robin Hood, the Jewish Consortium and the Multicult Brigade
When we left off, we were recuperating in Denmark:

our merry band of brothers:

Not a threating cohort by any standards. We need to up the ante and get some more people in, as well as earning more precious. Let's start with the second bit. To do that we can either grind bandits, which takes long and is largely unefficient, or we can do some trading. In Europe 1200, this is really well done, because you have a large world map, so trading luxuries can bring a really big profit. And we shall start by going to the crossroads of the World, to Constantinople.

Also, no screenshots of that, but before we left Denmark we recruited a token Danish warrior. He says he can tell us anything about anime. Whatever that is

Along the way to Greece:

From the bandits we liberate Bob:

He looks like a pleasant enough fellow

Anyway, into Poland

Through Hungary:

Oh, you want to fight? Well throw down, suckah!

Fear is the mind killer

Mess with the best...

...die like the rest. Unfortunately, our Danish friend is no more. Now we will never know what this "anime" was of which he spaketh.

From the bandits we get:

A good ass sword

Let's rest the night in Belograd

And continue on to the Byzantines

What do we have here?

The bandits get pulverised, but I noticed:

We're running out of food. Let's stop by a village and buy some

The good, hard-working folk of Vratitsa supply is us with some noms.

Let's speak with the village shaman. Perhaps we can help them with some troubles?

Why the hell not.

[roll the Rocky theme]

Let's see what you got, son

Not much:

He is defeated. But through defeat, he shall learn.
We continue with the training, until:

It's time to see what the people of Vratitsa are made of

12 meatshields killed. War is hell

Fucking right you'll give me something for my trouble

Anyway, onwards, Greece is just half a day away

Glorious Constantinople:

What a pisshole.

Anyway, that's not why we're here. We're here to make some cash. Let's see what the goods merchants have

Velvet, but not as cheap as I would have liked. If you're lucky, you can buy it for a sixth of that price and sell it for 1K. Let's take a few anyway

Spices. Those we can sell for a good profit. Let's take as much as we can.

Of course, our brilliant business acument did not go unnoticed by the Jewish agenda. They know that if they don't stop me, eventually their businesses will be ruined. So, we get ambushed by some henchmen.

What were they thinking? You don't bullshit a bullshitter, and you don't assassinate an assassin. Particularly a Lithuanian one.

Still, let's be on our guard.

Let's take a sample of the local fauna as well:

All hail the multicult!

Time to get back to northern Europe and sell of the goods. Along the way we witness some thugs punching it out

Degenerate scum is what they are. On a sidenote, the battles in Europe 1200 tend to be of that size. A battle of 1000 vs 1000 is not uncommon.

Somewhere in the general vicinity of Croatia, we are unable to outrun some nomad bandits:

Big words for a tiny, little man

Most of our forces are still infantry, but they should be enough to take down these scumbags.

ANDYMAN! NOOOOOOO

Lookee here. We liberated a wumun. I wonder if you can romance her?

We also get our first good cavalry unit:

However, as soon as the battle ended:

These people are not learning animals

No contest

Let's go to Ras, the capital of Rascia, and see if we can make a profit on selling spice

We can, but it's still peanuts. No point in selling it here, after all, the spice must flow (badum-tsh)

I got a few levels in by the way. Trainer and Surgery are at 5, so it's starting to look decent

Moving on, on the Danube crossing where Budapesti will one day be, we witness gang rape in the act:

We decide to lend a hand, seeing as you can never have too many favours.

Oh. Then we decide that this is a dog eat dog world and it's every man for himself. See ya later, alligator

We whoop a bunch of deserters on the way to Krakow, and from them we get:

Armor upgrade. Good

Prices in Krakow:

Not bad. But we can do better. Let's see how things will look in Wroclaw

However, when we get there:

Those jews are at it again! Well, it will do them no good.

We sell the velvet in Wroclaw

And on to Denmark, again.
Looks like there was a party while we were gone:

Not bad. Even better in Roskilde:

And that's all sold. We've made a nice profit, and now we have a round 10K. For that we can have a decent band of soldiers, and not have to worry about food. Not enough for buying any good armor yet, though.

Finally, here's our multicult brigade:

And our increasingly respectable general:

 

[Kashmir Slippers]

Just a quick question. Is this the regular M&B? I have never played it or Warband, but this mod looks almost too interesting to pass up.

I am looking forward to see where this goes.

 

[Oesophagus]

It's the original MB 1.011. Or something like that. A warband version of this mod is also in the works

 

[tarkin]

Watching the thread, good stuff

 

[Silentrider]

It's funny how no one ever recognizes the Hungarian-Croatian personal union and just marks it as Hungary.

 

[Luzur]

no Sweden, Norway or even Finland?

 

[Azira]

Third rate countries, all of them.

 

[Oesophagus]

Work and Travel

Right. We left off in Roskilde, with a nice bag of cash and some decent units. We're still nowhere near tough enough to take on enemy lords, who on average have 120 + soldiers with them. In that case, we will need to buff up our stats and level our troops. And since an update of bandit grinding would be boring, let's meet the neighbours. A tour of Europe is a good way to do that

As we can see, good armour is still out of our reach. We just take a helmet since the difference between this one and the best ones is minute, so we probablly won't change it And it looks badass

We travel along the baltic coast, and enter the Netherlands. The dutch have the most tightly crammed region in the game. I mean just look at that pic, there's villages, castles and towns all over the place. They're also one of the richest factions.

Moving on, France and England. I must have screwed something up with the game files, because France is supposed to be light blue and England is supposed to be red. When we wipe them out this shouldn't be a problem though...

Let's go to London, if only to demonstrate how sailing works.

Most un-sailing like.

We stay there for the night, but because of language difficulties, we decide not to overstay our welcome.

We also buy a decent horse.

Wales. One of the weakest factions in the game. No towns, and only two castles. Goodnight, sweet princess. We also see Ireland, a country full of earnest, hard working, and educated people - the Polish

Moving back to the mainland

The Kingdom of Aragon. I'm not even going to try and explain the difference between the Aragonese and the Spanish. Partly because I don't understand it, but mostly because I don't care . I hear that there's some rage associated with that, though.

Spain. It's still a long haul before the reconquista ends...

Portugal, which is surprisingly strong. And also the Almohads, though I believe "ding dongs" is the politically correct term.

In Badajoz we meet a troubled gentleman drowning his sorrows in muddy ale.

Why the long face, bub?

Fear not, good peasant, I shall relieve your village of these bandits. It's what I do. And also, you better pay me afterwards

The town is a hundred meters from Badajoz. Couldn't the city guards just shoot the bandits from the walls?

By now, our troops are pretty much owning anything bandit

Another good deed done. Our name will soon be well known throughout all of Christendom!

While travelling to Valencia, we notice a rather peculiar bug. It looks like bandits are spawning in an inaccessible area, so neither can we get to them, nor can they get enywhere else.

Let's just pretend that they're hippies chillin out or something.

In Barcelona we meet a well mannered gentleman

Watch your language!

So, you're an alcoholic?

tl:dr. Wanna travel with me? We won't go to Mecca, and we'll probably kill a lot of muslims, but there's free booze

Basically, he plays a lot of minecraft and angry birds

??? Fine, ya bum...

He's not bad as a companion. He has 4 in engineer, which will become useful later on.

Anyway, we leave the Iberian peninsula.

The Holy Roman Empire. They have one of the best units around: The Teutonic Knights.

Through the Alps and into Italy. Which, as you'd expect, is largely fragmented. The Lombard League, one of the richest factions:

The Papal States. It's fun to wage war against them, because their Lords ride into battle in papal hats, which is friggin' hilarious. We'll probablly see those later on, if things go the way I'm planning them

Sicilians. Don't mention the Moors

Just LARP there's a boat there


We travel through the Byzantine Empire, which in this mod is called the Roman Empire. As you'd expect, they have one of the best unit trees in the game. Cataphracts and Varangian Guard are

We pop in to Turkey, which is almost entirely held by the Seljuk Sultanate

They're muslims, so we don't hang around long. Explosives make me nervous

We travel back to Greece and along the Black Sea. We reach the Principality of Halych, which I guess is the Kievan Rus in the future.

They have the best archer unit in the game - the Boyars. Heavy cavalry wielding war bows, which makes them badass both in the field and during sieges.

And, finally, we end our tour of Europe in the Baltic Counties. Our home.

They have overall good units, infantry influenced by the vikings and cavalry imitating the Byzantines.

While resting the night, a racket outside wakes us up:

It looks like our comrades are heading to whoop-some-assville. Why don't we introduce ourselves.

You will soon enough, sunshine.

Um... yeah, sure, mercy n'shit. So, what's going on?

Finally, an opportunity to prove our hitman credentials!

No problem, bro. How can we refuse an offer from someone with such a majestic beard?

As you can see, we are immediately despised by the Russians and by the Potatoes.

Simply for becoming a mercenary for the Lithuanians, we get:

Also, ten hardy soldiers.

We'll need 'em. They cost 400 gold per week, so we'll also need to raise some more cash, seeing as our total wages are 1K.

Also, notice the amount of soldiers on the list. We have a representative of almost every nation in the game. Truly, the multicult is strong with us.

Next up: We do some dirty work

 

[Cassidy]

The warband led by the brave Lithuanian hitman should be called "Warriors of Diversity".

 

[Oesophagus]

TAELES OF CHIVALRIE
We start this update with a quote from Machiavelli:

A prince ought to have no other aim or thought, nor select anything else for his study, than war and its rules and discipline; for this is the sole art that belongs to him who rules, and it is of such force that it not only upholds those who are born princes, but it often enables men to rise from a private station to that rank.

Since we're now henchmen of the Baltic Duchies, we're likely to do some fighting sooner or later. For that reason, we'll need some more soldiery. When we left off, the situation with our neighbours was thus: Our forces were besieging the Russian held Berestye, while the Poles were besieging our castle at Kulm.

Highly doubtful we would be of any use in either of those places, since Kulm is besieged by a large force, so we would only throw our soldiers away, and Berestye is swarming with Lithuanian lords, so they don't need us. Besides, we can't afford a larger force now. For that reason, I go do some trading and tournamenting to raise funds (which, for your convenience, I will leave out).

The Warriors of Diversity (c) are shaping up:

And after some tedious travelling back and forth between Greece and England, we have a good 24 K of gold

Battles are starting to look impressive:

Eventually, we get called back to help in the siege of Berestye.

Normally, we wouldn't have anything to do with sieges with the forces we have, but seeing as most of the casualties will be of other lords, we might as well. The Russians are almost decimated anyway...

Let's get some!

Because of our heavy armour, and the fact we have only 2 in athletics, we run like old people fuck. Still, that means we won't have to be in the front line

Look at those motherfuckers. They're out for blood

The defenders run out to meet us. Bad idea. Still, that means we can get in front and actually get some kills in.

It's actually easier to fight in first person view during sieges, because in 3rd person you can't really see what you're trying to hit

They're putting up a fight, I'll give 'em that. But there's far too few of them

We get pushed to the back of the ramp by some boorish oaf. Wait your turn, ya lout!

Charge 'em!

Our drinking buddy, Ibn Battuta, gets the last kill. Rejoicing ensues.

And Berestye is ours:

Our role was admittedly minor, but it's the thought that counts.

After resting, we notice that a village near the besieged castle of Kulm is being raided.

We should investigate. Along the way I pick up some Lithuanian peasants. Most of them will die, but that's the lot of the common man. If one of them reaches the rank of Vytis, I'll be happy.

It's a potato lord. But he doesn't have a lot of cavalry with him, so even though they outnumber us, we might have a chance.

You ain't got shit, koleżko

This will require a bit of tactics. We order our infantry up front, and we hold position. As I expected, the potatoes cavalry charges in without thinking, meaning that their forces are now divided.

Fools. Their cavalry is disposed of without too much fuss. I decide to take a look at the remaining potato forces.

What's this? Their foot soldiers are mostly archers and crossbowmen, and not really a match for our infantry in melee combat

You're in trouble now! We decide to inspire our troops by charging into the enemy's ranks

Losses are piling up, but the potatos are starting to waver

We add 13 notches to the sword

Finally, the Poles break and start legging it:

Victory!

As we can see, our surgery skill is paying off. Most of our fallen will recover.

And also:

After our glorious victory, I decide to take a closer look at the Kulm castle siege

Ain't no way I'm going in there.

The Warriors of Diversity's wages are increasing. But they've earned their keep for once.

Our Warlord is also non too shabby:

and our troops:

 

[Lindblum]

What can you do with prisoners?

 

[Oesophagus]

If they're lords, you can wait for ransom. For a faction leader you can get anything up to 20K, more if it's a big faction like the Byzantines. Regular soldiers you can ransom off at a ransom broker if you find one, for 50 a piece. If you don't mind a loss in morale, you can also recruit some of the soldiers to your party.

I still think the game needs a "kill prisoners" button like in Medieval Total war

 

[Kashmir Slippers]

Over already?

 

[Oesophagus]

Not a chance, but I'm kinda busy now, so next update should come during the weekend

 

[Comrade Goby]

What are some of the best mods for Warband?

Your LP is making want to re download this shit

 

[Cato the Elder]

Where's the update?

 

[SerratedBiz]

He didn't specify which weekend he meant.

 

[XenomorphII]

What are some of the best mods for Warband?

Your LP is making want to re download this shit

One of my personal favorites is Prophecy of Pendor. It is much harder than vanilla, due largely to the much larger enemy armies, the randomly spawned unaffiliated doom stacks, and the way troops upgrade (in order to get the best troops you must have a city/castle with the appropriate knightly order in it, and even then you are fairly limited in the numbers of knights you will have and will still need to recruit commoners to fill out your force).

 

[Oesophagus]

right, brace yourselves

Update incoming