Do not look here said:
The old one had its charm, but not much more going for it. This one's better, carry on.
+1
I was looking at the screenshots (not many, just six at the moment!) and there is an attractive new image of the full Calradian map, looking almost like a satellite image. It looks to me as though the Aserai area, for one, has been reworked a bit (unless I wasn't paying attention to changes in the last year or so). It did't really have any green areas before, being uniformly desert, whereas now it seems there are definite green areas around the small inland sea/large lake and along a river running into this body of water from the south. I think that river is new in itself. The distribution of mountains here is also more regular, forming a broken barrier between the desert and the lakeside fertile lands. The mountains here aren't the standard peaks, but instead plateaus. It makes more sense (because mountains channel rain clouds to or away from certain areas in reality) and looks more natural, with a varied look to the terrain (not just sandy desert and grassland).
mike56 said:
This new picture looks also kinda nice, but not too much.
I didn't pay much attention to it on the site, but looking at it again there is something I really like- the trees. The structure of the plants is something that was always lacking, but now it is as good as the texture work. I just realised the small ones are even rather realistically jutting out of the snow. I may have missed such work before in Bannerlord, but as far as I know these are the best trees and plants I have ever seen in the series, I could be looking at plants from my local area. I also enjoy the lighting, shadows and snow-haze created by the troops' passage, and that one can see (when zooming in) the many soldiers further into the backround beyond the foreground horsemen.
On the other hand, the way the soldiers all hold their weapons at the same angle and have the same posture looks a bit awkward. There is
some variety in armour, but not much, and all the horses are identically barded (though I do rather like the material in the saddle area).
As a last observation; I like the features section- we have one at last! Gives a broad overview of the game, and some nice screenshots to go with it.