I bought M&B: Warband, need some info...

[Setharion]

So how critical is it on char creation overall? Or can you just fling together a character that seems enjoyable and go at it?

The game seems pretty awesome, the concept that is...so im really looking forward to really getting started. But I hope you guys can give me some pointers in starting.

[doktorljubavi]

In single player?

Stats play a pretty big role on your character, like the weapon specializations, and horse movement.

Tactics is a huuuuuuuuge important stat if you plan to do large fights. The higher your tactics skill, the easier it is to command your army, and also starts your fights off with bonuses that can demoralize the enemy, and/or moralize your own units. I've fought with 40 men against 1000 before, and successfully won with maybe 4-5 casualties as a result due to high tactics skill. You don't need to have this yourself, you will acquire hero companions that also have skills, that you can upgrade. One of them.. think his name is Artemus or something, has high engineering and high tactics. You can use him as your tactics bot.

Engineering hastens the time it takes to build upgrades to your keeps/villages/cities, and affects the speed in which you build siege weapons(very important if you're going on the advance).

Think of how you want to play, and allot your points mostly into that. Jack of all trades is pretty meh in this game because if you get a new hero companion that has higher points in whatever you spent points in, the game will use their skill and not yours(they don't stack unless they say so). Such as, if you plan to make a bandit, and want to become a bandit king, build up leadership, looting, a weapon choice, and the speed skills to outrun large enemy troops. Also, prisonment skill is useful as a bandit to gain ransoms, or if you're a knight, to bring bandits to justice, or to imprison enemies to ransom back to their kingdom.

How you treat NPC dukes/kings has a huge impact on what happens. Like, I saved a duke from a bandit attack, and later when our kingdoms were at war, when he collided with me, he said he'd be willing to let me go this time, and avoid a fight for now. Which can be useful if you were already in trouble.

There is a number of ways to play the game, but I will warn you, the game is very long, and very unforgiving. If you fuck up a battle, it could mean imprisonment time(lose stat points), lose all your men, your gold, and sometimes your kingdom might abandon you. If they outright kill you, the game ends. I personally play on realistic mode because as much as I hate it when I suddenly lose, it ultimately feels like chess. Sometimes you win, sometimes you lose.

You -can- start your own kingdom if you wanted to, but it's also the most challenging thing to do in the game. Most kingdoms will declare war on you, and wipe you out fast unless you have yourself set up with a lot of court members. If you play around for a long time, and win the trust of a lot of court members, when you make your own kingdom, some might actually join you. Strengthening your regiment.

The game is turn based on the map board, but when a fight is started, it goes to real time strategy but you play as your own character, and you issue orders, etc. Combat is very fun, and very challenging.

Also, playing as female characters is a lot more difficult than playing as male characters. Most court members distrust a woman warrior/commander, because this is more of a medieval thing, and a woman leading armies is unheard of. It makes it a lot more difficult to make a name for yourself in the game world because most commanders will downright belittle you, and try their best to shut you down. Male characters have an easier time rising through the ranks of a kingdom, etc. For instance, it took many siege victories for the King of my Kingdom to finally issue my own tithe as my female character. It took 1 siege for the king to say it'll go to me, as my male character.

The game is extremely fun, and I love the shit out of it. Multiplayer is also very fun to fuck around with. There is also a lot of mods for the game out, so when you get bored of the regular mount and blade, look up some mods and try them out. I played one that played out in ancient britain, where celts were still prominent.

[Setharion]

Awesome, sounds pretty awesome.

Heres my main question, when you talk about skills Dok and knowing what i want..what do you mean? Like just basic saying i want to be an awesome horse rider with great archery skills? Or are you referring to deeper than that?

Like heres the thing, i wouldnt try to be the jack of all trades with weapons....but i meant like is it worth it to toss a point in other skills like looting and other non combat skills or should i focus solely on combat skills upon creation? And my last thing, which weapon style do you prefer?

[doktorljubavi]

It is worthwhile to put points into non-combat skills. But it all depends on what you want. Do you want to be a big warrior fighting machine or a less of a fighter but be a tactician while you're at it? Or an archer medic(first aid, and the like)? I don't think you'd have enough points to go straight up in one weapon spec, and the combat skills, anyways.

Also, I think with the amount of points you get total, you can specialize in two weapons(or at least keep 2 weapons capped). On my warrior tactician I ended up with enough points to keep 2 capped, and 1 weapon somewhat high. I went with two hander, one hander, and throwing. One hander + sword is good when there are archers, and you can't find cover, or you need to advance onto the archers. Two hander is good(when you can use them well) in what I call meat grinder fests when the enemy is bottlenecked. Throwing is good to dismount people, and kill runners.

[Setharion]

Thats what i meant to ask, whats the weapon caps?

Ive seen someone on a board say theyve clocked into around 400 hours with this game, thats impressive...seems like alot to sink your teeth into.

[doktorljubavi]

Not sure what the weapon caps are, because I never hit level cap.

[Setharion]

Or heres a better question, when they start you off....if 1 or 2 weapons are in the 50s...where is a proficient place to be? Like is having a weapon skill in the 70s where you start to be quite proficient at using that weapon or is the 50s, 60s where you are considered decent at that weapon?

[Setharion]

The game seems awesome, I just need to get my bearings at the start.

[Freneticburn]

If you choose to level up your agility you gain more proficiency points to spend. Also having your weapon master skill will determine your spending cap on proficiencies (you can still raise them through use in battle though, just not spend points).

Starting out I'd focus more on leadership and combat stuff. Hire a person or two to be your medic and focus on surgery especially. I'd also hire people for looting, engineering, spotting, and path-finding and never bother using those skills on your own character. You could just up a lot of those stats on your own dude and have your companions focus on combat stuff while you just focus on commanding troops in battle. It really depends on how you want to play. Just play your character according to their stats. The beauty of the game is that you can do whatever you want. If you want to just sit back and command I'd up leadership, prisoner management, tactics, and training.

[Setharion]

Frenetic, how about throughout the game...can i change how my character is dramatically? Meaning can i start off maybe as a combat player but then kick over to perhaps a tactician if i wanted or once you focus on an area is that pretty much it?

[Freneticburn]

Basically the level caps on skills are dependent on your attribute levels so yes and no (for every 3 attribute levels you can level up a corresponding skill by 1). You could disperse your attribute points evenly and have a chance to level up a multitude of skills a little bit or specialize in certain attributes and be able to level up fewer skills at high levels.

There are ways to edit files and change your stats though. I think there is some mod that lets you reset your stats but I haven't done it personally.

[Setharion]

I love what im feeling with the game, but man its overwhelming a bit...should i just focus on at first here doing quests and winning some battles mainly?

[Freneticburn]

yea. if you go to the larger cities you can find a guild master who will give good quests. Also check taverns for farmers who need you to retake their village. Looting villages can get you cash quick too but you will piss off the noble who owns it and he'll come for you. Eventually you'll want to join a faction but you'll need a small army and decent renoun and for that you need to win battles and do quests.

[Setharion]

Im loving the crap out of this game so far, the fun is looting after battles...im loving that.

Now how should i ride in battle like i am having an issue with riding faster and shooting with my bow. It seems i sort of need to gallop slowly, or will that get easier as i level up? I am goin for moreso of a full hunter build since it seemed pretty fun.

[Freneticburn]

I'm not entirely sure what you mean. Your riding skill, horse, and equipment weight all factor into how fast your horse can go. Also when your horse dies in combat a lot they go lame and become absolute shit. Make sure your horse isn't lame. If you are talking about aiming it will get better as your horse archery skill and archery proficiency goes up. Getting the timing down does take some getting used to though. There is a lot of arc and with bows the longer you hold the shot the less accurate it becomes. It's best to release it just at the point the reticle is the smallest. If you pull back on a bow and don't want to shoot just hold block to stop it.

[Setharion]

Final question...should i just focus on doing stuff within the area like quests mainly? When or what do i consider in attacking so to speak when it comes to things outside of quests?

One i get the bearings here ill be good to go, loving what im seeing so far though.

[Setharion]

Heres what im trying to understand, and the only reason im cautious is i dont want to ruin my start here any. But how critical are decisions in terms of making a choice and going with it? Like for instance i had to ride over to curaw to rescure some guy from prison, the guard isnt letting me in and i need the lords approval to do so.

If i just attack the guard im sure i can basically count on being taken captive, but when i piss off some area...can i work back up in making them happy so to speak? Basically what i mean is how do i determine whats a smart choice and what isnt in terms of who i piss off or who i align with?

[Freneticburn]

I don't remember if they have it in the other versions of M&B but I know in With Fire & Sword you can pay off a noble for peace. It's ridiculously expensive though. One bad act doesn't really get you in deep water in the game though. Even if some noble has low regard for you there is usually a quest by them available to let you gain their trust unless you are at war with them. I think when wars end your relation to the warring kingdom zeroes out. Usually if you speak to enough guild masters or mayors they'll eventually offer a quest to settle peace by either persuading, paying off, or capturing one noble from each warring kingdom. You usually get like 12k+ money for these quests as well but if you choose to pay both nobles off you will lose money unless you have a great relation # with them. I think it costs like 25 relation for them to drop their war ambitions (or like 7k money depending on their relation with you) but usually I just pay off one noble that I am at peace with or am friends with and capture the enemy kingdom's noble.

Quite frankly I don't think you can totally fuck yourself over in this game. It's so open and there is no real end point (except in WF&S if you choose to do the plot line quests). You can usually crawl your way out of anything or say fuck it, join the enemy of your enemies, and have some backup for when you do get attacked by the nobles you pissed off. My advise would be to at least become really friendly with a kingdom or two unless you want to be a bandit type character in the game. Try not to piss off multiple kingdoms at once unless you are at war with them. I'd highly recommend getting in good with a king so you can become the war marshall. You need to be in good with many nobles to get the vote as well. But once you become the war marshall you can go gather nobles, if they like you and aren't busy, and siege your enemies with like 900+ soldiers. You don't always get the fief but capturing the castle towns is where the money is at and those castles are usually defended by 400+ soldiers. You get like 3k-4k in taxes though.

I've mostly made warrior type characters myself though specializing in one melee and one ranged. I did make a character mostly dealing with intelligence and charisma and joined a rebel king and took his kingdom back for him. That was mostly me persuading the nobles to join him though. I didn't really specialize in combat past the one hander and shield but did quite well with the character. I don't think there really is any wrong way to play the game. It's kinda like Oblivion or Fallout 3, it's exactly what you make of it. There is no one way to play.

[Freneticburn]

It's always good to kill bandits, deserters, and looters. I usually stop by any village I am nearby to see if it is overrun by bandits as well. When you are at war it's fair game to attack that kingdom's caravans. They're always a nice target if you can't compete against any of the warring nobles. Also if you WANT to start a war you can attack their caravans.

[atomicpenguin]

Jul 5, 2011 2:49:59 GMT -5 doktorljubavi said:

In single player?

Stats play a pretty big role on your character, like the weapon specializations, and horse movement.

Tactics is a huuuuuuuuge important stat if you plan to do large fights. The higher your tactics skill, the easier it is to command your army, and also starts your fights off with bonuses that can demoralize the enemy, and/or moralize your own units. I've fought with 40 men against 1000 before, and successfully won with maybe 4-5 casualties as a result due to high tactics skill. You don't need to have this yourself, you will acquire hero companions that also have skills, that you can upgrade. One of them.. think his name is Artemus or something, has high engineering and high tactics. You can use him as your tactics bot.

Engineering hastens the time it takes to build upgrades to your keeps/villages/cities, and affects the speed in which you build siege weapons(very important if you're going on the advance).

Tactics isn't an important skill to keep up unless you're playing on certain game settings. For the most part, the skill just affects the number of enemy opponents you face at once compared to the number of your overall troop count in a given encounter; on most settings, if you face a 300-man army with a force of 50, you won't fight all 300 at once, and they won't see all 50 of your troops since the tactics difference affects the force ratio in the battle.

It's also important to note that skills like tactics and engineering are party skills; you can pick up NPC's that will join your army in taverns, and can give them Party skills like Engineering or Tactics so that you don't need to dump points into those abilities on your main character and can focus on Personal abilities that only work when your main character has them, like Trainer (which can have a huge impact on your army's experience over time). You can have an NPC in your party that you dedicate just to Engineering, or Tactics, or First Aid, and can devote their stat points toward just maxing those abilities if you choose...in the long run it can be more effective than trying to diversify stats, especially if diversifying detracts from your main character's Personal skills.

[doktorljubavi]

Jul 11, 2011 17:56:50 GMT -5 atomicpenguin said:

Jul 5, 2011 2:49:59 GMT -5 doktorljubavi said:

In single player?

Stats play a pretty big role on your character, like the weapon specializations, and horse movement.

Tactics is a huuuuuuuuge important stat if you plan to do large fights. The higher your tactics skill, the easier it is to command your army, and also starts your fights off with bonuses that can demoralize the enemy, and/or moralize your own units. I've fought with 40 men against 1000 before, and successfully won with maybe 4-5 casualties as a result due to high tactics skill. You don't need to have this yourself, you will acquire hero companions that also have skills, that you can upgrade. One of them.. think his name is Artemus or something, has high engineering and high tactics. You can use him as your tactics bot.

Engineering hastens the time it takes to build upgrades to your keeps/villages/cities, and affects the speed in which you build siege weapons(very important if you're going on the advance).

Tactics isn't an important skill to keep up unless you're playing on certain game settings. For the most part, the skill just affects the number of enemy opponents you face at once compared to the number of your overall troop count in a given encounter; on most settings, if you face a 300-man army with a force of 50, you won't fight all 300 at once, and they won't see all 50 of your troops since the tactics difference affects the force ratio in the battle.

It's also important to note that skills like tactics and engineering are party skills; you can pick up NPC's that will join your army in taverns, and can give them Party skills like Engineering or Tactics so that you don't need to dump points into those abilities on your main character and can focus on Personal abilities that only work when your main character has them, like Trainer (which can have a huge impact on your army's experience over time). You can have an NPC in your party that you dedicate just to Engineering, or Tactics, or First Aid, and can devote their stat points toward just maxing those abilities if you choose...in the long run it can be more effective than trying to diversify stats, especially if diversifying detracts from your main character's Personal skills.

Later in the paragraph I went over the fact you can have the skill on a party member.

You don't need to have this yourself, you will acquire hero companions that also have skills, that you can upgrade. One of them.. think his name is Artemus or something, has high engineering and high tactics. You can use him as your tactics bot.

[Freneticburn]

I think companions can also use the trainer skill.

[atomicpenguin]

Jul 12, 2011 5:34:38 GMT -5 Freneticburn said:

I think companions can also use the trainer skill.

They can have all of them, but the personal skills are only really in effect from the party leader. It can be important if you decide to run your own kingdom and have the NPC's as followers leading their own armies, but if they're part of your main character's party it's not really useful.