I thought this was the dark ages?

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I'm an avid Mount and Blade fan. I have thousands of hours in the previous titles and about 300 in Bannerlord. I loved the old game. When they announced that this would be set after the fall of the Calradian Empire and be a couple hundred years before Warband, admittedly I was a little disappointed. I generally prefer later medieval styles from the 14th century, and thought that would have made a better sequel.

However there is still lots of awesome in the dark ages. Reality gives us battles like Hastings, which would have been cool to see a Vlandian Duke William invading a Batanian King Harold. However, the styles of each faction do not hold up to their counterparts nicely, which is fine, this is Calradia after all, and the factions are only inspired by historical counterparts.

Even still though, the game falls short for me in that the armor styles in the game are often nothing like what would have been seen in the dark ages on Earth. Too often the armor is much heavier than it should be and it just breaks the immersion for me. Many of the weapons are from a later period as well. Then there's the strange mixing of shield styles even within the same faction that is just odd.
 
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It's simple fantasy strategic game really - Mongols V Vikings V Britains V Muslims V European Empire etc

Modders will hopefully produce the games that will interest you.

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It's simple fantasy strategic game really - Mongols V Vikings V Britains V Muslims V European Empire etc

Modders will hopefully produce the games that will interest you.

.
There are no vikings in bannerlord rn. They will come in future patch for sure since they already increased world map size.
 
Well what did you expect? An exact copy of certain historical cultures but only renamed? I think theyre allowed some room for fantasy.

Anyway, if we're going to say battania are britons, then they're not in the right time. In the dark ages the britons were romanized if i recall correctly. I would say batannia draws its inspiration from various celts.
 
Well what did you expect? An exact copy of certain historical cultures but only renamed? I think theyre allowed some room for fantasy.

Anyway, if we're going to say battania are britons, then they're not in the right time. In the dark ages the britons were romanized if i recall correctly. I would say batannia draws its inspiration from various celts.
They're allowed room for mixing inspiration on factions. It's really just strange to see such heavy armors for me, given the timeline parallels. Most stuff didn't feel super out of place for Warband. It said the year was around 1256, but the armors all felt more 1300 in reality. But that applied to everyone equally, so it didn't break my immersion since everyone was at around the same technological level. But with Bannerlord is all over the place, and with some very silly fantasy stuff that's just not realistic.
 
It's simple fantasy strategic game really - Mongols V Vikings V Britains V Muslims V European Empire etc
None of these are actual inspirations of the kingdoms in the game from my point of view.
EDIT : Battania can be debated for sure, I may say your mileage may vary.
from what TW has said
* Bannerlord's time period ranges from the year 600 to 1100 AD.
* Khuzaits' inspiration is a mix of Gokturks, Kipchaks, Mongols, Avars, Khazars https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/33
* Aserai's inspiration are the pre-Islamic Arab kingdoms https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/41 (though, undoubtedly, they took some inspiration from the Caliphates too, considering the geographical area the Aserai cover and their Mamlukes).
* Sturgia are inspired by the Kievan Rus (which was a mix of Slavic and Scandinavian culture) https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/39
* Battania are inspired by the Celtic people of Western Europe, particularly Picts, Irish, and Welsh, with elements of Ancient Celts. https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/30
* Vlandia are inspired by Germanic Western Europeans, with a particular focus on Normans https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/37
* Empire are inspired by the Mediterranean Europeans, particularly the Byzantines. https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/45
 
Even still though, the game falls short for me in that the armor styles in the game are often nothing like what would have been seen in the dark ages on Earth. Too often the armor is much heavier than it should be and it just breaks the immersion for me. Many of the weapons are from a later period as well. Then there's the strange mixing of shield styles even within the same faction that is just odd.
Yeah, they play particularly fast and loose with all that. Especially egregious with their "pre-Islamic Arab tribes" claim weapon matched with weapon styles and armors that post-date the Middle Ages entirely with a troop tree firmly drawing from the era of Caliphates.
 
Initially they were explicitly going with historical parallelism, even going so far as directly telling 3D artists to reference the 700s AD, but at some point in around 2016 they ditched it and added all sorts of psuedorealistic and fantasy items that threw all the historical inspirations out the window. Battania is the most obvious one, but if you know anything about Pre-Islamic Arabia or Central Asia, the Aserai and Khuzaits are just as bad.
 
Dell'arte della guerra mod is what you and I are looking for. Will take place in the late 1400s. It's even supposed to have the early gunpowder weapons of the period. May be a while before it's released though.

I'm not nearly as big a fan of the Dark Ages, and I'm not a fan of how Bannerlord interprets it (and goes beyond it anyway). IMO it would have been so much more fun if they went forward a bit to the 1500s and the Renaissance. Warfare changed noticeably in that century. We'd have bombards, hand gunners, excellent ornate plate armor, sappers and tunnelers.

Maybe we would. Not sure if they could pull it off to be honest.
 
from what TW has said
* Bannerlord's time period ranges from the year 600 to 1100 AD.
* Khuzaits' inspiration is a mix of Gokturks, Kipchaks, Mongols, Avars, Khazars https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/33
* Aserai's inspiration are the pre-Islamic Arab kingdoms https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/41 (though, undoubtedly, they took some inspiration from the Caliphates too, considering the geographical area the Aserai cover and their Mamlukes).
* Sturgia are inspired by the Kievan Rus (which was a mix of Slavic and Scandinavian culture) https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/39
* Battania are inspired by the Celtic people of Western Europe, particularly Picts, Irish, and Welsh, with elements of Ancient Celts. https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/30
* Vlandia are inspired by Germanic Western Europeans, with a particular focus on Normans https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/37
* Empire are inspired by the Mediterranean Europeans, particularly the Byzantines. https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/Blog/45

Hmm I'm well aware of this, thanks.
As a result allow me to link you a previous message I've made on another thread ( fun fact you responded just after that )

[....]for the Eastern part it's basically their Kievan Rus inspiration which basically touches their importance on warring against Eastern Roman Empire and Turkic Tribes. ( If I'm not mistaken they even allied themselves with some Turkic nations, which is represented in the game lore, again if my memory serves well )

For instance I'm not sure about the Mongols though, despite TW claiming this, era that TW is trying to recreate and we as players and arm-chair historian can draw clues, this era predates the Golden Horde by a large margin.
Somehow people tend to conflate Turkic Tribes / Steppe Nomads as Genghis Khan somehow.
Same is true for Vikings you could argue.
Byzantines = Eastern Roman Empire

Sorry for being pedantic.

Initially they were explicitly going with historical parallelism, even going so far as directly telling 3D artists to reference the 700s AD, but at some point in around 2016 they ditched it and added all sorts of psuedorealistic and fantasy items that threw all the historical inspirations out the window. Battania is the most obvious one, but if you know anything about Pre-Islamic Arabia or Central Asia, the Aserai and Khuzaits are just as bad.

I would say Battania is the worst, could you point me how bad are the Khuzaits, despite the " Mongolian-y " flag and their helmet ? ( Cuman Kipchak from the Darkhans in the game )
Lore-wise, nothing was shocking to me at least.

Oh and the whole idea of historical paralellism could only make much more sense if some kingdoms were going to a certain death the more you play ingame ( looking at you Battania, we already know this Nation is long time gone with Warband ), but that would need a really well crafted Main Quest to begin with, I won't hold my breath to that.
 
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Dell'arte della Guerra will fix a lot of what's wrong with it. It's already far too late for TW to start making changes on it and lean back towards historical parallelism.


lol
Yeah, I don't expect them to redo all the armors and weapons to fit correctly to their time period, it's far too late for that. It just seems like every game, movie, tv show etc has descended into adding more and more fantasy elements. I really wish they went the other direction and I had huge hopes for Bannerlord a long time ago on this. I still got my money's worth, and mods can fix most of this in time. I just hope they fix this for new game titles.
 
I would say Battania is the worst, could you point me how bad are the Khuzaits, despite the " Mongolian-y " flag and their helmet ? ( Cuman Kipchak from the Darkhans in the game )
Lore-wise, nothing was shocking to me at least.
Cuman-Kipchaks made and used armor that would've been similar to the Rus, not near-copies of Chinese armor ranging from the 8th century to the 15th century, like the Khuzaits do in Bannerlord. They logically should resemble each other, given that the two factions border one another but other than a single piece of high-end armor, the two factions are held separate.

I can understand why they went that direction though, because otherwise the choices of armor in the game would've been two or three forms of textiles, then lamellar of another two or three types, followed by really bad mail, somewhat bad mail, mediocre mail, marginally better mail, decent mail, good mail, good mail, good mail, good mail, good mail, really good mail, excellent mail, top-tier mail, doubled mail.
 
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It's pretty funny when a developer says they're going to make a game set in late antiquity / early medieval, without realising that everyone from timbuktu to kamchatka mostly used exposed mail hauberks for hundreds of years. As far as military outfits are concerned, it's probably the least diverse period prior to modernity.

The Khuzaits are definitely the bizzarest "inspiration". They mention a bunch of Central Asian groups that have almost nothing in common, or are very hard to know anything about. It's as if they just listed them randomly.
The Khuzaits are based partially on the Mongols but also on their more modest cousins, the Avars, Göktürks, Kipchaks, and Khazars, who were more regional powers than global ones.
They casually mention the Gokturks, Avars and Mongols as "cousins" when their very existence was separated by thousands of miles and hundreds of years. I get that the Asian steppe belt is like a highway of culture and conquest, but this is the equivalent of making a Mediterranean faction and saying they're based on Venice, Tunisia, Morocco, the Kingdom of Israel and Brinze age Egypt.
 
For instance I'm not sure about the Mongols though, despite TW claiming this, era that TW is trying to recreate and we as players and arm-chair historian can draw clues, this era predates the Golden Horde by a large margin.
Somehow people tend to conflate Turkic Tribes / Steppe Nomads as Genghis Khan somehow.
Yeah, agreed. I would say in TW's defence that their initial stance may have been the Gokturks etc. being the main inspiration, with just a hint of Mongol, but of course it looks very Mongolian now.

Also you don't have to apologize to me for being pedantic as I am a bit too :smile:
 
Late Anitquity/Early Middle Ages is one of my favorite historical periods. TW royally messed up capturing the period, even just any kind of spirit or essence when ignoring any fine details since it's technically fantasy. The armor and weapons are too bizarre for my tastes, but the biggest offense for me is that all of the cultures and systems of government are exact copies of each other. Barbarian tribes function exactly the same as an advanced and glorious empire of old. That's just dumb and an egregiously missed opportunity. The inaccuracy with the presentation wouldn't have bothered me so much if there was a lot of color, character, and variety with the factions and how they work, and not just with their clothes.
 
They casually mention the Gokturks, Avars and Mongols as "cousins" when their very existence was separated by thousands of miles and hundreds of years. I get that the Asian steppe belt is like a highway of culture and conquest, but this is the equivalent of making a Mediterranean faction and saying they're based on Venice, Tunisia, Morocco, the Kingdom of Israel and Brinze age Egypt.
I think you are hurting some Pan-Turkic feelings here and there and at the same time you gave birth to the Pan-Mediteranean movement ?
 
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