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Having recently discovered this series of games, I am very impressed. The games are quite challenging(sometimes frustratingly so) and have some good variety.

I am however having a couple issues.


Mount and Blade(original): Kergit armies. It seems the only way to actually beat Kergit enemies is to exploit the way their AI interacts with the edge of the battle field. They seem to always run circles around their opponent, but when they hit the edge of the map they don't automatically turn around or anything. They just get stuck and infantry can cut them to shreds. I typically find that I suffer only a couple casualties per battle if I use the above tactic. Otherwise, their fast horse archers plink you to death over forever.

With Fire and Sword: I feel that this one is my favorite setting, and I love that you can actually do some formations, but its soooooo hard to get established in this game. Even average gear costs a ton of cash and there is very little you can do early on to make money. It takes forever just to get above 30 soldiers so you can raid villages without the villagers fighting back. And no type of enemy has any decent gear drops. Even deserters have little in the way of useful gear. Its a painfully long slog to get decent gear, and insult to injury if you get captured you lose your weapons.

 Grey Templar wrote:
Having recently discovered this series of games, I am very impressed. The games are quite challenging(sometimes frustratingly so) and have some good variety.

I am however having a couple issues.


Mount and Blade(original): Kergit armies. It seems the only way to actually beat Kergit enemies is to exploit the way their AI interacts with the edge of the battle field. They seem to always run circles around their opponent, but when they hit the edge of the map they don't automatically turn around or anything. They just get stuck and infantry can cut them to shreds. I typically find that I suffer only a couple casualties per battle if I use the above tactic. Otherwise, their fast horse archers plink you to death over forever.

With Fire and Sword: I feel that this one is my favorite setting, and I love that you can actually do some formations, but its soooooo hard to get established in this game. Even average gear costs a ton of cash and there is very little you can do early on to make money. It takes forever just to get above 30 soldiers so you can raid villages without the villagers fighting back. And no type of enemy has any decent gear drops. Even deserters have little in the way of useful gear. Its a painfully long slog to get decent gear, and insult to injury if you get captured you lose your weapons.

Mount and Blade Warband is basically M&B original with added features. Don't waste money on the original, just buy that one.

Regarding Khergits, I really have no trouble with 'em. Just make sure your infantry are well upgraded and you'll win. Nord Warriors tear even the largest Kerghit bandit parties to pieces. And by the time you actually have to make major offensives against the Lords in wartime you'll have the troops to counter them.

Haven't played With Fire & Sword but I think I'd prefer warband anyways.

Currently running a Nord Vassal who focuses on hard hitting Two-Handed weapons. I can crush pretty much any unit in 2-3 blows. I'm lord of Berglen, Narra, Thir, and a couple of castles south of that Swadian city that starts with a D. The nords basically rule all of Swadia and a fair bit of Khergit and Vaegirs. The Swadians have 3 castles left.

The Khergits are the only other real threat to the Nordic Empire, they are certainly the biggest faction after the Nords. I'm looking into wiping out most of the other factions and then turning on King Ragnar. I SHALL RULE!.

My party is built of Jeremus, Ayalyn, Deshavi, Baheshter, Ymira, Firentis, Bunduk, & briefly Mattheld. Mattheld was a mid game pickup and although see was a great warrior she disliked both my medics. And a good party CANNOT be without a medic at hand.

It does seem that Nords are the best foot soldiers. First play through I went with them and through fighting Sea Raiders I quickly got a small but very lethal band of Veterans and Huskarls.

I have heard that Warband is better, but I got the original for a song.

Warband is by and large the best, especially with the WHFB addon, but if you have the original and like SCI-FI, then the Star wars galactic conflict will be fun.

Nords are hand down my favourite faction.

My preferred character build is a heavily armoured Nord Tank with heavy armour (the brown leather over mail NOT plate armour, because it looks more like a Viking), TWO Huscarl shields (so I can stand in the shield wall) and the biggest and nastiest feth off bardiche or Axe I can find.

I form my infantry into a dense shield wall formation with multiple ranks. Huscarls in front, weaker infantry at the back. Archers/Crossbowmen typically stand at the rear on a hill or a flank, where they will not be attacked, and

Where possible I try to anchor my flanks in terrain, by positioning the formations in woods (trees and rocks will bring a charging horse to a screeching halt) or on steep hills (Hills slow cavalry to a crawl).

When the battle begins I tend to lurk at the rear of the shieldwall to shelter from missile fire. When gaps open up in the line, I lunge forward and use my 2 hand Axe to smash enemy shields to splinters (with sufficent Strength and Powerstrike you can destroy shields in one blow, and Kill in one blow when it is not blocked).

I can kill dozens upon dozens of enemies in a battle this way.

Cavalry charges are easily absorbed by a sufficiently dense shieldwall.

If you are having trouble with Khergits, then the answer I found was Rhodok missile troops, they have the range of the the Khergits, with superior accuracy, damage and armour, they can even down a fair few in the opening salvo when the enemy cavalry forms a missile at the start and charge headlong into you.

I tended to have one of the fastest armies on the map... I get about a 75/25 ratio of Swadians that are upgraded to knights, and then the horse archers for running around with. One of the major plusses to the Swadian knights is that they are basically the same as the "Man at arms" in sieges, which is very handy, as capturing people is a great thing to get more stuff in the game

Defensively, there's not much that can beat the Rhodok Crossbowmen, provided you can keep the melee away from them.

My character personally runs around in the heaviest armor he can get, with a Hand and a Half sword, lance/shield combo

What mods do you guys use? I like the Floris pack because it adds a bunch but doesn't turn the core gameplay completely on it's head.

I also spent a whole bunch of time in Crpg back when it was new, but apparently my character is lost in the warp and weave of the internet and I don't want to go back to being a broke ass peasant.

I haven't played in awhile, but I enjoyed the Prophecy of Pendor mod.

Are there any mods that make the game a bit more accessible? I love a lot of the game's concept and what it seems to be trying to do, however the mechanics are super opaque and it plays with all the grace of a drunken hippo. I'd love to play something like what it seems to trying to be, but I'd rather feel like I'm playing the game than wrestling with it.

But drunken hippos are endearing!

Against the Cavalry heavy forces I simply plant my Infantry in close order behind a hill (So they cant hit me on their way to my men) and then put my archers right behind the tight infantry.

The cavalry hit my wall if infantry and get mushed while the archers pelt anything like mad.

I take my cavalry and ride around for a while to get enemy cav trying to hunt me down, when the infantry have less to deal with I ride right past the infantry while the enemy cav hit them and become slain.

Usually thats when I order a general charge of all my forces as they spread out and hunt the survivors.

I usually win all my battles against cav doing it this way.

As for mods my favourite are the Warhammer mod, the Floris Mod and the samurai one.

I just replayed the demo (I'd play it ages ago when I didn't have a mouse and it was impossible with the touchpad of course.)

Really fun, especially getting a small force of guys together and charging a gang of looters. I can imagine it becomes really engaging when you've got a proper army.

One thing that bugs me though is the sort of "made up" kingdoms. I'd like to play in a more historical sort of setting. Is there a mod or version for that?

Edit: Nevermind, I found two mods for it at least - one does a "realistic" medieval Europe from 1257, which looks cool and another does a Dark Ages British Isles, which is right up my alley. Has anyone played Brytenwalda or Anno Domini?

Fire and Sword is set in 17th-ish century eastern europe.

Which is why it's inferior to the normal game, really.

Chongara wrote:Are there any mods that make the game a bit more accessible? I love a lot of the game's concept and what it seems to be trying to do, however the mechanics are super opaque and it plays with all the grace of a drunken hippo. I'd love to play something like what it seems to trying to be, but I'd rather feel like I'm playing the game than wrestling with it.

The game is pretty simple.

1. You go and hire swadian peasants
2. Go to nearest town/village/lord and ask for quests or beat some forest bandits
3. Now to you got your 100 man swadian knight army (you could use sword sisters too but women suck because no helmets).
3.1 Siege a town/castle and start your own brodom.
4. Profit. (tbh you are propably in serious financial issues at this point)

 Da Boss wrote:
I just replayed the demo (I'd play it ages ago when I didn't have a mouse and it was impossible with the touchpad of course.)

Really fun, especially getting a small force of guys together and charging a gang of looters. I can imagine it becomes really engaging when you've got a proper army.

One thing that bugs me though is the sort of "made up" kingdoms. I'd like to play in a more historical sort of setting. Is there a mod or version for that?

Edit: Nevermind, I found two mods for it at least - one does a "realistic" medieval Europe from 1257, which looks cool and another does a Dark Ages British Isles, which is right up my alley. Has anyone played Brytenwalda or Anno Domini?

I played Brytenwalda a few years back and there were a lot of annoyances. Like, lots of poor spelling and grammar, obnoxiously anachronistic dialogue (I'm talking about internet slang, not just little mistakes) and a system where your troops got easily exhausted after just a little bit of fighting. If they've fixed all of that, then it's probably decent.

Hmmm. I will probably try it out just for the celtic flavour of it, since it's one of my favourite historical periods. But I was thinking of disabling all the changes they made to warfare because they mostly worked to make it "more realistic" but I'm okay with a more easygoing gameplay experience.

The game is half price on steam right now, so I picked a good day to pick it up! Chuffed.

Hmm...I'd heard of Brytenwalda, but was hoping it was set in the mid-Saxon period ~ 800 - 950 during the time of King Alfred and the many Viking invasions. Are there any mods for the Viking invasions?

Just a question as a Medieval warfare "fan/history nerd"- is Mount and Blade's medieval combat at least semi-realistic? Because I'm REALLY tired of how in both War of the Roses and Chivalry you can just slice clean through plate armor by either using hollow edges or just swinging your sword. Or how bladed weapons are lethal at all with the blade end being used in combat between knights, and not being half-sworded.

And is combat actually fast, and not WOTR's incredibly inaccurate and stupid system of telegraphing attacks and spending over a second winding up attacks like a novice.

Well, bladed weapons do cause damage to plate armour equipped troops but the damage is reduced considerably.

With a strong enough suit of armour and enough hit points you could wade right into a big group of enemies and still have a chance.

I've killed more people with a well timed stab using a sword then hacking them to death. Against a well armed opponent you have to get a good few blows in with an sword to kill them, and I have done plenty of occasions where I have done hardly any damage on a swing.

Damage is dependent on the speed of your attack. If you are stationary or slow moving the attack will do little damage, none if the target is well armored.

If you have plate, you'll take little damage from individual attacks.

Couched lances do the most damage of any weapon.


Edit: I just noticed the Export Character feature. Would this allow me to move my Mount and Blade character into Warband?

 Grey Templar wrote:
Damage is dependent on the speed of your attack. If you are stationary or slow moving the attack will do little damage, none if the target is well armored.

If you have plate, you'll take little damage from individual attacks.

Couched lances do the most damage of any weapon.


Edit: I just noticed the Export Character feature. Would this allow me to move my Mount and Blade character into Warband?

I'm not sure if you can move characters from one to the other, but you can definitely copy the stats and import them into a Warband character of the same name. 'Export Character' creates a editable text file, so even if the formats are different you'd only need to create a new character on Warband, replace their stats and money with the values of your non-warband character, and import him back. It should be noted that nothing else except your character's stats, exp, money, and face-gen values are exported; the character's current equipment, followers, army, faction, or anything else will NOT be carried over. For equipment, at least, you can enable cheats and use the item browser to give your guy the same kit, but everything else will have to be done from scratch.

My first game was a bit of a disaster, with me not focusing on earning money early enough, and then getting beaten up by every band of outlaws I came across.
So I started again. Despite a nasty head wound, Seán Ó Cinnéide is doing okay this time around- got my first horse! And a mighty army of 14 dudes.
This was accomplished mostly by hovering around the edges of wars, preying on defenseless refugees and clergy moving to help the victims. So I guess Seán is a bit of a brutal bastard, as reflects his celtic religion.

It's pretty cool that they make you choose a religion and a motivation, helps to keep me on track. I've decided that Seán is a bit of a religious fanatic, dedicated to destroying the monasteries and showing the village weaklings that the new God they worship is false. Helps that ransoming clergy is profitable!

Still, this game is really unforgiving. But extremely fun!

I've experienced a game breaking bug that renders ALL settlements on the map invisible but for the name. Villages, towns, Burhs...

Anyway, after a false start in Bernaccia where I lost a battle and was crippled very early on (broken leg) with what appeared to be a permanent penalty to my stats with no way of healing it, I rerolled and went to Centware and Suth Seaxe ( South and South east of London). After a series of bounty hunting missions I managed to scrounge up 2000 gold to buy a "Rich Saxon Sword" from a "Mystic Merchant". It has about 35 or so base damage, and when mounted it does up to 40 damage! Very useful for the early game.

I picked up a couple followers, Eadwine a peasant hunter (with no Bow ) and a priest, who kindly donated his donkey to me. I finally have a Mount, and I'm now able to take on Bandits.

The Town and villages in the south seemed to run out of quests, and so I'm moving north to Bernaccia. I think I may just enlist in a Bernaccian army and spend a few (in-game) months just passively traveling around with the army and earning wages until I have enough to buy some acres of land and businesses in Towns to earn rent. Maybe I'll spend the time painting my actual Anglo Saxon models for SAGA. The Bernaccian's are the largest faction and are at War with multiple enemies at once so I'll at least be guaranteed to see regular action.

Well I just picked up Warband. I heard it was better, but man, nobody said it was 10 times more awesome!

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
I've experienced a game breaking bug that renders ALL settlements on the map invisible but for the name. Villages, towns, Burhs...

Anyway, after a false start in Bernaccia where I lost a battle and was crippled very early on (broken leg) with what appeared to be a permanent penalty to my stats with no way of healing it, I rerolled and went to Centware and Suth Seaxe ( South and South east of London). After a series of bounty hunting missions I managed to scrounge up 2000 gold to buy a "Rich Saxon Sword" from a "Mystic Merchant". It has about 35 or so base damage, and when mounted it does up to 40 damage! Very useful for the early game.

I picked up a couple followers, Eadwine a peasant hunter (with no Bow ) and a priest, who kindly donated his donkey to me. I finally have a Mount, and I'm now able to take on Bandits.

The Town and villages in the south seemed to run out of quests, and so I'm moving north to Bernaccia. I think I may just enlist in a Bernaccian army and spend a few (in-game) months just passively traveling around with the army and earning wages until I have enough to buy some acres of land and businesses in Towns to earn rent. Maybe I'll spend the time painting my actual Anglo Saxon models for SAGA. The Bernaccian's are the largest faction and are at War with multiple enemies at once so I'll at least be guaranteed to see regular action.

Which version is this in?

v1.41

 Shadow Captain Edithae wrote:
v1.41

Is it a mod then?

Yes, the Brytenwalda mod. I did say this earlier.