What kind of new faction(s) would you like to see added to the game in the future?

[Apocal]

Yeah I agree, if they had done a "historically accurate" Bannerlord set in 1000-1100 it would be nothing but kite shields and hauberks for most of the factions, and even thought that is basically my own favorite historical era, even I wouldn't play a game like that.

I would've liked to see TW try -- not because I think it would be better for the game but because I think adding in historically accurate Norse-, Rus- and Cumans-based factions would result in a very entertaining tide of "WHY DOES ALL THE ARMOR LOOK THE SAME?!?!" threads that would draw in a bunch of people acting like armor styles had some kinda proto-DRM attached that checked for proper licensing culture before they were allowed to exist.

 

[five bucks]

but in 2014 they said it was "600-1000 AD" at some point around 2015-2016 they just changed it to the 11th century. The game's calendar even starts in the 1000s.

I'm not aware of the blog that says the 600-1100AD was dropped for solely 1000s. As far as I understood, they stuck with that time range.

The calendar starts at 1084 because it has to start somewhere and can't start in a time range.

Most of the battanian, aserai and khuzait armours aren't really based on anything specific. They're fantasy in the same way the armour in the Hobbit films is fantasy, but more so because of the amount of belts and furs they put on them.

Which specific piece of "fantasy armour" from the Hobbit films are you referring to which Bannerlord armour is meant to look like?

For example the battanian oathsworn is straight out of braveheart. Ive never watched the film but i recognised it instantly. And I shouldn't need to tell you that braveheart is not a historically accurate film.

There are numerous differences between those two images, and Braveheart's biggest problem is being anachronistic but not much in it is outright "fantasy", which is what this argument is about.

When you say "Bannerlord armour is fantasy" you're making it sound like all armour in the game is like World of Warcraft or WHFB or Lord of the Rings, and that's not true at all. The truth is that the vast majority of Bannerlord armour is close to real life source material, and a tiny amount is pure artistic license but still kind of looks the part.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

Find me a contemporary depiction for more than half of the battanian and aserai armiurs and I'll shut up forever. Prove to me that they only too a tiny amount of artistic license from real historical sources like you're saying.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

I'm not aware of the blog that says the 600-1100AD was dropped for solely 1000s. As far as I understood, they stuck with that time range.

The calendar starts at 1084 because it has to start somewhere and can't start in a time range.

Which specific piece of "fantasy armour" from the Hobbit films are you referring to which Bannerlord armour is meant to look like?

There are numerous differences between those two images, and Braveheart's biggest problem is being anachronistic but not much in it is outright "fantasy", which is what this argument is about.

When you say "Bannerlord armour is fantasy" you're making it sound like all armour in the game is like World of Warcraft or WHFB or Lord of the Rings, and that's not true at all. The truth is that the vast majority of Bannerlord armour is close to real life source material, and a tiny amount is pure artistic license but still kind of looks the part.

I find this image explains the issue succinctly

Spoiler: VC

I think tbf... people might be turned off from playing Battania if they ran around with funny smurf hats and naked calves.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

I would've liked to see TW try -- not because I think it would be better for the game but because I think adding in historically accurate Norse-, Rus- and Cumans-based factions would result in a very entertaining tide of "WHY DOES ALL THE ARMOR LOOK THE SAME?!?!" threads that would draw in a bunch of people acting like armor styles had some kinda proto-DRM attached that checked for proper licensing culture before they were allowed to exist.

I think tbf you could get some decent variety if you just pick the right guys to be inspired from. But... well yeah they wouldn't look as marketable lol.

Still, I think at least the Cumans would be interesting. I believe they were in the habit of wearing a lot of nice colourful robes. You'd think that would at least be striking and distinct while steering away from boring fur clad nomad savages.

But eh, considering you have people complain about the 'colourful' crusaders in the INJ2 mod... yeah. Maybe people really want more Skyrim/GOT/Vikings **** lol.

 

[JunKeteer]

I'm not aware of the blog that says the 600-1100AD was dropped for solely 1000s. As far as I understood, they stuck with that time range.

The calendar starts at 1084 because it has to start somewhere and can't start in a time range.

It's just to ground it with reality - if the calendar number is 2077, yet the rest remains the same, will just feel jarring given our own context and whatever experience/knowledge we have with our own history. It's sufficient enough to say that ~500-1200 AD = medieval period (broadly) = swords/shields/bows/knights/castles/etc...; so I would be expecting those things to a degree.
If they added Aztecs, probably won't 'match' from what we have all played so far in both WB and BL - and how it wouldn't rally align with 'Europe' and whatever knowledge we each gather in that historical context/time/culture.

When you say "Bannerlord armour is fantasy" you're making it sound like all armour in the game is like World of Warcraft or WHFB or Lord of the Rings, and that's not true at all. The truth is that the vast majority of Bannerlord armour is close to real life source material, and a tiny amount is pure artistic license but still kind of looks the part.

Fairer to say it's more 'fictional' than it is 'fantastical'. Whether lamellar pauldrons existed at that arbitrary 1084 number or not based on real history, whatever; at least it 'feels' historical/medieval which is probably the important part.

 

[five bucks]

Find me a contemporary depiction for more than half of the battanian and aserai armiurs and I'll shut up forever. Prove to me that they only too a tiny amount of artistic license from real historical sources like you're saying.

You're the one here making the claim that "Bannerlord armour is full of fantasy stuff," burden of proof is on you.

I find this image explains the issue succinctly

Spoiler: VC

I think tbf... people might be turned off from playing Battania if they ran around with funny smurf hats and naked calves.

As I've already said in the last page:

"Overall though yes, Battania is one of the biggest mishmashes in the game. Their high tier armour is the worst offender, straight out of fantasy."

So essentially that's posting the single worst exception.

One singular piece is not representative of all the armour in the game, which like I said, is overall reasonably realistic. You could just as easily find armour pieces in Bannerlord for your left hand image which closely match your right hand image.

Fairer to say it's more 'fictional' than it is 'fantastical'.

This sums it up nicely in my opinion.

"Fantasy" is for stuff like dragons, elves, mithril, massively elaborate designs that would have been almost impossible to create on a wide scale at a certain technology level and would have been impractical even if they did (eg WoW pauldrons or dualwielded ultragreatswords). Things which couldn't have existed in the real world.

"Fictional" is for things which probably didn't exist but probably could've. Like someone wearing two belts. Or having leather strips on their armour, or random patches of fur. None of these seem out of the realm of possibility.

This is why we use the term "historical fiction" to describe historical settings with made up events which we know didn't happen but could've, rather than "historical fantasy".

There are only 3 or so armour sets in Bannerlord which I think stray into "fantasy" territory over "fictional", and the Battanian set above is one of them, and even then it's not THAT implausible.

 

[Penn]

A Mali Empire inspired kingdom to the south-west of the Aserai would be cool.

Hell yes! I was on the same path

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

"Fantasy" is for stuff like dragons, elves, mithril, massively elaborate designs that would have been almost impossible to create on a wide scale at a certain technology level and would have been impractical even if they did (eg WoW pauldrons or dualwielded ultragreatswords). Things which couldn't have existed in the real world.

"Fictional" is for things which probably didn't exist but probably could've. Like someone wearing two belts. Or having leather strips on their armour, or random patches of fur. None of these seem out of the realm of possibility.

This is why we use the term "historical fiction" to describe historical settings with made up events which we know didn't happen but could've, rather than "historical fantasy".

There are only 3 or so armour sets in Bannerlord which I think stray into "fantasy" territory over "fictional", and the Battanian set above is one of them, and even then it's not THAT implausible.

Bannerlord's neither historical fiction nor historical fantasy though. It's definitely fictional but I'd also call it "fantasy" because it takes place in a world that's not our own. In many contexts, like armors or video game designations, neither term is great due to their inherent vagueness since both Dragon Age and Bannerlord could be called medieval fantasies but the former is high fantasy while the latter is "no-fantasy," a very awkward term to use in casual dialogue lol.

I'd say Bannerlord's armors are very realistic looking from the perspective of somebody with surface level knowledge of half the cultures, no knowledge of several others (whatever the Battanians and Aserai are inspired by), and a level of knowledge greater than "the normies" but far below proper enthusiasts with the vaguely European aesthetic of the Vlandians. If the pauldrons were huge and spikey, I'd find it off-putting more because I dislike how it looks rather than because there's little "historical authenticity" behind it but I'd certainly dislike it if it clearly stands out like a sore thumb from the rest of the game's aesthetic. However, I am open enough to recognize there's tons of "stranger than fiction" artifacts from history and with the continued studied of the past we learn more and more to the point where, looking back 20 years, even being superficially accurate is impressive.

 

[five bucks]

Bannerlord's neither historical fiction nor historical fantasy though. It's definitely fictional but I'd also call it "fantasy" because it takes place in a world that's not our own. In many contexts, like armors or video game designations, neither term is great due to their inherent vagueness since both Dragon Age and Bannerlord could be called medieval fantasies but the former is high fantasy while the latter is "no-fantasy," a very awkward term to use in casual dialogue lol.

I'd say Bannerlord's armors are very realistic looking from the perspective of somebody with surface level knowledge of half the cultures, no knowledge of several others (whatever the Battanians and Aserai are inspired by), and a level of knowledge greater than "the normies" but far below proper enthusiasts with the vaguely European aesthetic of the Vlandians. If the pauldrons were huge and spikey, I'd find it off-putting more because I dislike how it looks rather than because there's little "historical authenticity" behind it but I'd certainly dislike it if it clearly stands out like a sore thumb from the rest of the game's aesthetic. However, I am open enough to recognize there's tons of "stranger than fiction" artifacts from history and with the continued studied of the past we learn more and more to the point where, looking back 20 years, even being superficially accurate is impressive.

Bannerlord takes place in a world that's not our own, but at the same time it's still basically our world, just with the names jumbled up (but still with their recognisable linguistic origins eg Petros>Pethros), the people changed (but still with obvious historical figures they represent, eg Gruffyd ap Llywelyn > Caladog fen Gruffendoc) and the places shifted around a bit (but still in recognisable locations, eg the Mediterranean>Perassic).

It is pretty much the lowest possible fantasy in the "low fantasy/high fantasy" scale, to the point that "historical fiction" is almost an appropriate term. But yes, I wouldn't call it historical fiction overall. I would call 99% of Bannerlord's armour either accurate, close to accurate, or fictional rather than fantasy though, because "fantasy" has way too many connotations to be a fair label to slap on the majority of Bannerlord's gear.

Anyway, I'll leave the semantics now, but I think I've made my point on that.

You're right that we're making big strides in accuracy. For all the bashing Bannerlord's armour has received in this thread, it's doing a hell of a lot better than many medieval games I've seen in the past.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

Bannerlord takes place in a world that's not our own, but at the same time it's still basically our world, just with the names jumbled up (but still with their recognisable linguistic origins eg Petros>Pethros), the people changed (but still with obvious historical figures they represent, eg Gruffyd ap Llywelyn > Caladog fen Gruffendoc) and the places shifted around a bit (but still in recognisable locations, eg the Mediterranean>Perassic).

It is pretty much the lowest possible fantasy in the "low fantasy/high fantasy" scale, to the point that "historical fiction" is almost an appropriate term. But yes, I wouldn't call it historical fiction overall. I would call 99% of Bannerlord's armour either accurate, close to accurate, or fictional rather than fantasy though, because "fantasy" has way too many connotations to be a fair label to slap on the majority of Bannerlord's gear.

Anyway, I'll leave the semantics now, but I think I've made my point on that.

You're right that we're making big strides in accuracy. For all the bashing Bannerlord's armour has received in this thread, it's doing a hell of a lot better than many medieval games I've seen in the past.

Find me a source on that Aserai scale armour then. That new gold one. All the Ottoman **** they've added recently is also dumb.

The Normans did not have plate shoulders or those bizarre crown helmets. Not to mention the ugly asf full helmets they have, which look awful compared to the real stuff later Normans had.

The new Khuzait lamellar they have is going the way of fantasy steppe savages. And they have a silly Ming helmet too.

You seriously can't expect anyone to believe this is a realistic 11th century setting at all. If it was, we'd have so many more complaints about everyone wearing mail and nasal helmets.

Honestly, a lot of historical games look more correct that the mess that is BL, I'd say its a fair bit worse if anything. Closer to silly AAA titles.

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

Find me a source on that Aserai scale armour then. That new gold one. All the Ottoman **** they've added recently is also dumb.

The Normans did not have plate shoulders or those bizarre crown helmets. Not to mention the ugly asf full helmets they have, which look awful compared to the real stuff later Normans had.

The new Khuzait lamellar they have is going the way of fantasy steppe savages. And they have a silly Ming helmet too.

You seriously can't expect anyone to believe this is a realistic 11th century setting at all. If it was, we'd have so many more complaints about everyone wearing mail and nasal helmets.

Honestly, a lot of historical games look more correct that the mess that is BL, I'd say its a fair bit worse if anything. Closer to silly AAA titles.

It's not a historical game, so why should Bannerlord be held to the same standards as games that actually take place IRL at the same time? I haven't been following AAA games, so my best points of comparison among them would probably be Skyrim or Oblivion from 10-15 years ago, and I'd definitely say Bannerlord is closer to real life than most of what you'd see in those games.

And I can totally expect people to believe it's a realistic 11th century-inspired setting; most people don't know anything at all about the medieval era so it's really just a minority of enthusiasts and scholars who'd really know the difference and how many of them even play video games? Hopefully more over time lol, given I fit into the minority albeit for different times and places, but I think you get my point.

Not all of it is equally stylish but taste is subjective anyway. More does equal better, I think, because if you had the in-universe equivalent to millions of dollars to spend fine-tuning your own personal set of armor and iconic helmet, you'd probably start with a baseline of practicality and then just go crazy from there while, hopefully, not going so far as to make something unwearable or useless lol. I mean, to use a different time and place for comparison, just look at the crazy armors and helmets (especially the helmets!) of the Japanese samurai chiefs from the Sengoku Period! Hideyoshi Toyotomi in particular had bespoke bling for days and his "Child of the Sun" helmet is absolutely iconic.

https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0b/dc/d0/f9/toyotomi-hideyoshi-armor.jpg

And that's without the jackets he'd be wearing on top.

Short of the ability to commission custom armor (and weapons--I really think we should be able to just pay for tailor-made top tier weapons rather than have to master the skill and do it ourselves, although I've yet to actually play much with smithing and I think it's possible to comission crappy weapons at least...) having a load of luxury "if you have to ask the price, you can't afford it" armors is fairly sensible.

Anyway, I'll leave the semantics now, but I think I've made my point on that.

You're right that we're making big strides in accuracy. For all the bashing Bannerlord's armour has received in this thread, it's doing a hell of a lot better than many medieval games I've seen in the past.

Yeah, I think at some point we're in danger of arguing pointless word choices lol, but I really felt my inner pedant reach out lol.

I'm very curious how off and dated our concepts of medieval armors (etc.) is going to look in the future though lol.

 

[Kentucky 『 ＨＥＩＧＵＩ 』 James]

And I can totally expect people to believe it's a realistic 11th century-inspired setting; most people don't know anything at all about the medieval era so it's really just a minority of enthusiasts and scholars who'd really know the difference and how many of them even play video games?

A lot has changed since skyrim, there's been a general renewed interest in historical accuracy in media and there are YouTube videos with millions of views talking about X or Y game or film from a historians perspective.

The reason I apply history to bannerlord is because its psuedo-historicity was one of its main selling points. Their website is full of flavour text describing X or Y faction as a faithful recreation of some real world civilizations, but their own developers just take inspiration from whoever they want, even films or other video games. Bannerlord looks more like Skyrim than Kingdom Come: Deliverance which is why i describe it as fantasy.

 

[Yoshioki Ouchi]

A lot has changed since skyrim, there's been a general renewed interest in historical accuracy in media and there are YouTube videos with millions of views talking about X or Y game or film from a historians perspective.

The reason I apply history to bannerlord is because its psuedo-historicity was one of its main selling points. Their website is full of flavour text describing X or Y faction as a faithful recreation of some real world civilizations, but their own developers just take inspiration from whoever they want, even films or other video games. Bannerlord looks more like Skyrim than Kingdom Come: Deliverance which is why i describe it as fantasy.

Having played Kingdom Come: Deliverance back when it was new, I'd definitely put this game closer to that than Skyrim. I mean, just look up the armor selection of both games and compare them to this. I don't see what you're seeing unless you specifically show me.

Most of what I know about historical accuracy in things like weapons, armor, castles, literacy, etc. etc. has come from some popular YouTubers so I'm not out of the loop as far as that's concerned.

But yeah, you're right that Bannerlord's been explicitly promoted as a fantasy alternative to the real medieval world but they also said it'd be a mish-mash of stuff from the Dark Ages to the end of the medieval era so it's certainly within that very wide boundary in my admittedly ignorant opinion. I vaguely remember them saying Battania was a special case although I can't remember why. All I know outside of this context is that the historical Celts (or was it just the druids?) were intentionally illiterate and didn't write things down while their enemies did, so much of what we know is highly filtered at best and fragmented at worst. Therefore, with the Battanians in particular, TW has to get creative unless I'm wide off the mark.

 

[five bucks]

Find me a source on that Aserai scale armour then. That new gold one. All the Ottoman **** they've added recently is also dumb.

The Normans did not have plate shoulders or those bizarre crown helmets. Not to mention the ugly asf full helmets they have, which look awful compared to the real stuff later Normans had.

The new Khuzait lamellar they have is going the way of fantasy steppe savages. And they have a silly Ming helmet too.

You seriously can't expect anyone to believe this is a realistic 11th century setting at all. If it was, we'd have so many more complaints about everyone wearing mail and nasal helmets.

The Ottoman era stuff, the plate shoulders, Ming crown and crown helmets are anachronistic but not fantasy, which is what's up for discussion, and again they constitute only a small part of the total gear in the game.

When I am in battles or going through towns, most of the time it looks like a realistic 11th century setting. A lot of the stuff you mentioned is hardly ever present, for example the Ming crown I haven't even seen in-game yet except in the cheats inventory, I think it's in Monchug's civilian loadout but I'm not sure.

There is not enough blatant anachronism or outright fantasy in the game to use it as a justification for completely scrapping the setting and throwing Aztecs into the middle of it, which is what I'm arguing against.

I definitely agree Bannerlord could be better at representing its source material. I have no idea why people are arguing to make it worse at representing the source material.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

It's not a historical game, so why should Bannerlord be held to the same standards as games that actually take place IRL at the same time? I haven't been following AAA games, so my best points of comparison among them would probably be Skyrim or Oblivion from 10-15 years ago, and I'd definitely say Bannerlord is closer to real life than most of what you'd see in those games.

Like Kentucky said, part of the marketing for BL was on being historically inspired.

I would not say this is close to Skyrim (Battanian armour aside), but rather it looks more like Assassin's Creed or For Honor. Triple AAA titles ostensibly based on historical stuff... but not doing a great job of portraying it.

And I can totally expect people to believe it's a realistic 11th century-inspired setting; most people don't know anything at all about the medieval era so it's really just a minority of enthusiasts and scholars who'd really know the difference and how many of them even play video games? Hopefully more over time lol, given I fit into the minority albeit for different times and places, but I think you get my point.

Most people don't really play these sorts of games. People that do generally like the historicity of it, even if somewhat loose in places. Warband stretched things to a degree, but not in the way Bannerlord has.

Not all of it is equally stylish but taste is subjective anyway. More does equal better, I think, because if you had the in-universe equivalent to millions of dollars to spend fine-tuning your own personal set of armor and iconic helmet, you'd probably start with a baseline of practicality and then just go crazy from there while, hopefully, not going so far as to make something unwearable or useless lol. I mean, to use a different time and place for comparison, just look at the crazy armors and helmets (especially the helmets!) of the Japanese samurai chiefs from the Sengoku Period! Hideyoshi Toyotomi in particular had bespoke bling for days and his "Child of the Sun" helmet is absolutely iconic.

https://media-cdn.tripadvisor.com/media/photo-s/0b/dc/d0/f9/toyotomi-hideyoshi-armor.jpg

The thing is... I would love more bling. There was a lot of bling even in the 'Dark Ages'. Imagine if our Khuzaits wore stuff more inspired by Seljuk fashions like so:

Spoiler: Lovely

Or if the Vlandians had painted helmets:

Spoiler: So much for the 'Dark Ages'

All this stuff was worn back in the 11th century, and imo looks unique and quite lovely. But instead we have ugly stuff, uninteresting stuff that doesn't fit the vibe.

I mean, already my idea of what people in the early Crusades worn has changed, along with what the early medieval period was like. Again- never mind the historical accuracy. I just think TW missed a chance to do something refreshing.

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

The Ottoman era stuff, the plate shoulders, Ming crown and crown helmets are anachronistic but not fantasy, which is what's up for discussion, and again they constitute only a small part of the total gear in the game.

When I am in battles or going through towns, most of the time it looks like a realistic 11th century setting. A lot of the stuff you mentioned is hardly ever present, for example the Ming crown I haven't even seen in-game yet except in the cheats inventory, I think it's in Monchug's civilian loadout but I'm not sure.

There is not enough blatant anachronism or outright fantasy in the game to use it as a justification for completely scrapping the setting and throwing Aztecs into the middle of it, which is what I'm arguing against.

I definitely agree Bannerlord could be better at representing its source material. I have no idea why people are arguing to make it worse at representing the source material.

Because in many people's eyes, the anachronisms present already look bad enough- so why not at least do something interesting with it instead? Aztecs would be no more out of place than Ottoman empire **** we have- bear in mind that Constantinople only fell thirty years before Cortez was spelunking all over Central America.

As far as I care, we're already in the Sunset Invasion stage of anachronisms lol. So gimme some hot Jaguar boys 🥵

 

[bfmsc]

Darshi, they are a important faction in the game lore, a culture based on Sassanian Persia, which is the one of the biggest rival of the roman empire before the rise of the arbian empire in history. the empire in bannerlord is a combination of the 3th century roman empire and 11th eastern roman empire，so I think sassanid based darshi will be fine. also the game wiki told us the khzauit territory has many former darshi cities who subdue to their conquest. even Rhagaea is a daughter of a darshi Padishah in the early version of the game setting. with so many "darshi" in the game but we couldn't see anything except a horse and a mercenary minor faction who are actually created by an empire noble (in early version setting) /just normal mercenary based on real life ghulam. we could have more.

 

[five bucks]

Because in many people's eyes

Please may I ask whom these many people are who are saying the handful of anachronisms are so bad that Aztecs should be tacked onto the edge of the map

Addendum: I wholeheartedly support painted helmet variants for Vlandia

 

[HalfMetalJacket]

Please may I ask whom these many people are who are saying the handful of anachronisms are so bad that Aztecs should be tacked onto the edge of the map

Addendum: I wholeheartedly support painted helmet variants for Vlandia

Alright granted not many people. But honestly, existing anachronisms are bad enough that Aztecs might as well be fine imo. More interesting anyway.

BL is not historical anymore and I honestly don't know what to tell you if you can't see it for yourself. There is a good thousand years span of stuff in this game, enough said.