Mount & Blade: Warband - Viking Conquest DLC (Release Date: 11th December)

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I've been holding out buying the VC DLC for months now because of the bugginess that most everybody reported.
Can some people talk about their experiences now, nearly half a year after the original release? Since all the review sites are full of bad reviews about bugs that were written in December 2014, it's hard to get a good picture. I'm really tempted to buy the DLC because I love the viking setting, but I'm not a fan of buying buggy games, even if they are only 15€.

So, how is it? Bugs fixed, game awesome? Please tell me so.  :grin:
 
Ignore the butthurt Steam reviews, nobody ever went back and changed their opinion and so millions of arsey reviews still abound and drive down the ratings.

The game is worlds away from its release form, and IMO well worth the cash I paid for it. Lovely armours, excellent scenes, dramatic battles, great replayability and a nice community. Some people seem magnetised to bugs, but I haven't found any in VC for months, unless they're the ones I've created through impromptu tweaking (and even those are rare). With the content patch enarly here, it looks like VC's just gonna get better.

The only real criticism I've heard of it is that the MP is quite moribund, though I wouldn't know as I can only play SP with my crappy internet.
 
Yeah, the fact that nobody ever updates their reviews is exactly the reason why I have problems finding any to date information on the game. But so far that sounds very good. Thanks!
 
I haven't played M&B in forever but swung back through to update my favorite mods (among which is Brytenwalda) and saw that this happened.

Holy crap. Well deserved, amazing to see. Just bought it on the Tale Worlds store and am installing it now (after updating my Warband install; a few dozen iterations having passed it seems) and it looks awesome.

Any recommendations? Things to do, things to avoid?
 
Looting and pillaging a few monasteries is okay though. I think 5+ looted monasteries makes them hate you so much that they start sowing discontent in the christian kingdoms against you.

Not quite sure if you can increase your standing with christians again up to a certain point that they will stop that and you can loot a few monasteries again.


But in the end it depends on your playstile. if you just want to murder and pillage, screw the Christians.


Tip from my side: If you play the story campaign (and I would recommend it; personally I enjoyed it very much), choose the possibility to be able to always save. There are still a few bugs and problems in there that can make you lose your progress. Oh, also permanent death for the story missions.
I had to start over one time after about 3-4 hours in because I chose the realistic setting like I always do with M6B.  That pissed me off a bit.
 
I would (story mode), do much trade in the early stages, travel at the earliest opportunity before you go to war with anyone, generate much coinage and buy businesses in towns/cities. Will pay off in the long run.
 
Okay. I'm a good 12+ hours into it at this point. Here's the feelings I've gotten out of it.

1. Story mode is brilliant. Well written, *feels* very norse epic. Brutal, ruthless, not something you can try to approach with modern sensibilities. Feel of the NPCs is awesome. The sense of being a relatively ordinary person who by fate is thrown into the brutal, fratricidal politics of 9th century North Atlantic Pillage Party.

2. Anyone who isn't used to Brytenwalda may not be used to just how insanely brutal the developer is. It's flat out painful in the start, seems like getting ahead is impossible but you just need to take your lumps and plow onward. I had great success with a bit of trade to pay/hire troops but then you start hunting small Viking parties. Capture a few Viking raders, stick your troops in the Refuge so the morale loss doesn't hit them and recruit the vikings. Then use the vikings + expendable scrubs to capture more vikings. At that point the recruited units are just fodder to help you kill/capture Vikings, who give valuable loot and can then be recruited.

3. Realized you need to move the story plot along until you've go companions with critical skills like Navigation. Then slow down and build. I've found that I can focus on combat and leadership skills and recruit party members to handle the rest. With character development being effectively reduced to 1/5th that was a critical lesson.

4. I'm currently at day 171 and have an amazing 11 Huskarls and can support over 300 troops! At game day 80 I was ready to say troop advancement was way, way too slow. Now I realize that it's no so much that it's too slow but that in the end captured elite enemy units like Vikings are faster/better. The best recommendation I would make is NOT increase troop training speed but make the top tier units like Huskarls worth the time investment. Make Companion-level units on par with Vikings (or nerf Vikings to that point and have a Bandit Leader tier Viking Raid Leader for every 10 Vikings in a group) and then Huskarl-tier units significantly better so the staggering time investment to get them is worth it and having 10 out of 300 at that level feels worthwhile.

5. Stable as any mod/game I've played. No bugs, no crashes, no issues.

6. Sea travel is a smidge too slow. Dunno how else to put it. For as often as it has me scooting across the pond it would be great if watching that slowly... slowly... slowly trickle along was less of a thing.

7. Too hard to affect lords opinions of you. In sections of the game where you need to get people to like you having to constantly run around and wait for them to let you have a mission was less than ideal. Even if the point gain was reduced it would be better to be running around doing the missions instead of running this loop of 'Hi! Got a mission? No? KK, back in 3 days.' *trot,trot, trot* 'Hey, Lord Sir Jarl Nextguy, got a mission? No? KK, back in 3 days!' etc, etc, etc.

8. Denmark and Sweden need 2nd cities and more towns/villages. Feels too empty and only one city means neither is a viable 'home' for you.

Still got a lot of playing to do though. Absolutely worth the money and a lot of fun. Adds a single player story to M&B that its never had before and I'm finding I really enjoy that.
 
Griefer said:
4. I'm currently at day 171 and have an amazing 11 Huskarls and can support over 300 troops! At game day 80 I was ready to say troop advancement was way, way too slow. Now I realize that it's no so much that it's too slow but that in the end captured elite enemy units like Vikings are faster/better. The best recommendation I would make is NOT increase troop training speed but make the top tier units like Huskarls worth the time investment. Make Companion-level units on par with Vikings (or nerf Vikings to that point and have a Bandit Leader tier Viking Raid Leader for every 10 Vikings in a group) and then Huskarl-tier units significantly better so the staggering time investment to get them is worth it and having 10 out of 300 at that level feels worthwhile.

True at the beginning but it was the same as with Brytenwalda. The "problem" here is that even the lowliest troops have level 15 and therefore needs lots of Exp to get upgraded. After you and your companions have reached Level 15 and you've got some points in Training it starts up. Before that, training up troops isn't really worth it.
Also, at least in the Sandbox mode, when you upgrade your relations with a City, the troops you can recruit there also get better. At the moment my first sandbox character can recruit 10-15 Norse Hirthmatr in Ribe at once. I'm guessing it works in Storymode too, but I never tried it there.
 
Griefer said:
6. Sea travel is a smidge too slow. Dunno how else to put it. For as often as it has me scooting across the pond it would be great if watching that slowly... slowly... slowly trickle along was less of a thing.

nice feedback. On that point (6) -> remember you can use CTRL+space to speed time (like when you are camping/resting) to travel faster on land and water.
 
kalarhan said:
Griefer said:
6. Sea travel is a smidge too slow. Dunno how else to put it. For as often as it has me scooting across the pond it would be great if watching that slowly... slowly... slowly trickle along was less of a thing.

nice feedback. On that point (6) -> remember you can use CTRL+space to speed time (like when you are camping/resting) to travel faster on land and water.

....

I'd totally forgotten about that. It certainly helps a lot though at this point I'm at a level and with companions who have resolved most of those sorts of issues. While at first I was irked that I wasn't going to be able to largely do everything myself I realized that most the companions have support skills at very high levels and by the time you get them to level 12 or 15 or so they can completely fill out those roles for you - again, very much in keeping with a proper Saga the hero has a mix of companions (each with their own story and drama) who fill in critical roles. For those of us who are a bit of a control freak (cough) it's a bit tough to let go of having your character just solo everything but in the setting and the storyline it's actually added a lot to the gameplay.

Two days of playing, well, all day each day and I'm not through the storyline yet. Better the more I get into it.  The story breaks in the context of someone who was there are also well done and a nice touch.

The companions are all characters in their own right! That's been a big plus as well. They're not just immortal cavalry you have to get the right mix of to avoid them leaving. They're the Sagas companion figures and they play fated roles of their own.

Faenwulf said:
Griefer said:
4. I'm currently at day 171 and have an amazing 11 Huskarls and can support over 300 troops! At game day 80 I was ready to say troop advancement was way, way too slow. Now I realize that it's no so much that it's too slow but that in the end captured elite enemy units like Vikings are faster/better. The best recommendation I would make is NOT increase troop training speed but make the top tier units like Huskarls worth the time investment. Make Companion-level units on par with Vikings (or nerf Vikings to that point and have a Bandit Leader tier Viking Raid Leader for every 10 Vikings in a group) and then Huskarl-tier units significantly better so the staggering time investment to get them is worth it and having 10 out of 300 at that level feels worthwhile.

When this is done I'll do another playthrough with different choices. Normally I'd go right to sandbox but I was not expecting a M&B game to tell me a good story. It's very pleasantly unexpected.

OH. And the set pieces, the villages and towns and castles are *insane*. Well done, well suited and very realistic. Same with the ruins and other out of the way places. Interesting locals is another thing that I didn't expect from M&B and it's well done.

True at the beginning but it was the same as with Brytenwalda. The "problem" here is that even the lowliest troops have level 15 and therefore needs lots of Exp to get upgraded. After you and your companions have reached Level 15 and you've got some points in Training it starts up. Before that, training up troops isn't really worth it.
Also, at least in the Sandbox mode, when you upgrade your relations with a City, the troops you can recruit there also get better. At the moment my first sandbox character can recruit 10-15 Norse Hirthmatr in Ribe at once. I'm guessing it works in Storymode too, but I never tried it there.

What level do you have the cities at? I've got some villages at 25 and still only getting largely basic troops.
 
I've gotten some cities up to about 40 before i started getting T3's from them, if you find a city and win 4-5 tourny's there, and are able to recruit there via the lord, or owning the city, you can recruit good units that way.
 
I think I got the T2 one around 30ish and the T3 at about 45.
Just keep a watch out for Competitions and do the tasks the mayor gives you.

Also, I'm not sure if that works with villages. So far I've only noticed it with cities working.
 
That makes more sense. My big problem now is that my faction is at war with 6 other factions (why is Denmark at war with Northumbria? Aren't they, you know, friends? Admittedly just because you're family doesn't mean you're not regularly trying to kill each other but still.

Finished the campaign. Now I need to play it through from the other side so to speak but admittedly I'm pretty tired :p A lot of hours and a LOT of dead Britons, Angles and Saxons!
 
Hidole555 said:
I watched the live action trailer again the other day. Did anyone ever find out what that music at the beginning was or at least the lyrics to it?



It's a song in the Viking Conquest soundtrack, you hear it when you visit (not raid) a monastery. Not sure what the name is though.
 
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