Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

[Jacob]

Will the second game allows us to kill charging horses just by readying weapon at their direction, that would be cool.

 

[Ezeekiel]

In Bannerlord we have many different types of polearms, including: spears, lances, pikes and bardiches. They are strong against cavalry and extremely good in group fights, but are outmatched more often than not in 1v1 scenarios.

Take on a halberd with a sword in 1v1, have fun.

With all the HEMA nerdry around in eastern Europe you'd think they would have learned something by now.
Wonder if you can at least charge with a pike this time.

Oh well. Modding it is...

 

[Ezeekiel]

Will the second game allows us to kill charging horses just by readying weapon at their direction, that would be cool.

You mean the pike brace thing from all the warband mods?

That messes with the A.I. something fierce though. Polearm units tend to just brace (often regardless of length of the polearm) while they're "locked on" to cav, and cease fighting de-horsed riders or regular infantry crashing into their ranks iirc.

 

[Jacob]

You mean the pike brace thing from all the warband mods?

That messes with the A.I. something fierce though. Polearm units tend to just brace (often regardless of length of the polearm) while they're "locked on" to cav, and cease fighting de-horsed riders or regular infantry crashing into their ranks iirc.

I haven't tried that mod, but in vanilla your horse would sometimes stopped running instead of charging through human enemies on certain conditions... I don't really remember, but what I am thinking is something along expanding that small feature instead of adding a new, possibly buggy, feature.

 

[LESS T_T]

I wonder if they're making a battle royale mode/standalone.

 

[Saxon1974]

It's just an illusion, this game is never releasing.

 

[Bocian]

I wonder if they're making a battle royale mode/standalone.

At least a medieval-style, melee focused BR would be a more interesting choice among all those pew pews that are coming or are already here.

 

[ERYFKRAD]

I wonder if they're making a battle royale mode/standalone.

At least a medieval-style, melee focused BR would be a more interesting choice among all those pew pews that are coming or are already here.

You mean M&B multiplayer right? Or is this "battle royale" an entirely new format?

 

[LESS T_T]

Throwers and shooters: https://steamcommunity.com/games/261550/announcements/detail/1649883812478380008

Greetings warriors of Calradia!

In this week’s blog, we would like to wrap-up our overview of the various weapons which you will have at your disposal in Bannerlord by introducing you to the selection of ranged weapons which the game has to offer.

The ability to strike your opponent from a safe distance with little or no chance of retaliation puts you at a great advantage on the battlefield. Not only can you pick away at the enemy and thin their ranks, but you can force them into making an unfavourable move which can be used to your advantage. The brutal effectiveness of a range advantage in medieval warfare can be seen from famous battles such as Agincourt or Towton, where English longbowmen harassed their enemies and forced them into making costly mistakes which ultimately led to crushing defeats.

Naturally, some of these advantages carry over into the game, however, we had to make certain choices and design decisions to ensure that ranged classes are both fun to play and to play against (gameplay should always trump realism!). So what do we mean by this? Well, from a realism standpoint, we know that some people would like (or even expect) to see arrows and bolts bouncing off thick armour and helmets (after all, armour was designed in such a way as to protect the wearer by deflecting incoming ranged and melee attacks). However, we think that this simply isn’t fun for anyone playing as a ranged unit, and by making them less effective in this way it really narrows down the variety of unit choice in both singleplayer and multiplayer. Instead, we provide players with other counters to ranged classes in the form of shields and good footwork.

Throwing Knives

Throwing knives are perhaps the least likely weapon to be seen on a medieval battlefield (if at all!). They are light, inaccurate and ultimately they don’t have much stopping power. However, we decided to include them because they are fun and because they are great for finishing off severely weakened opponents. Knives can be toggled into melee mode, meaning you can trick your opponents by switching between ranged and melee, however you should be careful when engaging in hand-to-hand combat as they are unable to block incoming attacks.

Throwing Axes

Unlike throwing knives, throwing axes actually have some weight behind them (enough to penetrate skin, muscle and bone!). Axes like the Francisca were designed specifically for throwing and as such, some of our smaller throwing axes lack the ability to be toggled into a melee mode. Throwing axes are fast, deadly, and quite good at taking down shields. However, they can be quite inaccurate so you should be careful when throwing them near your own troops!

Javelins

Javelins are perhaps the most famous throwing weapon on this list and you can expect to see a wide variety of them in the game. They are heavy and slow, but they are extremely deadly and great for destroying shields. They can be used in both ranged and melee modes, and (as with most of our throwing weapons) they can be crafted in our weapon editor. Some of the factions, such as Empire, have their own dedicated skirmisher units, and in the case of Aserai they combine the accuracy and power of these ranged weapons with the speed and mobility of their camel mounts. (Oh, and if someone wants to make a Jereed mod at some point in the future, that would be pretty awesome!)

Bows

We have a number of different types of bows which players can equip in Bannerlord. Shortbows, longbows and recurve bows are all available, each with their own slight differences. Longbows and recurve bows have a higher projectile speed but they suffer from a slower reload time, whereas shortbows have a slightly higher rate of fire but pack less of a punch. Warband veterans will also notice that our bows now have a two part animation. Your character will always attempt to nock an arrow immediately, rather than only attempting to reload when you want to fire an arrow. Some of our factions make use of mounted archers (Khuzait in particular) and we are giving careful thought and consideration into balancing them with this the rest of our units, (which, admittedly, is something we didn’t quite achieve with Warband).

Crossbows

Historically, crossbows required much less training to be used effectively than traditional bows. A few weeks of training were enough to turn a peasant into a competent crossbowmen, while becoming a decent archer can take years. Energy is stored directly in the limbs of the weapon taking the burden away from the crossbowman, giving them a better chance to aim at their target. In Bannerlord, crossbows are just as deadly as they were historically. They are accurate and powerful, but take a long time to load (exposing the crossbowman during this period). However, a savvy crossbow user will look for cover while reloading and only reveal themselves when they are ready to fire.

Rocks

And finally we have the one ranged weapon you have all been waiting for. The go-to choice for peasants and football hooligans alike, the small and humble rock. They are about as effective as a lump of frozen butter but don’t be fooled into thinking they are totally harmless!

 

[vota DC]

Same ranged weapons but they removed darts.

 

[Latelistener]

Will they bring halberds this time?

 

[ColonelTeacup]

Why is this still a thing? Is this game going to be in development stage for the next decade?

 

[Trojan_generic]

Why is this still a thing? Is this game going to be in development stage for the next decade?

Wait, the goat models are not perfect yet.

 

[LESS T_T]

Be patient, they're doing it pixel by pixel, bit by bit.

 

[Latelistener]

They can take all the time in the world for all I care, as long as it will be worth it.

 

[ColonelTeacup]

Not me, I want it now. The last one initially released in early access.

 

[deama]

They can take all the time in the world for all I care,

Even if it releases the day after you die?

 

[Beowulf]

They can take all the time in the world for all I care,

Even if it releases the day after you die?

He definitely wouldn't care in that case.

 

[KateMicucci]

They can take all the time in the world for all I care, as long as it will be worth it.

Spoiler

It won't.

 

[Serus]

They can take all the time in the world for all I care, as long as it will be worth it.

Sure, you are on the Codex, remember ? We waited for Grimoire, we can wait for this one.

 

[Helton]

To be fair, Cleve had a lot more credibility.

 

[Latelistener]

Sure, you are on the Codex, remember ? We waited for Grimoire, we can wait for this one.

If some people want this game so bad because (from the looks of it) they have nothing else to play, what will they do if Bannerlord will flop?

 

[Trans-Financial-Man]

Don't any of you retards understand? Obviously Taleworlds ran out of Bits at the Bit Mine. After the collapse of Blast Processing in the mid 90's experts predicted that eventually the bit mines would run dry. Obviously this wouldn't affect AAA companies who use synthetic, low quality bits. However a mid to indie dev like Taleworlds only has actual Bits. They simply can not make the game at the pace we are all accustumed to. Taleworlds need to find another vein of bits or this game just isn't coming out.

 

[Sarissofoi]

Sure, you are on the Codex, remember ? We waited for Grimoire, we can wait for this one.

If some people want this game so bad because (from the looks of it) they have nothing else to play, what will they do if Bannerlord will flop?

Spoiler

Blame Germany. What else any sensible individual can do?

 

[LESS T_T]

Bannerlord, you know?: https://steamcommunity.com/games/261550/announcements/detail/1649884446698938168

Greetings warriors of Calradia!

In previous instalments of our weekly updates, we introduced you to the major powers of Calradia and talked about the historical influences that we used as a foundation for creating our own take on the early medieval period. In this week’s blog, we thought it would be nice to put a face to a name, so to speak, by sharing each of the factions’ banners with you. After all, this is Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord…

Drawing inspiration from real-world medieval cultures gave us a solid starting point when setting about designing the faction banners. We were able to research the different ornamental styles, sculptures, carvings, metalwork, heraldry and flags of each culture, which gave us some interesting ideas for the direction that we could take each design.

For some of the factions, such as Empire and Vlandia, we had a pretty clear idea in mind for what we wanted to go with from the outset. However, for some of the other factions this proved to be a little more difficult. One example of this is with both Aserai and Khuzait. Initially, we wanted to go with geometric designs for these two factions but eventually decided to move away from this in favour of large shapes and a single focal point. Our reasoning for this was that the banners are displayed in many different places in the game, from actual banners carried by troops into battle to small icons hovering over each city on the world map. We thought that geometric designs could cause too much visual noise when displayed at different sizes and instead we opted to go for designs which would work well at any scale.

Something that tied in closely with this design process was deciding the faction colours. We wanted each faction to have a distinctive colour which would make their troops recognisable in the thick of a battle, while also subtly representing the culture of that faction. In other words, we needed to select colours which are unique for gameplay reasons, but still say something about the faction. One issue we ran into while selecting the faction colours was with multiplayer. We use two different colours for each faction in multiplayer: dark as the primary (team 1) and light as the secondary (team 2). The team colours are displayed in various UI elements, items and clothing so we wanted to ensure that players could easily differentiate between the two teams at a glance and that everything is visually clear for colour blind players.


Aserai

For Aserai we decided to go with a warm colour to represent their homelands: the Nahasa desert of southern Calradia. We looked at a few different options in the orange-yellow range before deciding to go with a deep, almost golden yellow. For the design, we took inspiration from Islamic decorative arts and interiors, going through many different iterations before settling on a cup and horns design, which was heavily influenced by Mamluk blazons.


Battania

Battania lay claim to the misty hills of north-western Calradia. They are inspired by the Celtic peoples of Western Europe and we felt that an earthy, woodland type of green would be the best choice of colour to represent this faction. We went through a few different design choices for their banner, focussing on animals like boar, deer and rabbits, stylised in a Celtic art style. However, we wanted a more encapsulating image for the faction and decided to go with a design from Celtic culture which is more iconic and recognisable.


Empire

Empire presented us with quite a unique challenge. The design of this flag was pretty much set in stone from the outset: we wanted to use the double-headed eagle as it is a charge that is associated with empire, especially the Byzantine Empire (which this faction takes its inspiration from). However, because Empire is split into three individual factions that are on the brink of a civil war, we had to decide whether to go with completely different banner designs or to use the same banner across all three factions (after all, each of the three rulers claim to be the rightful heir to the throne!). In the end, we reasoned that we should take a route somewhere in between these two options by keeping the general design the same, but giving each banner its own slight variation to represent the ideals of that particular faction.

For the Northern Empire, whose leader was elected by the senate from within their own ranks, we decided to go with a deep purple. Historically, the dye used to create purple garments was extremely expensive and, as such, it is a colour that is commonly associated with emperors, kings and queens. Likewise, for the southern empire we decided to choose a shade of blue-violet. This colour represents stability and nobility, which we think is quite fitting for their leader, Empress Rhagaea, widow of the previous emperor, Arenicos. Finally, we thought that orange, a colour which relates to adventure and risk-taking, would be the best choice for the militaristic Western Empire.


Khuzait

The horse lords, hailing from the eastern steppe of Calradia, draw their inspiration from the steppe peoples of central Asia. We took the colours for the banner directly from the open plains which they roam, with the main colour being a light shade of sky blue. Our original designs for Khuzait drew inspiration from Turkic and Mongolian illustrations but we felt that these designs looked a little too peaceful and we wanted something a little more impactful and aggressive. We decided to incorporate sun and moon shapes into the design as these shapes are important to Central Asian people.


Sturgia

The Sturgians populate the cold and forbidding forests of North-Eastern Calradia. They are based on the federation of predominantly Slavic city states known as Kievan Rus, with influences taken from the many different peoples who travelled to and settled in this region. This gave us quite a bit of free reign when choosing the design for this faction. In the end, we decided to lean more towards the Viking style of art, which we felt would be more recognisable. The Viking shield is perhaps one of the most iconic shields we can think of, so using that in the centre of the design was an idea we had right from the start (the sword just naturally fit in with that!). We combined this with a design taken from some Viking jewellery (a torc) which helped to bring the whole piece together. The dark blue of the banner was chosen to represent the cold and harsh environment in which the Sturgians live, and also the seas which they travelled across from their homelands.


Vlandia

We took our inspiration for Vlandia from the feudal states of early medieval Europe, in particular the Normans. We wanted to use a powerful and aggressive colour for Vlandia, and the natural choice for that was a deep, almost bloodlike red. The lion which adorns the Vlandian flag is a symbol of strength, courage and military might, and was used quite widely in European heraldry. We tried a few different, more complex designs but decided to go with a simpler version that would better suit the early medieval period that the game is set in.