Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

[Modron]

They delivered before and they are perfectly capable of doing so again. They just don't give a shit.

Did they do much work on Napoleonic wars? I thought that was a different studio who went on to make Battlecry of Freedom.

 

[MerchantKing]

Its sad that you still can't larp as a merchant

Reinhardt pls confirm

MerchantKing pls confirm as well

You can roleplay as a merchant in Bannerlord. You can buy yourself an empire if you are successful enough as one.

 

[Fedora Master]

 

[Zanzoken]

Marriage system had a ton of roleplaying potential.

Striking deals to marry into more prestigious families in exchange for gold, military service, or other promises.
Or using your children as bargaining chips to secure key alliances or concessions from other lords.
Even the poetry reading in Warband was kind of cool and could've been used to confer bonuses if you made the effort of getting your wife to actually like you.

Instead it's like three lines of dialogue and you don't even feast to celebrate. Fake and gay just like everything else in Bannerlord.

 

[Russia is over. The end.]

Marriage system is fucked
- can't ask for marriage when her faction is at war and she's in charge of a war party, which is 99% of the time, because everyone's at war with everyone at all times
- can't ask for her hand unless she's the oldest one, which means you have to console-kill her siblings, which never feels right

 

[Fedora Master]

Let's goooo.

 

[ArchAngel]

Marriage system is fucked
- can't ask for marriage when her faction is at war and she's in charge of a war party, which is 99% of the time, because everyone's at war with everyone at all times
- can't ask for her hand unless she's the oldest one, which means you have to console-kill her siblings, which never feels right

It is even worse. In real life, Lords used marriage to secure alliances. Here you send your daughter or niece to marry some lord and 5 minutes later they declare war on you and she now leads their armies like she never knew you..

 

[Zanzoken]

I think one thing that is sorely missing in both Mount & Blade games is something like an "honor" system that enforces a soft requirement for the Player to act in accordance with legal and cultural norms of the game world.

For example to follow along the same thread as above, if you marry your sister or daughter to another lord and establish a family bond, it should be seen as a highly treacherous and dishonorable thing for that lord to attack you, plot against you, or otherwise act against your interests (and vice versa). Because lords are expected to respect family ties and not stab each other in the back.

Now, that doesn't mean this sort of thing should be impossible. Quite the opposite! Because for the most part lords have always been dirty cutthroat bastards who would do anything to get ahead. But the point is, if you want to act dishonorably then you have to do it in secret via cloak & dagger. You can break the rules openly, if you so choose, but if you do then you better be ready to deal with the consequences. Enough loss of honor should be a potential fail state for that character, where you are ultimately charged with treason or other such crimes and targeted for execution.

I know this is rambling a bit but I hope I am getting my point across. A game that does a much better job of this than either of the Mount & Blades is an old Microprose title called Sword of the Samurai. Even though you are supposed to be an honorable samurai, you can do all kinds of treacherous shit in that game to sabotage your rival lords, and they can (and will!) do the same to you. I know I've shilled it on here before but it's really incredible to me how they packed so much role-playing depth into a game from 35 years ago.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

Guess it's a lot more fun if you don't go politicking, because that's what I'm doing.
Rebellious towns are fair game though.