Mount & Blade and how the hell do I play it?

[Smeatza]

Invest in pathfinding.
Once you have a decent amount of points in pathfinding you're fast enough on the world map to flee from any potential conflict. At that point you can pick and choose your battles completely and never have to get stuck in a hopeless situation where you're completely outnumbered.

Like others have said, tournaments are the best way to earn money early on. Even the practice fights if you get good at them.

Get as many companions as you can as fast as you can. If you get them early and level them consistently they are a force to be reckoned with.

Taking a sword and shield and spamming swings from the right is OP. In a one on one fight you can sometimes stun lock enemies that way.

 

[InsanityRequiem]

One thing I've learned about M&B is that when in doubt, always choose the mercenary option with a faction instead of joining outright. Early on(Say when you have 30-50 men), it'll neglect the army pay, possibly be a bit of extra income, and for the most part you can easily deny continuing the mercenary role when the contract's run out. I've done a few stints for different factions just to keep the balance of power as equal as possible. The only downfall is the fact that you don't get towns/castles/fiefs if you mercenary for a kingdom.

 

[spartandude]

Invest in pathfinding.

Took my a while to find out how useful it is, especially when you get a large army and it moves so god damn slowly. Seriously pathfinding is a really good skill.

 

[Summerstorm]

Chiming in too:

Get minimum 2 Followers and only raise their intelligence:

One for Pathfinding, Spotting (Makes you WAY faster)
One for First Aid, Surgery, Treatment (Your dudes will heal faster and - more importantly will be knocked out rather than die)

You yourself specialize on Charisma at start (after you have your Strength to 10, so you can use plate armour) - for more and cheaper units. Dump agility, you don't need to be that good, only so you can get ride high enough and get a decent horse)

IF you choose to have ONLY cavalry (for example all Khergit or going into the swadien heavy cavalry - you will be faster again.
Have a few horses in your inventory, mabe 3-4 (can be cheap ones) - to lessen your load... and make you faster.

This is important to be able to have a superior fighting force which can catch smaller groups. So less risk, more murder, more xp and loot.

Also learn the strength and weaknesses of the countries and Units.

Begin the game, choose a country and work for them (This should be the country you like the units best of - also the country which you should destroy and take over... muhahaha).

Easiest money: raiding and burning villages, but you need great reflexes and a fast army, since you will be disturbed a lot while doing that. (Also it's pretty evil and pisses off a lot dudes) - but hey... 15.000 no problem (if you can carry the stuff)

Also: There are a set list of followers who like/dislike others, you have to balance them, read the wiki for that.

 

[Rallus]

I've tried one of the games' demos before and it didn't run very well (old computer).
I've got a new one now that should be able to run at least one of them.
My question is, what would be the best one for a newcomer to the series?
What I did play of the demo confused and overwhelmed me a bit. I really wan't to like this series, but I feel I need to dip my toe in first before deciding if I want to cannonball in.

So which game is the most (oh noes, I'm bout to say it!) streamlined of the series? For clarification, I mean streamlined in the good way, that simplifies needlessly complex or obtuse things but still preserves depth of game play.

I'd have to say Warband is the better game of the three, not because it's streamlined, but because it's a more complete game and is considered among the community to be the best. I could never get the hang of Fire and Sword, since it has a story compared to the sandbox of Warband and the introduction of guns removes most of the fun from running around really fast on a horse and slicing through an army of bandits.

There is an option in the controls menu that allows you to change how your strikes and blocks are performed. I'm lazy so I always set it to 'relative to enemy position', which means I don't have to mess around with swinging my mouse in a certain direction and just pressing the left mouse button instead.

From a personal standpoint, I find it easier to start off in the Kingdom of the Nords, simply because you start off with a horse and the bandits don't, meaning you can outrun them relatively quickly. The Nords also have the best heavy infantry in the game, which are great for sieges on either defending and attacking. Note that if you have slow units in your army, you will slow down on the map unless you have skills in path finding which increases your map speed if I remember right. The larger your army, the more it will cost to feed them too, so in the end, it's better to have a small number of upgraded units compared to a large number of recruits.

You will start off with a small amount of money; enough to start a small band of fighters in order to kill off any bandits around your starting area. However, if like me, you ended up being captured and lost a bunch of stuff, including your horse to bandits, you're better off honing your skills in the combat system by entering the Arena in places like Sargoth or any major city. It's not great money, but it's enough to hire a good few units per win, which is being the last person alive.

Your next step for making some serious cash (preferably after winning the arena a few times), you may ask the arena master about tournaments in local cities. If you are confident in your skills, you would do well to enter these tournaments since you can bet on your own matches and make thousands of coins by the end; more than enough to buy a fancy new horse, weapon, armor and upgrade your troops into a fancy fighting force.

Once you're able to hold your own against bandits, consider allying yourself as a mercenary with a kingdom and you'll get paid to maintain your army and gain standing with the lords in those particular factions. If you have good enough standing with the faction leader, you can join the faction and be given a village to manage. Kingdoms will frequently go out on campaigns against the other kingdoms, and if you are popular enough among the nobles, you can convince them to allow you to take the castle or city that they just took. It's best to get friendly with the faction leaders because in the end, the decision is theirs to make and the other nobles are there for advisory roles. You can gain standing with the nobles and the king by taking the fight to the faction's enemies or bailing them out when they're in a fight and you come to the rescue.

There's not much else I can say about the game at such an early stage. By the time you've joined a faction and gained a reputation, you'll already have the hang of the game.

 

[Rylot]

snip for attention

Warband is going so much smoother. One question though: How quickly should I build my army? I've got a party of fifteen at the moment (I'm level 3 1/2) I have a few recruits (lost a few in the last battle) a few militia, a few skirmishers, and a few footmen. I'm running around Sawaria or whatever it's called and fighting looters and a few of the smaller bands of deserters and getting a pretty steady stream of income but if my party grows any larger or upgrades much more I'm going to out strip my finances. Should I start setting my sights on bigger parties? Should I do some mercenary work and join in some campaigns? I found a lord that wanted to hire me but I didn't want to get in over my head.

Also thanks to everyone else posting in this thread. I'm reading everything and it's appreciated.

 

[The Madman]

Warband is going so much smoother. One question though: How quickly should I build my army? I've got a party of fifteen at the moment (I'm level 3 1/2) I have a few recruits (lost a few in the last battle) a few militia, a few skirmishers, and a few footmen. I'm running around Sawaria or whatever it's called and fighting looters and a few of the smaller bands of deserters and getting a pretty steady stream of income but if my party grows any larger or upgrades much more I'm going to out strip my finances. Should I start setting my sights on bigger parties? Should I do some mercenary work and join in some campaigns? I found a lord that wanted to hire me but I didn't want to get in over my head.

Wait until you've at least got a decent base of around 30ish trained and reliable soldiers before signing up with any factions would be my advice. Lords are considerably more dangerous than bandits and if the faction you're aligned with goes to war, that could mean trouble for someone not prepared to suddenly have at least 1/5 of the map suddenly turn hostile.

A fun trick no one has mentioned yet is that early on is a great time to do some trade for easy money. While you've still got a small but fast group with you and you're not signed up with anyone is the perfect time to exploit the markets: Spice, Silk, and other pricy commodities can be bought relatively cheap from some places and then sold for three times what you paid in other places. Buying low and selling high can quickly get you ten times the money you'd get from just hunting bandits or completing missions.

More money means better gear and better soldiers, also allows you to hire mercenaries if you're in a pinch instead of recruiting raw recruits from villages. It's good to have!

 

[BloatedGuppy]

snip for attention

Warband is going so much smoother. One question though: How quickly should I build my army? I've got a party of fifteen at the moment (I'm level 3 1/2) I have a few recruits (lost a few in the last battle) a few militia, a few skirmishers, and a few footmen. I'm running around Sawaria or whatever it's called and fighting looters and a few of the smaller bands of deserters and getting a pretty steady stream of income but if my party grows any larger or upgrades much more I'm going to out strip my finances. Should I start setting my sights on bigger parties? Should I do some mercenary work and join in some campaigns? I found a lord that wanted to hire me but I didn't want to get in over my head.

Also thanks to everyone else posting in this thread. I'm reading everything and it's appreciated.

Concentrate on getting your leadership score up. There are certain skills that benefit the party that only you can have, and leadership is one of them. It's a priority on all characters. Lowers troop costs and increases army max size, amongst other things. Once you get it up around 4-5 it takes a bite out of troop upkeep. Until then, stick to a small army of less than 50 men. Less than 30 if they're ranking up quickly. With your party of 15 you might want to start looking at tackling forest bandits, and checking keeps to see if you can get a quest to take out a bandit lair. Those tend to be fairly lucrative ventures.

Stay away from mercenary work for now, you're not anywhere near close to where you'd need to be.

Concentrate on getting Leadership, Athletics and Riding up, along with your weapon skills of choice. This early in the game you're going be Conan compared to the rest of your army. Try and get a nice suit of metal armor (chain will do, plate likely out of your price range) and a good weapon with some reach...think longswords over shortswords. Get a stout shield and a fast horse, you're going to draw a lot of fire. Keep your shield up and don't slow down (try angling towards the flank as opposed to going in headlong). You'll draw most of the arrow fire away from your troops and let them close with the enemy...both Forest and Mountain bandits are a LOT more dangerous at range than the Looters you are accustomed to.

For companions, concentrate on getting a good Medic and a good Tracker/Pathfinder as quickly as possible. Everything else is optional, but you'll need those. You're not really going to have the points to spare to do it yourself.

Once you get around 50-100 troops strong with a good core of elite/veteran troops, then you can think about going mercenary or swearing fealty to a lord. Right now you're not much above a Looter yourself.

 

[The Madman]

If you want to be an ass and don't mind making some enemies, raiding remote villages is a great way to make tons of money. Even if they fight back villagers aren't much of a challenge so long as you're boasting a dozen or so good soldiers, and if you're quick enough you can hopefully be out of there long before any lords come to investigate. You can make quite the fortune with just a few well timed raids and it doesn't require a massive army at your back, just a decent core of trained soldiers and yourself.

Of course the downsides to this are twofold. On one hand you're making enemies left and right; the village will hate you and its lord won't exact be happy about you either. Make enough of a nuisance of yourself and the entire faction said village belongs to could even go hostile. Two is that a lord could catch you before you're done looting, in which case you're royally screwed as at an early point in the game as you probably wont stand a chance. Your troops are dead, you're suddenly a hell of a lot poorer, and you've made enemies. Not exactly a winning scenario!

Still if you pull it off that's a nice little fortune you might acquire... just saying. The dark side pays well!

 

[loc978]

My big moneymaker at the point you've gotten to was hostages... I was ransoming off bandits, looters and deserters like a madman... and when I couldn't find a ransom broker, I would head off to Tihr and sell 'em for galley slaves. Used nothing but a mace and fur shield from horseback to do this for the longest time...

...until I bought a brewery in a city with a lot of grain and little ale (somewhere in Swadia), then an ironworks in a city with lots of mined iron and few tools (somewhere in Vaegirs). On those two incomes, I managed to support about 30 troops in wages and varied food, so all loot was profit that I reinvested in my equipment (and made a velvet/dye place somewhere on the border of Rhodoks and Khergit)... I was on a charger wearing a coat of plates with a masterwork bastard sword and that same fur-covered shield from my bandit-clubbing days before I did much in the way of mercenary work.

Oh, and once you can reliably take on sea raiders, their loot sells for quite a bit more than any other bandits'. Just don't try it until you've got some chain-ish armor, a pretty tough horse (I think it was the one just under a warhorse), and a line of 20 or so archers with a good 10 infantry screening 'em (helps if the infantry are well-outfitted heroes).

 

[Loonyyy]

Mastering the tactical menu is important I find, for battles without forts. You can delay your men from charging by telling them all to hold, and then you can ride out. Find a point with some elevation, and tell infantry and archers to hold there. Then let your cavalry charge, while you ride in ahead and draw fire. It's particularly good in the early game where you may have less medical skills, for minimising casualties. Most armies have a fair amount of cavalry, and they can really make a mess of things for your infantry if you don't use the terrain. The enemy AI isn't particularly clever at tactics, it'll just keep charging. The only ones that it's a bit different with are the Kherjit's, and the Rhodoks. The Kherjit's horse archer can be tough if you don't have some good cavalry (Like Swadian Knights), and the Rhodoks have infantry that holds up really well under a charge, so I always hold my cavalry back from them, you'll just lose men until their cohesion is broken up.

I've yet to master the politics, I kind of screwed up by taking over the most powerful cities when I started my own nation, since my army was so OP. And so I kept crushing the other nations in battle, and then had a bunch of nobles defecting to me, all of whom hate me, and I have little idea with gifting lands, since it's a bit of a mess trying to work out the idiots. Getting businesses going is really important for your income, you don't want to have to work off tourneys and looting if you don't have to.

 

[Rylot]

snip

That's one of the questions I have now. Is there no other way to order your men around except to go to a spot and tell them to hold there? I'm now getting to the point where I'm working one larger (about 50 units) armies and coordinating them. It's made even more difficult by the fact that I had to remap all the command keys to weird things like the directional keys since F buttons all have other functions on my laptop like changing the volume and contrast and they don't seem to work as commands in the game. Anyone know a fix for that? It seems like each battle goes like this: Tell everyone but my cavalry to hold positions so they don't just charge. Ride to just in front of where my archers are and tell my infantry to hold there and form a tighter formation. tell my cavalry to retreat. Maybe tell my infantry to charge when the enemies get near if I have my shit together enough (I usually don't). Tell my cavalry to charge. All while I'm charging around the battle field trying to draw fire and actually manage to land a hit (since I figured out how to 'couch the lance' it's going better, still can't seem to swing and hit anything thing). Anyone have advice on troop management while on the battle field?

 

[InsanityRequiem]

Troop management really is only done through the F1-F3 keys, a slow process. I believe there are mods that change it so you can do more complex maneuvers, but I don't know where they are. It's also dependent on how things start off for the battles and the map sizes given. If you get a map size where it takes a good thirty or more seconds for the armies to meet, immediately have your army hold position while you find a better advantage point for them to attack.

Here's how I usually do things. I also try to find a nearby hill and plant my archers on top or close to the top facing the advancing enemy, then I place my infantry a few paces below as a bulwark against any fast moving calvary(leaderless) so they get slowed down by the hill and are less effective due to the lack of speed. Then when the enemy infantry/archers are close enough to get really hit by my archers, I send my calvary to attack, as since they're either off the hill or behind my archers, they get the extra speed boost for their attacks.

Now for attacking while mounted with one/two handed weaponry (Swords, maces, axes), I find it best to always be in third person mode for that. It helps gauge your arm swing and distance between you and the enemy you plan to hit. I also try to get as close to the enemy unit I'm attacking as I can, as each weapon has different reaches. Swords the longest, followed by axes, then maces with the shortest reach. But the main issue with that is you can get hit easily by enemy lancers/archers as you're a single target getting closer to them. If possible, always have the enemy to your left as you charge, back swing more easy to control than the forward swing. The forward swing especially seems to be a bit higher due to you swinging in a steeper arc motion compared to the back swing.

 

[Jamash]

If you hold down the F1 key (or whatever button you have bound for the "Hold this position" command), a flag icon will appear which you can aim around the battlefield and where ever that flag is when you release the button, your troops will move there instead of to your position.

Using this method of remote positioning of troops is also a good way of moving groups out of danger without telling them to retreat.

Also, if you're scouting around the battlefield for a good position to place your archers and infantry, give them the "Follow Me" command, as that will start them moving to whatever hilltop you decide to move them on and will get them in position quicker (rather than ride to the position, then tell your archers to move there from the starting line).

I think you can also more troops around in a more traditional manner by selecting their group, enlarging the mini-map and then just clicking your mouse on a position, which will also place down a marker flag for them to move to).

The "follow me" me command is also useful to give to mounted companions who are proficient at horse archery, since then you can just ride around the enemy and back and forth along their lines and your companions should follow you, picking off troops as they go.

Finally, since this is your first (of many) games, don't be afraid to play with cheats on until you get the hang of the gameplay and combat mechanics. It's no coincidence that cheat programs for PC games are also called "Trainers", well Mount & Blade has a Trainer built into it, so don't be afraid to use it.

Accept that you're not going to learn the game first time around, then when the tide turns against you in a battle, order your troops to retreat and use the cheat Ctrl+H to replenish your health and just ride around practising your combat skills.

If you see a new type of weapon you want to try out, just press Ctrl+X a few times until you have enough gold you buy it. If you want to try out different troop types and tactics, fire your army, cheat in some more money, then use the instant teleportation cheat Ctrl+Left Click to go to every village on the map in order to quickly hire more troops. Press Ctrl+T to see everything on the map, then teleport to some bandit groups and get practising.

It's taken me many games to get used to Mount & Blade and to decide on a play-style that suits me (Mounted Archer + Two Handed Sword), but liberal use of built in cheats allowed me the freedom to experiment and explore every aspect of the game without becoming too daunted by anything.

The confidence and skill you'll get from riding around in God Mode with the best armour and weapons will transfer to all subsequent games, and whilst you won't be as resilient without cheats and the best armour, the skills you learnt and the confidence to get stuck in with the right weapon in the right situation will still be there.

Another good cheat/tool is the Export/Import Character function, which exports your character's stats as a .txt file, which you can then edit and import, so don't be afraid to experiment with skills that you think may be a waste. Try out the skills, see what they do and if you don't like them, just edit your character and choose something else instead (or as well).

 

[Loonyyy]

snip

That's one of the questions I have now. Is there no other way to order your men around except to go to a spot and tell them to hold there? I'm now getting to the point where I'm working one larger (about 50 units) armies and coordinating them. It's made even more difficult by the fact that I had to remap all the command keys to weird things like the directional keys since F buttons all have other functions on my laptop like changing the volume and contrast and they don't seem to work as commands in the game. Anyone know a fix for that? It seems like each battle goes like this: Tell everyone but my cavalry to hold positions so they don't just charge. Ride to just in front of where my archers are and tell my infantry to hold there and form a tighter formation. tell my cavalry to retreat. Maybe tell my infantry to charge when the enemies get near if I have my shit together enough (I usually don't). Tell my cavalry to charge. All while I'm charging around the battle field trying to draw fire and actually manage to land a hit (since I figured out how to 'couch the lance' it's going better, still can't seem to swing and hit anything thing). Anyone have advice on troop management while on the battle field?

It's a tricky one, I'll give you that. You can try to create your own command groups if you want to get really intricate, but I've never mastered that, and I usually have a large rotating roster of troops going between garrison and out. I usually look for the highest point near the spawn and order the entire force there, and then, if I can get around it, place the archers on top and then the infantry below, so the archers are firing freely. I usually place the cavalry where I think the enemy might flank into my archers, and then try to break up the enemy formation with horse archery. If I can get around them on the flank and shoot a few of them in the back (Having high archery really helps, since you have dramatically increased accuracy), until I can draw a few of them off, and get the enemy facing me, before telling my cavalry to charge when they're faced away.

If there's any heavy troops, like Sea Raiders, Nord heavy infantry, or pretty much any Rhodok units, I'll hold off ordering a charge until they're spread apart, since they can stop your cavalry dead, and once they lose momentum, they're going to be unhorsed or killed. Lastly, after my cavalry have made their attack, and things are getting a bit thick again, I order them back to the main force before I can start taking casualties, and once they're clear, order them to charge again.

I usually fight with a bastard sword and shield. The Bastard sword gives you a bit more range on horseback, I've never figured out the lance properly. You can hit on either side, or stab with it, so I find it a bit easier to flank the enemy. I also carry a bow and a large bag of +3 arrows, once you get your archery to a high level, you can take 20-30 troops right out of the action all on your own, which is great in taking forts, as it allows you to clear up the enemy archers, and on the field it's awesome being able to take a leaf from the Khergit book and do some horse archery.

My current problem is trying to get my troops oriented right, I keep setting them in place, but half the time they make their line in the wrong direction, and some group of cavalry rides right into their flank while I'm busy trying to take out the enemy before they can hit my men.

 

[Hazzard]

One thing nobody has mentioned about horseback combat is that turning is key. If you can get the hang of slashing and turning away from them at the same time. If you are ever interested in playing multiplayer then this a useful skill.

I would also recommend looking into other mods like diplomacy at some point. They add features like a companion equipment management thing and a battle continuing after you are knocked out. It's infuriating when your men are knocked out and have to autoresolve battles. Never have your men attack without you, it makes them take huge casualties that they wouldn't if you had them charge.