Mount & Blade: The Mounting - Bravetart

[sidereal]

Life begins for young Bravetart as the daughter of a notorious thief.  She nevertheless rises above her humble origins and becomes a page at a remarkably gender-neutral nobleman's court.  Not getting enough embroidery, she moves on to become lady in waiting to the nobleman's wife.  Sometime later she decides to give up her courtly life and become the bloody-minded captain of an infamous mercenary company, for no reason whatsoever.  It should be clear by this point that Bravetart is insane, though it's not indicated on her character sheet.

Here you can see her appearance, which you can fine tune down the thickness of her nostril hairs and then completely forget because you'll never get a good look at her face again.

Having broken out of her comfortable noble confines, Bravetart finds herself alone on the world map, which is always a dangerous place to be alone.  She decides to ride out to some local villages to see if any of the yokels are stupid enough to follow her.

Unfortunately, on the way she was accosted while sidereal looked away to refill his glass of Shiraz and she faced the irritating task of fighting her way through 7 looters in nothing but her smock and wielding a kitchen knife.  You can see them here.

What's left of most of them is there on her arms.

One looter, horrified at the senseless, excessive violence he saw unfold before him, attempted to flee -- only to be ridden down and captured for later ransoming (who ransoms derelict looters?  And why do they earn the same ransom as elite Swadian knights?  Bravetart is too unstable to dwell on such questions).

Bravetart moved on to the nearest village in short order, only to find that jittery noblewomen elbow deep in gore dragging a trussed up half-naked looter behind them do not seem to rally men around them.

Undaunted, she moves on to more promising villages and eventually assembles an acceptable band of hayseeds, who have the benefit of being cheap

Seeking to blood her men and make some cash, she spends their first day together running down small bands of looters -- the rats and boars of Mount & Blade -- and looting them, just to see how they like it done to them.  Many victories are had, which makes the crew happy.

Next episode:  More Mounting!  Significantly more Blading!  Maybe a tournament!

[FatuousTwat]

I love this game, thanks for the post!

Maybe I should start up a new guy...

[LK]

Add a dash of Blizzard accessibility and this could be a monster game.

What's the goal of the game?

[sidereal]

It's open-ended.  The typical path is to become a lord of one of the five factions, then help that faction 'win the game' by taking out the other factions.  For an extra challenge, you could instead decide to champion the cause of one of the 5 exiled monarchs (one for each faction) who claim they were usurped and are the rightful heirs.  In that case you become a new faction with 0 castles, at war with the faction that your buddy claims should be his and probably quickly get declared war on by at least one other faction.  So it's you against the world and you start with nothing except whatever character abilities, cash, and company you've built up to that point.  But none of that is required.  You could just as well become an independent merchant and try to see how fast you can get to 1,000,000 dinar.  Whichever.

[sidereal]

Adding:  I'll probably go the exiled-lord route with Bravetart, just to see how long I last.  I've only done it once before and after I took my first castle I got hulk-smashed, suddenly being at war with the 3 biggest factions who took turns sieging me with 1000-unit stacks.  The trick, or so I hear, is to convert as many of the lords as possible to your cause from the faction that your exile claims is rightfully his.  There's a conversation minigame and if your Persuasion skill is high enough you can get a good number to convert over, so you can build up a good-sized army quickly.

Also, there's probably a timing sensitivity.  If you wait until one faction is already pretty beat up, I assume you could go hunt down their exile and then finish them off quicker.  I'm not sure how that affects the likelihood that other factions will declare war on you, but at least the one faction that you know you're going to war with will be weaker.

[FatuousTwat]

I've found that your choice for first castle to take plays a difference in survivability, but is definitely second to the things you just mentioned. Certain castles are a lot harder to crack the others, the best (IMO) have great archer positions that provide a good enfilade. One of the wooden castles has a long run up a hill, then another run into the courtyard and up a ladder, all under missile fire. The main char along with a siege crossbow can usually pick off 4 or 5 before they even reach the ladder.

It would be great if they somehow added a way to build/design castles in game, and allow you to place them where you wanted. Maybe a modder will add it in the future.

[sidereal]

Yeah, castle layout has a huge effect.  First, whether your castle needs a ladder or a siege tower to siege, which seems to be arbitrary but makes a massive difference.

Some castles are just impossible to hold.  The southeasternmost Khergit castle (forget the name) is a deathrap.  The defending units start out so far from the front wall that by the time you get there the attackers are already inside the walls.  And khergit have another one that's basically a mesa.  Once you get up the wall, you're at ground level, so there's no way to funnel the attackers.  Nightmarish. 

[FatuousTwat]

Is another post in the works?

Also, I've been playing some mods lately, they add a lot to the game. Seems like there aren't any decent modelers/skinners in the entire community though.

[LK]

I picked this up. Going to futz around before I do a Radicalthon.

Edit: AGGGH! How do I find guys with Bounties on their head? They say he's in a certain village and he ain't in the village. ><

[Tebonas]

Most of the time he is hiding behind a house, or at a side wall.

Sometimes he is only in town during certain hours, though. The town mayor should give you a clue if you ask him.

[sidereal]

Go in the day.  There will only be two people in town that aren't moving: the mayor and your dude.  He's almost always nestling up against one of the bulidings on the opposite side from the center of town, so you usually find them by riding around the outside of the village checking the backs of the buildings.  If the town has an outlying structure like a mill or a farm plot, check there too.

More Bravetart forthcoming.  Probably this weekend. 

[LK]

Got him.

Once you join a faction things pick up...

[LK]

Oh my god this game is addicting. I've been playing it for hours on end with time passing in a blink.

Every battle is like playing a re-enactment of Hoth for the first time!

If I was going to make a fun computer game involving professional hedge-trimming on motorcycles, it'd have eerily similar gameplay to this!

I've gotten to the point where I think I'm going to help Lady Suno reclaim her throne. Should be interesting to see what happens when I can start owning land. I can already topple castles pretty handily.

[LK]

All that effort to help Lady Suno reclaim her throne and her victory speech gave me a big fat "NO STRING", along with no idea how to get the quest out of my log. =\ GG QA

[FatuousTwat]

That's weird, I'm sure I've done that quest before. Have you tried any of the other claimants?

[LK]

Not yet. I spent literally every waking moment playing that game for 3 days to get it out of my system. Right now I'm about a year and a half into the game, finally captured all of Swadia (losing some territory to Nords and Rhodoks, fuckers took advantage of weakness during revolution), and am sitting pretty with a force 100+ strong (mostly Swadian Knights and other Will Fuck Your Army Up with 0 Casualties Forces), ready to reclaim some territory.

Does the game actually "end" once you claim all the territory, or do you have to retire from adventuring? Granted, running down a group of foot soldiers on horses and trimming their hedges is fun and all, but the game takes a verrrrrry long time to play, and I'm not sure I'm getting as much reward out of it as I'm expecting. I do want to retire and see what my score and everything is, but with Realistic Saves, that means I'd be done for reals.

Or maybe I realize Demon's Souls will be here anyway now and I'm just going to drop Mount & Blade when that happens.

[Tale]

Not yet. I spent literally every waking moment playing that game for 3 days to get it out of my system.

I fondly remember doing that in Mount&Blade beta in 2005!

[FatuousTwat]

I've never actually taken the whole map before... I should try.

[sidereal]

I'm not sure I'm getting as much reward out of it as I'm expecting.

Sounds like it's time to start installing some of the mods.  The Native game does have diminishing returns after a while.  Sieging your 200th castle isn't vastly different from your 100th.

[LK]

Putting a castle under siege is balls anyway. The fun gets sucked right out of the game with the shitastic AI in that setting.

[Montague]

I'm not sure I'm getting as much reward out of it as I'm expecting.

Sounds like it's time to start installing some of the mods.  The Native game does have diminishing returns after a while.  Sieging your 200th castle isn't vastly different from your 100th.

Very true. I recommend Lords & Realms, which allows you to carve out your own kingdom and recruit Lords of your own, and has a few other convenience mods added in. The latest version is supposed to have redesigned sieges, but I haven't been able to extricate myself from Empire: Total War to check up on it.

[Dion]

I remember playing the demo, got to level three and got some knight mercenaries. Us three killed an entire trade convoy of 40+ soldiers by doing ride-byes for two hours while dodging arrows. When I finally killed the last dude, the demo was over because I had reached level 6 

[NiX]

We need a thread about M&B mods. It's impossible to find good impressions of what you'll get out of them.

Also, Dion makes me think Joe is posting again. No more of that avatar.