Watched some gameplay today. I am amused by the infinite quantity of looters to farm XP from.
Had a moment today where I felt I was doing real well against looters and figured I’d take on some forest bandits. There were only 10 of them to my 25 still somewhat green troops. It did not go well. Instead of circling around on horseback picking them off with my bow as I’ve been doing to looters, they shot my horse out from under me before I could even get a shot off. My troops broke and ran before even making contact after several of them became pincushions.
Oh well, back to grinding looters until I can level up some troops and afford some actual armor.
If it is just M&B but with world systems that actually work rather than being open world placeholders I’ll be very happy. That’s all I’ve been hoping for out of Bannerlord. Hard to tell at this early stage of course, but it looks very encouraging.
Some tips:
When in the town menu you can right click on characters in the top bar to see their stats. This is especially useful when recruiting companions since you can see what skills and attributes they have before spending money.
For the perks on the skill tree (the shield icons) you need to click the shield and then click the box that says “pick”. Even if there’s only one option you need to select and pick it before you actually get the bonus.
You don’t need to, and should not necessarily, stick around the starting area. To find good companions and to do the initial quest you need to travel around and visit different cities.
Make a point of recruiting companions early. They are more important than troops. Make sure to purchase horses and bows for your companions that can use them. Even if they aren’t very good with them they will serve as early horse archers when you have zero hope of recruiting actual horse archer troops. Horse archers are super effective because even if they aren’t damage dealers they break up enemy formations. Use the battle command to let them do their own thing (F6).
I leveled up my clan and i can make my companion a party leader, but i dont see the point since it costs me a ton of money and i cant seem to give him orders. Did anyone try that yet?
One thing I liked about the factions in Warband is that they all had sort of vague real-world equivalents like the Nords were Vikings, the Swadians were more or less High Medieval French, etc. There was Slav-like faction, a Northern Italian/Swiss one, a Mongol one, and an Arab one, and I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten one more.
Do the factions have similar real-world equivalents in this game?
The developers have commented in this, and they did take inspiration from real-world peoples:
- Battanians = Celts
- Sturgians = Kievan Rus
- Vlandians = Normans
- Empire = Byzantines
- Khergits = Mongols
- Aserai = Pre-Islamic Arabs
(That’s from memory, so grain of salt!)
I’m having a bit of trouble distinguishing the troop tree soldiers from one another- it seems you can only see stats by hovering over them?
The imperial infantry line splits into an infantryman, and another ground troop with a fancy name, but as far as I can see, they have the same stats. I’m guessing that what differentiates them is their weapon load out but can’t see any way to see this?
Does anyone know who has the best archers, melee, calvary, etc… yet?
Checking these out may be a bit premature, as I think the troop trees may not be done yet (or at least assigned the correct stats). All the top tier bowmen for each faction have a Bow rating of 130, for example.
I’ve been flicking through them and there are some anomalies - Crossbowmen having a high Bow rating and a low Crossbow, Tier 5 troops that have much lower stats than the other side of their branch, meaning nobody is going to upgrade to them etc.
It looks like tiers have been assigned but the detail work not done yet. I am a bit amazed at this, really.
How can I even view the troop trees?
Right click on the troop name. Also, you can use the Encyclopedia (N key) - if you select Recruit (the basic tier) it will show you the whole tree.
To find good companions, use Encyclopedia (N key). Click Heroes (might need to click Home first, if you are in some other window), select Wanderers on the left and you will see the list of potential companions. Click through them, find what you need (a medic, for example), check in the top right corner where they’ve been last seen. You can click their city and mark it for tracking to find it easier.
It works great, the only problem with the UI is that you can see values for their skills but not attributes. I’ve tracked down a medic with 60 in Medicine but only after hiring him I could see that he has 0 Intelligence. So save before hiring.
Does anyone know what the clan roles do? I have someone with medial skill, so obviously I made them the surgeon.
I am assuming that’s for later when you want to have companions lead caravans and garrisons, etc.
The guy running around will slowly build up rep with various people for you, but it is extremely expensive. I think you want some settlements before you bother forming another party. I made one and it basically bankrupted me. :/
I went on and jumped on this since it’s on sale (20% for me) and I know I’ll eventually get it anyway. Plust time, got lots of it at the moment. Too bad the pandemic and probably the next one will be over by the time this gets downloaded. Steam must be getting hammered/throttled. Oh well.
Did you raid your own settlement to recover some funds?
At the time I didn’t know how to get settlements so no :(
As in the original, I’ve discovered sea raiders are my favorite prey. No cavalry and their ranged weapons are usually thrown and less accurate than the laser precise bows of the forest bandits. Much better loot, and occasionally the have troops as prisoners you can add to your army. I got a handful of decent cavalry that way.
Oh I misread that.
Not that I’m mad or anything, but the comment above about finding a companion via the encyclopedia is one of those gameplay spoilers I was hoping to avoid. I don’t want to see the spreadsheet behind the scenes too early in my experience.
Again, don’t be shy about posting, but ugh, I’m not sure this will help my mild OCD with a game like this.