I've started this mod half a dozen times, and every game ends up with the same sticking point. At some point, I've got a decent sized army (80-100 men) of assorted riff-raff plus most of my original faction troops, and then spot a recently seized castle (with a small garrison) that I can take. In several cases, the current owner has been at war against three other factions, and has taken a pounding already. I take the castle, and start building a barracks or archery range to upgrade my long overdue troops. Thanks to losses during the siege, I'm already down 10-15 men already, and it's 6-11 days until the new building completes. A day later, I'm facing a force of 300+ troops of the faction I took it from. After a nasty fight, where I lose another 10-15 men or so, plus a lot more wounded, the besieger is driven off with extremely heavy losses. I rest overnight to recuperate from the battle, and in the AM, another 500+ fresh enemy troops show up. I'm down to 50-60 able-bodied men. Disaster ensues.
How do you get past those first couple of days after taking the castle? There simply isn't time to recruit or hire more men, because at that point I can't leave a garrison behind and still have enough men to survive an encounter with a party of 50-80 bandits (or 3 parties of them at once), much less a 100+ man faction army (and their tag-along mercenaries). Recruiting another dozen men is a proverbial drop in the bucket compared to what the AI throws at me.
The mod has so many features I like that I keep coming back to it, but keep getting stuck at the same point. Other issues are the insane bandit spawns (at one point in Vaegir territory, I was surrounded and attacked by over 12 separate groups, each consisting of 50+ bandits, in a single battle). The initial overpowered equipment that your character and all of the recruitable Companions come with makes the entire equipment progression angle seem pointless, as you already have somewhat close to the best equipment money can buy. Everything else (with a few exceptions) is just "generic loot". If the game had been a little less "over the top" at the start, it could have been close to perfect, but I suppose that everyone wants their mod to be "moar uber" than the next.
I know that the mod has been essentially abandoned for original M&B, if not for Warband as well, and that it's been months since anyone's posted, but if there are any helpful suggestions, I'm listening.
[ Much later: Played it out for another game month of grinding before taking a castle, which changed everything. With a party of 150+ higher level troops (many upgraded at the various factions' castles), I had no trouble storming a castle. This time, the castle had 20+ captives, who were immediately hirable to replace my handful of losses and then some. By that point, the castle already had a couple of buildings completed, so I could finally upgrade some of my own faction's troops. After a good night's rest, I was able to camp and convince a group of 15 prisoners to join (which then required an immediate foray or two against bandits to regain the lost morale), and whom I immediately stuck in the castle garrison to prevent desertion. 180+ troops were enough to easily hold off one wave of 300+ attackers who tried to get their castle back, with minimal losses on my part. With the ability to upgrade my own faction's troops, the game got absurdly easy, and in just over a month I had 2 more castles and a town. At this point, I'm only delaying further attacks for my "badboy" rating to decline, and then it'll be 2 towns.
Bandit parties are now typically 90-110 men, and the smaller faction armies (including my own two newly enfranchised Lords) are regularly getting beaten by the bandits. If the number of bandit parties in the vanilla game wasn't immersion-breaking enough, the number and SIZE of the bandit parties in this mod makes it obvious that the bandits outnumber the law-abiding citizens by at least 10:1. Overall, the workmanship on this mod is excellent, but the "over the top" aspects (everything already way too high at the start) leave very little room for advancement. I prefer "earning" things in games over "instant gratification". ]
How do you get past those first couple of days after taking the castle? There simply isn't time to recruit or hire more men, because at that point I can't leave a garrison behind and still have enough men to survive an encounter with a party of 50-80 bandits (or 3 parties of them at once), much less a 100+ man faction army (and their tag-along mercenaries). Recruiting another dozen men is a proverbial drop in the bucket compared to what the AI throws at me.
The mod has so many features I like that I keep coming back to it, but keep getting stuck at the same point. Other issues are the insane bandit spawns (at one point in Vaegir territory, I was surrounded and attacked by over 12 separate groups, each consisting of 50+ bandits, in a single battle). The initial overpowered equipment that your character and all of the recruitable Companions come with makes the entire equipment progression angle seem pointless, as you already have somewhat close to the best equipment money can buy. Everything else (with a few exceptions) is just "generic loot". If the game had been a little less "over the top" at the start, it could have been close to perfect, but I suppose that everyone wants their mod to be "moar uber" than the next.
I know that the mod has been essentially abandoned for original M&B, if not for Warband as well, and that it's been months since anyone's posted, but if there are any helpful suggestions, I'm listening.
[ Much later: Played it out for another game month of grinding before taking a castle, which changed everything. With a party of 150+ higher level troops (many upgraded at the various factions' castles), I had no trouble storming a castle. This time, the castle had 20+ captives, who were immediately hirable to replace my handful of losses and then some. By that point, the castle already had a couple of buildings completed, so I could finally upgrade some of my own faction's troops. After a good night's rest, I was able to camp and convince a group of 15 prisoners to join (which then required an immediate foray or two against bandits to regain the lost morale), and whom I immediately stuck in the castle garrison to prevent desertion. 180+ troops were enough to easily hold off one wave of 300+ attackers who tried to get their castle back, with minimal losses on my part. With the ability to upgrade my own faction's troops, the game got absurdly easy, and in just over a month I had 2 more castles and a town. At this point, I'm only delaying further attacks for my "badboy" rating to decline, and then it'll be 2 towns.
Bandit parties are now typically 90-110 men, and the smaller faction armies (including my own two newly enfranchised Lords) are regularly getting beaten by the bandits. If the number of bandit parties in the vanilla game wasn't immersion-breaking enough, the number and SIZE of the bandit parties in this mod makes it obvious that the bandits outnumber the law-abiding citizens by at least 10:1. Overall, the workmanship on this mod is excellent, but the "over the top" aspects (everything already way too high at the start) leave very little room for advancement. I prefer "earning" things in games over "instant gratification". ]
