Mount And Blade Out of Darkness
Hello community! I would like to present a (sort of) mod I've been working on...well, for some time.
I always liked the Native experience and the overall feeling of Mount and Blade, but I found it also lacking, in some areas. So, over the time I've been playing Mound and Blade, I enhanced my gameplay experience in various ways.
Introduction
The feeling of this mod is very native-like, but it is, in my opinion and hopefully yours, much more fullfilling. Complete list of features follows below. The year is 1170 in Calradia and geographically not much have changed. One thing you should know, though: Due to tweaks to troops behaviour and to their stats, it is advised to play in medium and hard difficulty. In fact, if you play with minimum damage and dumb AI, you will experience a MOSTLY UNFULFILLING experience!!!
And now, to the good stuff!
FEATURES
-Most of the factions are the same. But, because I always hated Khergits(sorry Khergit Lovers) and a Mongol inspired faction would be -in my mind- out of place in 1170, their place has been taken by the Nemicon Empire(a Byzantine equivalent), complete with new towns, items, horses and lords and their titles and of course, new troop tree(more on that, following).
- New Kings and Lords. They have new, fitting equipment and different titles. Lords have superior(and way too expensive) equipment and great weapons. Kings have unique equipment!
- Completely new troop trees! Now, troops have better stats, better combat behaviour, BUT worse equipment. Realism is what I had in mind, so you will spend your money to make a proffesional army with trained soldiers, but it would be absurd if you paid a mediocre amount of money for 40 or 50 plate covered cavemen! So, now they are more fierce and better in battle, but they are clad in padded clothes(low rank soldiers), leather(mid rank soldiers) and mail(high rank soldiers), without the use of plate at all!(More on troops later)
- A huge amount of new items. Not only there is now a great variety of different items for every faction, but also tweaks have been made to add realism to all items. I left in-game the Native items I found fitting for the timeframe and my aesthetic need and all the others have been removed. Also, now the value of weapons and armours is not based upon their stats, but on their material and/or level of detail. For example, wood is cheaper than iron, but weaker. Leather is better and more expensive than furs and padded clothes, but worse and cheaper than mail. Also two armours with the same stats, may have different price, because on of them is more decorated. Moreover, I have taken into account the roleplaying needs. This means an archer cannot wear heavy armour and a knight is best equipped with mail armour. So, you will see that the item prices are 3 to 7 times more expensive than native(depending on the item you wish to buy).
-Modified Tournaments. New scenes in every town and a whole load of money can be made in tournaments(if you win them, that is
). Due to the changed and much elevated prices of the items, I have raised the amount of money you can bet and the melee awards of the Arena. the fights are rewarding, but difficult to win.
-New game music. It's a list of tracks I made to enhance my "medieval" feel. There are authentic medieval tracks and tavern music, as well as tracks from movies(not out of place, though) and epic songs for battle. Absolutely no heavy metal, peudo-viking tracks!
- Bandit optimization! All bandits have better stats, better equipment and are, at last, a danger to the player at the beginning of the game. The native lootfest of the poor bandits is no more. You can loot some pretty decent items form them, but you have to win the fight. Now, Forest bandits are real Robin Hoods, with green tunics and hood, longbows and crazy bow skills. Sea Raiders are well equipped, fierce viking-like warriors. Mountain bandits and Taiga are all around good. Though the khergits are gone, Steppe bandits do exist to trouble you. Mounted on good horses, well equipped and super effective with the bow, they will give you a hard time. Desert bandits are more...desert-ish. Tough in battle, fast in movement, always a challenge!
- Horses to the rescue! In this mod, the role of horse is more limited that in Native. There are very good horses(some new ones, as well), but they cost a lot. Warhorses and plated armored horses do not exist and only kings and wealthy lords can afford a mail clad warhorse.
- New textures! Better looking textures for banners, campaign map and buildings. There is still room for more visual optimization, but I wanted a medium computer to play this.
- New mercs! New mercenary units, more expensive, but better in combat.
- New loading screens, custom font and UI icons.
- New training field scenes.
- New Tournament and (some) castle scenes.
- Various Gameplay tweaks, like cattle follow, village elder accesible from menu.
And more...
UPDATED AND NEW FEATURES
- New, custom banners made by me! Simply put, I kept some Native banners I liked and I changed all those that wasn't to my liking.
- New mercenary troop line. You can now recruit Monks(healing abilities and medium morale boost), Priests(morale boost, persuasion bonus and trade), Doctors and Surgeons(superior medical abilities) and Engineers(great engineering and trade skills). All of them are awful in combat, but VERY useful to your party when you play as a king. Close to no armor and armed with daggers or wooden staffs.
FOR THE FUTURE
This attempt, as I stated before, aims to provide a gameplay experience that will be close to Native and simultaneously enhanced in a number of ways. Realism is sought after, but not dry and without some interesting feutures the Native module or some talented modders give us, making this project of mine easier and -to be fair- possible. So, I will continue to add feutures and maybe some more items, fitting with the original idea, of course.
Also, if you have any suggestions, any tweaks you know of and are useful or any mini-mods and OSPs(without fantasy elements or total conversions) I would be happy to take them into serious consideration.
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