I've downloaded Prophesy of Pendor after not playing for a few years, and holy crap dude, the campaign of that mod it's so much better than Bannerlord, if you made me choose between them I would def stick with PoP. Why? Because after playing Bannerlord for some hours I feel like there is nothing else they can offer me, just the same experience but with a different color and troop type, and Bannerlord greatest problem it's the writing, or to phrase it better: the lack of writing.
One could say PoP's advantage is that they're in a magical setting where a lot of stuff can happen (such as heretics and demonic parties) and I would say, yes but partially, it's not only just the interesting lore, but how it is presented.
Let's compare how Bannerlord inserts you into the game to PoP.
In BL you create your character, and all of a sudden, you have a brother? Your parents are dead and your other siblings kidnapped? What writing is this? Don't they know giving the player a family in an RPG where you create your own story its a TERRIBLE idea? I don't care about any of these people, I don't want them in my life, what if I want to create my own story and my own background??? No, the game forces your hand to deal with these boring people and their lives, so the only way to approach the game is to be the dude with dead parents and kidnapped family, incredible writing wow 10/9.
PoP asks you who you want to be with soo numerous and well written choices, and then it throws you to the game to find your own way, instead of grabbing the players' hand to guide them in the saaaaame main quest all the time. And the choices are cool and meaningful, because you can go and be a nobody, a trader, a medic, a dude running away from bandits, and what you choose here matters, for example, I'd you start as a forgotten heir of the throne of Pendor it means you will be hated by Sarleon, you get chased by very powerful assassins and you will be hated by some Knighthoods that will make you be careful around the main map. See, now you got some variation, and the choices you've made matter and will make the game feel different, and you get the grasp of this without a single line of dialog, this is ironically better writing.
Lore pt1: Getting into the world.
The only way to get lore and an insight of the world in Bannerlord is........ The main quest. Yeah. Some information dump here, some information dump there, yeah ok, I was forced to do a tour around the world talking to Kings and Lords, and this is the funniest crap ever, because you can go as a trashy peasent, aproach a man with a 500 men army and ask nicely about the events of the world. C'mon, am I the only one who thinks this is very, very stupid? What kind of Gary Stu/Mary Sue are we that the ****ing ruler of a Kingdom will just stop what they're doing to tell us, a random dude wearing rags in the middle of the field, the current events of the world?? what were they thinking??? And that's it. There is no more "interesting" writing, unless you compare the random companions with generic stories the game even encourages you to skip interesting or even, writing. Now let's go back to PoP, there is lore everywhere, it's just all over the place, and it's not just flavor text, you can see that what you write makes sense to what you encounter in the map. You can pay 10 denars to travellers and slave traders and they will tell you stories about the world, not everything is interesting, but you can learn about knighthoods, bandits, little events, and the player feels encouraged to read these because sometimes it will lead to a treasure hunt. You can encounter Knights in taverns that will give you an insight of their Knighthoods (more on this later), you can talk with Keep servants for more stories, news and current events, and the companions, that compared to the boring and ironically repetitve, randomized but generic companions of Bannerlord, they've got good stories, Soldiers from the other side of the world, former Knights, traders, people with good stories hauling from all over the place that give you more info on what you can encounter on the world.
Lore pt2: Knighthoods vs Minor clans
Playing this make me think, man, is Taleworlds devoid of ideas? Because Knighthoods are almost the same concept, but Knighthood destroy minor clans and put them to shame.
See, minor clans are basically mercenary companies and... That's it, they're just mercenaries with flavor units, and they will go around looting towns and being part of armies and yeah that's it. Knighthoods, on the other hand have allegiances to their respective factions but not only that, they feel like they have an objective in the world other than looting towns and fighting with armies, and they aren't just some dudes with men, sometimes they're little parties chasing bandits and heretics or engaging fights with rival Knighthoods, and destroying the players if they're not careful enough (who, and who doesn't hate you it's affected on your choices when you start the game). And more key differences is that you can encounter Knights in taverns and learn more about their orders, and you can actually aid them to gain their support and access to their actually exclusive gear (afaik you can just shop minor clans gear in BL, but correct me if I'm wrong) but this will mean you'll get hated by their rivals, making the game feel dynamic and that your choices have consequences. And well, how can I forget you can actually make your own Knighthood of elite units, I mean, dude, how cool that?
Lore pt3: Bandits
Holy crap, did Bannerlord fell short in this. The amount of enemies you can encounter in PoP is amazing, bandits, sometimes rogue knights, sometimes cultists, demons, horse raiders, but they just don't exist on their own because they're accompanied by a very interesting lore you can learn about (like I've said before) talking with travellers and counselors, too! And yes, some of them are too fictional like the demons to have a counterpart of it in Bannerlord, but man, seeing massive armies of baddies ****ing up towns that require your effort to kill -to the point of gathering armies so you actually have the number to fight them -gives you a sense of grandiosity you can't even find in Bannerlord. And not only that, in early game you're a just a small turd and it SHOWS, because these parties will destroy you and the best you can do if you find parties like this is run away as fast as you can, and when you can win you feel like you deserve it, and the effort of killing them is VERY rewarding because the loot is more than great, amazing armours, gear you just can't get elsewhere, gold bars, loot boxes to sell, qualis gems... but then in Bannerlord... the worse threat you can get is a dude with rags that spawns the same in the whole map... Exciting... Instead of being an amazing encounters you need to win with effort, you just send the troops to destroy them so you can get ez crappy loot so you can forge 1000 swords and craft a bankrupt maker javelin.
There are other little details, for example, a moment where player renown matters: You can't join tournaments if you're a nobody, which means you can't cheese the prizes and money you get from tournaments in early game, but there are so many other choices it doesn't feel like it matters and in fact this improves the experience, you have to grow into being somebody, instead of grinding into being somebody
Other detail: Mercenaries in this game are cool too, there are so many variations you can find in taverns, like foreign mercenaries, or adventurers, old knights, etc.
TL,DR: PoP is a dynamic world with high attention to detail that give a replayable experience thanks to a well written and well exposed setting.
stop being such hypocrite just because youre little sour creamed.
