Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

[Zariusz]

Fuck, this music is so good

 

[Zariusz]

Also screenshots from the updated In the name Of Jerusalem 2 map.

 

[Zanzoken]

Question for the group...

Let's say you felt so disgusted by the abject failure that is Bannerlord, that you decided to say fuck it and make your own Mount & Blade style game. What type of features would you include to differentiate your game from M&B, so that it doesn't come off as a low-budget clone?

Assume that at a minimum, you will be aiming for good combat, and prioritizing the game's simulation aspects so that the AI is competent instead of blatantly retarded, and the world feels believable instead of shallow and superficial.

What else would you try for? Here are a few I thought of.

Spoiler

- Design systems that allow you to expand your power by means other than just battle. Maybe you are great with money and can buy your way to the top. Or a schemer who attacks your rivals with propaganda, assassination, fraud, etc. Or a charismatic cult leader type who gets people to believe you are a messiah. Etc etc etc.

- Add castlebuilding and other cool features that Bannerlord doesn't have.

- Choose a setting that's different than M&B's faux-medieval one. This could draw on other real-life cultures, or even be a fantasy world with other races.

- Pick an art style that's more stylized and abstract compared to M&B's simulationist aesthetic.

- Add magic so that some characters can throw fireballs and stuff.

- Create different origin stories that affect who your allies and enemies are when you start the game.

- Create an end state goal that depends on fighting off an invasion. You aren't just trying to unify the kingdom so you can rule it -- someone has to pull everyone together or you'll all be killed.

Not saying any of these ideas are good or bad... they're just ideas. Thoughts?

 

[thesecret1]

I'd add actual borders between nations and make the countryside a thing, rather than have lone villages isolated by wasteland, which you could improve if it's part of your holdings. Might be mostly cosmetic, but it always bugged me

 

[The Dopamine Cleric]

Question for the group...

Let's say you felt so disgusted by the abject failure that is Bannerlord, that you decided to say fuck it and make your own Mount & Blade style game. What type of features would you include to differentiate your game from M&B, so that it doesn't come off as a low-budget clone?

Assume that at a minimum, you will be aiming for good combat, and prioritizing the game's simulation aspects so that the AI is competent instead of blatantly retarded, and the world feels believable instead of shallow and superficial.

What else would you try for? Here are a few I thought of.

Spoiler

- Design systems that allow you to expand your power by means other than just battle. Maybe you are great with money and can buy your way to the top. Or a schemer who attacks your rivals with propaganda, assassination, fraud, etc. Or a charismatic cult leader type who gets people to believe you are a messiah. Etc etc etc.

- Add castlebuilding and other cool features that Bannerlord doesn't have.

- Choose a setting that's different than M&B's faux-medieval one. This could draw on other real-life cultures, or even be a fantasy world with other races.

- Pick an art style that's more stylized and abstract compared to M&B's simulationist aesthetic.

- Add magic so that some characters can throw fireballs and stuff.

- Create different origin stories that affect who your allies and enemies are when you start the game.

- Create an end state goal that depends on fighting off an invasion. You aren't just trying to unify the kingdom so you can rule it -- someone has to pull everyone together or you'll all be killed.

Not saying any of these ideas are good or bad... they're just ideas. Thoughts?

It would look like this fucking game I've been helping Olafson at FSE develop because he's a great guy and Im a uselsss John Romero that spergs ideas like ChatGP shit at him

 

[Zanzoken]

I'd add actual borders between nations and make the countryside a thing, rather than have lone villages isolated by wasteland, which you could improve if it's part of your holdings. Might be mostly cosmetic, but it always bugged me

That's a great idea.

One of my favorite games as a kid, which I still think holds up well today, is Lords of the Realm 2.



The goal is similar to M&B i.e. conquer the kingdom. The world is divided up into counties, and each county has a town that you interact with to control (or attack) the county. It's considered an act of hostility to cross the border into a county that isn't yours, and the AI will react accordingly.

The economy and management stuff in this game strikes a really good balance imo. It isn't super hard or time-consuming, but you have to do it properly and it does lend itself to a bit of strategizing between battles.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

In medieval times the borders were not a line crossing across the land like today. When certain province ends was often more of an informal consensus than a clear line. Also small border skirmishes were commonplace even in the times of peace.

You should add village building and economy management. I want to set up new villages and build roads inbetween.

 

[whydoibother]

Tzarevgrad Tarnov is famously two forts on two adjacent hills on the two sides of a river: one for the nobility, one for the clergy.
Should have another thingy on the other side of the river, is what I'm saying. But its very cool to have unique map models for relevant cities.

 

[ArchAngel]

In medieval times the borders were not a line crossing across the land like today. When certain province ends was often more of an informal consensus than a clear line. Also small border skirmishes were commonplace even in the times of peace.

You should add village building and economy management. I want to set up new villages and build roads inbetween.

Also raised villages should have a chance of stop existing and you need to make a new one.

Also the crazy amount of recruits in short times need to go. The grind in M&B is crazy due to how humans reproduce and train like some mutant rabbits.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

In medieval times the borders were not a line crossing across the land like today. When certain province ends was often more of an informal consensus than a clear line. Also small border skirmishes were commonplace even in the times of peace.

You should add village building and economy management. I want to set up new villages and build roads inbetween.

Also raised villages should have a chance of stop existing and you need to make a new ones.

Also the crazy amount of recruits in short times need to go. The grind in M&B is crazy due to how humans reproduce and train like some mutant rabbits.

Heh that's also a way you can take the game. " O powerful knight-sama, filthy Swabians had razed our village, only you can help to repopulate it!"

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

Any good total conversion mods in the horizon?

 

[Victor1234]

Question for the group...

Let's say you felt so disgusted by the abject failure that is Bannerlord, that you decided to say fuck it and make your own Mount & Blade style game. What type of features would you include to differentiate your game from M&B, so that it doesn't come off as a low-budget clone?

Assume that at a minimum, you will be aiming for good combat, and prioritizing the game's simulation aspects so that the AI is competent instead of blatantly retarded, and the world feels believable instead of shallow and superficial.

What else would you try for? Here are a few I thought of.

Spoiler

- Design systems that allow you to expand your power by means other than just battle. Maybe you are great with money and can buy your way to the top. Or a schemer who attacks your rivals with propaganda, assassination, fraud, etc. Or a charismatic cult leader type who gets people to believe you are a messiah. Etc etc etc.

- Add castlebuilding and other cool features that Bannerlord doesn't have.

- Choose a setting that's different than M&B's faux-medieval one. This could draw on other real-life cultures, or even be a fantasy world with other races.

- Pick an art style that's more stylized and abstract compared to M&B's simulationist aesthetic.

- Add magic so that some characters can throw fireballs and stuff.

- Create different origin stories that affect who your allies and enemies are when you start the game.

- Create an end state goal that depends on fighting off an invasion. You aren't just trying to unify the kingdom so you can rule it -- someone has to pull everyone together or you'll all be killed.

Not saying any of these ideas are good or bad... they're just ideas. Thoughts?

You could always set it in a different time period.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/773951/Freeman_Guerrilla_Warfare/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1860510/Total_Conflict_Resistance/

 

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1860510/Total_Conflict_Resistance/

This looks more like Battlezone than M&B.

 

[hayst]

Any good total conversion mods in the horizon?

Feudal Japan mod that has a lot of screenshots published. Kingdoms of Arda, a lord of the rings mod. If not Arda there will be a Lotr mod.

 

[Victor1234]

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1860510/Total_Conflict_Resistance/

This looks more like Battlezone than M&B.

Hard to say if it'll even get made in the end, but I think their strategy layer looks more WARNO/Eugen Systems wargame inspired, personally. I think the M&B comparisons come from stuff like this:

Freeman is very much going for "M&B but modern day" (or it was, until the devs milked it dry, ran away and now came back years later when they need money again) and Total Conflict Resistance is trying to be Freeman, so it would follow that they are trying to be somewhat like M&B too.

Golubichi communism

 

[Mebrilia the Viera Queen]

Any good total conversion mods in the horizon?

Feudal Japan mod that has a lot of screenshots published. Kingdoms of Arda, a lord of the rings mod. If not Arda there will be a Lotr mod.

Feudal japan looks nice i will look forward to that

 

[SmartCheetah]

Fuck, this music is so good

When will they release it? It looks sooo good

 

[Zanzoken]

In medieval times the borders were not a line crossing across the land like today. When certain province ends was often more of an informal consensus than a clear line. Also small border skirmishes were commonplace even in the times of peace.

You should add village building and economy management. I want to set up new villages and build roads inbetween.

What do you think the purpose of a village should be in-game? I think they should be a source of:
(a) money
(b) resources (i.e. food, wood, iron, etc) and
(c) conscripts for the army

My thought is that instead of it just being a free-for-all where anyone can recruit soldiers from anywhere, the ability to conscript troops from a fief should be the sole right of that fief's owner. So the army would be structured like this.

Spoiler

The difference being that the levies actually outnumber the warriors by a dozen-to-one or whatever. So once you become a vassal, you immediately feel a huge increase in your power, because you now have access to hundreds more troops.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

Make a game that focuses heavily on logistics, like Cesar campaigns. Let the player win by building many kilometers long walls across the battlefield. See that walled city? Build a wall around it, so the defenders can't sally out at night. Then build a wall around yourself, so none can attack you when you besiege the enemy.

You could rather than have solders know you commands telepathically have couriers you send across the battlefield.

 

[Jedi Master Radek]

In medieval times the borders were not a line crossing across the land like today. When certain province ends was often more of an informal consensus than a clear line. Also small border skirmishes were commonplace even in the times of peace.

You should add village building and economy management. I want to set up new villages and build roads inbetween.

What do you think the purpose of a village should be in-game? I think they should be a source of:
(a) money
(b) resources (i.e. food, wood, iron, etc) and
(c) conscripts for the army

My thought is that instead of it just being a free-for-all where anyone can recruit soldiers from anywhere, the ability to conscript troops from a fief should be the sole right of that fief's owner. So the army would be structured like this.

Spoiler

The difference being that the levies actually outnumber the warriors by a dozen-to-one or whatever. So once you become a vassal, you immediately feel a huge increase in your power, because you now have access to hundreds more troops.

I believe that developing the village and seeing it's AI people do little AI people things is a reward in itself.

 

[Victor1234]

In medieval times the borders were not a line crossing across the land like today. When certain province ends was often more of an informal consensus than a clear line. Also small border skirmishes were commonplace even in the times of peace.

You should add village building and economy management. I want to set up new villages and build roads inbetween.

What do you think the purpose of a village should be in-game? I think they should be a source of:
(a) money
(b) resources (i.e. food, wood, iron, etc) and
(c) conscripts for the army

My thought is that instead of it just being a free-for-all where anyone can recruit soldiers from anywhere, the ability to conscript troops from a fief should be the sole right of that fief's owner. So the army would be structured like this.

The difference being that the levies actually outnumber the warriors by a dozen-to-one or whatever. So once you become a vassal, you immediately feel a huge increase in your power, because you now have access to hundreds more troops.

I think M&B/Bannerlord already does villages as well as they can be in a static way. They exist, there's some economic aspect, they spawn parties that can be intercepted, etc. People are upset you could build improvements in Warband and they didn't include it in Bannerlord, but that's life. Personally I found the improvements weren't cost effective anyways in WB, only grinding relationships to recruit better troops was.

I'm not sure what the criticism is about village recruiting though. Aside from the player, the AI lord recruits and all other AI just burn it or leave the villages alone. Does the enemy AI recruit from villages now?

Anyways, the original reason for including villages in M&B Warband was the Battle for Sicily mod for the original game (that dude ended up joining the dev team as a designer). In the mod, logistics and specifically food were a much bigger thing and villages were there to help simulate an aspect of supply lines more or less. Big parties would set out to siege a castle let's say, they'd break some troops off into a separate foraging party to raid the local villages to keep the siege going for longer, but the longer the siege went on, the further out they'd need to go for untouched villages and the more vulnerable they'd be to the enemy parties catching them and killing them. If the forager parties got taken out, the big siege army would eventually start running out of food and then be forced to break off the siege and go home.

It was a way to have indirect warfare, lead the enemy into ambushes, whittle away at them over time, etc and break up the 400 guys vs 400 guys battles that characterized the game before.

It was incorporated into the main game as more of a generic thing though (lords and the player can recruit from villages, villages supply towns with goods, you can trade with them for goods, etc) and the logistical aspect was lost, forager parties never became a thing and AI armies only take troops numbers and not food/supplies into account when making decisions.

Personally, I think instead of adding more chrome to villages as they are in game, they should make them more mobile/dynamic and that way make the map more dynamic. Big enemy army nearby? Villagers pack up and seek safety in the nearest castle, if the enemy burns the village they might not decide to come back to the same spot, etc. Basically, make villages pop up and disappear based on refugee flows sort of like bandit hideouts do.

 

[hayst]

Make a game that focuses heavily on logistics, like Cesar campaigns. Let the player win by building many kilometers long walls across the battlefield. See that walled city? Build a wall around it, so the defenders can't sally out at night. Then build a wall around yourself, so none can attack you when you besiege the enemy.

You could rather than have solders know you commands telepathically have couriers you send across the battlefield.

Mount and Blade Fortnite

 

[Marat]

Thinking of trying this one out. Best mods for first playthrough?

 

[Spectacle]

Anyways, the original reason for including villages in M&B Warband was the Battle for Sicily mod for the original game (that dude ended up joining the dev team as a designer). In the mod, logistics and specifically food were a much bigger thing and villages were there to help simulate an aspect of supply lines more or less. Big parties would set out to siege a castle let's say, they'd break some troops off into a separate foraging party to raid the local villages to keep the siege going for longer, but the longer the siege went on, the further out they'd need to go for untouched villages and the more vulnerable they'd be to the enemy parties catching them and killing them. If the forager parties got taken out, the big siege army would eventually start running out of food and then be forced to break off the siege and go home.

It was a way to have indirect warfare, lead the enemy into ambushes, whittle away at them over time, etc and break up the 400 guys vs 400 guys battles that characterized the game before.

It was incorporated into the main game as more of a generic thing though (lords and the player can recruit from villages, villages supply towns with goods, you can trade with them for goods, etc) and the logistical aspect was lost, forager parties never became a thing and AI armies only take troops numbers and not food/supplies into account when making decisions.

Not sure what you're talking about here. The original Mount & Blade had villages that spawned peasant parties and recruits from a pretty early Early Access version.

 

[Mortmal]

Thinking of trying this one out. Best mods for first playthrough?

For you ?
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2881924249
https://www.loverslab.com/files/file/12674-bannerlord-mod-captivity-events/