Starting Characters

Wandering Barbarian is a killing machine. I stayed all alone for 20 days just slaughtering small groups and then gave him 4 riding. He is now an UBER killing machine.
I would love some more options, I'll think on it and get back too you.

Wandering barbarian is good, but you wont get anywhere with a 90 man army your entire life (with around 1200 renown and no leadership) so I guess its better to start with 12 more str than old knight with a little bit less equip and just put charisma on.

I think the old knight deserves better stats, and new options would be great.

well i just took the knight the first game i started and stuck with him....lvl 25 or something by now and doing just fine - I like the horse he has from the start. I was however a bit surprized when i found out that the regular vaegir sword beats his "trusted sword" in stats 

One thing I like about the hunter is that you don't have to tire yourself chasing after enemies. Just pick the highest hill you can find and with a good stash of heavy arrows the field is yours. I love that long hunting bow!

Traveling Merchant will definitely be a good character for long games. Use some starting skills (he has lots) on leadership and he can start hiring 60 head armies right off the bat (has the money and trade to support large armies). It will mainly be his army that does the killing, but he still needs some good equipment to defend himself and help his army when its in trouble. Very challenging with its current starting STR though, he has to wait a good 8 levels or so before he can wear anything decent.

I need to find some good tactics for controlling troops to fully exploit the merchant.

phenix said:

Traveling Merchant will definitely be a good character for long games. Use some starting skills (he has lots) on leadership and he can start hiring 60 head armies right off the bat (has the money and trade to support large armies). It will mainly be his army that does the killing, but he still needs some good equipment to defend himself and help his army when its in trouble. Very challenging with its current starting STR though, he has to wait a good 8 levels or so before he can wear anything decent.

I need to find some good tactics for controlling troops to fully exploit the merchant.

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Honestly my old knight at the moment is kinda of a merchant, just put like 2 points into STR to use basic armor but the rest is all cha for leadership and trading, and int for inv management. I usually kill very few in combat, in foot I am just horrible I cant damage armored units. But hey... I have a competent army to do the job ^^ I have 140 men under my control right now, 6 elite units and I can support them thank god for the trade.

I'm lovin' the Khergit Prince now especially with that uber fast starting mount he has.  I almost never play a mounted archer so this is a new challenge for me but so far it's a blast.

With the new option of 30.000 denars at the start the old knight has nothing to bring that the barbarian doesnt, its easier to start as barbarian and raise the riding....

Please consider putting starting CHA for knight up to 15 or so... or maybe give him a real knight plate, with lots of armor and stuff and a higher tier helm.

Ambalon said:

I'd like to see a "dismounted knight" class, or whatever, because I liek walking with a thick shield on me arm and a trusty mace on me hand

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I remember the Onyx Castle Guard being exactly that, an unmounted heavy armored infantry man with a morningstar or something like that. It was my favourite character in EGII, and a good challenge because of his little mobility.

Second that, Onyx character, in fact Onyx faction is a must. Now, Chel, NOW.

True, the characters options gotta go up ^^

PS: Motom your avatar rocks the socks. I've just paid attention to it.

Thats just two of seventeen, have a look in the pet pics thread in Anachronists guild.

Seems somewhat off balance now.

Barbarian - just pwn, you don't need anything but the 14 INT and you will pwn, it's incredibly fun, yet I cant help but feel its also cheating.

Old Knight - Another pure win, the fact you get decent armour, blade and a horse isn't really what makes them pwn.  In fact its the speed the cavalry go that allow you to be pwn.

The rest I never use, because they suck in comparison, the merchant is now meaningless, they can't fight for jack and their income isn't worth anything because as a barbarian or knight you can now start of with lots of cash and you can get 10,000 whenever you want by winning a tournament, which is VERY VERY VERY EASY, like..it's too easy. its how I fund my characters from the very start, i get to level 2, win 1 tournament, become level 5 or 6 and then i just buy lots of gear, continue until i'm rich/field a massive army.

The hunter I like, although I don't see anything special about him whatsoever so I never use him (unless i wanna join the Vaegirs).

Amazing.

In this version, I get my arse handed to me on a platter by everything that I face, irrespective of which toon I play. It is simply too hard, particularly once I'm up against multiple enemies.

I used to play the merchant in EGII, but there isn't any way that I could survive using it in this version.

I personally prefer the Khergit Prince above any other class.  He has great starting skills (Power Draw 9, Riding 7, Horse Archery 6) so Ive pumped his str up every lvl since starting and now he has 10 Ironflesh/10 Powerstrike and I only need 3 more stat points to max his Power Draw at 10 as well.  On the downside, he has low int and low charisma but damn if he ain't a one-man killing machine   I can live with the tradeoff heh.  I wanted to make a purely combat oriented build starting from scratch that had excellent lethality at both ranged and melee.  Granted, he relies heavily on his companions for party skills and he has pisspoor leadership but considering in this mod I won't be using too many 150+ man parties anyways he suits my playstyle perfectly.

The Elegant Bow he starts with is superb (130 speed rating, I still use it even now) as well as his special mount, Cloud which has a nice 67 speed and good maneuverability.  Typical tactics for me involve rushing in solo while my party hangs back.  I do concentric circles taking out as many as I can (mounted foes/archers first) all the while avoiding enemy fire until I get them down to where I want (or they take out my mount, whichever happens first) then I call in the troops.  With a good polearm or 2-hander (and a decent Athletics skill) I can usually hold them off long enough to secure a win.  He's also great for soloing Fallen, Barbies, etc.  Awesome stuff

I enjoyed the Hunter character,  lazy pouring arrows on my foes until I draw my sword, waiting the blue text to see how many did I kill and watching my minions to clear things up 

I would sit my hunter on a sumpter horse just so I don't have the damn swivel-lag when lining up targets, if I could use a decent bow. If you know what I mean. On horseback You can do a 180 degree spin and shoot dead at your crosshair, but on foot you have to wait for your body to catch up to the crosshair, it really annoys me. I'm just wondering if you get a decrease to your damage for being on a horse, or is that only when you are moving.

The knight looks more like a general, with no skill in polearms and short weapons, he isn't very dangerous.

I tested Old Knight, Hunter, Barbarian Warrior and Khergit Noble with 0.91.

Old Knight was ok (also played him in EGII), but I had to scrap that game because I got a too expensive party.

Next, I started with Hunter. He was great with his Longbow and tons of Power Draw. He also starts with a couple of hunters in the party which is a great starting party for killing Looters. However, I kept getting knocked out by enemy horsemen so I gave up.

Barbarian Warrior is great. Absolutely the greatest DPS in the mod, especially after you increase his Strength and upgrade from the starting Savage Axe to some Nordic polearm axe. Also, not being able to use shield with his melee weapon leaves him 3 slots for throw weapons, which are great for killing enemy cavalry as they charge you. I still keep his Savage Axe for sieges because of its great reach.

Khergit Noble is great if you don't have problems with coordination and reflexes. I've never seen anything moving as fast in Mount and Blade as that Cloud horse. In all modules I get ****** off because most of my mounted troops outrun me to the enemy lines. With Khergit Noble, I can turn around and wave to them as my Cloud leaves them several meters behind . I found out that Khergit Noble is awful in foot melee the hard way. Had to reload 10 times in order to survive an encounter with night assassins in a city. The trick is to aim for their heads because the prickly Light Scimitar has trouble penetrating their armour. Horse Archery with the Khergit Noble feels much like WWII dogfighting.