Having lost my previous Bannerlord playthrough to a corrupted savegame, I rerolled exactly the same character as before and (avoiding gatehouse towers this time) set out to recapture my glorious destiny!
Unfortunately, while for my first attempt I'd stuck to a sensible, slow build-up opening strategy, this time I risked first hiring an expensive companion instead of cheap basic troops... and lost. Big time. I lost my first fight and almost couldn't recover, spending the next couple of years escaping capture almost broke then being intercepted by more bandits (who this time around were both more plentiful and contained more non-looters) and struggling to scrape together new starting cash in arena fights, over and over. Damn you, Ira the Wronged! This is all your fa- naaah, who am I kidding, I can't stay mad at you, babe.
I finally reached safety in the town of Saneopa, and decided to make my home in the Northern Empire's northwestern reaches. Compared to the Southern Empire, town approaches in this region (Saneopa, Diathma and Epic Scrotea) are more convoluted. It's hard to make good time for quests or chase down targets of opportunity, but on the flip-side the narrow canyons make it easier to corner bandit parties once you close in, so I'm actually leveling faster than I did the first time around. On the other other hand, the longer paths led to discovering noble NPCs can actually beat you to the chase, solving problems in their villages before you get a chance to accept the quest. Nice touch.
It wasn't long before I'd contracted with Lucon's Northern Empire as a mercenary and started playing around with some features I hadn't tried yet.
- Sacking villages seems an even worse idea than in Warband, given it carries an attitude penalty with the entire clan controlling that village, which now presumably carries over in perpetuity.
- Splitting my party... seems to garner significantly faster XP for the companion I select to lead the second party, but given the lack of control over the AI's suicidal tendencies, led to defeat and leader capture in short order, wasting both initial troop costs and continued wages. Damn you, Castor the Boar! This is all your fa- naaah, who am I kidding, I can't stay mad at you, bro. Still, a "meh" kind of mechanic.
- War! (hunh;yeah!) What is it good for? Capturing expensive war horses (good god y'all!) to upgrade top-tier cavalry for more warring (say it again!)
- Big improvements in chasing and being chased. Back in Warband, if you were slower or faster than an enemy party, or bigger/smaller, that was the end of story. Now:
While adventuring in enemy lands, you might notice you've acquired some tagalongs, small enemy groups insufficient to beat you individually, shadowing you should the opportunity arise to gang up on you with a larger band. There's some wiggle-room to the system, as the AI is intentionally, medievally bad at arithmetic (the four parties in that image could easily take me on but none want to be the first ones in) to prevent it from being too predictable, and best of all it also works in reverse:
 |
| Git off ya own lan'! |
The nearly 900-strength party in that second image is an army, now no longer merely individual bands following each other but a single coalesced blob traveling at its leader's behest recruiting more troops and usually finally attacking a major objective like castle, town or other army. While the AI has some issues (constantly countermanding orders and wasting days upon days marching hundreds of soldiers back and forth recruiting one peasant at a time in a couple of villages) they do carry out major offensives with some regularity. Interestingly, not all nearby parties will join the main siege (especially mercenaries) but will sack villages near the main objective. Defending these villages or intercepting reinforcements is actually a great opportunity for easy money regardless of which side you're on, as raiders let themselves get caught instead of running, resulting in reliable battle initiation instead of time-consuming chases. Again, nice gameplay diversity growing organically out of the basic army objective.
The Northern Empire soon finds itself in dire straits, a dogpile by both other Imperials seeing the loss of Diathma, but Baltakhand rebelling and falling into Imperial hands balances out the net gains and long-term viability. Thinking I probably won't get a better offer, I decided to bite the not-yet-invented bullet. After saving Emperor Lucon's purpurous ass from enraged Khuzaits upon the field of Locana, I swore fealty to the Calradian Empire and its rightful Imperator
Little did I realize that Baltakhand had not been assigned to anyone yet, and as freshly-minted noble with no properties it more or less defaulted to me.
So much for my plans toward the Battanians, thinks I, and amble over to survey my new digs in the far NorthEast.
Little did I realize a Khuzait counter-offensive twice my size was already on its way to recapture the town, hitting not even a day later. So much for my plans to hold Baltakhand, thinks I, and settle in for a desperate losing battle.
Little did I realize that nomads are still shit at sieges, but I'm getting ahead of myself
Sieges were crap in the original Mount&Blade. Everyone knew it, grumbled but accepted it since nobody else (except maybe the Stronghold games) even had medieval sieges at the time. One problem was units' lack of flexibility resulting in comic incompetence like your top-tier knights trying to storm the walls with their hopelessly unwieldy ten-foot-jousting-poles and getting punched to death by peasants. Far worse, every castle, every town had a single access point, regardless of being accessed by a ladder or siege tower, and aside from a bit of arrow-slinging the siege came down to waiting for a hundred attackers to struggle up the ladder one by one until one of them managed to survive an extra second making room for a constant trickle behind him. Mostly sieges provided a good opportunity to use Nord Huscarls, an otherwise expensive yet mediocre unit.
Now, in addition to the ladders plus battering ram and generally multiple attack points, Bannerlord has spruced up the field with some extra utility. The attackers especially get a lot of use out of barricades, about the only time you're really required to use first-person mode.
While siege weapons reliably one-shot soldiers and are automatically staffed by the AI
To further break up the monotony, you might at first be surprised by the message "The defenders have pulled back and are mounting a last stand inside the keep." Prepare for a nasty, crowded, confused, dimly lit, desperate melee.
But that wasn't necessary in this case. The larger army crumbled upon the dawn-lit walls of Baltakhand. My mixed infantry held the gate most valiantly, and up on the wall my reliance on Imperial Sergeants served me very well, as they didn't just whittle down incoming enemies by crossbow but proved rather immovable even when pressed in melee and forced to whip out their swords and boards. All in all, a heroic eff... effo... oh, holy shit, how did this even happen?!
Four local fresh recruits I'd panic-bought at seeing the enemy approach somehow wound up killing seventeen enemies between them in a flawless display of cut-rate heroics, outperforming even most top-tier units, at least in straightforward headcount. You were supposed to be cannon fodder you magnificent redshirt bastards!
Oh, right, no cannons...
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