New game -> upped the difficulty.. halp

[Lancefighter]

So I decided my last game was too easy, so I decided to start another game.. I upped everything to hard except manual blocking.. ill pass on that for now 

And.. I barely have been able to get a foothold anywhere. Basically everywhere i read says that winning tournaments is somehow possible at level 1 (or do you start at level 2? >.< ) but. Its totally not. Not on the harder difficulties at least.

Ive decided this game I am going to play the rhodocks, (well, their style at least), so crossbow is my ranged weapon of choice - these seem pretty interesting.. The repeating crossbow shoots like 9 shots before you have to reload.. o.0 takes forever to aim though for some reason. I note that there seems to be a penalty for reloading crossbows on horseback? it seems to go faster when your on the ground.. is this true?

But otherwise, I am largely struggling to get anywhere. Ive hired mercs (then gotten them slaughterd by other merc parties  ), ive tried recruiting some rhodocks, but they seem useless.. (well, low tier ones at least. And yea, im sure they are supposed to be, but how am i supposed to train them if they die by the first scarred bandit they see?) And well, I cant seem to get them past tier 2 or so.
I can win tournaments now, granted it certainly isnt easy.. but still, am I resigned to hire merc armies until I get my levels of trainer up to someplace useful?

Basically, this is a kinda rant post. If you have any suggestions on what to do though, itd be nice. >.>

 

[HolyDevil]

Gather 14k and hire Lezlalit (forgot hes name on this mod), he will cost 14k, but is lvl 13 and a hard trainer, you'll have ubber units in no time, just avoid battles until they got some nice levels of course, i wante to do lezlalit jobs in first place but i need to be lvl 30 minimum so that the trainer skill has any effect, better make a tournament, win the 20k and hire this guy, he does awsome a job

 

[Lancefighter]

Havnt seen him in my game yet :\

on the other hand, arbalesters are awesome o.0 got a dozen of them trained up, and they seem to just kill anything at almost any range. Would love to see how they fare against ivory sentinels though..

 

[blackguard]

Some advice for tournaments, tell your team to dismount and hold position every round, grab a horse if applicable, babysit your men while the other teams kill each other, and play cleanup. Other than bad luck or lack of skill tournaments are easy gold. Learn how to use all of the weapons effectively (this means bows), how to block and counter attack, what you and your opponents weapon ranges are, how to dodge arrows, stay on the right side of an enemy horse archers' horse so they can't shoot at you, etc etc. Basically learn how to play the game because once you got that tournaments aren't an issue. 

Leave the mercenary bands alone, there are more rewarding and less risky battles to go after like nord scouts and berserkers.

Hiring mercenaries is also too expensive, emergency use only. Only thing you might consider is hiring trackers/huntress and making them into lady knights, which again are too expensive compared to other units.

Learn to fight large numbers of enemies by yourself, being prepared for that will require money for some decent gear in addition to what I said about learning the ins and outs of combat. If all else fails you can run into your enemies with couched lance, doesn't require much skill either from yourself or your characters weapon score, or much gold. The longer the reach the better, just be sure to get a horse that can take a lot of damage.

Lezalit is called Kelemvor in this mod, you may have encountered him in various taverns where he explains to you why he wont join your party.

I'm not fond of crossbowmen and by extension the rhodocks. Not sure about horse and crossbow reload time, all I know is that it's nice not having to stand still while reloading when I fight in rhodock tourneys.

 

[HolyDevil]

The reason that it seems slower is that (mabye) the game is made to have the same speed at reload, while unmounted u go down and push the string of the bow and then place the arrow

On horse, on the other hand, you only pull the string, thats why it seems slower, since he is basicaly doing the same string-pull while unmounted, but slower.

I think this is a logical explanation, if you understood what i meant.

As for Kelemvor, try and find him, try hard, but i think you need some renwon, can't remember tough, BE CAREFUL, he is hated by most other characters, if you have personality clash ON, but he's a EXCELENT trainer...worth the easy made 14k

 

[Elemental]

arbalesters are awesome o.0 got a dozen of them trained up, and they seem to just kill anything at almost any range. Would love to see how they fare against ivory sentinels though..

By the way, how do you get them in the game? Vaegris peasants?

 

[Lancefighter]

arbalesters are awesome o.0 got a dozen of them trained up, and they seem to just kill anything at almost any range. Would love to see how they fare against ivory sentinels though..

By the way, how do you get them in the game? Vaegris peasants?

the ivory sentinels? Yea, they are the top tier vaegir bowmen..

btw - a tip when training them, dont upgrade any until the whole group can upgrade.
it seems that each unit is not cared about - the group as a whole gain experience, which is then divided by the experience required to train to the next level, to get the number ready to upgrade. this is doable with bowmen easily because bowmen dont need to train to the next level as quickly as infantry seem to - you can take 60 vaegir recruits into 60 ivory sentinels with about a dozen battles that way.

Problem is, training infantry is a ***** they seem to die way to fast.

I think I am going to abandon this game - ive managed to get myself into a bad place, I offered myself as a vassal wayy to early... and then we declared war on everyone :\

 

[Charlie Brooker]

arbalesters are awesome o.0 got a dozen of them trained up, and they seem to just kill anything at almost any range. Would love to see how they fare against ivory sentinels though..

By the way, how do you get them in the game? Vaegris peasants?

Rhodoks!

 

[Lancefighter]

arbalesters are awesome o.0 got a dozen of them trained up, and they seem to just kill anything at almost any range. Would love to see how they fare against ivory sentinels though..

By the way, how do you get them in the game? Vaegris peasants?

Rhodoks!

Er. I think he was talking about the Ivory sentinels..

But yea, the arbalistiers are rhodok top tier crossbowmen.

 

[Charlie Brooker]

arbalesters are awesome o.0 got a dozen of them trained up, and they seem to just kill anything at almost any range. Would love to see how they fare against ivory sentinels though..

By the way, how do you get them in the game? Vaegris peasants?

Rhodoks!

Er. I think he was talking about the Ivory sentinels..

But yea, the arbalistiers are rhodok top tier crossbowmen.

I only read as far as the first word.

 

[Mangoodeye]

I also find this version extremely tough to start out in.  With a level 1 character I can't beat 10 bandits on my own.  Once my lame saddle horse throws me, it's lights out. 

 

[Lancefighter]

Ive taken to retreating as soon as i get thrown off my horse..
But my main problem appears to be that i actually suck at mount and blade, and never knew it.
All this time ive been playing on like 50% difficulty (1/2 damage to me, 3/4 damage to troops)... when I actually set it on 'lol you fail' mode, I fail miserably.

On the bright side, I am getting better.

Its just.. I cant seem to get to the point where I start raising my armies. Maybe ill just go back to my easy game 

 

[Wellenbrecher]

I also find this version extremely tough to start out in.  With a level 1 character I can't beat 10 bandits on my own.  Once my lame saddle horse throws me, it's lights out.

Which is perfectly ok with most of the regulars and Merc I assume.


Because my internet connection isn't good enough to play warband yet, I reverted back to good ol' M&B/NE to get a feel for it again. Lost my army three times now, yet somehow avoided getting caught. Fighting together with a friendly Lord against some Mercs/bandits is definietly worth it.

 

[Pellagus]

Ive taken to retreating as soon as i get thrown off my horse..
But my main problem appears to be that i actually suck at mount and blade, and never knew it.
All this time ive been playing on like 50% difficulty (1/2 damage to me, 3/4 damage to troops)... when I actually set it on 'lol you fail' mode, I fail miserably.

On the bright side, I am getting better.

Its just.. I cant seem to get to the point where I start raising my armies. Maybe ill just go back to my easy game 

That sounds like a plan. No point playing it if it ain't fun.

The most I've ever played it on is about 70% difficulty. (The one thing I've always hated about M&B forums is all the **** waving about what difficulty you play on. )

 

[Charlie Brooker]

I play on 52186% difficulty!!!

Srsly though, since when did more troops on the battlefield make it harder?  I've recently gone down to 60%ish after I turned down the AI.  I raged over the constant crossbow bolts to the head.  ****ing helms, do they do anything!? D:<

Tbh this game has no real "challenge", if you've got more troops at a higher tier you win, whee.  I just want to run around cutting people and leaving bodies strewn about the place.

And you'll start liking the game more once you hire Kelemvor Lancefighter.

 

[Lancefighter]

I made it a mission of mine to hire all of the golden company people..

Problem is, they all dont want to join me :\
Im at about 200 renown, but that doesnt appear to be enough. I cant actually beat the groups of 30ish scarred bandits without ****ing up somehow, so I always retreat and come back.. lowering the renown value :\

On the bright side, I had a nice moment where I threw a throwing spear at a mounted crossbow man who was riding towards me and hit him square in the nose, doing some 200 damage 

Then I got promptly pwnt by the rest of his mercenary war troupe. Oh well.

And pellagus, i turned up the difficulty because.. well, I kinda felt like I was getting my hand held the entire time. automatic blocking feels fine to me, because.. well, you still have to block, its not like you just hold down the button and are safe :p but.. me taking 1/2 damage just makes me into some uber unit on the field who can easily take anyone.

Im gonna do some deep thinking about it today in calc class, and come up with a plan..

 

[Pellagus]

Tbh this game has no real "challenge", if you've got more troops at a higher tier you win, whee.  I just want to run around cutting people and leaving bodies strewn about the place.

Yeah, but that's just life. Or death.

I tend to start again when it gets easy. I like the build up to a point and taking over the map has a certain frisson, but like you say, once you have all the hard-nuts on your side, it does get a bit one sided. Time to let slip the DKs when that happens.

 

[daumor]

OMG YOU DON'T PLAY ON 170% DIF ALL THE TYME!?!?11!

Um you will adjust I started at 30% on native and have stepped it up to max with manuel blocking. Which is really hard. Especially early on where what you do matters.

 

[Lancefighter]

So about that deep thinking.. Ive came to this conclusion.

I come from a largely RTS background, where the only thing that makes you better than the other guy is the fact that your smarter.. not that youve leveled up more.. But applying that to an RPG is kinda difficult.. So basically ive come to think;
I am gonna end up playing at 1/2 damage to myself.. because, well, I suck otherwise :p however, full damage to allied units.. This helps keep the field balanced, as other lords are beasts anyway >.>
Debating keeping the best battle AI, so ill have to run through a little bit of play before i truly decide on that...

 

[Mangoodeye]

Does anybody play with permanent wounding on?  -2 attribute every time you fall. 

OUCH

NE is hard.  It's hard for me, I fall all the time.  Hard is fun.  But, I don't want to play as a cripple, might as well have the character killed in battle.