A random gamers thoughts on 4 popular mods

So I've recently come back to mount and blade after a long hiatus, and decided to check out some of the overhaul mods as I'd only ever really played vanilla with some minor mods like diplomacy.

The first one I tried was Prophecy of Pendor. Apparently famed for its unforgiving gameplay, larger troop sizes and higher leveled troops.

Honestly found this mod a ton of fun, and it's difficult more or less overstated especially compared to those to come.

The second mod I started after a power outage crashed my unsaved game was the brytenwalda mod. This mod is head and shoulders and torso above PoP in difficulty. I couldn't beat the random bandit that spawns at the start, and my first engagement led to me cresting a hill only to be hit right in the face with a javelin. Instakill. Add on the wounding system, which gives you permanent stat loss when you are knocked out, ( you're knocked out a lot btw) the stumbling mechanic, and the overpriced, low quality equipment and the game is just very, very difficult. In fact I moved my damage to 1/2 damage for the first time ever. Still found it hard as hell. Oh and the hiking? My god why does this game spawn you on the side of a mountain your team has to crawl over, just to cross another mountain, and then, maybe just maybe you will fight. But seriously the distance I had to travel to find my opponents was retarded.

So I moved on to Awoiaf, for that GoT vibe. Well. Difficulty? The word loses its meaning in this mod. The armors are top tier, with prices to match, the wound system still exists, except you can't turn it off. The bandits in this mod are everywhere, just covering the land with troops of 30+ Fully armored knights that will destroy anything twice their size. I tried tournaments to gain money, until I found out it was bring your own gear, which means you are fighting walking fortresses in the blacksmiths apron the game was kind enough to provide you with. I tried free lancing, and although you will eventually get ok equipment it's super time consuming and you'll get barely any kills as you stumble around in clothes while man at arms rush you in masse. Weep for me butterlords. Not only did this mod have me go to 1/4 damage, but it also made me become a trader. A trader! I spent hours marching salt from one end of the map to the other, (alone as you're allowed to leave fights by yourself but one other troop will force you into bloodbaths and captivity) buying horses, armor and weapons with my filthy hard earned money. I felt dirty wearing armor I'd purchased with money from trading rather than pillaging. After I was fully suited I proceeded to try and form an army, when I realized my troop capacity was around 12. See I found out in brytenwalda and vice versa in awoiaf, that choosing both blacksmith occupations will give you a starting iron flesh of 6. Coupled with 12 starting strength you'll have 24 extra hp at start. Which surprising enough will just about let you survive a javelin to the face. Charisma isn't really important when you're struggling to survive.

So my confidence was a bit shot, so I downloaded one last mod, Floris. A trip through the vanilla wonderland was what I needed to see if I had lost my touch, or if I even had one to begin with. Well. Well well well. I fucking killed Floris. In under 2 hours I'd went from near nothing, to cashing out 18k on equipment, earned like a proper butter lord through pillaging and plundering every village that caught my eye. After one lord ran into me and captured my army I didn't stop. I started doing it singlehandly, slaying 60 peasants a village with my massive claymore, laughing off their pitiful strikes in my impressive armor that gave me 50+ in every area. And these aren't the naked peasants with clubs from base vanilla. Apparently Floris gives them swords and leather armor, for all the good it did them. Not that I didn't have my complaints. I found the troop naming system obtuse and unnecessary, and it was very hard to tell them apart. Not to mention that the price varies wildly for characters that appeared to be in the exact same armor, leaving me a bit clueless about their actual combat abilities.

Upon reflection, I think the biggest part that made brytenwalda and awoiaf so hard is the meager starting equipment followed by the insane prices to replace it. In my experience going through these mods, equipment by far makes the biggest difference in difficulty, far beyond levels and skills.

In PoP, reputed to be the most difficult, my random choices had me start out with 2 horses and 3 suits of armor, one of which was 50+. In BW and Awoiaf, my random choices never led to any decent armor or horses that I could find, and often involved gutting other necessary stats to compensate, leading to you starting as a practically nude man with a hatchet that has the same reach as a dagger, and the ability to lead roughly 10 men.

Couple that with the problems I had finding good troops in awoiaf and it's just a very tough start. You have to bribe village elders to be allowed to recruit, which is a headache when you start with less than 300 denars. And forget recruiting mercs, those 10 reach levymen will last in a fight about as long as a snowball in hell, especially facing the 30 to 40 men at arms every lord fields in their army.

PoP gets some flack but honestly I found it vibrant and fun. Yea the peasants get stomped by anything, but recruiting just 5 adventurers will raise your success rate dramatically. And paying for recruitment is for chumps in PoP. One great thing about all the knights roaming around is that they hate each other, leading to knights of the dawn carrying around baggage trains full of heretic prisoners and vice versa. A trick I used a lot would be to lure one to the other, attacking the winner and recruiting for free all the knights they just captured. Yea the Noldor are op, and the knights have levels in the 50s and 60s, but that just makes the game better, as they are more of a challenge to the player. Even at level 10, in similar armor I could kill an eventide knight, who had skill levels in the 300s.

I had plenty of other thoughts but I'll cut it short for now, as I've got things to do.

Awards are as follows:

Best Simulation of the Despair and Drudgery of the day to day life of a medieval salt trader goes to: Awoiaf

Best Simulation of a 30 minute hike up and down hills followed by instant death goes to: Brytenwalda

Best Simulation of the mass murder of angry peasants for their exquisite butter goes to: Floris evolved.

Best Simulation of an average mercenary bringing heretics and fanatics together to fight for the common good goes to: Prophecy of Pendor

Submitted July 26, 2017 at 10:00PM by Owlsdoom http://ift.tt/2v9p6oa