Hi!
Been playing for some hours 1.16. Here are my first impressions:
1. First thing I notice is the new art and presentation. Truly awesome gents! Great job: it really does a lot for immersion.Then I noticed you have upgraded the textures and aspect. Also very good job: everything looks neater and (in my opinion) even more beautiful than before.
2. No compatibility with previous version, what pissed me off. I had invested a lot of time and effort in that campaign and really wanted to finish it (grumble, grunt, grar...)
3. Whatever, let's do a character and dive in. Oh, there are no money lenders and landlords. I guess there were some problems fixing the bug. OK, no biggie. It wasn't something capital to the game and there are new things to compensate, like the smugglers, gambling, etc. Also good impression.
4. After a few I enroll on a tournament just to be flabergasted. WHAT IN BUDDHA'S NAME HAS HAPPENED HERE?!? The designers have increased the speed of the tournament fights. But now they are not fast: they're F***ING SUPERSONIC!!! The horses are so fast and maneuverable that they can literally run anyone around. At a time I didn't know if people were on horses or Thai fighters (get it? like star wars TIE fighters? But "thai" because we're in Thailand?... OK: sorry about that...). No, seriously: things are so fast that the lance is very difficult to handle, because you have to calculate where the enemy is going to be in one or two seconds, but he moves so fast that by the time your attack is "deployed" the enemy gets out of your scope. BTW good job changing the lances: the previous ones were **** (the previous practice lances were shorter than your horse so you couldn't hit anything. Come on...). When your horse buck you spend so many time recovering that the enemy has the time to hit you three times, it's insane! With the new back damage system that may be all they need to finish you off.
And the extra back damage doesn't convince me. Ok, I get that is kind of a prize for getting in the enemy's blind spot, and in real life that is huge. But M&B is nor a game based on implacable realism. It is quite good on only some realism levels. M&B fights are quite chaotic, and tournaments even more, so getting hit from the back is quite easy and I don't really understand why you get extra damage. Have you ever been on a fight? When someone starts being hit the first thing he automatically so is turn his back. Even go to the ground with his back up and cover his face. That's because your back is more resistant and has fewer weak points than the front. And you have armor. I don't really get it and do not like it very much.
But seriously: SLOW DOWN THE TOURNAMENTS.
5. Ok, lets move to the battlefield: The new sounds are colourful, but I do not get very much used to them. Maybe I need some more time on this: will come back on this after some more experience.
Now the mod have elephants... Awesome addition, although they are so slow that it's quite easy to take out the rider. And you need that or they will rise hell on your battle lines. Goddamned unstoppable creatures. I can't wait to confront them with portuguese pikemen to see what happens. A beautiful surprise have been the water buffalos. They are pretty useless, but very cute and resistant, and it's fun to see peasants mounted on them, when you fight defending a village against the bandits for example.
6. Gunpowder weapons. Oh my God, Oh my God, OH MY GOD!!! What have you done to your mod? Now gunpowder weapons are cheaper, but very much less accurate. So much that shooting someone at 20 meters is more a question of faith and luck than real skill (firearms skill 110). I have missed shots at nearly point-blank. WHAAAAT??? Ok, I understand is much more historically accurate. But I have already expressed in this forums the reasons why I found accurate firearms more fun than historically accurate gunfire. It is not very fun if hitting an enemy it is a question or maybe, you know, I guess, if you're lucky, perhaps, ...
Guys: If you are so fanatically adept of realism and historical accuracy I demand artillery fire, gunfire HUGE morale damage, weather dependancy, and variable training times for different proyectile troops. Why, you say? Glad you asked:
A) Pike and shot tactics were developped because artillery have advanced to a point were they really could fire with moderate accuracy over targets at very long distances. These artillery pounding had DEVASTATING effect on enemy morale ("they're firing on us!" "my friends just became hash meat and I'm scared!"). If you didn't advance on the cannons your army morale could collapse and your army run away, being sliced into steaks by enemy cavalry. If you advanced on the cannons (because, you know, we are courageous and something must be done. On me, gentlemen...), you are confronted by enemy pikemen formations, protected by wings of arquebusiers. The arquebus had short range, but devastating effect on formations, plated troops and enemy morale.
And you had to get close to them because you needed to silence the enemy artillery. If you take out the artillery WHY WOULD SOMEONE GET CLOSE TO THE ARQUEBUSIERS? Now you reverse the History, and the arquebusiers are the ones who must get close to those formations of deadly archers and crossbowmen, that can fire over enemy gunners without any artillery molesting them. So if you are so concerned about realism and historical accuracy I ask you: WHERE IS THE ARTILLERY FIRE CRIPPLING THE ENEMY FROM VERY LONG DISTANCE?
B) Gunfire had huge impact on morale. More than physical damage. XVI Century guns shot soft lead bullets at low speed. The wouds were quite nasty. Ironically, today high speed rounds do small wounds because of the penetration capacity, that do ver small entry and exit holes. Arquebus fire did a small entry hole, and a 5 cm diameter exit hole. Yeah: that's pretty nasty. And watching your friends get hit by arquebus fire panicked everyone except the most battlehardened, trained and experienced troops. Besides at medium ranges arquebus fire could penetrate most plated armor. That though scared the hell out of every armored troop on the battlefield, who a lot of times retreated jut by receiving arquebus fire, even without casualties. That was particularly true outside of Europe, where people were less used to gunfire and get scared just by the smoke and noise. The most extreme example is Hernan Cortés winning battles outnumbered 150 to 1, because american warriors instantly panicked at gunfire. So if you are so concerned about realism and historical accuracy I ask you: WHERE IS THE HUGE MORALE DAMAGE OF GUNPOWDER WEAPONS?
C) Weather had a great impact on how proyectile weapons act. Ironically XVI century gunpowder weapons were easier to protect from the rain and cold than bows, because you had to keep just the gunpoder dry. In the bow you have to keep the bowstring dry or the bow lose efficiency and very quickly become useless. And the whole bowstring is very hard to protect if you want to fire the bow. Also it hindered very much the movement, where troops collapsed buried in wet mud. Impossible to run, exhausting to move, dirty, cold, and you could spring your ankle. This was specially excruciating for cavalry, who become almost useless with heavy rain (Crécy, Agincourt, etc). So if you are so concerned about realism and historical accuracy I ask you: WHERE IS THE BIG PENALTY ON WEATHER FOR WEAPONS AND MOVEMENT?
D) The main reason why firearms were massively adapted is because they were very easy to teach troops how to handle it. EXTRAORDINARILY easier that learning martial arts like sword, spear or bow. Have you try some martial art lessons? How long do you think it will take you to be a self defense expert? 5 years of very hard training? 10 years? I can take firearms lessons in 10 days and shot down the best hand to hand experts in the world. Well that happens with XVI century technology also. It is so much easier to train a gunner than a bowman that european armies abandoned the bow in renaissance Europe (except the british and magyar, for romantic reasons, patriotism, etc). A recruit can become a proficient gunner after 6 months of intense training or battlehardening experience. It takes many, many years of physical conditioning and training to make a proficient bowman. If we talk about horseman archery now we're talking about YOUR WHOLE LIFETIME OF TRAINING AND PRACTICE. Yeah, it is extremely difficult. So if you are so concerned about realism and historical accuracy I ask you: WHERE ARE THE HUGE TRAINING TIMES FOR MELÉE AND ARCHER TROOPS AND SHORT TRAINING TIME FOR GUNPOWDER UNITS?
I could still go on, but I think I made my point. So please I ask you to ease the gunpowder weapons accuracy somewhere near the last version. It may not be historically accurate, but it make the mod so much funnier. And M&B is a game that, once again, is not based on implacable realism. Cannot do it (I understand is complicated to program) and does not want it. Its mechanics work because they realize the game is only moderately realistic, and when you add these features without compensating them the whole structure upon which the game rests start collapsing.
Except for the loading gunpowder weapons while walking. I think that is ridiculous and unbalance the game. If you could force the characters to stay still while reloading large firearms (not pistols) it would be great.
7. You have included new item vendors like the smugglers, what is great. But once again: Please give access to the player to EVERY ITEM OF THE GAME. You can do that via normal vendors. Via special vendors in the tavern, or however you like. But is not very funny to play a game where a lot of people use some supercool items that you can never acquire (armets, armors, etc).
8. Very nice decision with the food. I think it makes the starting game a bit too easy, but it makes advanced late games possible. In my (now deceased) former campaign I had difficulties feeding 200+ troop armies.
That is all for now. Keep up the good work and thank you for all your efforts guys!
