The war with Swadia has been an interesting one. Our alpha strike on them was devastating, as we took Curaw and Denin almost immediately (I sieged Denim myself, and was later awarded the city). We also took various castles and their associated villages. They were shortly cleared from the north. They also suffered heavy losses in a number of large (300+ soldiers) open-field battles, and collectively we captured a half-dozen or so of their lords.
I captured the king of Swadia myself when his 200 or so lesser-trained army came across my 100+ elite force. At the start of the battle I positioned my archer on a hill overlook the rest of the field, with my infantry hidden behind and my cavalry to the side. The king slowly moved his forces towards us, but I had my archers hold their fire until the enemy was well within range to conserve ammo. As the king did not do the same, most of his early fire missed, and I believe towards the end of the ranged exchange some of his forced could no longer fire.
As he finally advanced, he was peppered with arrows and bolts, and then I had my infantry charge. As the two meet, myself and the cavalry came in from the side, crushing his weakened melee units and then turning to make quick work of his remaining ranged force. His reinforcements would arrive only to find the initial force decimated, and they would soon break and attempt to flee. Most did not make it, including the king himself. With their leader locked away in a dungeon, Swadia was battered and ready for elimination.
Unfortunately right after this battle the Khergit Khanate declared war on us. Due to most of our forced being positioned near the middle of the map, their strike from the west was meet with little resistance, and along with some castles, they successfully sieged the city of Khudan from me. The city of Reyvadin also fell, and along with it my hamlet Ulburban.
What followed was a half-hearted defense, were we would engage with the Khans long enough to push them back, but could never muster enough power to take back significant territory. Whenever a force was raised, some Swadian lord would lay siege to something, forcing me to return to the center to deal with them. This stalled war would continue until the Sarranids declared war on the Khans, which resulted in their attention being split and allowing us to return our focus to Swadia.
As I was training up a new force to reclaim Khudan, our king declared a truce with the Khans, meaning their territory was temporarily safe from our assaults. While their presence in the north was unfortunate, it would at least allow us to return our full focus to Swadia.
I gathered two lords and together we sieged the city of Suno. Suno and Denin are perhaps the two most centrally located cities, and due to this they are economic powerhouses. I already owned Denin, and I wanted Suno. The siege itself was rather easy, as the defense was light and my 30+ Nord Huscarls made short work of them; first using their throwing axes to clear the walls, then storming up the siege ladders protected by their giant shields. En-mass, they are a very difficult force to stop, and they chew up lesser units with ease.
I was shortly awarded Suno, but it proved very difficult to control. Whenever I would travel outside, some Swadian lord would lay siege to it and force me to return. This back and forth, cat and mouse game meant I could not push further or assist in other conquests. To further complicate matters, the kingdom of Rhodoks declared war on us, and they picked the area around Denin to focus on, quickly capturing a castle right next to the city. As I could not afford to lose Denin, I spent the next week or so doing nothing but traveling back and forth between the two cities, breaking up one siege after another. While always successful in combat, the casualties started to pile up, and I never got a chance to visit some villages to recruit fresh troops.
One battle in particular was extremely costly. Just outside Denin, I fought a large force of Rhodok lords and ended up having more than half my force killed, with most of the casualties being expensive elite units. The garrison in Denin was getting weak, and contained a mixed collection of mercenaries and various soldiers from other kingdoms; certainly not the building blocks for a solid offensive force. With some desperation, I attempted to venture back towards Nord lands and quickly recruit from some of the villages. I went out with just a few elite mounted units and my companions, and soon had over 50 fresh recruits headed back to Denin.
Unfortunately we got caught by a strong Swadian force, and the fight did not go well. The fresh recruits were butchered, and one by one my companions were swarmed and taken down. With no escape, I took as many as I could, but soon my horse was shot out from under me, and then it was only a matter of time before I too was surrounded. Captured, we were taken to a nearby Swadian castle and put in the dungeon.
Luckily during this time the other Nord lords protected both Suno and Denin, and when I finally escaped I was able to head to Suno and pull its garrison out. Only three of my eleven companions made it out with me, and the rest were still locked up.
With a force gathered, it was time for a rescue.
Hardcore Casual 
This warband story series has been excellent. You inspired me to pick it up again. It had been gathering dust in my steam account. Also, I recommend TweakMB, if only for the reason that it can make cattle follow you!
I already have a plan for the next game.
I’m going to use the latest version of the Floris expanded mod, and play a poor-history thieving female who (hopefully) will eventually rise to start a new kingdom, using the connections and money she made while living the life of a mercenary for hire. Along with the mod I’m also going to set the difficulty to max (player damage, troop damage, AI, etc)
Need to finish my current game first though.
Thanks for the series Syn … haven’t picked up Warband but was a great fan of the original M&B.
Strikes me as wonderfully ironic that an indy game designer team succeeded where the Total War franchise has consistently failed again and again with a budget many times the size.
Quality is elusive.
Failed? What exactly has TW failed at?
You can’t seriously be comparing the 2 games.
TW is a combination of RTS battle sim and TBS empire building. Neither are much like M&B whatsoever though.
Even the RTS elements – the only part you could be realistically comparing – are very different. In TW you have total control over every unit and watch the battle from a birds eye view, like a traditional strategy game such as AoE, sans the unit-building of course.
M&B’s battles are more like a mixture of 50% Dynasty Warriors and 50% AoE. You control your units much more loosely (and prob realistically), and much more of the gameplay is personal combat.
I digress. Basically my point is that M&B succeeded where…they succeeded, not where anyone else failed. Its a very unique blend of gameplay and its real comparison to TW is that they both strive for a form of realism.
In fact, the only way I can make sense of your comment is that you were speaking of Spartan: Total Warrior as Creative Assembly’s failure. Its the only game they have made that is comparable to M&B.
p.s. Sounds like someone is very jaded. You sound like a TW-fanboi gone wrong to me. Can I ask which TW turned you off from the franchise?
I haven’t played Napo/Empire yet personally, but they like the rest of the franchise scored amazing in reviews.
The TW franchise is one of the most solid in PC gaming. Every game has been well-made and successful, and they have carved a niche in the market.
M&B has also carved a niche…but a different one.
Like the story, considering picking this up.
What would be really useful would be some information on how some of these “happenings” for lack of a better word actually happen within the game. Like when you were married, how does this happen on the screen? A storyboard with a few clicks? Is it graphically represented somehow or did you actually take care of all this with your avatar in full game mode? For wars, do you really fight in all them? It sounds like you can choose to do that or just send forces somehow and get updates on whether they win or lose the battle?
So much going on, just real interested in how a lot of this stuff actually happens “mechanically” and how it is represented graphically as you play the game.
Most battles I actually fight in-game (unless its something like 130-20 in my favor, then I let my men ‘auto-fight’ it). I can’t send armies to spots I don’t go to (yet?). Other battles happen between various lords without me of course. If someone sieges a castle I own and I don’t get to it, it uses the troops in the garrison for the fight to determine the result.
The marriage: first you build up rep with the lord who gives away the lady, and the lady herself (quests, helping the lord in a battle, stuff like that). Once the rep is high enough (depends on some other factors as well), you can ask the lady, and if she accepts, tell the lord. If the lord accepts, at a later date there is a feast and during that it’s made official (with a cool in-game video of the whole thing). Then the lady lives in whatever castle/city you own, and can do some special stuff (different quests, hosting a feast, etc).
So most of it is through the chat system, although to chat with them you have to go in person to the castle they are at. The quests it all depends on what you get.
Very cool reading :)
Is there a guide you’re using? For example, I don’t know how to split my troops my type.
Most of my game has consisted of recruiting peasants, getting them up a few levels, then getting decimated. Rinse and repeat. But I do love my two handed axe. When I lost my first really good axe, I figured I’d just pick up another, but the replacement has different timing stats, which makes a BIG difference when timing your swing while charging on horseback.
No guide, just learning as I go :)
there are the “order buttons” F1 to F3. in pressing “1” to “3” before them you can chose whom to give the order. in order to set the trap. Sync probably ordere all archers to stay put at the top of the hill and hold fire. Ordered all Infantry to defend a point at the flank in going there and giving the order there. Finally he commanded the cavalry to cover the other flank.
There are a lot of ways to use the different terrain. If im not fighting in Rhodok country I usually have everyone follow me and head for the next hill. Always try to make the computer attack you uphill.
I’m probably just past where you are in the game, so this will probably help you:
Noob Tips
1) Choose your battles
-Right off the bat, its easy to get tricked into fights that you can’t win, and often. The problem being that you see all these lords with anywhere from 40 to 200 troops, but a great many on the lower end. And when you get your first army of 60-80 up, you can take out those armies of 40 right?
-Wrong. Pay close attention to which units are in the enemy force. If you have mostly peasants or even the first few upgrades, and the force has a small band of knights, they will wipe you out as you say
-So basically, you don’t want to fight other lords by yourself yet. If you really want to fight in the “war”, follow your allies until they engage a foe. When you come to their aid, not only do you stand a much better chance of winning, but the lords you come to the aid of will be very grateful.
-But the ideal enemies initially are your Sea Raiders and Bandits.
2) Timing attacks from horseback
-Not sure if you know this, but if you hold down the LMB it “chambers” (word?) your attack. This means that attacking takes a fraction of the time, as you simply release the button (dropping your sword down) rather than timing the whole process.
-Might change your timing, but essentially you are just taking the 1st part of the process and making it happen way before you actually attack
-If you haven’t been doing this, it *will* make things 10x easier for you attacking from horseback
3) Building up an Army
-At first your force will be made up wholly of green recruits, and thats fine. But the easy way to quickly inject the units you really want is mercenaries.
-This is because as Syncaine said, you can get merc horseman. For the early-game, this is the one of only 2 viable sources of cavalry, and cavalry are a major factor in combat. So every time you can check the tavern, and always get horsemen if they are available (other troops your call).
-The other source is Companions, although to really outfit a decent group of them won’t be possible yet. You do want to get them ASAP though, if only to max their xp and use their skills
4) Skills/Companions
-This is probably obvious, but you personally should only invest in Leader/Personal Skills. Your Party should get just that, Party Skills as with them you will never need to waste points on these skills.
-The most skills to get initially are Leadership/Prisoners, and whatever combat skills you need. For companions: Surgery, Path-finding, Spotting, Tactics and Wound Treatment are all important.
-You wont need trade, tracking, or looting beyond perhaps 1 point in tracking.
Tactics Explained (There is a lot of confusion with this skill, but its quite simple): The Tactics score of each side is compared and determines how many troops each side actually gets to fight with.
Example: Side#1 has 100 troops and Tactics 8, Side#2 has 100 troops and Tactics 4. So when the battle begins, #1 starts with 100 troops and #2 with say 50.
-Additionally, when your army fights without you in the battle, the Tactics skill determines aftermath losses.
-This skill does not affect morale whatsoever.
5) Making Money
-While looting is a quick and easy way to make cash, be careful. A looted village means you get negative Rep with them. A negative Rep means they will stop volunteering for your army…
-And keep in mind, you can recruit from any village in any nation, so you really are burning some bridges by looting extensively.
-Ideally, looting will take place in an area you know you will never plan on expanding too that is not directly on your border.
-Furthermore, containing looting to a set “loot-zone”, an area where you loot repeatedly. This means that instead of spreading out negative Rep so that there are many village that hate you, you have a few villages that hate you a lot. In game terms the hatred is the same either way..so you see how this is good.
-Quests, Trade, and Prisoners are other easy ways. Prisoners are very good if you plan on sticking to combat, as the return is reliable and quite decent.
note: Ransoming nobles might seem like a great idea, but warning: they can and DO escape, often. Basically, you can do 1 of 2 things with a captured noble (and each have benefits): 1) Ransom. This will gain you a large sum, but you stand a great risk of him escaping any point along the way, especially if you dont have a castle. I would stay away until from this until you do.
-However, option 2) Releasing Prisoner is good too. It is one of the most reliable ways of boosting Honor, another key stat. Releasing will continually boost your Rep/Honor, and if you ever plan on being a king, its great to have good relationships with fighting lords (make sure not to loot their towns too though..)
Excellent tips. I’d figured most of this out but was still struggling to make money and restarting to try different things.
Anyone have any advice on finding bandits?
Thank you! Some of this I’d realized, some I hadn’t. Holding your attack in readiness is very important, but the weapons timing attribute still affects the remaining swing, especially when riding at full speed after that escaping archer. It’s a good feeling when they go down and your soldiers all cheer.
M&B is without a doubt the best hack and slash game made. I highly recommend checking out some of the complete over haul mods. Back in the 5 year or so beta there was a great Lord of the Rings mod, that unfortunately was lost in a transition to a new version, but I’m sure the enthusiastic community has been hard at work cranking new ones out. I also remember an awesome samurai mod, as well as a Napoleonic war mod.
+1 for actually writing about this highly underrated and largely unknown gem.
I can’t imagine playing just for the combat personally, to me its great because of the blend of game-types to create something unique. The combat is really cool, but not a game in and of itself to me.
Your stories and descriptions are a lot more interesting than the gameplay videos on Youtube :P
Now now Tipa, what game DOES look more fun on youtube?
WoW?
LEEEEEEEEEEEERRRROOOOYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY
Please let us know how the mod pack works out and maybe an overview of all it does. After reading your series I purchased the game and am having a blast with it.