[bulletproof]
Recruit

My first character, Abraham, was a well rounded fighter/bowman with good charisma. I always carried several horses to keep up the speed of a good sized party of about thirty medium to knight level men. I enjoyed the game quite a bit, and was satisfied by ordering around my men and taking the reigns of a small army to conquer foreign lands. Combat was less personal but large scale, yet i felt like my actions still mattered in keeping my men alive. When i was present in battle, we'd get maybe a death or two every few battles. When I chose "order your mean into battle", we always lost several men no matter the enemy. I enjoyed fighting because I felt like a real leader, like I was sustaining my group and saving lives, almost. Friendly lives, at least.
This weekend I started a new character with a totally different, much more specialized purpose. I chose to be a Court Lady specializing in polearms. Right from the first time i left Zendar, I knew that, with my absurdly fast spirited courser, I could survive for excessively long periods of time in combat on my own. So i decided to build on this and made a character who can take out entire groups of 30 Dark Hunters/Knights and Khergit without getting hit.
I'm finding the game experience is entirely different now - I don't feel excessively powerful, because it's still easy to get killed if i am careless at all or make a wrong turn somewhere. However, combat isn't about saving my comrades' lives or getting a few kills, it's about surviving an immense gauntlet of enemies totally crazed on killing me, and only me. It's ridiculously frantic, yet the sweeping horse battles are almost beautiful and graceful. Actually, alot of these horse battles play out more like dogfights. I always have enemies on my tail, and others making maneuvers to get a good strafing shot at me. I'm constantly trying to get speed while turning into the enemies to make big passes where I get several hits.
Coming out alive after any of these bouts is more satisfying than anything I've ever done in Mount and Blade. Not only do I get absurdly good inventory catches after those huge battles, but I gain thousands upon thousands of experience points, and levelling is faster than ever. Also, since I'm soloing, I can travel at speeds exceeding 10 almost constantly, provided I have some extra horses to ease the load of my inventory. (I find that speed is everything in both combat and on the map.)
I'm surprised that playing solo is so much fun. Yes, it can be extremely frutrating when you don't pick your battles well - you can lose all your items and lots of money - but the feel of taking on so many men all at once and all by yourself is worth the trouble.
Does anyone else play solo?
This weekend I started a new character with a totally different, much more specialized purpose. I chose to be a Court Lady specializing in polearms. Right from the first time i left Zendar, I knew that, with my absurdly fast spirited courser, I could survive for excessively long periods of time in combat on my own. So i decided to build on this and made a character who can take out entire groups of 30 Dark Hunters/Knights and Khergit without getting hit.
I'm finding the game experience is entirely different now - I don't feel excessively powerful, because it's still easy to get killed if i am careless at all or make a wrong turn somewhere. However, combat isn't about saving my comrades' lives or getting a few kills, it's about surviving an immense gauntlet of enemies totally crazed on killing me, and only me. It's ridiculously frantic, yet the sweeping horse battles are almost beautiful and graceful. Actually, alot of these horse battles play out more like dogfights. I always have enemies on my tail, and others making maneuvers to get a good strafing shot at me. I'm constantly trying to get speed while turning into the enemies to make big passes where I get several hits.
Coming out alive after any of these bouts is more satisfying than anything I've ever done in Mount and Blade. Not only do I get absurdly good inventory catches after those huge battles, but I gain thousands upon thousands of experience points, and levelling is faster than ever. Also, since I'm soloing, I can travel at speeds exceeding 10 almost constantly, provided I have some extra horses to ease the load of my inventory. (I find that speed is everything in both combat and on the map.)
I'm surprised that playing solo is so much fun. Yes, it can be extremely frutrating when you don't pick your battles well - you can lose all your items and lots of money - but the feel of taking on so many men all at once and all by yourself is worth the trouble.
Does anyone else play solo?