Mount & Blade

O

otsego

First time out of the vault
I've noticed that Steam has this game I've never heard of -- Mount & Blade -- up for sale for $4.99, for this weekend only.

Apparently it was released a year ago and features sandbox gameplay and horseback-fighting action. The metascore isn't too bad either (72, which usually tells me "it could be unique, it has some flaws, and the mainstream press didn't praise the crap out of it meaning it might have some good niche appeal").

Anyone played it? I'm tempted to pick it up just for its price, but I would like some opinions from some of you who might have been playing it for a while, or just picked it up and are impressed given its value.
 
Quite fun, the mounted combat was awesome - especially once you master using the crossbow or bow. Hitting somebody in the head from all the way across the field on a fluke was always great. It got a little bit boring as it got fairly repetitive, but I might not have been varying up my play style enough. All in all I found it to be quite enjoyable, there was a new mod, or version, or expansion of some sort due out soon if it isn't already out. Certainly there was room for improvement, but for what it was I enjoyed.

I would definitely say it is worth the $4.99. Give it a try.

Protip: The Khergit horsemen kick teh ass.
 
I bought it way back when it was still in beta. They supported their development that way, you could buy the game before it was finished for a lower price, and you'd get the full game once it was finished.

The game is all about the combat, mounted or not, although if you aren't on a horse you might die very quickly. Archery is, as has been said, a hell of a lot of fun. Sure, it gets boring after a while, but the gameplay itself is very, very good. It has quite a steep learning curve, and thus it'll take quite a while before you actually will get bored; it'll take a while before you can actually hit stuff while riding on a horse. Apart from that, there's a huge mod community out there with both simple graphics improvements and complete overhauls, putting the game in periods like the wild west, the Hundred Years' War, some fantasy settings, and a lot of other stuff. If you can get it for only $5 then you pretty much have to get it.
 
otsego said:
Anyone played it?
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Did I play? Hell, yes, I played it. With patches and mods, it's one of the best tactical/action RPGs ever. There is also a multiplayer sequel on the way.
 
Mount and Blade is lots of fun for 5 bucks, even if it gets repetitive eventually. There are a few different fighting styles you can play with, and different mixes of troops at your command. I haven't played any mods yet but I imagine it would increase the lifespan further.
 
Definitely a worthy purchase.
I would go with a horse archer for a first character.

hehe I played the star wars mod for a while. I was such a badass sniper.
 
Five bucks? You can't go wrong.

Very very fun combat. Even after you get sick of it, you'll come back and play it again sooner or later. I wish it had more RPG elements, but still...

Get the battle-sizer mod and try attacking a castle with 200-300 soldiers in the battle at one time. Awesome.
 
Thanks for the responses all

I picked it up, and tried it out yesterday while I was supposed to be studying for an exam.

10 hours later...... I went to bed.

Addictive, wow!

It didn't take long to realize that the features other than combat were really shallow (covered pretty well in that GameBanshee review too, thanks for that) and even after doing wave after wave of enemy combat I still found myself roaming with the party looking for the next castle to siege.

I find it really difficult to maintain an army though. It seems my most experienced guys die quicker than the weaker fellas, leaving me running on a treadmill.

Is starting with rookies from the towns the only way to get your army up there? (I mean besides getting expensive guys from taverns, or stumbling upon captured friendlies from another lord... these are too rare to be reliable)

I'll soon be looking for mods to enhance the experience and maybe add something more to the emptiness outside of combat. Anyone with specific suggestions, please feel free :)
 
I find using orders helps keep my blokes alive. Usually telling them to stop on a hill or wait for the enemy to be crossing a river before charging really helps them stay alive.
Not sure about castle sieges though as I tended to steer clear of them after having a bad experience.
 
otsego said:
I find it really difficult to maintain an army though. It seems my most experienced guys die quicker than the weaker fellas, leaving me running on a treadmill.

Is starting with rookies from the towns the only way to get your army up there? (I mean besides getting expensive guys from taverns, or stumbling upon captured friendlies from another lord... these are too rare to be reliable)

I'll soon be looking for mods to enhance the experience and maybe add something more to the emptiness outside of combat. Anyone with specific suggestions, please feel free :)
Click to expand...

Check forums.taleworlds.net for answers to all your questions...

In short, troops high in your party list will fight earlier in battles more often, and die more often if you don't win wihtout reenforcements or if you don't have a companion with high surgery. Good tactics can save you a lot of troops I think. In sieges you're bound to lose a bunch most of the time.

Rookies is the only way to get lots of troops I think, unless you manage to find a weakened party with zounds of prisoners. If you have a well developed town as a fief you can get better than recruits, but not that much better afaik. I often hunt for parties that have defeated my allied lords to get a few free Knights/Marksmen/Huscarls. You can also recruit from your own prisoners of course, but the morale hit can be significant if your party is already very large.
 
I like to pick as many NPCs as I can get and level them up pretty high before I pick up any regular troops, but that makes for a long game. They're flat-out better than regulars and they don't get killed. They don't all get along, and some of them will leave the party unless you have really high leadership, but you can always pick them up again later when you run into them.

Once you have that core of levelled-up NPCs to lead your soldiers, you can start building a regular army.

BTW, in my experience the vanilla uber-build is the heavy horse archer. Get everyone heavy armor and a heavy charger (actually better than the champion charger, because it's cheaper, easier to find, and does more damage) and focus them on mounted archery and bows. For melee I like a two-handed blunt weapon. You give up couched lance damage (which your NPCs aren't good at anyway) but become better at close up fighting, even while mounted. Blunt lets you take prisoners too, which is very profitable.

This is the only kind of build that completely clobbers Khergit horse archers on their own turf, and a group of them simply massacres foot soldiers. They just ride right through the line. And they're good for sieges too, either side.
 
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