UPDATE:
I didn't notice that this thread I created two years ago became one of the most popular ones on the Bannerlord discussion subforum, so I'll be editing my initial post, cleaning it up a bit to be more constructive. I will also be adding a few suggestions for how I believe Taleworlds can respond to some of our criticism without undermining their latest changes too drastically.
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Hello everyone. From the footage we've seen, it seems Taleworlds is shifting Sturgia to be more norse/viking-inspired as opposed to slavic/kievan rus inspired as they initially intended.
There's multiple examples of this. There's multiplayer unit classes named Ulfhednar and Huskarl, with only the Huskarl being described as a Nord in the flavour lore text. Also the Raider is basically equipped as a norse (Nord in this game) viking while not being described as a Nord either.
The troop trees in single player (assuming they are final) has a line upgrading from Sturgian Soldier into Ulfhednar and Berserker, both aesthetically Norse (Nord) as opposed to Slavic (Sturgian), not only does it not make sense for a Sturgian to mysteriously transform into a Nord, but there's much better ways of handling this as I will be describing below.
I, and many others, do not believe that mishmashing cultures with one another produces any sort of interesting result. There are alot of people who are great fans of norse and viking history and culture, some of them are cheering on the dilution of Sturgia, while many more others are disappointed that the only representation they will see in-game is half-heartedly through Sturgia. There are also alot of people who are great fans of slavic history and culture, and they are disappointed to see that the initially kievan rus envisioned Sturgia is being turned into a Norse/Viking faction, which we suspect is because the game would have more appeal to a wider audience that way.
All we're asking is for Sturgia to be more consistently Kievan Rus/Slavic inspired. As you've mentioned yourselves, there's been alot of foreign influence into Sturgia in the in-game lore, and there's so much better ways to handle/represent this rather than having native Sturgian Soldiers mysteriously transforming into Sturgian (Nord) Ulfhednars/Berserkers
The Sturgians could be given the option to recruit steppe horse archer mercenaries, or nord heavy(heaviest) infantry mercenaries.
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Here's the suggestions I mentioned earlier:
1. Rename the Ulfhednar and Berserker troops on the Sturgian troop tree (assuming that the troop trees are final) into something inspired from slavic history rather than norse history. Possibly also change their equipment to match. It doesn't make any sense for Sturgian recruits to mysteriously transform into Nords anyways
2. While I personally don't care about multiplayer much, some people seem to, and for those people I suppose you could do something about the Huskarl class, perhaps rename them into Nord Mercenary/Mercenary. Same thing with the Ulfhednar class, doesn't even suit Sturgia, especially considering the flavour text for the Ulfhednar seem to be suggesting they are native Sturgians and not Nords. Fits much more with Battania than with Sturgia. Change it or replace it with something else. The equipment of the "Raider" class makes them look like quintessentially vikings, while once again the flavour text suggests that they are native Sturgians and NOT Nords. Change around the equipment.
3. I presume this is not final, but something very funny people noticed from the footage we've seen so far is that literally a third of the NPC's in Sturgian towns and villages are called "Ragnar", once again a norse name rather than a slavic one. Sure, if there's alot of nords in Sturgian lands, it makes sense for some of the NPC's to have norse inspired names, but a third of them? Come on now
4. There's a fantastic thread with concept art inspiration for the various different factions made by the users Piconi and Terco: https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,388229.0.html
Sturgia and Batannia really could use some inspiration to lean a bit more towards what we see in that thread, in my personal opinion
Thank you for reading
I didn't notice that this thread I created two years ago became one of the most popular ones on the Bannerlord discussion subforum, so I'll be editing my initial post, cleaning it up a bit to be more constructive. I will also be adding a few suggestions for how I believe Taleworlds can respond to some of our criticism without undermining their latest changes too drastically.
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Hello everyone. From the footage we've seen, it seems Taleworlds is shifting Sturgia to be more norse/viking-inspired as opposed to slavic/kievan rus inspired as they initially intended.
There's multiple examples of this. There's multiplayer unit classes named Ulfhednar and Huskarl, with only the Huskarl being described as a Nord in the flavour lore text. Also the Raider is basically equipped as a norse (Nord in this game) viking while not being described as a Nord either.
The troop trees in single player (assuming they are final) has a line upgrading from Sturgian Soldier into Ulfhednar and Berserker, both aesthetically Norse (Nord) as opposed to Slavic (Sturgian), not only does it not make sense for a Sturgian to mysteriously transform into a Nord, but there's much better ways of handling this as I will be describing below.
I, and many others, do not believe that mishmashing cultures with one another produces any sort of interesting result. There are alot of people who are great fans of norse and viking history and culture, some of them are cheering on the dilution of Sturgia, while many more others are disappointed that the only representation they will see in-game is half-heartedly through Sturgia. There are also alot of people who are great fans of slavic history and culture, and they are disappointed to see that the initially kievan rus envisioned Sturgia is being turned into a Norse/Viking faction, which we suspect is because the game would have more appeal to a wider audience that way.
All we're asking is for Sturgia to be more consistently Kievan Rus/Slavic inspired. As you've mentioned yourselves, there's been alot of foreign influence into Sturgia in the in-game lore, and there's so much better ways to handle/represent this rather than having native Sturgian Soldiers mysteriously transforming into Sturgian (Nord) Ulfhednars/Berserkers
The Sturgians could be given the option to recruit steppe horse archer mercenaries, or nord heavy(heaviest) infantry mercenaries._____________
Here's the suggestions I mentioned earlier:
1. Rename the Ulfhednar and Berserker troops on the Sturgian troop tree (assuming that the troop trees are final) into something inspired from slavic history rather than norse history. Possibly also change their equipment to match. It doesn't make any sense for Sturgian recruits to mysteriously transform into Nords anyways
2. While I personally don't care about multiplayer much, some people seem to, and for those people I suppose you could do something about the Huskarl class, perhaps rename them into Nord Mercenary/Mercenary. Same thing with the Ulfhednar class, doesn't even suit Sturgia, especially considering the flavour text for the Ulfhednar seem to be suggesting they are native Sturgians and not Nords. Fits much more with Battania than with Sturgia. Change it or replace it with something else. The equipment of the "Raider" class makes them look like quintessentially vikings, while once again the flavour text suggests that they are native Sturgians and NOT Nords. Change around the equipment.
3. I presume this is not final, but something very funny people noticed from the footage we've seen so far is that literally a third of the NPC's in Sturgian towns and villages are called "Ragnar", once again a norse name rather than a slavic one. Sure, if there's alot of nords in Sturgian lands, it makes sense for some of the NPC's to have norse inspired names, but a third of them? Come on now
4. There's a fantastic thread with concept art inspiration for the various different factions made by the users Piconi and Terco: https://forums.taleworlds.com/index.php/topic,388229.0.html
Sturgia and Batannia really could use some inspiration to lean a bit more towards what we see in that thread, in my personal opinion
Thank you for reading
