Which Mount & Blade to buy?

[Jasede]

No lakes? Oh. My. God!

 

[20 Eyes]

I've gotta echo the Warband chorus. It's just slightly better overall. I do like the original map more, though. I didn't notice how different it was until I saw Zeus' pic comparison. The original map is less tedious to travel around in and has a better layout. But I still like Warband more, overall. It adds just enough that I can't imagine playing without it.

As for mods, Prophecies of Pendor is pretty cool. I never preferred it over the original, but it was a nice change of pace for a while. I just installed the Floris mod pack, I'll post impressions after I spend some time with it.

No lakes? Oh. My. God!

Small details go a long way in making a map more interesting.

 

[Metro]

Eh... not in Warband where the map is largely irrelevant. Sure you get different terrains and such but what difference is a lake going to make? None. Anyway, M&B( and Warband)'s biggest problem is that the game itself is fairly skeletal. Combat is fun, laying siege to castles and towns is fun, and trying to take over other factions is fun but... they really got lazy when it comes to stuff like commerce, diplomacy, kingdom management, itemization, etc. Some mods fix it but there's only so much they can do. Still well worth many many hours of play time just for the combat alone.

 

[Topher]

Well, I hadn't even heard of the Napoleon era game until this thread, which got me all excited. Unfortunately it's MP only so screw that garbage. I'd say get a box set as well, warband is just an update of the original, which is kind of shitty on he devs to be honest, but it's fun and feels ,ore complete than the original. My personal favorite is fire and sword but I love the early gunpowder era so there is some bias there. The worst part of fire and sword is the lame, who give a shit anyway, story campaign. I could have really done without that.

The biggest flaw with the games are honestly the devs. They've got this solid combat engine but instead of fleshing anything out, expanding sieges, balancing gear and the economy or optimizing the engine for larger battles they just sort of flop around. The newfound focus on MP has all but stagnated any SP improvents and the game itself is pure grind, which I like as I enjoy games like Sea Dogs, but it can't settle in to being just a SP or MP game so, big shock, SP suffers.

Still very fun games but I'd say go nuts, download a ton of mods and see which ones you like. As for myself I intend to start a new game soon and beyond the enhancer mods I intend to try the floris pack and prophecy of pendor.

 

[Metro]

And just an FYI Amazon is slated to put Paradox titles on sale later this week (of course you'd have to find away around the US billing restrictions) -- chances are the M&B series will be like 75% off. Steam was selling a pack of Vanilla, Warband, and F&S for $7.50 a few weeks ago.

 

[Clockwork Knight]

Eh... not in Warband where the map is largely irrelevant. Sure you get different terrains and such but what difference is a lake going to make? None.

It wouldn't kill them to make it more interesting to look at, though

 

[Metro]

I suppose. Although there are mods that retexture the map.

 

[Secretninja]

Shame on you all for telling him to start with Prophesy of Pendor.

 

[Metro]

I really doubt they will considering they haven't developed anything since Warband -- all they've done is just publish two fan made mods.

 

[Emily]

did you play warband at launch? It was a buggy piece of shit.
They did improve it a lot. But yeah WFAS was a Polish(?) mod.

 

[sea]

Warband recommendation yet again. With Fire & Sword is good too, a few added mechanics and guns/grenades are cool, but combat feels very different. Warband combat is very much about charging into battle like a maniac, while With Fire & Sword has more emphasis on tactics and command of your troops. Both are fun, but Fire & Sword requires more patience and takes longer to get going in my opinion, and lacks the chaotic feeling of Warband.

That said, if you want mods, the original one has the most, and some of the best ones.

 

[Gregz]

Shame on you all for telling him to start with Prophesy of Pendor.

Muahahaha! This is the Codex is it not?!?

 

[Jasede]

Now I just gotta ask, is PoP terrible or is it just brutally hard?

 

[Duckard]

Now I just gotta ask, is PoP terrible or is it just brutally hard?

It's not bad, it's just really hard (and some would say grindy, but I like the grind in M&B). The reason I recommended it was because it's a fantasy mod and pretty god. No magic spells and stuff, but you have elves and undead and demons.

You're probably better of learning the basics of the game vanilla, and then trying PoP or some other mod.

 

[Gregz]

Now I just gotta ask, is PoP terrible or is it just brutally hard?

Truly it's a great mod, but very challenging, especially the first 50% or so of the game. You'll want to learn the general gameplay mechanics first from M&B:W Vanilla, then try PoP.

Honestly I wish I could play M&B:W again for the first time, the epic battles and sieges are awesome stuff.

Turn off the in-game music, and loop this for full effect:

 

[Horus]

Warband has fast forwarding button on main map while mount and blade doesn't,it makes it somehow became tedious to watch your avatar move between every city.
Other than that both are ultimately just a engine for mods so i would recommend looking at mods in their forums and choosing after that.

 

[Morkar Left]

Other than that both are ultimately just a engine for mods so i would recommend looking at mods in their forums and choosing after that.

You're right but unfortunately mods provided only new settings but hardly new content (with the exception of diplomacy mod). At least when it comes to finished mods. In the end M&B is always M&B which is good realtime combat slaughtery with leveling up.

 

[Secretninja]

PoP is great, but you need to know what you are doing a little before jumping into it, imo. Floris' is basically a collection of a bunch of good mods, all shoveled together. Best advice I can give you is play for about 10 hours to sort of get a feel for the game, then start over with Floris'. After a game or two of that try out something like PoP, that completely changes the game around.

 

[Horus]

Oh i forgot to mention that you should not play this game,it's pretty much time sink like HnS and mmo game.
Plus End game content is pretty much non-existent so you will realize you spend pointless hours grinding.

So i would not recommend it if you want to try other game and save it for those cold lonely nights.

 

[Secretninja]

trololol

 

[Nomask Alt]

So... The couched lance is no longer very effective in Warband. And it requires an actual lance. Other polearms no longer apply. Where's the fun, now?

Also, how do you gain wealth and power without destroying caravans? (Or am I supposed to be doing that?)

 

[Secretninja]

I always ride around doing tourney's until I am about level 5 and can train some troops, then hunt sea raiders. Tourneys are a good source of early money and experience, and sea raiders gear for your people.

 

[FeelTheRads]

Hmm, I wonder if my ancient $10 serial for the first Mount&Blade is still working.

I got it when crowd-funding wasn't mainstream yet.

 

[Duckard]

Trading is the easy (although kind of dull) way to gain wealth and power in vanilla Warband.

 

[Topher]

I can definitely recommend the brytweldia mod and the roman mod based off it. They both add great features to combat like permanent wounds, ambushes, bleeding damage and fatigue. Excellent mods. I'm not entirely sure of the historical accuracy, I thought the Hildibra region (forgot the spelling now) was in the Iberian not Ireland but I could easily be mistaken. Anyway, top notch mods, both worlds better than the basic game.

The floris mod is a solid upgrade to warband, no reason the play the game without it, and I tried the peloponnesian war mod, meh, it's in alpha and feels that way.