If not Bannerlord .......... then what is the current " best MB experience " ?

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Bannerlord so far is an appealing - looking facade, evidently awaiting modders ( but not TW! ) to develop a building behind it, if they ever can.
So, if Bannerlord is not the current " best MB ( SP ) experience ", what is ?
Could it be VC Reforged, with the Blood Eagle ( 4.2.5 ) mod ?
( Bannerlord is sometimes compared, unfavourably, with VC on these pages )
Or perhaps TLD ?
 
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So in the meantime, for you, which MB mod is the state - of - the - art " stand out " eg that you recommend playing for now, instead of Bannerlord EA ?
 
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  • Warband with bannerpage 2.2 mod.
This mod keeps the vanilla essence and adds all the features you would eventually need for extended game experience.
  • Warband with TLD
Must try complete overhaul.
What they did is so immersive and really enjoyable.
  • Warband with Brytenwalda
Dark and brutal.
Actually, TW teamworked with the devs of this mod to make VC.

Prophecy of Pendor is also good complete overhaul but I didn't really like the lore and game balance.
 
You prefer Brytenwalda to the more " developed " VC Reforged - plus mod ?
For mine, even the superior Warband mods are becoming a bit too " well - worn " ( which does not mean that I don't think that the devs have been, still are, fantastic ); there is a certain fresh appeal to Sparta, and Honour and Glory ( and the ECW mod of WFAS had a promising start, but it was some time back ..... )
 
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You prefer Brytenwalda to the more " developed " VC Reforged - plus mod ?
For mine, even the good Warband mods are becoming a bit too " well - worn "; there is a certain fresh appeal to Sparta, and Honour and Glory ( the ECW mod of WFAS had a promising start, but it was some time back ..... )
I didn't try VC because I have no interest in the naval thing.
But considering the quality of Brytenwalda, there is no doubt that VC is a great DLC.
 
VC with the balance mod and more music mod is my personal favorite. A couple of the tracks on the music mod aren't very good or are too loud, but those are easily removed, and the result is a VC campaign that is tweaked a bit better, with a lot of music that feels very immersive and pulls you right into the atmosphere.
 
Honestly there just isn't any game that fills this nieche. Thats why everyone is stuck here, no matter what TW does.. Only thing you can do, is plaing previous parts of it, but tbh, they are hella rusty by now..
 
Not much of a choice here. You either play old games (WB, F&S, VC) or old games with mods.

But. For some reason, the only modern game that gave me the M&B feeling was Battle Brothers. It has no mounts, it's turn-based, and maximum army size is like 24. But you have full control over your mercs' equipment, skills and perks. The game gives much more opportunities for role-playing, and the grimdark atmosphere is very good.
The difficulty is sometimes unfair and RNG system is lame as everywhere (several 95% hit chance misses in a row is a usual situation). But it also has a good modding community, and some nice mods that alleviate the drawbacks.
 
I didn't try VC because I have no interest in the naval thing.
But considering the quality of Brytenwalda, there is no doubt that VC is a great DLC.
The naval bit is completely optional, you only truly need a ship if you want to reach kingdoms outside Britain but you don't need to use them to fight, raid, trade if you don't want.

I love Brytenwalda and VC is an amazing "sequel" to it, it has the same feel just more polished and balanced, it's honestly one of the best dlc/mods made for warband to date if you like the setting, the balance submod for it also improves any small nitpicks i could have with VC.
 
Not much of a choice here. You either play old games (WB, F&S, VC) or old games with mods.

But. For some reason, the only modern game that gave me the M&B feeling was Battle Brothers. It has no mounts, it's turn-based, and maximum army size is like 24. But you have full control over your mercs' equipment, skills and perks. The game gives much more opportunities for role-playing, and the grimdark atmosphere is very good.
The difficulty is sometimes unfair and RNG system is lame as everywhere (several 95% hit chance misses in a row is a usual situation). But it also has a good modding community, and some nice mods that alleviate the drawbacks.
Battle Brothers was/is a top game!

I don't get a big Mount & Blade vibe from it, but still lots of fun.
 
While I wait for Bannerlord to get to that nice spot, if ever, I've been playing Perisno on and off throughout the years. It's nice that its devs are still working on it.
 
Ah, Perisno, recent Mod DB Editors' Mod of the Year .......... and Bannerpage was a winner too. Eleven year old Warband has a bit of street cred still, it seems. Yet I have to admit that I was a bit surprised ( good that they are ) that both had beaten everything else ( ie that hadn't won before - rules ) out there for 2020.

On reflection, I still rate old Gekokujo the best of the best. There's just something about it .......
 
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The naval bit is completely optional, you only truly need a ship if you want to reach kingdoms outside Britain but you don't need to use them to fight, raid, trade if you don't want.

I love Brytenwalda and VC is an amazing "sequel" to it, it has the same feel just more polished and balanced, it's honestly one of the best dlc/mods made for warband to date if you like the setting, the balance submod for it also improves any small nitpicks i could have with VC.
To be honest with you, I was close to buy it recenlty...
And your comments will make me think about it again :wink:
 
Bannerlord so far is an appealing - looking facade, evidently awaiting modders ( but not TW! ) to develop a building behind it, if they ever can.
So, if Bannerlord is not the current " best MB ( SP ) experience ", what is ?
Could it be VC Reforged, with the Blood Eagle ( 4.2.5 ) mod ?
( Bannerlord is sometimes compared, unfavourably, with VC on these pages )
Or perhaps TLD ?
Battle Brothers, by far.

It is pretty much Mount and Blade with most of the stupid or grindy parts removed, combined with actual good writing and a scope focused on the fun bits.
 
I finished another run in The Last Days of Middle Earth (TLD - a LotR mod available for both original M&B and Warband) over the past weekend, crushing the feeble forces of Gondor and the silly elves (once again) for the glory of the great Khan of Harad and its ally Mordor, then dealing with the traitor Saruman. Still pretty good, even after finishing it several times on each side of the war. Unfortunately, it doesn't include kingdom building; you're always a vassal of someone else.

Gekokujo is also surprisingly good, set in feudal Japan.

Brytenwalda is very professional and polished, but I don't really enjoy the dark British Isles setting and overall game balance that much. Got as far as fielding a very competitive army, but never played to the point of establishing a kingdom.

If you haven't played the Star Wars: Conquest mod yet (ported to Warband from original M&B), it's worth it just to see just how far you can take the M&B engine. Unfortunately, it starts crashing for me about half-way through a campaign, despite memory patches that work for other M&B mods, and are virtually required to run some like TLD or SWC. The revised game (the New Order) for Warband doesn't appeal to me nearly as much for some reason, and also started crashing repeatedly in the mid-game until I gave up on it.

I found the controversial and slightly silly pseudo-historical post-WWI "Red Wars" rather amusing for the first couple of in-game months while you build up your band of retainers and companions. Then I tried to assault a fort. That turned out to be badly broken (a couple of forts don't even exist on the tactical map, so you're fighting in an open field with both armies dumped together on the same edge of the map, while other forts have no normal "door", so you more-or-less have to struggle to filter through a tiny gap in single file while the defenders throw grenades), and the game goes downhill fast from there. It's close to being an excellent mod, but a few serious bugs and unfinished scenes ruin it.

One modder named Gabrilduro started at least half a dozen different somewhat historical mods for various later timeframes (French and Indian Wars, American Civil War, post-ACW western, etc., and they all LOOK very good, but all are incomplete and buggy. It's a pity that he either couldn't find someone to work with in order to finish those projects properly, or never stayed focused long enough to do so himself. As they are, I can't recommend actually playing them, although several may be worth seeing for the nicely done uniforms and equipment.

There was an interesting Napoleonic wars mod for original M&B which included several tricks that really pushed the envelope in terms of faking an economy (purchasing a business, buying rental properties, etc.), some of which were later implemented in other ways in vanilla Warband, but the mod was never ported to Warband.

I never cared for a few of the surprisingly popular mods that attempt to start the game on 11 and then tried to go upward from there, because there's really no place to go from there. The game mechanics pretty well top out, to the point where any further increases make little difference. I recall starting out one game as a pauper turned to poaching, and the mod put me in heavy chain mail with a two-handed axe....like I'm going to go chasing homicidal deer or rabbits while wearing heavy armor, so I can melee them. Another mod raised the speed of horses to about double or more, so you had 60 mile per hour horses. Blink once and you just missed the entire enemy army. Sorry, but the equine turbocharger hadn't yet been invented back then.

Most of the "overhaul" mods have at least one very good or brilliant feature, but another that makes me just stare and say "WHY would you DO this?".
 
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