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The two-handed/polearm axe is the highest damaging weapon in the game in polearm mode, and in two-handed mode it can be used on horseback as a two-handed weapon (on foot, the polearm mode is better). So I have that, a masterwork bastard sword, a reinforced steel shield, leaving the last slot for spears or lances or whatever I want to use to mix it up.

Just to say, not sure if it has been mentioned...

All the Mount and Blade games are currently 50% off on Steam, including the Napoleonic DLC.

You can get all 3 Mount and Blades, AND the Napoleonic DLC for £15! Warband is £7.49, and Mount and Blade original is also just a fiver!

Lynata wrote:I'm currently carrying shield + axe, a two-handed greatsword, and throwing axes.

I suppose the tricky thing is that I try to lose as few of my men as possible, having me charge ahead and thus becoming a good target for enemy ranged weapons. Not to mention that the opposing troops then try to zerg me. Even bandits can get bothersome if you're facing 30 on your own with little room to maneuver (-> "urban combat" in a village), heh.

That said, I suppose it's more useful for mid-game when you still have to care about things like trying not to have a single casualty, and not having top armour yet.

Are you rocking nords? Order your shielded infantry to hold fire and they will throw up those huge round shields and absorb alot of the archer fire. I had an army of 100 Huscarls and 50 veteran longbows go up against over 200 sarranid archers and another couple hundred low ranking infantry (skirmishers, recruits, footmen). I had my huscarls form a 3 man deep wall and hold fire. Once the wall was formed, I just had them advance until they were within throwing distance of the archers. Then I have them spread out a good four or five times and have them fire at will. Spreading out opened up gaps in the shield wall, allowing my veteran archers to turn the sarranid archers (who were still targeting my huscarls) into pin cushions. The huscarls finished the rest of them off between their javalins and their axes.

Also Melissia - I also used the heavy long great axe for the longest time. I think I found it around level 10, and I used until I was almost level 40, when I found a masterwork long great axe. It is very useful when defending cities. Being able to just stand to the side of the siege tower ramp and chop down my enemies without risk of retaliation is priceless.


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Melissia wrote:The two-handed/polearm axe is the highest damaging weapon in the game in polearm mode, and in two-handed mode it can be used on horseback as a two-handed weapon (on foot, the polearm mode is better). So I have that, a masterwork bastard sword, a reinforced steel shield, leaving the last slot for spears or lances or whatever I want to use to mix it up.

I actually dont use the long axe as a polearm, for the simple reason that it only deals 16dmg if your thrust it, but deals 56 on a swing regardless if you use it as a polearm or a 2 hander. Thrusting is pretty much pointless in most situations. If you time your overhead swing right, you can chop down cavalry before they hit you.

Melissia wrote:It's never really been an issue for me.... mind you, with the great long war axe (or whatever it's called) I have combined with power strike, it's rarely an issue that an enemy survives more than one hit anyway.

Single enemies are no problem for me either. But beeing hit by 3 lucky Rhodok bolts while strafing or hitting a tree and beeing surrounded by 5 Huscarls is more of an issue for me. More Health helps then.

KingKodo: On foot, the polearm mode swings faster, and thus does more damage per hit than the two-handed mode.

Polearm speed rating = 89
Two-handed speed rating = 83

Since they both do the same damage on swing, the speed bonus means polearm does more damage total.

Dark Scipio wrote:

Melissia wrote:It's never really been an issue for me.... mind you, with the great long war axe (or whatever it's called) I have combined with power strike, it's rarely an issue that an enemy survives more than one hit anyway.

Single enemies are no problem for me either. But beeing hit by 3 lucky Rhodok bolts while strafing or hitting a tree and beeing surrounded by 5 Huscarls is more of an issue for me. More Health helps then.

If you are surrounded by enemy huscarls I am wondering if extra health will make the blindest bit of difference.

It probably won't.

Huscarls are the worst thing to be surrounded by hehe.

If there is a small spot left to escape every second counts.

Let me just state that I hate you all...

Never even heard of the game till I read this thread... and the game has consumed the last 4 days of my life lol. The graphics are pretty heavily dated, but this game is utterly fantastic. I roll with a high Int/Charm build and horseback with bows. It was rough going at first but I've gotten pretty damn good with the bow and on horseback I can pick off about 50% of an enemy force before I even have my troops come up to engage.

One of the the things that I'm most impress with on the game is it's feel of being a living breathing world that you are just a part of. If you are a part of an army, freelance manhunting, or just being a trader... the game doesn't miss a beat on continuing on with life.

My proudest accomplishment so far is taking out an enemy force of 31 with just myself and a camp defender lol. Took me like 45 mins, but circling their formation running them out of arrows, then I got them to trail me while I fired my 90 arrows at their legs and heads to get around their shields. When I culled it down to about 10 (and I was out of arrows and low on health) I did driveby tactics with a greatsword I picked up off one of them.

The camp defender was knocked out, but live at the end... jumped from like lvl 6 to 8 from that one battle. I think it was like 25 reknown or something and I believe I was at a -16 advantage or something silly like that.

Love, the ,game. Is there any plans for a fll sequel?

That sounds awesome. Glad you like it! Respect for that 2 vs 31 battle, too.

As for a sequel, I suppose one could argue that the upcoming "War of the Roses" is kinda Mount&Blade'ish, though I don't know if it's actually made by the same people or how freedom you're going to have there.
For what it's worth, no sequel is actually needed - you really need to check out the gazillion mods on the forums there!

Also, we dakkanauts should all meet up for a multiplayer siege battle some day.

One thing I did find extremely interesting was the AI in battles. for most of the last 4 days I have just been trading and hunting bandits. (omg I love the trading in the game. It reminiscent of uncharted waters) However I started to get a bit ansy and when I saw one of my favorite towns being raided, I had to step in. Dude was like "I consider this unprovoked!" as women and childen run for their lives, so me and my crew smacked them down 30 to 60 (I had a pile of high level guys and companions and most of his force was lower level".

Safe to say that pissed off his nation so I sided with the Nords and jump another army. However it was a bit of a shocker on how different the army's tactics were compared to bandits. The all stayed in formation and pushed toward my back line without being distracted by my cav arrow tactics. That's when I knew I was playing with the big boys now and I lost half by dang force (which was 67ish at the time). While it hurt, I won and knew I had to step my game up some.

Also tactics vary by nation, as well. Nords differ from Swadians who differ from Sarranids who differ from Vaegir who differ from Kergites.

Kergites are the simplest of the factions in terms of how they act, basically just a wild cavalry rush.

Yes, when using the axe as a polearm, it has a slight speed increase. However, you risk thrusting with it, which will make the extra speed moot for the next...several hundred attacks.

Duh, I've just learned right now that M&B2 was already announced...






Also, had some more multiplayer battles last night. Did some epic throwing-axe-sniping in a siege battle of Nords vs Swadians, though much of it was really just a huge bag of luck - can't reliably hit someone on a distance of about 20 meters, after all, even from an elevated position such as castle walls. That throw did save our flag tho and made me feel like a badass for a minute.

Then I went and played some more Napoleonic Wars. I've barely touched Commander Battle up until now, but damn that was fun. I learned to toy around with the commands a little more this time, ordering my infantry regiment to hold fire and form three lines. Together with another regiment of French line infantry we hid behind a small hill and had our cavalry bait the Prussian dragoons to our position. As soon as our guys had passed by the enemy officer saw what happened and tried to charge us, at which moment we gave the order to open fire. Half his men fell right there, with the other crashing into our ranks. At this point, I gave the order to switch to bayonets and charge. It was a bloodbath, but with few casualties on our own side.

Gawds I love this game.

Lack of sleep... killing me... must play more...

Silly Swadian seem to be pushovers for me at the moment. Thought I have really ticked off several of their generals at this point so my poor fief takes the brunt of their anger. there is one guy at this point that I wish I could execute him.

In my SP campaign I went neutral yesterday, not renewing my mercenary contact with King Ragnar and instead opting to pursue the war with the Vaegir on my own. Army size is at about 80 by now, so I'm starting to plan besieging my first castle. There's a neat wooden fort I've got my eyes set on; its garrison has 140 soldiers. My main issue is fear of enemy reinforcements. I could probably win the battle, but the casualties might force me to lift the siege and render the whole effort a waste of time and resources...

Oh by the way, I found this:

I just lost a few braincells right there lol.

Decided to start a new game on Native (been having fun fiddling with the Diplomacy and PBOD mod and may own additions to them (mainly custom troops for my faction), so thought i'd try and have a go at Native again).

Big mistake to start in the Nord area.

I bought a shiny new bow and arrows, and did the merchant's quest.

I then get kicked a ways out from Sargoth, right next to a group of 11 Sea Raiders I had no hope of outrunning.

I'm level 3 and on 1/3 health, and I had 6 Nord Recruits.

I hate this game.

Avatar 720 wrote:I hate this game.

Say it ain't so!

Worst case you can always dismiss the recruits (or better yet, order them to cover your retreat ) and ride away on your own. I don't think anything can catch you when you're solo - you've got, like, Speed 7 or 8 then!

So do we have any actual details on MnB2?

Because if they pull another debacle like they did in WFaS I might not get it until a few months in when they've properly patched it.

Melissia wrote:So do we have any actual details on MnB2?

Because if they pull another debacle like they did in WFaS I might not get it until a few months in when they've properly patched it.

Paradox games are like whisky, the get much better with time.

They've been reeeeally scarce with info so far... not even a proper preview or any announcements of features. M&B2 "may" have multiplayer, though. I wonder if that refers to Warband's battles or ... campaign mode?

As long as they keep the bloody firearms out I think I'll be happy, though. Either do it properly and go Napoleonic Wars, or stay with the swords and shields and lances.

Honestly if they did Warband with simply updated graphics and some expansion on politics and other features I'd be happy as can be. No need to ruin a prefect design.

Lynata wrote:They've been reeeeally scarce with info so far... not even a proper preview or any announcements of features. M&B2 "may" have multiplayer, though. I wonder if that refers to Warband's battles or ... campaign mode?

As long as they keep the bloody firearms out I think I'll be happy, though. Either do it properly and go Napoleonic Wars, or stay with the swords and shields and lances.

How do you define doing them properly?

Because if they were more historically accurate they would suck and be unfun to use.

Melissia wrote:How do you define doing them properly?
Because if they were more historically accurate they would suck and be unfun to use.

Okay, that was referring more to my personal preference in terms of a setting. I like medieval combat a la Mount & Blade, and I do like the Napoleonic Wars with its fancy uniforms and muskets and bayonets. I just don't like the two being mixed. The resulting image is something that just fails to evoke any interest from me. Probably because I have a very fixed perception of medieval times, even though warfare and society changed a lot throughout the centuries.

Coincidentally, I'd have less of a problem with a fantasy setting where someone would attempt to mix elements of these eras, as long as it's done in a way that it "feels right" to me. For example, for a P&P game I wrote a nation that used very crude rockets in addition to classic medieval-style blades and polearms.

BlueDagger wrote:Honestly if they did Warband with simply updated graphics and some expansion on politics and other features I'd be happy as can be. No need to ruin a prefect design.

From the few bits we got to see this is how it looks like. For the time being I shall remain cautiously optimistic.

Sounds dull.

Mind you, I care about about historical accuracy as much as FOX cares about facts; not really much at all.

Personally, I like to find a good balance.

For example, in Napoleonic Wars your guns cannot misfire, which is a huge deviation from reality concidering how often this (supposedly) happened. On the other hand, when you pass through a river in this game, your powder gets wet and you lose any and all reloads - only the one shot you have in your pistol/musket, which you've held above the water, remains usable. I thought this was a rather cool feature, even though I was confused at first. Didn't expect this to happen as I was crossing the river.

There's no "right" or "wrong" on this question, tho - we all have individual definitions of what's fun.

I think that having no misfires is fine. Surviving firearms in MnB is often a matter of luck as it is, inserting more luck-based variables isn't gonna make the game more fun. At least the river thing you can avoid or prepare for.

I've been playing Mount and Blade for a few weeks and really enjoying it, tis a great game. Been cruising around lately with about 70 cavarly, a mixture of Khergit Lancers and mercaneries (I joined the Khergits).

I managed to get stuck fighting a force of like 200 Nords and had to surrender and loose my awesome army :( and i'm finding it very, very difficult to get any reasonable force back together... Groups of 30 steppe bandits keep beating the gak out of me and my low level soldiers get killed so much I get back at square one. I have practically no money at this point and i'm trying to train myself a force of Nord soldiers because everyone been saying how fantastic they are.

Is there anyway to gain some quick cash in this kind of situation?

Join a faction and loot and raise villages. Will bring in some quick cash, just don't get caught