Mount and Blade

[Cyrene]

I have flummoxed a few folks entering GW and discovering my controller (all worship the n52) is set for the wrong game by saying something along of the lines of “be back in a sec, my dang controller is still set on m&b”.

What is M&B?


M&B is Mount and Blade.

http://www.taleworlds.com/index.html

This is a funky funky tech-demo-mod-platform masquerading as a game beta. It is, erm, funky. The graphics are last-gen. The towns are barely functional. The initial tutorial fight for newbies is insanely hard for newbies. The area outside of town is only a large overall traveling map (that is really odd at first, but you get used to it. almost). The combat is sublime.

It is the anti-button-push-for-da-win. You have to manually block. You have to manually pick your attack stroke angle. And the mounted combat…

Ah, the mounted combat.

The mounted combat is somehow insanely fun. Just insanely fun. Why don’t other games have mounted combat?

Did I mention it was insanely fun?


Cantering across the landscape, gaining speed, couching your lance, and BOOM down the miscreant goes, pivot and raise your shield against arrows as you gallop off, get out of arrow range, turn, pick up speed, couch, and BOOM!

Ahhhhh.


Take off your armor, grab your bow, and ride circles around the enemy pouring arrows into the mob. I am a Mongol! Fear me!


OTOH, don’t try to lance uphill, you run out of steam, and aiming is tricky downhill, and og help you if you run into the middle of a few foot soldiers and lose momentum—they will drag you off your horse and beat you to death in a heartbeat.

Oh, and an incoming archer headshot will drop you, so you have to evaluate the risk/reward on keeping a shield up until the moment of lance impact and screwing up your aim, or running shield down and lining things up but risking the end-game head shot.

Oh man it can be addicting.

Twitch.

Demo is free and caps you at lvl 6.

Documentation is via the forum stickies only, and is almost helpful.

Full “game” is $14.

I have to go now, I have some lancing to do.

Twitch.

--Cy

[Lurker Wyrm]

Downloading... I'll try it sometime in the next few days before Suikoden V comes out, at which point even GW will take second chair.

Edit:
Ok, I'm hooked on the game. I can't say I really like the mounted (or unmounted for that matter) lance combat, probably because I can't seem to get it right. Every time I charge at full speed I either miss because of bad timing, get blocked (even though I remember reading in the game somewhere that a full charge can't be blocked, unless that's another thing I'm doing wrong), or do a less-than-encouraging amount of damage. Mounted sword so far is my best event and the one I enjoy the most.

Archery leaves a bit to be desired, but then again, it does in every game. Arrows are really expensive and the quivers just don't hold enough arrows to use on a regular basis. They also seem to miss a lot more than they should. I've shot arrows that look like they're going right through a chest or head and haven't gotten anything, which can get frustrating, especially against moving targets. Also, if you're an archer on the ground and someone comes into melee range, you're dead; your attacks will be continuously interrupted while you take damage over and over until you drop.

Aside from the tournament in the starting city, I'm a little lost as to what I'm supposed to be doing. I've got the river bandits quest, and I'm having fun tearing them to pieces. I've got a small infantry unit at my command, as well as a permanent additional character, but finding units worth adding to the roster is really time consuming. I'm not sure if joining one of the factions will change who I can recruit, or what that will do in general, so I'm staying neutral for the time being.

Making money is also a bit of an issue. Right now, the only real way of earning the cash to maintain an army is to fight in the tournament and bet on yourself, which nets 29 gold per win. Trading can be effective, but takes a very long time and requires you to have some money to begin with. I did, however, make a list of what cities buy high/sell low, since that appears to be static:
City.............Buy.......................Sell
Uxkahl..........Smoked Fish...........Wheat
Tulga...........Tools*, Wheat........Spice
Praven.........Spice....................Ale
Khudan.........Ale.......................Furs
Suno............Furs......................Oil
Rivacheg.......Oil........................Dried Meat
Curaw..........Dried Meat.............Iron
Sargoth........Iron.....................Linen
Halmar..........Linen...................Pottery
Jelkela..........Pottery.................Velvet
Reyvadin.......Velvet..................Wool
Tihr..............Wool....................Smoked Fish

Salt Mine..................................Salt
Zendar..........Salt.....................Tools

Veluca..........Dried Meat.............Wine
Wercheg.......Wine.....................Smoked Fish

*The Zendar merchant says Tulga will buy Tools at a high price, however, the Tulga merchant doesn't mention it in his blurb and I didn't check the price there vs. elsewhere.

Edit 2:
Ok, so after reading that the key to couched lance attacks was that you don't charge in and press attack, but rather just run right through the enemy, I've gotten pretty good at it, taking out other mounted knights on horseback (gave me 143 exp each). My peasants keep getting wiped out though.

I also tried out joining the Vaegir, so that opened up a few more options in terms of quests and such, not sure how that'll all play out though.

Thus far, my overall impression is that it's a fun game but I'm not sure there's enough in it (content or polish) to merit buying a license.

[Cyrene]

Oh, it is definately not a full game, and I don't ever see it being one.

I guess I'm mainly entranced by the mounted combat.

This game does not reward diversity--mounted archery takes a substantial points investement to actually, well, work

It is pretty useless at lower levels.

I'm running two chars atm.

My first and favorite is a pure horse fighter. Lancing and mouted archery. If she gets unhorsed, she is dead. No extra points yet for any survival skills on foot, and she has no room for for weapons with her slots filled (lance, shield, bow, quiver).

At times this gets frustrating to me, with the long pass times of lancing and the circling archering stuff.

So my second char is a slash horseman with thrown. Shield, bastard sword (works decently on horseback and decent on foot), thrown weapon. This is a lot quicker in easy fights slashing from horseback, and, since I'm bound to get dumped from time to time working at lower speeds, capable of dealing on foot.

Still, a studly knight is going to get thrashed by 4 peasants with pitch forks.

I haven't gotten around to raising an army yet--solo is fun. I'm still learning what I can and can't do. Diving into a big fight with allies is fun, though.

The game is far from a total win. I love the mounted combat, and the way the game treats numbers. It gets old in other games being able to take on 4 mobs and win. Combat is a touch more serious in M&B.

YMMV, and it is free to try and runs on almost anything

--cy

[Lurker Wyrm]

I haven't gotten around to raising an army yet--solo is fun. I'm still learning what I can and can't do. Diving into a big fight with allies is fun, though.

When you do, get as many watchmen as you can early on, they upgrade to Caravan Guards which gives you a mounted unit while you're waiting for the Footmen to upgrade to Veterans and eventually Men at Arms and (I think, not so sure though) Knights. The Skirmishers (the other upgrade option with Footmen) may get better in time, but their accuracy is pretty dismal and not worth it.

YMMV, and it is free to try and runs on almost anything

Free to try, yeah, but when you do army battles instead of just the arena, you're going to find yourself getting to level 6 (and being kicked out of the game) faster than you can recruit both of the heroes (well, at least the two I've found so far). I got a male hunter (that wound up looking like an Arab, which was really nice) and a court lady (starts with the best horse and makes a good leader) to level 6 within a matter of hours. If I do another character I'll probably try sending them into battle without me to decrease the amount of experience I gain (can also get money easily by betting on the arena without participating).

I may consider getting it when it's released, but right now it's just a good demo.

P.S.- Make sure you get your prisoner management skill to at least 2. I got a pretty decent mace from the spoils of a battle decided to try it out. I was knocking people out at a pretty steady rate; at one point I had a train of 7 prisoners collected just from the parties that were on my way to the next town.

Also, unless you're really good at the whole couched lance thing (which I'm not), stay as far away from Black Knights as you can. They're usually in groups of at least 10, and are all mounted. They also have a tendency to take pretty much everything you've got in inventory and gold (including horse and food) as well as take your entire army prisoner when they win.

[aarongman]

Here is an interesting article with some stuff on Mount and Blade that you might find interesting.

Mount and Blade

[Zalson]

I must say, this game is rather addicting. Nothing like riding around lopping off heads.

Currently, I have a standard knight character (lance, shield, scimitar) who carries around a bow in his pack (inventory management can do wonders). He's training up a small army of Swadians (I just passed the threshold which puts bandit numbers at 30, so I do a LOT of running away).

Second char is a hunter, with a bow, arrow, shield and sword. The game is very realistic in the sense that w/o a shield, you are dead.

Third char is a priest, and though he's a low-level, he is actually a hoot to play. Levels seem to be just right, as per enemy size and stuff.

This game, while the complete lack of a story is tiresome, is to be used, I feel, to simply engage in that tireless profession called "Hack 'n' Slash." However, I very much enjoy the realism thrown in.

[Lurker Wyrm]

For those interested, Mount and Blade has been released in its finished form. If you're looking to buy a copy, Steam had it on sale (not sure if it still is, though) for $7.50 or you can look for a copy at GameStop/EB; they have it marked down to $5. I just got it there but have only had about an hour or so to play.

Edit: Wow... didn't realize the thread was that necrotic.

[Cyrene]

Edit: Wow... didn't realize the thread was that necrotic.

Zombie thread!

Brains.....Brains.....

Heh.

I ought to check it out. Actually, I have a license from way-back-when, so the update to final should be free. For me, the reason the game was fun was as a proof-of-concept of mixed mounted/foot combat that was done fairly well, but most other games shy away from (for good reason, from my experience playing M&B, by the way--mounted couched-lance charges were a blast, but computer-monitor tunnel vision made it problematic [and a wide 3rd-person camera would have killed the excitement]--ditto with mounted archery). Still, the MOB AI was a pleasant change. Nothing like the MOBs banding together and trying for the high ground (as opposed to pretending not to notice as you knock them off one-by-one in plain sight in most games).

Speaking of, I'm starting to twitch for WoW again. I got out a while back a few months after Burning Crusade came out when I just slowly browned out, which was (erm...) almost 2 years ago?

Twitch.

Somewhere, my Feral Druid Cow is patiently waiting for me.

Twitch.

Must. Not. Give. In.

--Cy

Twitch.

[Lurker Wyrm]

I'm having a blast with the game right now. Couched lance damage is insane and lets me win battles when I'm outnumbered 3:1, which is happening more and more as I lead a bit of a rebellion. Also, Heavy Charger = trampled infantry, you go right through them.

The game is a little odd on the difficulty scaling, though. Back when I wasn't aligned with any faction I had my band on knights and archers and we went around beating people up. Now that I'm aligned with a faction and have been doing sieges (both offense and defense) I find myself spending a lot of my free time getting recruits to keep my numbers up (as well as selling all the battle loot and going to nearby tournaments when I can to keep my funds up).

The non-linearity of it is also a little... odd. Not having an endgame is both kinda neat and at the same time leaves a bit to be desired. You can end your adventures whenever you want and the game is supposed to give you a writeup of how you did and what you did after you retire (that's what the manual says anyways) but it just feels a little strange playing a game where I know I won't have a finish line.

For the GW-inclined: I made a kinda sorta paragon-like char, as in I've got throwing spears and I'm constantly shouting orders to my army in battle (well, sorta... you give orders by clicking on an option... but they're displayed as shouts so that kinda counts). I do spend most of my time with a lance, though.

[Lurker Wyrm]

Small update: It looks as though M&B Will be getting an expansion possibly this summer which will add multiplayer. Read more about it here. This could make things pretty interesting. Anyone else have or getting the game? If there's enough interest we could possibly get some friendly sieges going.