Mount & Blade

[perfanoff]

I've been totally hooked on it since I got it.

You start as a nobody, going around a fantasy medieval world based roughly on the "Old World". It's a sandbox game with maybe no clear ending? My last play, I started off as a nobody, became a mercenary for the "French-HRE" kingdom then after becoming renowned enough, the king made the a count and gave me a village. But I was very disgruntled as I helped in all wars and even helped conquer some castles, and he never gave me one. So I couldn't have my character marry because the lady wouldn't want to marry someone without a castle, lol. So by this time my character had an expensive armor, an armored war horse, a nice lance and a band of 100 men including 30ish knights. As revenge, I withdrew my vassalage and swore to some pretender queen of the kingdom, slowly but surely I took a castle after a castle, and even one town. When the Nords saw the weakness of the king, they also declared war and took half of the territory of the kingdom. I finished the game with the original kingdom just having a single castle and a village, and the rest being owned by either the Nords or me.

Now I have learned from my mistakes, this time I will try something harder. So screw the aristocracy. I will be a plutocrat - amass a huge fortune by superb trading, making good relations with the town and village folk, not get affiliated with any nation, and then when I have coffers that any king will be envious of, I will wait for a weak country, join its pretender ruler, or carve my own nation from it from scratch. I intend not to do it through fame and strength of my own warrior, but ensure personal survival with the best armor money can buy, and have a battle edge with a smaller but elite disciplined professional army. I'm also going to try not to raid any villages, even my enemies', only to make money through honest means during peacetime while having enough money to finance any epic war without having to get sidetracked.

Anyway, anyone else played this game? Any stories to share?

 

[Sigma]

It's been a looong time since I played it, but I remember joining the purple faction with all the horses, and spending like forever just conquering the whole map.
Also I remember the castle defense battles where I would just stand on the wall where the ladder was and cut em down 1 by 1 like an assembly line.
And horseback archery, that was fun.

 

[perfanoff]

YEAH! I enjoyed horse archery so much! My character was also a horse archer.. but requalified as knight when I started encountering professional armies with shields and such.

 

[Sigma]

Hmmmm, kinda wanna go play it again now <_<;

 

[B1rd_of_H3rmes]

I bought mount and Blade but I never got into it. I remember having to fight battle after battle, outnumbered all the time and it got a bit boring. There was also the thing that everytime I got my own castle, the entire enemy nation and all their warlords would besiege it.
I've been playing Chivalry Medieval Warfare at the moment, it's a bit like M&B but only multiplayer. I just love the combat system on that.

 

[Greb]

Sounds like an interesting game, with a very interesting set of variables. I'm into this kind of ****, so how the hell do I miss games like this. Sadness.

Guess I'll add it to the list of games I'll be acquiring once I've got a place of my own and such. And a nicer gaming rig, perhaps. Thanks for the heads up anyway. I like the idea of being able to work as a merc then turning your back, acquiring the original people you've helped land and such. Sounds like a fun thing to do..games like Skyrim always have the added bonus of being able to kill most of the people you dislike, except those who have essential status, which is gay. Maybe this game won't be so restrictive, and I could literally wipe out the entire land. Or maybe not.

Spore with planet busters was fun. Never got around to wiping out the whole galaxy though.

 

[perfanoff]

So an update for if anyone's interested.

Trading is a hard business, but my character managed to amass a fortune. He spent it on some of the best armor money can buy and went to take up the cause of Lady Isolla of Suno to take over the struggling kingdom of Swadia. After a series of raids, Suno fell. However the preparations between the raids took too long... by the time the city fell, the kingdom had recovered from its previous war, and quickly mustered a thousand strong army. It was a dishonorable march back to the mountains of The Rhodoks, but the kingdom's army caught up. The soldiers fought valiantly and won a few skirmishes, but they were outnumbered more than 10 to 1. The elite band perished or were taken prisoner, to the last man. The leader was taken prisoner, stripped from his knightly armor, and left to rot in a nearby town. Until he found a chance to escape. He started trading again, and building his band. But he wasn't wise to go to an area infested by bandits.. they humiliated him once again and took him prisoner, and he was ransomed back for a local bandit leader.

Something changed in our hero. With his defeat, his illusions of grandeur came to an end. He swore to pay back King Harlaus personally one day. Since then he has requalified from an honest trader to a slave driver. Every so often, he terrorizes Swadia with his band of rogue knights and pikemen, chases down a lord and blackmails him to join his cause. Anyone who refuses is never seen again, wasting away the rest of his days as a galley slave.

One day the kingdom of Swadia will be dragged in a war. And then Pavel will be there to liberate the city of Suno to its rightful queen. But that will just be the beginning...

 

[Oldyoung]

I played M&B a lot a few years back.. I loved trying the different fighting styles.. Spear from horseback (stab or use it as a lance), short dagger + shield (fast attack), huge two-hander + light armor...

A great game.