I know its too late, but have you considered making Bannerlord in Europe?

[Akfiz]

This is a purely for fun discussion as its impossible to change the state of the game a month before release, but have you considered making Bannerlord in Europe?

Napoleonic Wars, With Fire & Sword and Viking Conquests were real-life historical games, unlike Warband and the original Mount&Blade.

While the advantages of a purely fictional world is avoiding controversy from potential journalists who get offended by the slightest thing for the most ridiculous reasons (I didn't know it was possible until I saw it, I could give examples but that would be advertising since I would also have to mention the games), such people are but a small minority and their rant unlikely to cause the game any marketing problems.

On the other hand, using real-life history helps player feel more related to the game at hand, you can't have magic in real life but Mount&Blade already doesn't have magic so that's not an inconvenient. There are no fantasy elements in Mount&Blade and the intrigue, fights for power and back-stabbing of Mount&Blade also happened in real life. Starting with a purely fictional world is like a sheet of paper that you can then add and add and add to it making it your own world, but personally, I find it more lovely to play as the Ottoman Empire than as the Sarranid Sultanate simply because of context. As for the extra content, you can always make alternative-history scenarios, I guess making alternative-history scenarios from a starting historical scenario is the whole point.

This is Europe in year 1400:

You have great powers like: the Ottoman Empire, the Holy Roman Empire, the Kingdom of Poland, the Kingdom of France, the Kingdom of England and the Golden Horde.
You have medium powers like: the Kingdom of Naples, the Kingdom of Scotland, the Kingdom of Hungary, the Kingdom of Portugal, the Kingdom of Castille and the Kingdom of Aragon.
You have small nations like: Duchy of Brittany, Duchy of Millan, Kingdom of Sicily, Principality of Bosnia, Principality of Serbia, Principality of Wallachia and Principality of Moldavia.
You also have some unique states like: Union of Kalmar, the Teutonic Order and the falling Byzantine Empire. They could have their own different rules.
Additionally, you could also include Kingdom of the Marinids, Zayyanid Kingdom, Hafsid Kingdom, Kingdom of Cyprus and the Sultanate of Egypt for some desert fight.

The nations are not equally balanced because neither was history, but they can make alliances between them or against a more powerful foe to remain alive.

Apart from having all of Europe to explore and to fight wars on until you make your own kingdom or conquer the world with one of the already existing kingdoms, there could have also been optional fictional main stories like in Mount&Blade With Fire and Sword, possibly based on mythology or purely invented, where your character doesn't die at the end of them but becomes very powerful, so you can still conquer the whole world after that.
- The Holy Grail for England.
- A Quest for Internal Unity for Holy Roman Empire
- Restore the Byzatine Empire
- The Unification of Italy for Naples, Milan or Sicily.
- The Unification of Romania for Wallachia or Moldavia.
- The Unification of Spain for Castile or Aragon.
- Apart from the unification quests, mythology quests similar to the Holy Grail.

That's not to turn Bannerlord into a purely fictional game, but I enjoy a lot the story-driven open-world of With Fire & Sword and Viking Conquest which most importantly was optional, so if you didn't wanted you could simply have not taken such storyline quests.

What do you think?

Would have a rea-life historical world been a better thing because of context or is it better to have a made up world like a sheet of paper that you can then add upon?

 

[Younes]

It would take years more work because of the research that is required alone. I prefer bannerlord because it can be so flexible with factions.
But i also think this kind of game is something modders who are passionate about that time period will invest a lot more effort and time in. I feel like the kind of "historical" matters should be left to the community instead of devs just because i know the warband "medieval" modders are usually very passionate about it and will deliver a mod that would be made with a lot more love

 

[Gurkhal]

Considering the nit-picking that has happened on these forums over a fictional world in regards to historical details I can only guess at the ****storm that would be unleashed by a historical game. Better safe than sorry.

 

[vito397]

Mount and Blade from the start was a fantasy idea, much more fantasy than it turned out to be now. Look up quests from the Warrider or earlier versions of M&B, where you had to defeat zombie Harlaus, fight the undead, or withstand an invasion from the Dark Knights. I like a low fantasy appraoch that it has taken since then, and really wouldn't like if the Calradia universe would advance into the modern era, but staying in the context of medieval world and antiquity is just my opinion. Historcal settings are great for drawing inspiration, but I think that the mount and blade franchise belonged from the beginning to the fantasy genre. Thus I think that it is better to leave real History out of it. The historical DLCs came out of mods (brytenwalda for VC and Mount and Musket for NW) and developed by other people apart from TW (SiCh and FSE)

 

[danEN]

There will be a Europe mod no doubt

 

[Kernowek]

Modders got it sorted. Napoleonic Wars and Viking Conquest were made by separate teams, not Taleworlds. Fire and Sword is still based on a Historical Fiction novel.

 

[Lord Brutus]

Your map is about 400 years in the future from the time period of Bannerlord. A more accurate representation of Europe of Bannerlord.

Spoiler: 1

 

[Timmortal]

Thats what mods are for and i must admit that the Europe mod for Warband made the map far to big, took forever to get anywhere in that map and there were so many nations that the color schemes became a blur at times.

 

[Lord Brutus]

Thats what mods are for and i must admit that the Europe mod for Warband made the map far to big, took forever to get anywhere in that map and there were so many nations that the color schemes became a blur at times.

I know that and I agree but it's obvious the OP doesn't know even the time period that Bannerlord is set in.

 

[Friendly]

There is several mods for different areas of europe in different times in warband, which are frankly imo pretty overwhelming.

Personally I would much rather it was a fictional setting and factions anyway. It allows for a bit more creativity and interesting combinations than going full on realistic.

 

[Pelicanmeat]

I think this is perfect for a mod team to dive in and create. 1257 AD is a perfect example. The amount of time spent developing a game of this scope with that much historical detail isn’t really feasible for a developer as small as TaleWorlds. They would need to hire (or outsource) historians, researchers, specialized designers, etc. It’s a lot. The game not being balanced is the least of their worries, honestly.

The modding community is full of gifted amateurs (and sometimes professionals) that seems actually in a better position to release a mod with the detail you want. They’ve done it, in fact: 1257 AD is a great mod—it’s got its problems (ie there are so many factions that there aren’t enough colors to differentiate them on the overland map; the map is so massive it lags a lot) but it’s a fine mod and fun as hell to play.

 

[Revverie]

No

 

[paladinx333]

There will be many mods for Bannerlord and I am sure that some of them will be more European and set in a more recent time period.

 

[Jarl Malcolm]

I think the problem with this suggestion can be compared to Crusader Kings II. love that game, I have 1000+ hours on it, but it took years of updates and DLCs to get a satisfying representation of the monstrous number of cultures / religions / governments of real life. Bannerlord Europe could not paste Aserai over all of the Near-East and Battania over the British Isles, they would need to work on at least 30 different cultures, with different successions, politics, troops, etc. Balancing that would be a nightmare. (Ignoring the modelisation of known towns)
The advantage of a small map and fantasy cultures is that the number presented in Bannerlord is satisfying, but if it was Europe, it would be extremely insufficient. It's an interesting suggestion, but I reckon it belongs to the realm of mods.