Mount And Blade Keep Getting Captured
The beginning is pretty slow, it isn't until you get roughly more than 10 guys to follow you (that are semi leveled up) before you can really start taking people on and building alot. I'm going to be honest, Mount and Blade only hits its best when you cheat. At least for me.I tried early on playing legit, but after I spend all of my gold on armor and weapons for me and didn't have enough to pay for food or wages for my men and they deserted.
After that I said fuck it and cheated the rest of the way.Just keep in mind, this game has ZERO story. You just do whatever the hell you want.Not true, actually.
There are many stories, and many more added in Sword and Fire, but you can still do fuck all and have your own awesome stories.OT:Some simple steps:Step 1. Go from village to village and recruit followers.Step 2. If you see bandits with the equal or lesser amount of soldiers, attack them.
Take as much loot as possible.Step 3. When fighting, make sure to control your soldiers properly. If you have archers, hold your men on a hill or something and let the enemy come to them. Your soldiers will do a lot more damage. As for you, when you start, always ride your horse.
If you have a bow (or musket), ride up the enemy, and take pot-shots. If you do not, do a few ride bys (as attacking from horse does a fair bit of damage) and even if you can't kill all of the enemies, they will eventually reach your soldiers and you will win!Step 4.
Go to the city and sell your loot. Buy some food if you have none.
At this point, you may want to buy Mercenaries from Inns/Taverns.Step 5. After you have a small group of soldiers, start going to Mayors, Elders, Kings and Lords to get quests. From there, choose one faction and work for it, to build up reputation.Step 6. Now, either ally yourself with them, work for them, work with the usurper of the king to make him king or rebel and try to make your own nation. Allying with a faction is the easiest way.That is the simple start.
Once you get more experience, you can try more difficult and fun things, like running a big merchant company, buying land, becoming a bandit. Mount and Blade is an awesome game. Tournaments are a good early game strategy.
Just go from city to city competing in the tournaments, betting in every round. Not only will your character gain experience and gold, but will also gain renown needed to join a faction. If you're impatient, you could just save before entering the tournament and keep re-loading until you win. Follow that guide, and you will have more money than you know what to do with.Once you have some troops together, regularly looting and raiding an enemy factions villages also helps with the income.
I've tried one of the games' demos before and it didn't run very well (old computer).I've got a new one now that should be able to run at least one of them.My question is, what would be the best one for a newcomer to the series?What I did play of the demo confused and overwhelmed me a bit. I really wan't to like this series, but I feel I need to dip my toe in first before deciding if I want to cannonball in.So which game is the most (oh noes, I'm bout to say it!) streamlined of the series? For clarification, I mean streamlined in the good way, that simplifies needlessly complex or obtuse things but still preserves depth of game play. Grind.That's the core of the game. Grind for money, grind for XP. Grind bandits, grind tournaments, grind quests, grind enemy factions.Make sure you get some companions and some troops.
The game isn't really viable playing solo. Even if you're somehow so good that you can take on hundreds of enemies alone, doing so would take hours.I strongly recommend either levelling up your 'surgery' or getting a permanent companion and levelling up their surgery skill. It causes friendlies who would otherwise die to have a high chance of merely being wounded. Cuts down on costs and grind a lot.
Also, level up everybody's 'training' skill as much as possible. It causes them to give large amounts of free XP to any troops of a lower level than themselves once per day.
Cuts down massively on XP grind and lets you level up your troops without having to risk them in battle while they still suck. As others in the thread have said it takes a bit of grinding.If you still want to practice combat yourself then finding a great way to both practice and train your weapon skills is to go to a city and use the practice brawls in the arena to get the hang of combat. It will raise your weapons skills if you do it for a while too which is usually what I do on a new game after not playing for a while.You have to manage your troops too though. If you just go from village to village recruiting you can get a lot but you will mostly just have a bunch of untrained peasants who won't be that useful in battle. You also want to watch how many you have, if you have more troops then it takes more to pay all their wages and to buy enough food, it also gets harder to keep morale up when you have a lot of troops.The hardest part of the games is when you have got enough troops that bandits are hard to catch and don't yield enough rewards to keep you going.
It's around here that you will want to join a kingdom. Choose who you want and do tasks for their king and nobles, eventually they will offer to hire you as a mercenary and pay you each week which really helps with your troop costs.After you work for them long enough, especially if you help them in large battles or the capture of towns/castles, the king will offer to make you a vassal. Once a vassal you will need to capture some kind of town or castle and then hope the king decides to grant it to you. Usually the kings try to grant new territories to vassals without an territory so you should eventually get something as long as there are free territories but you can influence his decision by asking other nobles to support you.Nobles will try to support their friends so you need to have good relations with them but you can eventually wield enough influence to get yourself more territory. Later on whenever a city is captured you will find yourself going to all the nobles you can trying to curry favour to get support so that you can get the city, it's pretty good for roleplaying actually and I usually find myself thinking of some nobles as friends while resenting certain other nobles.There is more but I would recommend just going for that normal merc into noble route first as it's the most beginner friendly. However the whole point of mount and blade is that it's a huge sandbox and you can do whatever you want to just explore and see what you can find. Have fun:)Captcha: BETTER NEXT TIMEOkay captcha, i'll make a better post next time with pictures and stuff.
When soloing large groups of bandits early in the game, you need to take your time and use your horse and it's manoeuvrability to your full advantage.First look at the battlefield and find a good open area which won't slow your horse.Then lure the bandits into that area and engage them at the extremity of their ranged weapon range, i.e. Above all, always remember that Mount and Blade doesn't give a shit about you. Pretty much nothing is scripted, there is no hand holding and you are on your own. You are just some random guy (or girl) no one gives a shit about.But, to make things easier.1) It is (very) slightly easier if you start as a male noble. You can earn nobility if you are a commoner but it takes more effort, and men get more respect.2) Pick your battles.
The game isn't going to do a thing to stop you from charging a two thousand strong army with only five guys on your side. So you have to stop yourself. If you aren't sure if you can win a battle, run.3) Someone else mentioned you should do tournaments. This is a wise person, and you should listen to them. In tournaments, everyone's army and equipment is taken away, leveling the playing field.
Only two things matter, your characters stats and your skills. In a tournament, you can go one on one with a king who has an army of a thousand dudes and the best gear in the game while he has none of that. Very satisfying. And the best way to make money early on. Go to an arena in a city and ask about any tournaments. Then ride from city to city winning them.4) Connections, connections, connections.
Just like real life, no matter how skilled you are you need powerful friends to make it big. Do missions for the right lords and kings and you will get status, wealth and most importantly protection. It's nice having somewhere to fall back to. If you want to be a bandit (great way to make cash) make sure you avoid pissing off at least one faction.
You need somewhere to sell off the loot, after all. If you get made a lord, you are pretty much set.5) Be patient and set goals. This isn't a traditional game, where you have clear direction. Mount and Blade expects you to make your own.
Pick a path and follow it. You can be a merchant, a bandit, a wandering mercenary group, a lord in the service of a king, a rebel commander putting an ousted claimant on their throne, a warrior king/queen who forms their own faction and carves out their own kingdom. So I just got the Mount and Blade HD collection (original game, Sword and Fire, and Warband) and while I get the basics of combat; I seem to start the game, go to a major city, get a quest (usually to kill somebody somewhere else), I start to go there and run into a large group of bandits and usually get taken prisoner. Any tips for a beginner?Mount and Blade is a bit slow to get going. Early on you hit like a wet noodle and no one will follow you because you're poor as dirt, but the game casually throws you into the deep end and goes on a smoke break.Early on, assuming this is Warband we're talking about (and if it's not, turn off whichever one you're playing and start with Warband), focus on groups of Looters. With a semi-combat capable character and a decent horse, you can easily take on 10 Looters all by yourself. If your character feels a bit squishy, do Arena combat for a while until their skills are up to a respectable level (you might even make a few shekels!).
It'll be near impossible for you to win Arenas at first, but every trip in at least gives you some skillups and a basic reward.Early on, run with a sword and shield, and keep that shield up. If you wanna be fancy later and run with a two hander or a spear or something, so be it, but early on you are very vulnerable, so keep a shield handy.Avoid all regional enemies. Basically, hunt in Swadia. Forest and Mountain Bandits, Sea Raiders, all of em.avoid them. They'll tear you a new one early on. Especially avoid mounted foes.As you hire guys, keep in mind that mounted troops are useful to the point of being OP, especially early on, that ranged can be deadly (especially to you), and that you need stout infantry if you ever want to take a keep.
A good mix is often best, but if you only run with one thing, especially early, make it mounted.Companions can be like super troops early on and they don't eat you out of house and home.they're almost always worth the money. Get them geared up and mounted just like you, and they can be killing machines. Well, some of them, anyway.
Oh.and some of them hate one another. You'll find out whom.Do NOT join a faction until you've spent some time leveling up and have a sizeable following of at least 50+ experienced troops. You'll get drawn into wars and expected to muster troops and chip in on the battlefield, and you'll be hostile suddenly to the 100+ large army stacks roaming the board lead by nobles. Thanks for the feed back. I saw somewhere else to do tournaments early in the game and I've been doing them for a while but the grind seems pretty slow. I've gotten down to ten opponents left and fifteen kills but usually I have three or four guys attacking just me and not each other, or I get someone spawning on my back while fighting someone else.
Mount And Blade Keep Getting Captured Movie
After about two hours I'm only level 2 with maybe 500 denar.I have tried going from village to village recruiting people but at some point I usually run into really high level mobs and get massacred (Sea Raiders were fun, I don't think I killed a single one). I don't really get the whole retreating mechanic. Every time I make it to the edge of the map it just resets.Also I can't seem to hit anything from my horse. I'm not good with archery from the ground so I have no chance of hitting anything from horseback and I seem to be exceptionally bad at hitting things with melee from horse back as well.This game seems like it has so much fun waiting later on in the game but the difficulty curve makes Dark Souls look like baby town frolics.
I guess I'll keep plugging away at it. I'm going to be honest, Mount and Blade only hits its best when you cheat. At least for me.I tried early on playing legit, but after I spend all of my gold on armor and weapons for me and didn't have enough to pay for food or wages for my men and they deserted. After that I said fuck it and cheated the rest of the way.Just keep in mind, this game has ZERO story.
You just do whatever the hell you want.I don't know how it is with others but With Fire and Sword has 3 unique story lines. Deluge for Poland-Lithuania, Black Mace for Cossacks and False Dimitry for Muscovy. I got the HD collection (Vanilla, Sword and Fire, and Warband) and was starting with Vanilla.
Why should I start with Warband first?Warband is basically Vanilla +. If you have Warband, there is no reason to EVER play Vanilla. Fire and Sword is a weird, off-brand version of Mount and Blade with guns and heavy Eastern European flavor. Warband is basically 'normal' Mount and Blade.Thanks for the feed back. I saw somewhere else to do tournaments early in the game and I've been doing them for a while but the grind seems pretty slow. I've gotten down to ten opponents left and fifteen kills but usually I have three or four guys attacking just me and not each other, or I get someone spawning on my back while fighting someone else.
After about two hours I'm only level 2 with maybe 500 denar.Yep, that'll happen. If you want to win in the Arena or Tournament you need to do a couple of things.1. Get REALLY good with the bow, learn to exploit terrain to your advantage, and kill from rage.2. Discard whatever you're given at the start and get a sword/shield as soon as possible.
Get new shields as old ones get shredded.Sometimes you start with a lance or something and you're often just boned. Lances are tricky at first.I have tried going from village to village recruiting people but at some point I usually run into really high level mobs and get massacred (Sea Raiders were fun, I don't think I killed a single one). I don't really get the whole retreating mechanic. Every time I make it to the edge of the map it just resets.Stay in Swadia to begin with and avoid large clots of Forest Bandits until you have a sizable following.Also I can't seem to hit anything from my horse. I'm not good with archery from the ground so I have no chance of hitting anything from horseback and I seem to be exceptionally bad at hitting things with melee from horse back as well.You'll get used to timing your swings. Mount and Blade takes into account momentum when calculating the force/damage of a blow, so learning to hit from horseback is essential to early success. A single well mounted and reasonably armed you can take out ten to twenty times your number in looters without even breaking a sweat just doing ride-bys.Mounted Archery is balls, I can't hit anything either.
Props to anyone who can. Try using a crossbow (bit more precise), and riding away really fast, then turning and shooting when they get closer. Make sure to shoot above or below the shield. You can kite/kill even Sea Raiders like this, although it takes a while, and if you run out of bolts you're in trouble.This game seems like it has so much fun waiting later on in the game but the difficulty curve makes Dark Souls look like baby town frolics. I guess I'll keep plugging away at it.It can be a bit of a slog getting going, but that's part of the charm. It's meant to be an epic rags to riches tale.
I believe there are mods out there that accelerate leveling if you find the early game too tedious. Mount and Blade is a veritable treasure trove of mods. I would personally recommend Mount & Blade: Warband, as it is my favorite of the games. It has the most intersting units and equipment in my opinion. If you should be more inclined towards the musket-era, Fire & Sword is your game. I don't like the factions and soldiers much though.1.
Collect an army, but NOT too fast. Going from village to village, you should try to find small groups of bandits (10 or less) in the beginning, and slowly fight more powerful enemies as your force and your own skills grow. For the early combat I would recommend shooting a bow from horseback.
The enemies you want to fight early on wont have a horse, so you'll always be able to keep your distance while still inflicting damage upon them. Just fire until they get close, move away a bit, stop and keep firing. If you run out of arrows before they are all dead, use the sword you should always carry with you!
If ranged isn't your style you could try to get used to hitting enemies with a sword or spear while speeding past them 'driveby style'. Do NOT let them hit you much, you are just as squishy as your average soldier and die in just a few hits!2.
Always loot as much of the most valuable stuff your enemies drop that you can carry, and sell it quickly so you can fit more in your inventory. You also need to keep an eye on your food, and to make sure you have enough gold to pay your army. You should also be careful about upgrading your guys before you have enough gold, as they will get more expensive to maintain as they level up.3. Get used to the command keys (F1, F2, F3 and F4) and what the various option do. Holding F1 will allow you to place a banner in a position you want your men to move to, and releasing F1 will give the order to move there. In this way you can easily take advantage of high-ground, and do more advanced stuff like placing your archers behind a line of spearmen etc.4. DON'T buy the most expensive armor right away!
Same goes for weapons. You need to build your force and gather some wealth before you should start thinking about your own equipment.
You, being just one guy, won't be able to influence a large battle significantly if you do not have a reasonably large and skilled army at your command. At first I would recommend picking equimpent from what you pillage from bandits and other enemies.5. The best way to get equipment and cash is to join some lords crusade against another kingdom, but this is risky. You'll have to be careful about running into the lords of whatever faction you declare war on, as they will more than likely be more powerful than you and have no trouble destroying your army. Getting cozy with and gaining favour with lords and kings is not a bad idea though, as politics is a big part of the game. If you have good contacts you can really get far in this game, even as far as conquering the entire map should you do it well!
At first though, you should see about doing some quests for the lords of a nation (or several nations) that you feel comfortable with. As you gain reputation you will notice that more and more posibilities for making big money and joining big battles reveal themselves. If you see a battle raging it could sometimes be a good idea to join in if you see your favored side is winning. This will gain you some standing with the lord(s) in question, and frequently land you some great equipment!There is a bit of a learning curve on this game, it definently doesn't hold your hand much. Warband does have a short tutorial to get you started though, so that's something. It took a few tries before I got started with a character that got somewhere, but now that character rules 1/3 of the map and is the queen of it all! Your best bet for fighting early on is to attack bands of looters and avoid all the other bandit groups till you are comfortable with the fighting.
Looters go down easy and don't have any ranged weapons (other than rocks) so if you use a crossbow or other ranged weapon you can stay out of their range and pick them off one at a time.Another good way to earn money is to take part in tournaments and bet on yourself. Be careful about doing this too early on in the game though, since most of the arena contestants will be better than you at early levels. You also sometimes get screwed by the random weapon choice in the arena and have to fight with a weapon you have no training in. This is especially tough if they give you a bow and knife and you have no bow skills.There is a steep learning curve at the start of the game, but once you have it figured out it is a wicked amount of fun. The modding community is also a lot of fun and there are some great singleplayer and multiplayer mods out there for hours of fun.
Hell, I officially passed the 1000 hour mark a few months back and I am still going back to Warband. I got the HD collection (Vanilla, Sword and Fire, and Warband) and was starting with Vanilla. Why should I start with Warband first?Warband is basically Vanilla +. If you have Warband, there is no reason to EVER play Vanilla.While you're totally right that Warband is an enhanced vanilla, and probably best for the OP to start with, there are some excellent reasons to play Vanilla.
Namely, mods. 1866 and the Last Days mods are both absolutely spectacular, and both require vanilla (non-Warband) M&B. 1866 completely transforms the setting into the old West, with excellent integration of guns, new quests, etc. The Last Days is the single best Lord of the Rings game I've ever played in my life (close runner-up is TATW.)It's for this reason that I've got both Vanilla and Warband installed on my computer. Warband is for NW, or if I want to try a new mod out.
But I've spent far longer playing vanilla, mostly just for the sake of the two mods mentioned above. Invest in pathfinding.Once you have a decent amount of points in pathfinding you're fast enough on the world map to flee from any potential conflict. At that point you can pick and choose your battles completely and never have to get stuck in a hopeless situation where you're completely outnumbered.Like others have said, tournaments are the best way to earn money early on.
Even the practice fights if you get good at them.Get as many companions as you can as fast as you can. If you get them early and level them consistently they are a force to be reckoned with.Taking a sword and shield and spamming swings from the right is OP. In a one on one fight you can sometimes stun lock enemies that way.
One thing I've learned about M&B is that when in doubt, always choose the mercenary option with a faction instead of joining outright. Early on(Say when you have 30-50 men), it'll neglect the army pay, possibly be a bit of extra income, and for the most part you can easily deny continuing the mercenary role when the contract's run out. I've done a few stints for different factions just to keep the balance of power as equal as possible. The only downfall is the fact that you don't get towns/castles/fiefs if you mercenary for a kingdom.
Chiming in too:Get minimum 2 Followers and only raise their intelligence:One for Pathfinding, Spotting (Makes you WAY faster)One for First Aid, Surgery, Treatment (Your dudes will heal faster and - more importantly will be knocked out rather than die)You yourself specialize on Charisma at start (after you have your Strength to 10, so you can use plate armour) - for more and cheaper units. Dump agility, you don't need to be that good, only so you can get ride high enough and get a decent horse)IF you choose to have ONLY cavalry (for example all Khergit or going into the swadien heavy cavalry - you will be faster again.Have a few horses in your inventory, mabe 3-4 (can be cheap ones) - to lessen your load.
And make you faster.This is important to be able to have a superior fighting force which can catch smaller groups. So less risk, more murder, more xp and loot.Also learn the strength and weaknesses of the countries and Units.Begin the game, choose a country and work for them (This should be the country you like the units best of - also the country which you should destroy and take over. Muhahaha).Easiest money: raiding and burning villages, but you need great reflexes and a fast army, since you will be disturbed a lot while doing that. (Also it's pretty evil and pisses off a lot dudes) - but hey.
15.000 no problem (if you can carry the stuff)Also: There are a set list of followers who like/dislike others, you have to balance them, read the wiki for that. I've tried one of the games' demos before and it didn't run very well (old computer).I've got a new one now that should be able to run at least one of them.My question is, what would be the best one for a newcomer to the series?What I did play of the demo confused and overwhelmed me a bit.
I really wan't to like this series, but I feel I need to dip my toe in first before deciding if I want to cannonball in.So which game is the most (oh noes, I'm bout to say it!) streamlined of the series? For clarification, I mean streamlined in the good way, that simplifies needlessly complex or obtuse things but still preserves depth of game play.I'd have to say Warband is the better game of the three, not because it's streamlined, but because it's a more complete game and is considered among the community to be the best. I could never get the hang of Fire and Sword, since it has a story compared to the sandbox of Warband and the introduction of guns removes most of the fun from running around really fast on a horse and slicing through an army of bandits.There is an option in the controls menu that allows you to change how your strikes and blocks are performed. I'm lazy so I always set it to 'relative to enemy position', which means I don't have to mess around with swinging my mouse in a certain direction and just pressing the left mouse button instead.From a personal standpoint, I find it easier to start off in the Kingdom of the Nords, simply because you start off with a horse and the bandits don't, meaning you can outrun them relatively quickly. The Nords also have the best heavy infantry in the game, which are great for sieges on either defending and attacking. Note that if you have slow units in your army, you will slow down on the map unless you have skills in path finding which increases your map speed if I remember right. The larger your army, the more it will cost to feed them too, so in the end, it's better to have a small number of upgraded units compared to a large number of recruits.You will start off with a small amount of money; enough to start a small band of fighters in order to kill off any bandits around your starting area.
However, if like me, you ended up being captured and lost a bunch of stuff, including your horse to bandits, you're better off honing your skills in the combat system by entering the Arena in places like Sargoth or any major city. It's not great money, but it's enough to hire a good few units per win, which is being the last person alive.Your next step for making some serious cash (preferably after winning the arena a few times), you may ask the arena master about tournaments in local cities. If you are confident in your skills, you would do well to enter these tournaments since you can bet on your own matches and make thousands of coins by the end; more than enough to buy a fancy new horse, weapon, armor and upgrade your troops into a fancy fighting force.Once you're able to hold your own against bandits, consider allying yourself as a mercenary with a kingdom and you'll get paid to maintain your army and gain standing with the lords in those particular factions. If you have good enough standing with the faction leader, you can join the faction and be given a village to manage. Kingdoms will frequently go out on campaigns against the other kingdoms, and if you are popular enough among the nobles, you can convince them to allow you to take the castle or city that they just took.
It's best to get friendly with the faction leaders because in the end, the decision is theirs to make and the other nobles are there for advisory roles. You can gain standing with the nobles and the king by taking the fight to the faction's enemies or bailing them out when they're in a fight and you come to the rescue.There's not much else I can say about the game at such an early stage. By the time you've joined a faction and gained a reputation, you'll already have the hang of the game. Snip for attentionWarband is going so much smoother. One question though: How quickly should I build my army?
I've got a party of fifteen at the moment (I'm level 3 1/2) I have a few recruits (lost a few in the last battle) a few militia, a few skirmishers, and a few footmen. I'm running around Sawaria or whatever it's called and fighting looters and a few of the smaller bands of deserters and getting a pretty steady stream of income but if my party grows any larger or upgrades much more I'm going to out strip my finances. Should I start setting my sights on bigger parties?
Should I do some mercenary work and join in some campaigns? I found a lord that wanted to hire me but I didn't want to get in over my head.Also thanks to everyone else posting in this thread. I'm reading everything and it's appreciated. Warband is going so much smoother.
One question though: How quickly should I build my army? I've got a party of fifteen at the moment (I'm level 3 1/2) I have a few recruits (lost a few in the last battle) a few militia, a few skirmishers, and a few footmen. I'm running around Sawaria or whatever it's called and fighting looters and a few of the smaller bands of deserters and getting a pretty steady stream of income but if my party grows any larger or upgrades much more I'm going to out strip my finances. Should I start setting my sights on bigger parties? Should I do some mercenary work and join in some campaigns? I found a lord that wanted to hire me but I didn't want to get in over my head.Wait until you've at least got a decent base of around 30ish trained and reliable soldiers before signing up with any factions would be my advice.
Lords are considerably more dangerous than bandits and if the faction you're aligned with goes to war, that could mean trouble for someone not prepared to suddenly have at least 1/5 of the map suddenly turn hostile.A fun trick no one has mentioned yet is that early on is a great time to do some trade for easy money. While you've still got a small but fast group with you and you're not signed up with anyone is the perfect time to exploit the markets: Spice, Silk, and other pricy commodities can be bought relatively cheap from some places and then sold for three times what you paid in other places. Buying low and selling high can quickly get you ten times the money you'd get from just hunting bandits or completing missions.More money means better gear and better soldiers, also allows you to hire mercenaries if you're in a pinch instead of recruiting raw recruits from villages. It's good to have! Snip for attentionWarband is going so much smoother. One question though: How quickly should I build my army? I've got a party of fifteen at the moment (I'm level 3 1/2) I have a few recruits (lost a few in the last battle) a few militia, a few skirmishers, and a few footmen.
I'm running around Sawaria or whatever it's called and fighting looters and a few of the smaller bands of deserters and getting a pretty steady stream of income but if my party grows any larger or upgrades much more I'm going to out strip my finances. Should I start setting my sights on bigger parties? Should I do some mercenary work and join in some campaigns? I found a lord that wanted to hire me but I didn't want to get in over my head.Also thanks to everyone else posting in this thread.
I'm reading everything and it's appreciated.Concentrate on getting your leadership score up. There are certain skills that benefit the party that only you can have, and leadership is one of them.
It's a priority on all characters. Lowers troop costs and increases army max size, amongst other things. Once you get it up around 4-5 it takes a bite out of troop upkeep.
Until then, stick to a small army of less than 50 men. Less than 30 if they're ranking up quickly. With your party of 15 you might want to start looking at tackling forest bandits, and checking keeps to see if you can get a quest to take out a bandit lair. Those tend to be fairly lucrative ventures.Stay away from mercenary work for now, you're not anywhere near close to where you'd need to be.Concentrate on getting Leadership, Athletics and Riding up, along with your weapon skills of choice. This early in the game you're going be Conan compared to the rest of your army. Try and get a nice suit of metal armor (chain will do, plate likely out of your price range) and a good weapon with some reach.think longswords over shortswords.
Mount And Blade Keep Getting Captured Movie
Get a stout shield and a fast horse, you're going to draw a lot of fire. Keep your shield up and don't slow down (try angling towards the flank as opposed to going in headlong).
You'll draw most of the arrow fire away from your troops and let them close with the enemy.both Forest and Mountain bandits are a LOT more dangerous at range than the Looters you are accustomed to.For companions, concentrate on getting a good Medic and a good Tracker/Pathfinder as quickly as possible. Everything else is optional, but you'll need those. You're not really going to have the points to spare to do it yourself.Once you get around 50-100 troops strong with a good core of elite/veteran troops, then you can think about going mercenary or swearing fealty to a lord. Right now you're not much above a Looter yourself. If you want to be an ass and don't mind making some enemies, raiding remote villages is a great way to make tons of money. Even if they fight back villagers aren't much of a challenge so long as you're boasting a dozen or so good soldiers, and if you're quick enough you can hopefully be out of there long before any lords come to investigate. You can make quite the fortune with just a few well timed raids and it doesn't require a massive army at your back, just a decent core of trained soldiers and yourself.Of course the downsides to this are twofold. Does leaving a magazine loaded damage it.
On one hand you're making enemies left and right; the village will hate you and its lord won't exact be happy about you either. Make enough of a nuisance of yourself and the entire faction said village belongs to could even go hostile. Two is that a lord could catch you before you're done looting, in which case you're royally screwed as at an early point in the game as you probably wont stand a chance.
Your troops are dead, you're suddenly a hell of a lot poorer, and you've made enemies. Not exactly a winning scenario!Still if you pull it off that's a nice little fortune you might acquire.
The dark side pays well! So I just got the Mount and Blade HD collection (original game, Sword and Fire, and Warband) and while I get the basics of combat; I seem to start the game, go to a major city, get a quest (usually to kill somebody somewhere else), I start to go there and run into a large group of bandits and usually get taken prisoner. Any tips for a beginner?Do you have a party? Or an army?If not, that's your issue.
You are meant to have people backing you up.Unlike other games, you aren't chosen. You aren't trained. As far as the game is concerned, you are an unruly peasant. In fact, even if you chose a nobility start they question if you are a real noble at the start.No matter what character you roll, the game doesn't worship you.So at the start, you are basically a nobody. You have to work your way up the ladder from scratch. No rich family sending money.
No special power like being a Dragonborn, Witcher, or grey Warden. No one caring who you are unless you give them a reason to care.Your strategy won a war? Get respect.You won a battle against all odds? Respect.Defend a village against pillagers? Respect, more so if they are more numerous than you.You're friends with an influential noble? Respect.You started your own nation? First hatred, then respect if you win the wars that will inevitably come immediatelyNow for army tips (warband):- Raiding is not profitable at all.- If you want, trade on the side for extra pocket money.- Don't go for high end troops.
Focus on getting 5,000 gold first. Not counting the wages.
Keep that in mind.- Invest that gold in businesses. Make sure you check what town makes what. Dhirim makes a good site for Ironworks. Though it is a very contested city with a lot of sieges.- Expand your businesses, start getting your combat skills up, train your troops, and get your renown higher.- Once its high, you will get a request to join a nation. You can accept, as it gives some hefty bonuses. You have two choices:Start a conspiracy to overthrow the king.or be loyal.- For a coup: Make a lot of friends.
Have them like you more than the king. This will put the nation in chaos when your coup comes.- For loyalty, just do your best to take a lot of provinces. The nobles are idiots, so try to be a smart conquerer.- When your coup works and you have your own nation, resist the urge to make all your friends like Rolf, and lezalit nobles. They normally aren't nobility, and that hurts diplomatic ties if the other nations believe its a nation of 'faking peasants.' Titles are key here.
Try to get well known nobles to switch sides, use your friendships in the other nations to get them to switch.- Training fields train you and your troops at the same time.- Not all lore about a nation's strengths given to you in the game is correct. Sometimes its contradictory, try a wiki for the reality of what nation does a certain thing best.- Note: Sometimes the king can 'see' your conspiracy and exile nobles you are friends with.
This is not the end of the world. One less noble that may possibly support the king. This exile may have a domino effect and the king may exile all his nobles. So all you need is to defeat the king and the nation is basically yours for the taking.
Warband is known for bad political AI, especially with King Harlaus. Sometimes the game can be so screwed when all kings exile their nobles, which ends up completely hilarious regardless if you have a nation or not.That's all I can remember off the top of my head. My big moneymaker at the point you've gotten to was hostages. I was ransoming off bandits, looters and deserters like a madman. And when I couldn't find a ransom broker, I would head off to Tihr and sell 'em for galley slaves. Used nothing but a mace and fur shield from horseback to do this for the longest time.until I bought a brewery in a city with a lot of grain and little ale (somewhere in Swadia), then an ironworks in a city with lots of mined iron and few tools (somewhere in Vaegirs). On those two incomes, I managed to support about 30 troops in wages and varied food, so all loot was profit that I reinvested in my equipment (and made a velvet/dye place somewhere on the border of Rhodoks and Khergit).
I was on a charger wearing a coat of plates with a masterwork bastard sword and that same fur-covered shield from my bandit-clubbing days before I did much in the way of mercenary work.Oh, and once you can reliably take on sea raiders, their loot sells for quite a bit more than any other bandits'. Just don't try it until you've got some chain-ish armor, a pretty tough horse (I think it was the one just under a warhorse), and a line of 20 or so archers with a good 10 infantry screening 'em (helps if the infantry are well-outfitted heroes). Mastering the tactical menu is important I find, for battles without forts. You can delay your men from charging by telling them all to hold, and then you can ride out. Find a point with some elevation, and tell infantry and archers to hold there. Then let your cavalry charge, while you ride in ahead and draw fire.
It's particularly good in the early game where you may have less medical skills, for minimising casualties. Most armies have a fair amount of cavalry, and they can really make a mess of things for your infantry if you don't use the terrain. The enemy AI isn't particularly clever at tactics, it'll just keep charging. The only ones that it's a bit different with are the Kherjit's, and the Rhodoks. The Kherjit's horse archer can be tough if you don't have some good cavalry (Like Swadian Knights), and the Rhodoks have infantry that holds up really well under a charge, so I always hold my cavalry back from them, you'll just lose men until their cohesion is broken up.I've yet to master the politics, I kind of screwed up by taking over the most powerful cities when I started my own nation, since my army was so OP. And so I kept crushing the other nations in battle, and then had a bunch of nobles defecting to me, all of whom hate me, and I have little idea with gifting lands, since it's a bit of a mess trying to work out the idiots. Getting businesses going is really important for your income, you don't want to have to work off tourneys and looting if you don't have to.
SnipThat's one of the questions I have now. Is there no other way to order your men around except to go to a spot and tell them to hold there? I'm now getting to the point where I'm working one larger (about 50 units) armies and coordinating them. It's made even more difficult by the fact that I had to remap all the command keys to weird things like the directional keys since F buttons all have other functions on my laptop like changing the volume and contrast and they don't seem to work as commands in the game. Anyone know a fix for that? It seems like each battle goes like this: Tell everyone but my cavalry to hold positions so they don't just charge. Ride to just in front of where my archers are and tell my infantry to hold there and form a tighter formation.
Tell my cavalry to retreat. Maybe tell my infantry to charge when the enemies get near if I have my shit together enough (I usually don't). Tell my cavalry to charge.
All while I'm charging around the battle field trying to draw fire and actually manage to land a hit (since I figured out how to 'couch the lance' it's going better, still can't seem to swing and hit anything thing). Anyone have advice on troop management while on the battle field? Troop management really is only done through the F1-F3 keys, a slow process. I believe there are mods that change it so you can do more complex maneuvers, but I don't know where they are. It's also dependent on how things start off for the battles and the map sizes given.
If you get a map size where it takes a good thirty or more seconds for the armies to meet, immediately have your army hold position while you find a better advantage point for them to attack.Here's how I usually do things. I also try to find a nearby hill and plant my archers on top or close to the top facing the advancing enemy, then I place my infantry a few paces below as a bulwark against any fast moving calvary(leaderless) so they get slowed down by the hill and are less effective due to the lack of speed. Then when the enemy infantry/archers are close enough to get really hit by my archers, I send my calvary to attack, as since they're either off the hill or behind my archers, they get the extra speed boost for their attacks.Now for attacking while mounted with one/two handed weaponry (Swords, maces, axes), I find it best to always be in third person mode for that. It helps gauge your arm swing and distance between you and the enemy you plan to hit. I also try to get as close to the enemy unit I'm attacking as I can, as each weapon has different reaches. Swords the longest, followed by axes, then maces with the shortest reach. But the main issue with that is you can get hit easily by enemy lancers/archers as you're a single target getting closer to them.
If possible, always have the enemy to your left as you charge, back swing more easy to control than the forward swing. The forward swing especially seems to be a bit higher due to you swinging in a steeper arc motion compared to the back swing.