Do you enjoy mods with big maps?

Do you enjoy mods with enormous maps?


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Revverie

I always wondered if I am the only one bothered by this, I do not enjoy a mod when the map is huge, they make campaigns impossible, most of the towns and cities start to look the same and it gets boring because Warband lacks mechanic to make conquering big, large maps fun.
I understand some mods represent an historical place, like Gekokujo with Japan, but it still could be a reduced place and historical at the same time, leading to shorter games but with each place having more attention payed into it. I dont know, this is my sincere opinion, what do you think?
 
It depends...

Sometimes, bigger maps and too many factions end up giving me a choice-overload, and also a feeling of 'dread' where I don't feel like I would finish the campaign given the minimal amount of time I have. I enjoyed all the Game Of Thrones mods thoroughly, but I've never completed a campaign.

I really enjoyed the old Hundred Years War mod by Llew due to the small scale. Not a lot of factions, smaller map, more battles, shorter campaign. I believe Prophesy of Pendor has a medium-sized map and a relatively small amount of factions to choose from. Campaign is still long, but is manageable (or perhaps, I had more time back then when I finished a PoP campaign...)

When I was playing games non-stop, this wasn't a problem, but now, short-and-sweet campaigns is where it is at for me.

However, a good feature in The Last Days of the Third Age (TLD) that 'contains' a large map / many factions are the "Theaters of War", where some factions only fight their neighbours until they are defeated. Then the faction moves to the next theater of war. For some reason, this focused the campaign, even though the player CAN and WILL move anywhere in the global map.

Viking Conquest Story Mode also provided this feel, due to the 'story' aspect of it. Huge map, but was 'contained'.

So again, I guess, the answer for me is, "it depends" :grin:
 
because Warband lacks mechanic to make conquering big, large maps fun

mods are not defined or limited by the base game, but by the modder design and implementation. Lacking a feature for XX? Create one.

So its not about the "size" (dunno if you are talking about quantity of towns, or how long it takes to conquer the world, or whatever metric for gameplay), but its about the design.
 
mods are not defined or limited by the base game, but by the modder design and implementation. Lacking a feature for XX? Create one.

So its not about the "size" (dunno if you are talking about quantity of towns, or how long it takes to conquer the world, or whatever metric for gameplay), but its about the design.
Well then I have not yet found a modder that made endgame really fun as the start game is. By big maps I mean... big maps, just a billion towns and castles that look mostly the same, that repeat scenes for taverns, halls, etc. That largeness defines how long it will take to conquer everything
 
Well then I have not yet found a modder that made endgame really fun as the start game is.

well fun is a something that depends on each player. What makes the start of the game fun for you? What makes the middle game? And what is a end game and what kind of stuff would make your end game concept fun? That answer would be really varied in nature. In special on a sandbox, which has no rules for that (no game defined end goal).

For some around here the end game is actually modding the game :razz:

Bannerlord will have new UI, features, etc, so you should start thinking what kind of end game you want and write it down. Who knows? Maybe you can do it yourself, or find a group of people that likes that design and makes a mod around it.
 
I never liked too huge worldmaps for same reasons as you but like karlarhan said if you doesn't like things you can mod them, if you think scenes are too repetitive you can start learn scening, or make donations to scener that create OSP scenes if you're rich ? :iamamoron: Also coding why not ? or just give some ideas to other modders or really good feedback. I don't know why M&B mods tends to not gather such big teams (especially of sceners which is the "simplier thing" to learn if you have a teacher: i've teached someone scening in 3 days, i think any big mod should have at least 3 sceners). I think too the same generic scenes in huge world is boring but all this scenes not gonna be build lonely... sadly. The feeling is even harder cause you will find those same scenes in almost every mods. So it seems there's not enough people in the world yet to have as many sceners as needed... In one year an a half; on the five or six sceners i could recruit two were not motivated, one couldn't make a castle or couldn't show any scening work, three were too busy. Also there is very few OSP scenes fully finished provided by community atfer 10 years of Warband compares to the numbers of different mods (look at how many native remix mod there is actually but they will all be with same scenes mostly).

On the endgame mechanics side, if the mod is good and polished i will be more motivated to finish it, the endgame mechanics can be a ltitle bit repetitive but once you have a big kingdom it's quite easy get the upper hand and finish the game. Making many sieges can be a little bit repetitive for somes but i like hard sieges, in In the name of jeursalme mod i created a supply line of troops with my nearby castles to replace hurt poeples of my army and make them rest and instantly reattack the ennemy castle without letting it breath. It was hard, it was war, it was bloody !
 
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Depends on whats considered large. VC is okey since its centered in England but those mods that has all of Europe and the middle east is just to massive. except the lords of the faction you decide to join, relations with lords wont matter since you never meet them anyway. Also so many quests gets ****ed up forcing me to travel for 10 min just to deliver some wine
 
relations with lords wont matter since you never meet them anyway. Also so many quests gets ****ed up forcing me to travel for 10 min just to deliver some wine

is that a problem tho? You dont need to conquer the entire map, and it adds replay-ability by letting you try different regions of the map. So it is up to the player goal, as if your endgame = conquer all, then it is not a mod you will enjoy. But if you are fine with ruling one nation and fight wars with neighbors, send raiding parties to distance lands, or join a crusade or two, then the huge map works for that.

the quest issue could be solved by a different design that takes distance under consideration. Mod has its own rules for a quest and can do whatever they want with them, from removing, editing to adding new ones.
 
The problem with large maps is that often look pretty empty, unfinished and lonely, for obvious reasons.
From an aesthetic point of view, I prefer not big but well-designed maps.
 
Well then I have not yet found a modder that made endgame really fun as the start game is. By big maps I mean... big maps, just a billion towns and castles that look mostly the same, that repeat scenes for taverns, halls, etc. That largeness defines how long it will take to conquer everything

Most modders are not game designers and lack the imagination and skill to transform the endgame. It's not an easy task to make a 40 hour campaign enjoyable all the way through.
People who play mods are also easily wowed by sheer numbers since that's the first thing you see when you open a mod page. A mod where there are fewer settlements and troop types than the base game is probably going to come across as incomplete or underwhelming, so modders often overcompensate by making everything bigger.

What mods (and strategy games in general) should use their large maps for is multiple interesting starts. You should use themes, mechanics and outright explicit objectives that strongly discourage players from conquering the entire map, and instead starting a new game in a different place, or with different objectives, or whatever. The early to mid game is always much more fun, so you should stop the game before it gets to the boring part.
Conversely, in warband the game is constantly telling you through dialogue and mechanics that the aim of the game is to conquer everything. This is what guides players into the lategame grind and it should be avoided.
 
is that a problem tho? You dont need to conquer the entire map, and it adds replay-ability by letting you try different regions of the map. So it is up to the player goal, as if your endgame = conquer all, then it is not a mod you will enjoy. But if you are fine with ruling one nation and fight wars with neighbors, send raiding parties to distance lands, or join a crusade or two, then the huge map works for that.

the quest issue could be solved by a different design that takes distance under consideration. Mod has its own rules for a quest and can do whatever they want with them, from removing, editing to adding new ones.

If you just want to wage war as a king I suppose it doesn't matter to much but if you like me enjoys to start of as a wanderer and work your way up it makes a lot of your early game work useless since that's were you build up relations with people all over the map. Also I just don't see a reason to have a massive map. What value does it add on its own? Maps like AWOIF and The Last Days of the Third Age, is fine since its actually fills a purpose even if you don't end up using half the map, but those Europe conversions I find pointless or even negative since its just becomes a burden
 
since that's were you build up relations with people all over the map

but why? Unless you are talking about a badly balanced mod that forces you to travel around the world, which is beyond the point, as that is not about the "size" of the map (read number of regions/towns/castles available + travel time/speed).

Lets say you have Europe as the map. You can spend your campaign inside England, doing some attacks/raids around France and Ireland/Scotland. You dont need to go to Spain to do quests for lords there, or Italy, or Poland ... those regions would be there for future campaigns or as places you can lead the royal army for wars, or places you can lead your warband for raiding before going back home (viking style :grin:)

As mentioned earlier and also above its about the design to make the campaign not a grind experience.

Of course if you define a fun end game as a map where you can conquer 100%, then yes, having a massive amount of places to conquer would be a drag and and you should avoid those kind of mods.
 
I like a large map if it is well designed and the size makes sense when compared to the number of factions and such. The Clash of Kings map is huge but there are also more than a dozen factions so it works out. I think it really depends on the competency of the modder.
 
but why? Unless you are talking about a badly balanced mod that forces you to travel around the world, which is beyond the point, as that is not about the "size" of the map (read number of regions/towns/castles available + travel time/speed).

Lets say you have Europe as the map. You can spend your campaign inside England, doing some attacks/raids around France and Ireland/Scotland. You dont need to go to Spain to do quests for lords there, or Italy, or Poland ... those regions would be there for future campaigns or as places you can lead the royal army for wars, or places you can lead your warband for raiding before going back home (viking style :grin:)

As mentioned earlier and also above its about the design to make the campaign not a grind experience.

Of course if you define a fun end game as a map where you can conquer 100%, then yes, having a massive amount of places to conquer would be a drag and and you should avoid those kind of mods.

The thing is if quests forces you to travel all over the world. and when you arrive with your quest you either have to waste loads of time traveling back to the place of the world were you are playing or keep doing quests were you happen to be which leads to relations not mattering. I don't really mind world conquest since its so repetitive. In fact I only done a world conquest once :smile:
 
The thing is if quests forces you to travel all over the world. and when you arrive with your quest you either have to waste loads of time traveling back to the place of the world were you are playing or keep doing quests were you happen to be which leads to relations not mattering.

you are under the impression that a bigger world (read more places like towns/castles/etc with longer travel speed) must follow Native Warband rules, which is not the case. Native is just one game, one ruleset. The mod can do whatever he wants with his own game rules.

There is no reason to have quests that make you travel the world for little gain, unless the modder wishes for that or the game is bad balanced. It is not a map problem. Its a design problem.
 
you are under the impression that a bigger world (read more places like towns/castles/etc with longer travel speed) must follow Native Warband rules, which is not the case. Native is just one game, one ruleset. The mod can do whatever he wants with his own game rules.

There is no reason to have quests that make you travel the world for little gain, unless the modder wishes for that or the game is bad balanced. It is not a map problem. Its a design problem.

Even if the quests reward scales with the distance you travel you are still on the wrong side of the map in the end. What do you mean with bigger world doesn't need to equal longer travel times? You want a map with just a ****ton of towns and villages crowded together? That would be terrible
 
Even if the quests reward scales with the distance you travel

and who said that the distance traveled for a quest needs to scale with the map?

Native rules are Native rules. They are just Native rules. They are not the rules mods need to follow at all.
 
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Medium-small maps are good for warband since large maps make the mod file sizr bigger (more junk) also there aren't any siege weapons for warband (except 1) and also it takes more time to load in. It's even a bigger cancer if you walk around the town that's a big empty space with only 6 citizens walking around.
 
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