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nervous looking man
I honestly love this game, but its barely updated, and they do these tiny bug fixes once every month which fixes like 4 things and breaks all the mods which quite literally carries this game so hard. so so hard.
Is this game better than warband? yes Did i start a new campaign after my first? yes Will I play it again in 2years? yes Will I play again in 6 years? yes Will modding eventually make the game better? likely Would I wish the game had more density? yes Are there new features that are pretty cool? yes(family, armies) Could it had been better? probably Is it a cash grab? nope Is it fun? yes Is it a true successor to warband? yes Is it super fresh and new like original mount and blade was? nope Is it an improvement like warband was to the original mount and blade? yes. Is it mount and blade 2? nope, its more mount and blade warbannerlordband. am i ok with this game being warbannerlordband? yes Will I ever play warband again in my life? nope, I'll play bannerlord instead now. carry on, do what you got to do, have fun.
Has the foundation of a masterpiece, however it is quickly apparent that the game lacks any real kind of depth. I bought this a few years ago in Early Access and stopped playing halfway through when an update ruined my save game file. I started the game again this year and whilst there have been some updates, it is next to nothing. Cities and towns feel empty without any character. Quests are largely 'collect and return item for X reward'. Town management is very limited. There is a very low limit to the amount of companions you can have. All-in-all, no matter how much I want to love this game, it just feels unpolished, unfinished and after the length of time it has been released, I am unsure it ever will be.
great game just wish it did not disconnect me from lobbys
Nothing compares to Rocha's "Wedding Dance" mod for the original Mount&Blade. Bannerlord thoroughly follows bad example of the Warband, making everything we liked about the old game consistently worse, except the graphics. Minor new features are there, naturally, but all this work done by a huge studio feels bleak in comparison to what Rocha did long before them, with inspiration from Fawzia dokhtar-i-Sanjar. (Oh my, I still remember her name... Imagine the immersion!) But let's fry it proper, shall we? *** 1. First-person combat — unplayable. Fish-eyed even on FOV 70+. Yeah, Mr. Principal Developer, your engine renders 240 degrees, then just lazily multiplies it by x1.5, or something to that end. That is why your realistic FOV 90 looks like alien 135 we all remember from "Aliens vs Predator". Performance optimization coding master-class right here, fellas! Learned from the best, like Bethesda. Swinging animations are so unrefined that 3rd-person view is the only way to go. There was never a problem with 1st-person visibility in the original game! Not on horseback, not with any weapon or shield. *** 2. Shield on the back concept — ruined. You could rock two shields in the original game. One one the back would greatly protect you from missiles, especially in steppe combat and arenas, or with pavise on foot during sieges, and it was a conscious choice to forego one of the 4 slots for it. Now shield on the back does NOT block incoming missile damage, although the message is there. Idiotically, it now protects from melee strikes. Ingenious! But not really. *** 3. Party inventory — castrated. In the original game you could have 22 (Sic!) NPCs in your warband at the same time — each one with history, corresponding skills, progression, roles, dialogues, and FULLY manageable inventory. Now you can have... 4 of those. I repeat: Flower. Odyssey. Unity. Romance. *** 4. Strategical combat — degraded during development. Was better during early access, I swear! But you can't issue an order ten paces forward for your shield wall. Nor you can keep proper cavalry charge formations! Nor you can adjust the rate of fire of your ranged troops! Nor you can cry out loud commands like "LOOOOSE!!" to improve the results a ranged barrage. How come they made it worse over the years? Eludes me. --- I've made multiple unsuccessful attempts to enjoy this game. I will try again, because I love the concept. But I know better.
My friend who I play CS:GO with said if I post a review on BannerLord and it gets 100 likes and 100 Awards that he will buy me a RTX 3060 and 1 Kilo of Lemon . So im just gonna leave this here. Help a brotha (omg this is really happening!!! thank you guyyysss nearly there!!!)
I married and fucked the enemy king's daughter
Bannerlord is the game released after Warband. While playing the previous game, players always got excited by telling each other that there would be many innovations in the new game. Maybe we would be able to do diplomacy and kill our enemies in their beds with the new game. The game's production process took 8 years, including delays, and even its release was in early access. I played the early access and the full version, and they did almost nothing except adding a few voices to hundreds of NPCs. States that declare war on you for no reason no matter how powerful you are in the game, lords that you can never take to your side, and of course disgusting character expressions... The game was soon made better by modding, but if a game becomes better with mods, this is the success of the software developers and designers. . This game has never managed to become Bannerlord for me, when I talk about this game I always refer to it as Warband Remake Deluxe Edition wherever I am.
Tried recruiting awesome general. he said no. beheaded his wife and daughter and married him to my sister. had to join my army through marital obligation. next time say yes when I ask nicely.
As you might be able to tell by my hours played i kinda like this game. You will too, don't hesitate and pickup a copy today! Soon you may have 1300 thoroughly enjoyable empire building hours logged as well.
Historically speaking, if you defeat an army 4-5 times your size, you would usually win the war, or at the very least stop the enemies from attacking you for a long time. You will also have your name engraved into history, with bards singing you praises and armchair military fans talking about how cool you are. In Bannerlord, it's Tuesday.
Many years of waiting that ultimately ended up in disappointment. Without mods it's shallow, repetitive and boring. Main campaign is meh but the worst offender is the lack of coop. People were dreaming about M&B coop mode. They were even trying to make a mod in Warband for it. Meanwhile the devs brought the game into EA for one year, produced lots of low impact patches, released the game and forgot about it. It did not receive any new content, It gets a patch every couple of months that only serves to break mods. It had such potential that was ultimately wasted. If you want to play it wait for a decent sale and get mods.
Stopped playing this game around e1.6 and came back recently, didn't really notice much change. Except for one thing, they removed squad management for troops. No longer can I easily separate my spear man from shields or heavy infantry, now I have to use a slider and "prefer troops with x", no way to guarantee formation purity anymore. This has led to some blunders where my infantry is in a line formation and the spears are all in the back, leading to a cavalry charge to the front that slaughtered a lot of my troops without spears. Yes, I could spend a few years messing with a slider and setting unit preferences, but it shouldn't be necessary. Hopefully they add back the old system in some capacity, at least add more formation types and the ability to force only specific units to be eligible for that formation.
Single-player still feels like a half baked tech demo. This series has so many unique features but almost all of them are shallow and not well fleshed out at all. Combat for example is a unique directional attack/block system, but the feel of the system itself is very clunky, unpolished, and looks like a visual circus. Just get Warband on sale for a couple bucks if you want the "mount and blade experience". You will be paying a fraction of the price for the exact same game with a slight visual downgrade. The few things that the devs expanded upon in Bannerlord like siegeing can be added onto Warband via free mods that do a better job then the actual devs.
the game is fun at beginning but once you reach a point as being a useless king with no real power over a kingdom and the none stop never ending wars i call it a quit. this game would be far better if they added diplomacy
master piece
Game doesn't want to load anymore. Tried dozens of fixes, disabling and enabling different mods to attempt to fix.
Almost a full improvement over previous titles, though they absolutely butchered the formation system. You can't assign specific types of troops to a formation, rather, you have to put a very weak filter, and then divide them between formations using a ratio slider (hope you remember exactly what number of troops ya had), and hope that the troops you wanted in your shield-wall actually all have shields, and didn't instead get swapped out for a unit that doesn't even have a shield. You can't even separate crossbow men from regular archers, with this system. I keep losing troops, and sometimes battles, because the game has lost features that were critical to the gameplay of previous titles. It gets worse in sieges, where, regardless of what you selected at the start of battle, the game will create new formations, and mush together your other ones. Took my formation of archers, split it into 4, and threw some of them into a group of melee units. That's just when I'm the only party on my side, during a siege. When you have friends, joining you, or are aiding another party, the units they bring just get melded in, even worse. If you happen to be working with an army, and you're not commanding it, I hope you didn't have any expensive units with you, because you probably just lost control of them, for that battle. Mid battle formation position control is also finicky. Gone is the ability to tell your units to just advance a few paces, you have to manually tell them where to go, or just send them to advance towards, "the enemy". Great if the enemy doesn't have cavalry, an eminent disaster if they do, because your two formations making up a wide shield wall are now melded together and facing the wrong way because a lone dude on a horse got behind them. There is a mod that allows you to activate a free camera, that makes life a lot easier. No idea why this isn't included in the base game. I really, REALLY wanted to love this game, but the way they destroyed a system that worked in the previous games, that now causes just frustration in what should be the most enjoyable part of the game, just saps the fun out of it. I just wanted to be able to have my units, who don't have shields, be able to go around the back of the enemy when my shield units engage, or have my more survivable crossbow units infront or on the flanks of my regular archers, stuff you were able to do in the previous games. It's almost entirely impossible, now.
Game was good when I played in early access. Unfortunately I tried to play recently and the game just keeps crashing. I looked it up and it seems to be a common issue lately and none of the workarounds provided worked for me. I don't have the time to fix the issue myself and the developer as far as I can see doesn't seem to be in a hurry to fix it. Therefore I can't currently recommend the game until it is fixed and playable. At this time the game is completely unplayable for me.
Increasing the price of a digital game long after release, is a scummy move for any company. Can't be using inflation as an excuse for that. I figure a game company that makes a great game will decrease the price to generate more sales, while working on something new. But really, you haven't been doing much to improve, or add to the game.
I still cannot believe that after so many years, this game is still full of bugs. I can never play the game for more than 2 hours each time.
It's quite a fun game all in all, but it is thoroughly under-cooked and released without any more depth than Warband. The post-1.0 updates have been really minor and tend to constantly break the mods which make the game worth playing. The biggest reason for the thumbs down though, is the price. After their adjustments to regional pricing, this game now costs as much as Baldur's Gate 3, which is a joke because it is worth half the price. Honestly, if you feel like Mount and Blade, just get Warband and one of the amazing total conversions instead.
Crash simulator
Could use some improvements in role playing, I feel the focus is way too much on action right now.
No balance. It's an endless game of war. There is no point in killing lords, it is impossible to pump the character to the maximum level, the company is buggy and tedious...
It's pretty much Warband but slightly better. Heck, even a lot of the dialogue is exactly the same as Warband. If that's your thing go for it, but I expected more from a brand new game.
It is sad that I have to do this, but I just can't give it a positive review yet. Warband, this game predecessor, is one of my most played games ever in the past, so I've been following this for years and years. The pre-release trailers showed an incredible update to the graphics and the battles looked great. And they are, in fact, some of the best part of the game. But that, however, is pretty much the only improvement. You see, it really tells you that something is wrong when you just can't finish a save, not because the game is too bad, but because it is too tiresome. This game is not marketed as an infuriating, frustrating game, like some 'souls like' game are, that require repetition and learning, so, when you find yourself so pissed and tired, having to grind army after army, having to go to from village to village recruiting one or two soldiers, because the village won't give you more due to being at war with you (and if you force them to give you, your relations will drop, and they won't give you recruits even in peace times) all the while having to dodge enemies, it gets old really fast. This game has some major 'jumps' that could be really nice if implemented in the right way. The first 'jump' is upgrading your clan and getting a companion. The second is becoming a mercenary and finally being able to beat other nobles. Then you can become a vassal, and you will most likely be gifted a fief. But that is when things stop being so fun. The next jump is to finally having your own kingdom, but you better be prepared to spend hundreds of hours dealing with the most frustrating mechanics and AI. Firstly, having a fief requires either a garrison or you need to be close by so a party of 150 won't take it from you, but the constant war, the villagers and caravans being ambushed by bandits or enemies, and the villages being raided, means that the city will never ever pay for its own garrison. So, a city can't pay its own garrison, but you need to somehow pay your own party wages PLUS the garrison, which means you have 0 time to breathe because the wages in this game are expensive and daily (not weekly as it used to be in Warband) and the day goes by FAST. Maybe the wages are not expensive, doe, maybe it is just absurdly hard to earn money if not from constant battle. There used to be a way to make millions being a blacksmith, but it is mostly patched now. Caravans cost around 15k, or 22k if you want 'better troops' but it doesn't matter, because it will get attacked anyway, you have to be very, very lucky to have a caravan making 500+ gold daily. Workshops will halt production in the first week or so due to lack of profits, and both caravans and workshops are limited, depending on your clan level. But let's say you overcame all that (the easy and still sort of fun part) and decided o start your own kingdom. Well, that is the major problem of this game. Diplomacy? Never heard of it. The game is simply relentless, it is just war, war, war. During my last save 3 kingdoms were very strong, with 15k+ armies, one of them was very, very far away, behind one of the other stronger one, but for some godsdamn reason, it would always declare war on me, and cross the continent with 3 or 4 armies to force me to pay tributes. But let’s say you actually defeat their armies. Again and again, using strategy, patience and (lots) of time. Would this make THEM pay you tribute? Well, of course not. Your inventory will have half a million in items looted, your prisons will have 40 nobles from their kingdom, yet they will still demand tribute to stop sending their men to be massacred. Making you have to go around reconquering cities, or lifting sieges, almost always outnumbered 5 to 1. But let’s say they are busy fighting each other for once, and leave you be for some weeks. You finally have time to convince some lords to join your cause. After they join, you give them a nice fief, full of troops, and even give some of your best troops to them. Well, good luck with that. The npc Lords will have no money (because fiefs don’t profit much, remember? And it is their only source of income if not in an army with you) and you will watch the troops in the garrison slowly disappear due to 'unpaid wages'. Oh, the troops you gave to the lord? Also gone, same reason. Giving troops and money to your lords fix this a little bit, but VERY little bit, and it is extremely annoying have to chase them around. The AI is not very bright, so it becomes truly tiresome having to farm the money, train the troops, gift them, and 5 minutes later see the notification that the lord was taking prisoner, losing most of the hard work you did. Buuut let's say the lords actually manage to hold their own, and even create an army, well, the war will eventually start, and while you are busy sieging or defending a fief, you will have to watch an 800 men army chasing a party of 40 which has twice the speed of the army, once the small party is out of range, the army will go for a good objective, like defending a fief or sieging a poorly defended one, but, wait! Is that another small party close by? Oh, how dare they? And there goes your army again chasing a random party, obviously not catching it. Sometimes it stays in this loop until there is no more `cohesion` and it disbands. Meanwhile, you lost another 3 castles while trying to defend one. Anyway, the problem is the late game. Sometimes you don’t have time to even sell your loot, it is war, war, war. There is no diplomacy, alliances, intrigue, or options to talk directly with enemy kings to have better terms, nothing. You can’t manage cities, talk to lords, go to villages, try to buy stuff, nothing, there is no time. It is only pay tribute and defend. My last save I gave up because I was fighting against 2 huge kingdoms and 2 weaker ones, eventually settling to pay absurd amounts of tribute to the stronger ones (making my lords very, very poor with 30 men parties) to focus on the weaker ones, only to have a third big kingdom declare war on my almost immediately and invade my kingdom with five, FIVE huge armies with almost 2k men each. Was it possible to fight back? Yes. But at that point I was simply too tired, it was not funny anymore. The grind was too annoying. So, yeah, just a short review with some points that crossed my mind, not much honestly, I could talk a lot more.
After being on the fence for a while with this one now, I have decided to leave a negative review. I've been a mount and blade fan before warband addition, back when you had the trial up to level 7 before they made you purchase the game, i was one of those people that bought multiple serial keys of the original (due to accidentally uninstalling and losing my licence key due to the old rubbish launcher). I've racked up over 1100 hours on warband on steam alone and countless more off steam. I played the original and warband, all through high school, university and now banner lord in my late twenties. Although there has been some major improvements in banner lord like formation targeting, graphical rework, improved sieges and improved AI. For me at least, Banner lord does not feel like a major step up from warband, in its current state it feels like its only half complete. Yes the combat feels good, yes the graphics are a big improvement and the AI is a step up but the replay ability and the depth is just not there. The major issue i feel with banner lord is the lack of depth and extremely, and i mean extremely repetitive mid and late game. Outside of hunting down lords and building up your army there isn't that much to do. Relations with other lords has no real impact in the game, diplomacy is bare bones, kingdom management doesn't feel fleshed out our meaningful. It just feels incomplete, it feels almost like an arcade battle simulator. Some major areas that need to be worked on are as follows: - Tournaments - Meaningful Lord Relationships - More Events - Hunting / Courts / Intrigue / - Diplomacy / Kingdom Management - Fief Development / Fief Governorship - (I'd love to feel some connection to my fiefs) - Flesh out Alternative Play styles - Trading / banditry / Smithing / Mercenary Companies - More involvement in Enterprises - Better Mid and late game. These are just some suggestions from a long term fan.
I really love this game, the main problem i have is that the 1.0 release felt like a joke. sure the battles are very fun but literally everything else feels way way to basic. There is essentially no real political system or intrigue at all, a bare bone management system for settlements, the early-mid game is undoubtedly the best part of the game and feels the most fleshed out, once one begins to actually try to play with the political mechanics you realize very quickly that part of the game is BLAND AS F. Without mods this game feels like its 60-70% done and we haven't had a major update in almost a year. seriously very disappointing, i do not recommend unless you REALLY LOVE NOTHING BUT troop management, if you love THAT this game is loads of fun, my main issue is that the game gets very boring and repetitive after just a few saves and doesn't feel like a game i ever have the drive to play. i know most every game plays the same after the mid point of the game, save your money.
Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord is a masterpiece of the action role-playing and strategy genre! From the moment I stepped into the world of Calradia, I was completely immersed in its vast and detailed medieval landscape. What truly stands out in Bannerlord is its incredibly deep combat system. Whether leading my troops in epic battles, engaging in mano-a-mano duels, or launching sieges on imposing castles, every encounter is thrilling and full of strategy. The feeling of being in the thick of the battle, with the freedom to choose how to approach each challenge, is simply unmatched. In addition to combat, Bannerlord offers a truly immersive gaming experience thanks to its feuds and clan management system. Building and managing my own kingdom, forging political and economic alliances, recruiting and training troops— all of this adds additional layers of depth and excitement to the game! Graphically, the game is stunning. The landscapes are picturesque and varied, the castles and cities are beautifully detailed, and the character models are realistic and expressive. The soundtrack also deserves praise, further immersing you in the world of Bannerlord with epic and immersive melodies. Furthermore, the community mod support further expands the possibilities of gameplay, providing endless hours of fun and replayability. In summary, Mount and Blade 2: Bannerlord is a game that deserves to be played by any fan of role-playing games, strategy, or simply medieval history. It's an incredibly rich and satisfying experience that you'll surely enjoy for countless hours. I can't recommend it enough!
The half developer they employ works every other leap year for 5 minutes on this game, they expect modders to finish their game
I used to play this game when it first released but after coming back literally can't launch the game.
Warband multiplayer is better. I still really enjoy this game though. The single player is essentially endless if you want it to be and it's a huge world with loads to do. The multiplayer is still good just Warband felt a lot more free and I liked that better than this new system.
As far as the base game (without mods) is concerned, I utterly enjoyed my first 20-30 hours or so. But when I reached the end game, it all felt very disappointing and anti-climactic. My complains with the game are the same as many others here. Pros: 1. If you want to play the fantasy of being in the field with your soldiers, to craft yourself an army to take over the world, to create your own band of ruthless looters or conquering and unifying your own kingdom, then this game is for you! 2. Bannerlord shines on the field and that is enough to keep you hooked. Wanna be a tactician and control the high ground with your archers, your horse archers pepper and surround the army, while your cavalry prepare the perfect flank... check! Wanna do it yourself and be a one man doom-stack?... power to you! 3. The factions in this game present a very nice, good at something, hard countered by the other kinda promise. All factions have some broken units and some trash ones. This gives you enough motivation to pick the best of all worlds. With some terribly balanced exceptions (looking at you Khan's guards) you've got a good playground to work with. 4. Some set pieces are utterly insane when they play out. I remember holding a bridge with my infantry while my archers did the killing. Freaking 300 style battle with me holding the line with my nordic shield brothers against empire scum. I've had some of the most memorable fights in this game. 5. The combat, although simple, it is nuanced enough to hold it's own. It's challenging enough to make you very angry at the beginning but once you get the hang of it, you'll be unstoppable. You can still be swarmed and maimed if you're not careful or take an accidental arrow to the face or a couch lance to the body. 5. Mods, yes mods! I love the bannerlord community because it has given me the enjoyment past the 30 or so hours I spent on vanilla. I still recommend people give vanilla a try first and then go for modded playthroughs after. All in all fun. But... CONS!!! I'm sure the community has a lot of these but I'll just mention things I had a problem with... 1. Economy- The economy of this game is a chocolate covered onion. On the outside you see caravans move, shops restock, villages send peasants to the town to sell what they've made. In the end it's all a scam. Towns get money magically at regular intervals, a town you've just starved out a couple of days ago is doing fantastic business. Villages never make more than a 1000 gold event though you've just sold them the best gear in the whole game as charity. Don't even get me started on setting up your own caravans for trade. 2. War and AI- The best way to describe war in this game is to call it an elaborate prank between high nobles. They'll be warrin one day and the next day right after some territory is exchanged... Peace. No long term rivalry or dispositions. Hell you yourself can kill somebody's sibling and if your relationship is high enough after you peace out of a war, they'll treat you with a "How do you do?" 3. Kingdom management: This was the endgame I was talking about. Eventually you'll have a kingdom, call it whatever you want. But since you'll get so filthy rich already by that point (Even before you've started your kingdom) there'll be very little for you to worry about money wise. I feel like kingdoms were the perfect opportunity for this cash sink but no... they can take care of themselves and as long as you can pay for each place's garrison... You're good. No court to rule, no decisions apart from bugged policies that are basically buff/debuff combos for your kingdom. I find it to be so shallow. All that's left after this is to snowball and paint the world of calradia with your banner colors. This is the point where I just start a new campaign. Conclusion: No matter what my issues are with this game. It has given me moments of extreme enjoyment. There's a ton of content out there for you to see and make up your mind about getting this game... but it's like no other I've played before. I find that there is a masterpiece somewhere in there and I can't wait for this team to chisel that out... eventually.
Cool Idea, but this game is poorly designed and balanced. - Most skills take an absurdly long time to level up. Like smithing seems like it would need 2000 hours of play time to finish. - AI Diplomacy. The friendly clans will declare war for no reason. factions will declare war even though they stand 0 chance, or have easier clans to fight with. - AI Clan. Your own clan could be engaged in a 5 way war, barely surviving, and they will nag about starting a war with yet another clan. Non-compliance will lower their rep with you. -AI reputation system. Investing in your nobles takes a lot of time and resources. yet at max rep, they will still randomly leave your clan. - Inconsistent recruitment methods with NPCs. Some prisoners in your party can be talked to and recruited. many others, need to be placed in a castle prison, then you walk in there (first person), and try to talk to them in their cell. you cant open the door so if some NPCs are at the back, you lose. - AI retreating. Sometimes your retreating units ignore the map border next to them, and instead 'retreat' across the map, and through the enemy line. (getting slaughtered) - Ending Wars does not show its terms. The screen will lock you in, and cant see if you are agreeing to pay a tribute or have any control over that. you just click yes/no and live with the pain. - As king, assigning your castles to nobles is highly restrictive. When you capture a castle, you are forced to give it to one of 3 random clans. Some clan names never come up and cant grow. - First person combat is poor, but looks cool. Getting hit cancels your attack swing, making many weapons near useless. a dagger can stun lock an NPC with its speed. - Siege warfare doesnt allow you to build siege engines at start of war. While you are forced to build tents and camp, even the weakest enemy will have ample time to fully deck out their walls with the finest weapons. THEN you can start building your first weapon. (which will get smashed the second it comes online)
I like this game. Unlike real life I can have a wife and make lots of money.
It's an ok game that needs mods to be really good. Too bad modding is really hard since the game itself is reallu bugged and devs keep releasing tons of patches that add little to no content, break mods and add new bugs. The whole experience ends up being really frustrating. Get it on a sale or just dont get it.
it's one of the best strategy medieval games. because you can command your troops while being on the battlefield, unlike Total War games. I don't regret spending any cent on this game the 50 euros was worth it. And even if you have a Potato PC you still can lower the graphics and the game will work well. trust me I have one.
I love this game so much
I really wanted to love this game. Its beautiful, and the parts that have flesh on their bones are great. Its just that that's the issue in the end as it only serves to highlight the 80% of the game that lacks attention, care, or investment of any kind from the developers. The world feels empty, the vast majority of npc interactions are either completely missing/empty, or broken. All this could be fixable with mods, however it seems no longer feasible to mod this game. I have reinstalled many versions of the game, and each time I've tried any mod it crashes upon launch. Communication from the dev team seems to be sparse with the modding community. Combined with the apparent lack of effort on the part of the dev team to fix or address what players have been asking for since day 1. You guys used to put your souls into these games, what happened?
love it!
No kidding, I have 1300+ play hours, but now I still have to sadly say this game is not recommend in my point of view. The vanilla is fun in the begin stage of single campaign, but once you raise as kingdom you will find this game is actually still in early access. Turn out, you have to rely on mods to complete the missing parts in diplomatic, faction, economy, and AI. And after short time of play, a single small pointless patch can screw up all your mods and your game can't run anymore. Unfortunately, I really can't recommend this game. May I will change my review once TaleWorlds finally finished the game in the future...in 2032? Who knows...
It's a great, if a bit buggy game if you aren't into the franchise. Fun and great to experience such a unique game and vivid world. Nothing quite like this and will definitely make an impression on you if this is your first time playing. If you're a fan of the series though, there's a laundry list of problems that TaleWorlds has truly fucked up on. - Day 1 bugs (looking at you, siege) - AI cannot disband armies by themselves - Devs removed the only way you can sort units into categories in favour of a dumbed-down "optimised" version Now your wildlings will stand in the same group as legionaries, with no player agency in our own party organisation. - Warband had a system where you could order lords to patrol an area, you can't here so have fun with AI lords doing jack all to help you defend from the 20 something raids - Devs made a crossbow unit with a pavise! Quite early on too! The AI still can't use the pavise 2 years in though, so what's the bloody point? A mod from Warband well over 10 years ago solved this with an extremely simple solution, yet devs cannot do this? And more... For a game that is well over 2 years since release, yet still a bug ridden experience, feels like an unpolished product, with AAA price tags, and regressing in some features. I cannot recommend this to you in good faith if you are a warband enjoyer. If this is your first Mount and Blade game, by all means, try it. If it isn't then perhaps wait until TaleWorld gets off their butts and wake up, before considering investing your cash.
as of 2023 I do NOT recommend you buy this game. just look at the 2016 trailers, they sold a game they never made, even some of the screenshots are very hard/impossible to replicate. This game as the single most obnoxious character creator EVER, EVERYONE LOOKS THE FUCKING SAME, its like the whole Calradia is closely related to each other. And oh, don't get me started on cut content, we were suposed to have full control on this sandbox game, Create Villages/towns/Castles, yet none of this is possible. Not only that, the only single saving feature was the modding community, and since the early access started, there has't been one beneficial update to that community, in fact, there were several instances of the devs removing indexes(basically what gamefile can be modded) and completely breaking mods that were being developed by years. As per usual, Talewords disappointed. So much were promissed, so much is being charged, and to be honest, there is nothing there.
Alexander the Great simulator
Great game but baffles me as to the utter disregard of the fans and players opinions on wanting coop. Do better give the people what they want. doing so would for one bring back a bunch of the player base and two would bring in lots of new players just because of this feature alone.
There's a really great game in here somewhere that is desperate to get out, but after five previous releases Bannerlord amounts to putting a new coat of paint on a rusted old junker and declaring it good as new. The fun parts of the game are overshadowed by poorly implemented game elements that have existed from the beginning. The developers have forged ahead with blinders on, refusing to address any of the series' shortcomings. Users are expected to waste hundreds of hours on this game for very little progress and spend most of their time watching their party ride across the map. For some reason even the fast forward button is slow as hell. There is a lot of room for quality of life improvements to make the game less of a headache for users. A few simple changes would save users hundreds of hours, but it's like they want you to waste your time. After hundreds of hours you will continue to discover really basic and life changing techniques and concepts that should have been more obvious or not included in the design to begin with (like there being different kinds of horses and knowing how many of each kind are needed to make your forces move across the campaign map at a slightly less slow speed).
the game isnt terrible but its not worth 30-60 bucks. it looks and sounds good, but it dosnt play as well as older games.
The campaign is probably some of the most boring shit ever. It is just a big loop of the same thing over and over again. Your faction then gets 10 towns, then you lose 3, then you win 3, keeps going like this for 20 hours of gameplay. If you start to get ahead other factions will bully you and vice versa. The multiplayer part is however very fun!
Finish the game you losers. Its so bare bones. How is this final product the culmination of all your work? The developers should be ashamed of themselves.
Maybe stop releasing "updates" that do nothing but fix a few bugs but completely fuck up every mod? Literal years of this shit; every couple months, all mods get fucked for no reason, to the point that some mod makers have thrown up their hands and given up because they're tired of having to rework them constantly.
Diplomacy is fucking broken, AI will literally constantly and relentlessly war you and demand fucking absurd levels of tribute for peace, even if you have half their nobility captive and they're being invaded by another kingdom. Also because how the AI measures power, every single neighboring kingdom will declare war on you if one declares war. Even if you somehow manage to get peace that doesn't involve paying tribute out the ass, they will declare war on you again at the first opportunity they get, restarting the whole process. I'm not even losing, I'm just sick of war and I'd just like a second of peace to run my cities that isn't bought by paying 10k in tribute per day.
When i was 16 i won a great victory..
Suddenly cant play the game anymore, tried every fix on the internet and nothing worked :(
So much potential but they left 99% of it out of the game. Battles are cool and that's it. Dialogue sucks, your companions suck, running a kingdom sucks, being part of a kingdom sucks, quests suck, starting a family sucks, crafting sucks, city management sucks. I could go on. If you can get it on sale for like $30 then I think it's worth it as the early game is great fun with hard battles and when you do your first siege it's super exciting. From there though, there's nothing.
The devs will without fail choose to add the dumbest things and refuse to fix the simplest things. Things that are broken include: sieges diplomacy combat unit types economy the story sandbox mode trade routs unit AI armor weapons combat archery medical in fact i cant think of a single part of the game that is in a good state.
Ultimately I enjoy playing the game, but I have huge reservations in recommending it. Fundamentally the combat is unique, and the experience of starting out is fun. However, the mid to late game is a terrible grind due to baffling decisions such as having enemy lords escape _within days_, and enemy armies teleporting to crisis spots . Some great mods exist, but this should not in any way be required. I think the overall issue here is that the devs have created branched features and have no clue how to integrate them. They let you capture, but don't know how to deal with the impact on wars. They let you smith, but don't know how to balance that with the wider economy. These are tough questions, no doubt, but - and I can't overemphasise this - they are charging big trousers money. PUT ON YOUR BIG TROUSERS AND SORT IT OUT. Thumbs up for potential. But feeling pessimistic as of now.
Still crashes
Big thanks to Taleworlds, because nobody else is making the digital crack called Mount & Blade, one of the most addicting game series ever. Strategy games are cool and all, but why play pure RTS when you can combine it with 1st or 3rd person action, and command your troops in person while ploughing through a line of archers on your heavily armored steed, or being among the first up the ladders when conquering a variety of picturesque castles and cities? Bannerlord is what the fans know and love with classic M&B vanilla Warband, but simply puts it in a modern coat of paint and polishes the rough edges a bit. There are still issues, like diplomacy being basic, some of which can be remedied with modding. The modding selection isn't as amazing yet as it is for Warband, especially when it comes to gigantic overhaul mods, but once Taleworlds puts the final stamp on the game, hopefully the modding scene will flourish as it once did. But even unmodded, you can have hundreds of hours of fun with Bannerlord. I'd recommend playing vanilla first anyway, to get a sense of what you'd want to modify to begin with.