tail world's entertainment was founded
by armaguna yavus who studied Computer
Engineering at Bill Kent University the
Company formed after members of The
Gaming Community provided support to his
hobby project a project that went by the
name Mount And Blade at the time it was
still in its beta versions but the
company started to sell these e-copies
of the beta version of the game online
thus funding started and the development
ramped up the series actually itself
started with a game called warida really
what mountain blade was called before it
was called Mountain blade it was a back
to Bones basic title inspired by the
likes of Sydney's Pirates the Elder
Scrolls Daggerfall and many others while
Rider itself was well you can see there
was very little in terms of polished
gameplay but the ideas were forming a
completely different map to the later
Mountain blade Colorado games that we
had and it only had a few different
troop types along with the basic Bare
Bones gameplay there were some big
issues I mean for starters Bay amazing
things like interacting with characters
could crash the game but hey it was the
start the start of something big but
this is where it started to get somewhat
insane variety was similar but it had a
lot of differences it was much more of a
solo story driven title than the open
world RPG of warband and battle ard we
know today Fantastical items of power
were included hidden locations Ghouls
and monsters I mean the plot itself
talks about the arrival of the undead
these are all things that were actually
meant to be within the next version you
know Mountain blade but were taken out
for a more historical approach which I
think was probably the best idea delving
into the fire was actually of later
games in the mountain Blade series you
can see the remnants of the undead and
the Black Knight armor used within the
war Rider Story the Black Knight armor
by the way many mountain blade fans
might know as admin armor from Mountain
blade warbands multiplayer servers
that's where it came from it came from
first iterations of mountain blade but
what were the actual similarities and
differences between this war Rider
version and what came later well as
mentioned it only had two factions the
swadians and the Vegas the Vegas
revolting against the strong powers that
the Swedish ruled with their Mighty
mounted Knights then the eventual
looming scare of the undead Army that
were on their way yet the game only had
basic battles and commands there were no
sieges not even castles or Lords moving
around any interactions with the NPCs
had to just be done through menus by
going into certain towns oh you could
also Slaughter your own horses if your
party got really hungry why they took
that out I don't know maybe it was just
weak maybe tail worlds are just weak and
they don't want killing horses give me
my lasagna okay that is probably best
they took that out yet despite War
Riders massive issues there was a lot of
Personality there stupid things from the
terrible facial animations to the Comic
Sans text and font on everything no
matter how buggy and janky it was there
was an indication of much bigger things
to come the name was soon changed to
Mount And Blade to better explain the
actual contents of the game thus
development began and it changed from a
demo Alpha version to a full actual
title the community despite this had
been growing and growing with Early
Access looks at the basic mechanics and
tail words eventually got a publishing
partnership with Paradox themselves yes
the same guys that did Hearts of Iron
and Crusader Kings Paradox saw the
growing success of this game and thought
that they wanted some part of it and
then a release date was set after a
number of later Alpha versions Mountain
blade was fully released on September
2008. a complete and full overhaul of
what were Ryder had initially started
karate had been fully realized and the
factions were starting to take shape the
fantasy elements were all but taken out
of the game which I can't speak for
everybody but I do think that was a
decent idea historical focus is
definitely something of a drawing point
for the series these days and especially
early on I feel like a fantasy game
would have just been drowned out by the
saturated pool of Fantasy games back in
the day the factions now added into
Mountain Blade with the Nords the
swadians and the Vegas the redox and the
kyrgy carne all with their own unique
units and playing Styles yet the
serenades were missing yep the southern
faction actually only appeared later on
in warband not only this extra faction
was missing but the original Mountain
blade lacked many of the wider troop
trees in a lot of detail when it came to
diplomacy I've played the original
Mountain blade for quite a lot granted
not as much as warband but even going
back to it these days it really does
feel like it's aged quite a bit don't
get me wrong the core base of the title
is still there you can still definitely
feel like a mountain Blade game but just
small things the neon green text over
your troops it looks so cluttered and so
tacky even just the animations of
charging up your sword or your Lance
when you're going into battle it feels
very clunky and you can tell that they
didn't have proper animators at the time
this was later confirmed that only
proper animations were put in with
warband and they just had to bear with
what they could physically animate
themselves for the original the lack of
the sounded factions means the map's
pretty small and also battles feel kind
of uninteresting look it was cool at the
time in 2008 when it came out but the
original Mountain blade has been
improved upon so much that I still feel
to this day there isn't all that much
need going back to it other than just
nostalgia in the original Mountain Blade
the battles themselves feel very
different I've already spoken about the
lack of good animations but also the
scale really makes a big difference when
you actually try to immerse yourself
within the battles 2008's Mountain blade
saw the introduction of custom battles
whether you wanted to set up a skirmish
sieges attacking and defending different
scenarios that you could get the hang of
how these big battles and commanding
troops worked but with the lack of
troops on the battlefield at a Max up to
100 they do feel really small I mean
look at this siege for example it feels
like a tiny Skirmish with only 50 men on
each side of course as soon as they
start dying it then looks like you've
got a small rabble having a fist fight
with a massive Castle as the setting it
doesn't quite fit with that medieval
battle simulator that I think a lot of
people hoped for at the time a criticism
maybe but can it be helped probably not
this was a tiny indie game at this point
in time made by only a few people
remember the original Mount And Blade
didn't have the backing of War band or
especially Banner Lord so there were so
many limitations the AI is far less
Advanced I'm not really saying the AI
has gotten very good in later games but
it was particularly bad in the original
Mountain blade people standing there not
really knowing what they're doing
they're still defending the breaches and
the holes in the walls but they often
get stuck on each other archers
sometimes not go for a bit of wall that
they can actually shoot out of and most
enemies or Allies would just stand there
and battles well battles between them
look like a slapping contest between two
disabled frogs the textures are rubbish
the game looks terrible in the most
Charming of ways don't think anybody
expected AAA Graphics I mean it's a 2008
game and well if we compare it to the
other 2008 games it still doesn't look
great Mountain blade warband had that
same issue many of the textures were
reused for that game and that just came
down to the lack of budget in these
titles but it almost feels Charming now
and it adds to that smell you know that
old game Nostalgia that wouldn't have
that same feeling if it didn't look feel
or play like it did even if it was
really clunky and terrible not just for
today's standards but even back then but
there was something else that made this
original Mountain blade very special
that caught people's attentions and kept
them coming back the game at the time
was only 32-bit so it's kind of
self-explanatory why it looked like this
there's very little in terms of real
video options to crank up your graphics
even playing at 4K there's not all that
much you can do to savor this you see a
lot of the same armor and weapons that
were used later on in Mountain blade War
and but there were a lot that were taken
out and can I just say the ones that
were used in the original Mountain blade
that were taken out for warband you can
see why they are the weakest of textures
and the weakest of armors in terms of
how they look the feel of playing
characters is good but it doesn't have
that same feeling that warband has maybe
that's just down to the animations but
it definitely feels much clunkier and
feeling like you have less control of
these weapons when using a sword and ax
or Shield it feels like you're using a
paperweight instead you have your
directional combat up down left right
but all of it just looks weird and none
of it gives you the possibilities for
some cool moves chambering slicing
blocking like warband hat I think it is
just down to the weird feeling and
clunky animations and the lack of that
slick combat that we got later on but
the whole point of Mount on blades
combat or at least what it became was to
be able to tell what direction your
enemy was attacking from and then block
accordingly that's not as easy in the
original battle blade going back back to
it now it is possible but you can't
quite tell because of the animations
which way they're going this whole
combat mechanic also comes back to
difficulty settings the original Mount
And Blade had a lot less in terms of
changing the difficulty meaning that the
game as a whole is so much easier than
warband ever was it was later addressed
with adding difficulty settings for
recruitment fighting persuasion combat
archery so on and so forth but that
wasn't a massive point in the original
Mount And Blade so I can imagine back in
the day when nobody had experienced a
combat system like the thing that tail
Woods were presenting them it could be
incredibly confusing I mean don't get me
wrong there is a tutorial for Mountain
blade but it's Bare Bones to say the
least consisting of basic movement and
weapon selection fighting with a shield
or fighting without a shield even riding
on Horseback you're actually entering
these tutorials doesn't give you all
that much to go on I mean the one where
you fight with a shield you're equipped
with nothing but a fists and a kind
shield and you had to stand there
holding right click for 30 seconds is
not exactly teaching you all that much
moving on to the original map most of it
looks familiar but is very different to
what we saw later on especially if you
played warband everything just seems to
be in the wrong place sargoth which of
course is where the Nords live is yellow
and is in a similar location to warband
but not quite swaddy's territory is
pretty similar but the road ocks are a
light blue and the Vegas are a green the
coups apes are in the right place kind
of but spilling into the south of where
the serenades would next be yet the rest
of the game set the pinpoint for what
this franchise would be recruiting
soldiers talking to the Village Elders
for tasks going on quests and whilst the
later games like warband really didn't
have much of a story this one had even
less there wasn't a starting prologue or
anything of the like it just thrusts you
into the game this sandbox world and
trusted that you'd be okay and whilst
it's Charming now I can imagine it being
very infuriating back in the day maybe
even putting people off the title so it
was time for something else for
something a little bit more mainstream
after the success of the Classic
mountain blade Towers had the community
in the backing of paradox to now expand
the series the next game though wouldn't
necessarily be a sequel not a mountain
blade 2. it would actually just be a
standalone expansion and this was called
Mountain blade warband it was released
in 2010 and the first noticeable change
was the introduction of that sixth
faction the serenade sultanate a
southern-based dornish-like faction with
a thing for heavy carrion mamluks Elite
archers were a bit of a threat and a lot
of toothpicks to throw at their foes
they can often be deadly when used by
the player but also a lot of fun to
train up your peasants on when they're
being controlled by the AI Mountain
blade warband single player Advanced on
pretty much everything it added in a
completely new opening and prologue some
tutorial missions and of course bigger
quests in the general not only this but
it added way more in terms of getting
money pillaging Looting of course
farming herding cattle everybody's
favorite side quests and bigger and
bigger armies now up to 150 troops on
the battlefield it was sieges felt much
smoother with more seed weaponry and
Siege engines and of course the bigger
factions and the bigger faction troop
trees gave them much more variation when
it came to recruiting yes you could play
with one faction maybe you just want a
faction of Nords that was definitely
possible but the mixing and matching of
having the best from every aspect having
infantry from the Nord having Arches
from the Vegas having Cavalry from the
swadians and crossbows from the rodox
even horse archers from the kyrgyz if
that was more your thing the music of
mountain blade warband itself is Iconic
I mean if we're gonna talk about game
soundtracks at least for me and my
childhood there's always a few that take
you back to your favorite moments of
history Mountain blade warband is up
there with Age of Empires 2 and Rome
Total War with its game soundtrack that
makes you feel nostalgic without even
having to see the game itself
[Music]
foreign
[Music]
warband is almost identical to the
original you choose where your parents
are from and customize your character to
fit whether it's getting a beautiful
mustache or randomizing because you are
too lazy to do anything else of course
allow me to quit without saving just in
case we get into trouble as mentioned
Mountain blade warband starts with a
completely new prologue that was never
in the original having a crossbow to
headshot the first looter is always very
satisfying as they're definitely not
going to put anything like a fight then
you meet the merchant he tells you that
his brother is in terrible danger he
needs to see him and he'll give you so
much money to try and find him but of
course you'd ignore him because we don't
need any of that as mentioned the map
has massively improved the road docks
are now down in the South near the new
faction of the saranids with the kyrgy
carne on the right the Vegas at the top
and the nordics as well as a side note
my dictation app that I use for taking
notes interpreted me saying Vegas as
Bagels I don't know if that means
anything to you wandering around
recruiting at the start of the game of
the most satisfying things slowly
building up your army you have very
little in terms of money or clothes on
your back nothing to your name and a
whole world ahead of you the whole game
of mountain blade is set at building
your Renown and building your army you
do this by recruiting troops in
different Villages and depending on what
the faction is that own the village
depends on the type of troops you can
get for me it was always sweetier that I
started with slowly building up and that
first battle that you have with the
looters is always playing out the same
fighting at the front line on your horse
trying to get them to throw their stones
at you because if any hit your men it
feels like a dagger in your back any one
man that goes down at this point is a
dastardly setback in your world
domination plans and it always turned
out that way the early Mountain Blade
game feels so perfected you're always on
a knife's edge one loss away from losing
everything being captured by the bandits
and having to start all over again
you're not a king here you're not even
account you have nothing to your name so
you have to be very careful at the
battles you take and the armies you
build up trying to span out how you
build this Army you need enough money
and food in order to keep them going or
they'll start to leave food is even a
micromanaging game in itself grain is
fantastic but people get bored of it the
more variation you have of grapes meat
wine makes your army have better morale
in the long run but if you have too much
meat it will start to rot and then the
morale will drop it's always a
time-tested dynamic mechanic upgrading
your first recruits to militia is so
satisfying seeing the new skills and
weapons that they come out with now
going to a training ground in order to
upgrade your troops faster you can spar
with them over and over again giving
them more XP every time maybe you want
to spy with your recruit because they
have no skills at this point in time you
can do that maybe spa with a recruit a
knight or a footman you can do that it's
a fast way to level up your troops but
you also need to make make sure that you
have the skills in order to beat them in
battle or very little XP will be gained
spending 10 to 15 minutes on a training
camp can be the difference between an
army of recruit and militia to your
first footman or even a man at Arms the
best ways to make money early game doing
quests or trading fighting in
tournaments but of course that meant you
had to beef handy with a sword yourself
even holding up Caravans that had dies
or expensive silks on them if you had an
army to take them on they could be the
perfect Treasure Trove to later on
pillaging and plundering villages to get
the true loot heading up north to fight
sea Raiders gave you great rewards of
chainmail and great axes but they were
harder than your regular looters then
seeing your first Mana arms ride onto
battle after being recruited from just
small militia was The Shining prowess of
any swaadium players dreams it seems
like a scummy tactic at this point but I
always loved playing of an army of
Sweden Knights they're so powerful some
would say 2 powerful being able to swarm
over pretty much any enemy whether it's
a caravan a full army or even sieging a
castle they would hop off horseback and
fight hand to hand Cavalry was so
overpowered in Mountain blade not
necessarily all that fair but boy was it
still fun then taking over your first
castle was when the game really started
to span out adventuring on your own
across the lands was fun but when you
finally conquered a castle and you get
to keep it from yourself creating a name
for your new kingdom and seeing the
future that was to behold was where
Mount And Blade came into its own
getting a wife to look after the castle
garrisoning the wars if you're sieged
you how to fight on the defensive side
this time making sure they have enough
food and money in order to keep running
having fights and Villages upgrading
them to them bringing taxes of their own
made this RPG Adventurer into almost a
kingdom management simulator there were
so many different phases to Mount And
Blade warband that made it so special at
the time this game could get incredibly
big incredibly fast I played so many
hours on this and to this day have over
1 500 hours on Mountain blade warband it
is still my most played game I sunk so
many hours into the single player and
that was just the native that's not even
talking about modding
modding in general grew and grew with
warband with basic but useful modding
tools there was still a community of
developers that decided they wanted to
change the game it started with basic
reskins and some mechanical changes but
then we started to get the overhauls
warsawed Conquest that added in
Warhammer to the game Flores expanded
that took the native added in more
factions troops armors and completely
new mechanics my favorites that I
absolutely adored were the examples of
Bellum Imperial Imperial Roman overhaul
that added in some beautiful models and
we'd actually see them come on later
with their multiplayer counterpart mods
modding in general in warband was
something that we'd never really seen
before the Elder Scrolls games were
perhaps before this the best known games
for massive modern communities but
Mountain blade sort of took it over and
even not being the biggest game in the
world by a long shot had a community
that rivaled even AAA titles whether it
was overhauls small patches or updates
warband was the king of his overhauls I
could count over a hundred that I just
played myself and I didn't even slightly
delve into some of the depths so let me
know down below what your favorite
overhaul for Mountain blade warband was
Mountain blade warbands released in 2010
not only Advance the single player to no
end but it also added in a new
multiplayer variant and this is where
the mountain Blade series really started
to gain some Traction in The Wider world
the multiplayer itself started off as
something rather unspectacular but it
had one unique selling point the sheer
scale you see Mountain blade had now
built up a community of players that
were used to Siege battles and
large-scale field attacks with up to 150
AI soldiers on the battlefield at once
but this was the single player so when
it was translated to multiplayer not
only did it have that same scale but it
actually eventually became even bigger
eventually moving to 200 and 250 players
all in one server fighting in these
multiplayer battles and sieges this had
never been dumbbell 4 in gaming and I
remember it blowing me away and this is
how Mountain blade started to really
gain its name in 2010 the mountain
musket model was released it brought the
native warband experience into a new era
the Napoleonic Wars because of the
massive historical fans within the
franchise this new Napoleonic Wars style
of fighting gave way to the Natural
forming of Lines within players cannons
would be introduced in full-scale
battles when underway naturally the
community started to form regiments with
the French the British and the Russians
and it gave way to these massive scale
Clan battles they would meet up weekly
and reenact the battles of old fighting
in lines or in sieges before long
footage of these private events will be
uploaded to the internet and because of
this more and more people started to
flood into the title
[Music]
not too long after because of the
growing Community a new sequel was in
the works well I say sequel it's more
like another Standalone expansion this
time however we're taking the franchise
to A Whole New Era on the 4th of May
2011 we got Mountain Blade with Fire and
sword with iron sword was based on the
historical fictional novel with the same
name by polish author Henrik seinkovitz
it was set during the 17th Century
Polish Lithuanian Commonwealth and my
god did it bring in something new the
Standalone expansion could be as the
name suggests played without owning the
mountain Blade Games before opening up
to a completely new fan base it brought
in new mechanics in the form of
gunpowder Weaponry with five new
factions the kingdom of Sweden kosak had
to manate polish Commonwealth muscovite
sardon and the Crimean incarnate there
was so much new content for players to
explore from the infamous winged hussars
to Elite marksmen and musket troops
unlike much of what we got in warband
before however the single player Thor
with fire and sword was much more along
its own campaign storyline with Quests
for three of the five factions to follow
characters to meet and battles to win
one of my personal favorite features is
this inclusion and the time period and
the effects that it had on the gameplay
as yeah muskets and gunpowder were used
on the field but they were still
incredibly inaccurate and unreliable at
the time meaning that the age of sword
and bow was definitely not over this
gave an amazing cross-section and look
into history the variety of weapons to
use was bigger than any game we'd had
before gunpowder versus the ancient
times and my God was at a sight to see
on the battlefield the use of grenades
and Firearms meant casualties were way
higher on the field than any regular
warband battle and Siegen castles was
much much harder this meant tailwoods
had to find new ways of capturing forts
like blowing holes in walls bribing
guards or even poisoning the water
supply to drag out the Defenders despite
its success however there were a couple
of things with this expansion that I
personally wasn't too much of a fan of I
mean for example tree trees were all but
gone instead opting for a veteran system
you would recruit faction troops as
usual but then only really get one
chance to upgrade them to their final
form this put much more use into the
mercenaries who would get these upgrade
option in trees and sometimes even the
chance to customize said mercenaries by
visiting their camps fire and sword also
had multiplayer but it never really took
off in the same way it's something to be
said that the expansion was well
received I mean people still seem to
really like it but it didn't quite have
the same staying power that warband
ended up having yet tail worlds were not
done yet on the 19th of April 2012 they
bought out perhaps the most
game-changing of mountain blades updates
to date Napoleonic Wars unlike with fire
and sword this DLC was well a DLC it
wasn't a standalone expansion so you had
to own Mountain blade warband in the
first place but remember when I said
that modding tools is one of the things
that changed them out on blade forever
well this is the later effect of that
you see Napoleonic Wars as a DLC was
actually developed and based off the
mount and Musket Mod for Mount And Blade
warband the mod that bought people in to
the Napoleonic Wars instead they just
decided to put some budget behind it and
sell it as a premium piece of work and
it was just that animations were much
better sound design was incredible so
much in terms of new assets and of
course Maps were added into the game the
DLC was multiplayer only which might
have put some people off but this really
didn't stop the content from coming in
there was a lot to get your hands on
with the nwdoc it upped from 200 to 250
players in the same multiplayer servers
220 unique units within the game from
Cavalry to artillery engineers and
Rocket treats it took away the
customization of picking your armor
before a multiplayer map that warband
had and went with these set troop types
this meant it could be more historically
accurate to the Napoleon it was at the
time whether you were playing as the
British the French the Russians the
prussians later on with new factions
coming in as well each with their own
foot guards Rifleman light infantry
having their own uniforms and set
subclasses with you're playing as the
Fifer or the drummer even a bagpipe
player as a Scottish Highlanders playing
as an officer with a spy glass to lead
your troops into the battle and must get
men fixing bayonets and charging through
the breaches speaking of breaching they
actually added in fully destructible
terrain as well with the introduction of
artillery it meant for the opportunities
to see the consequences of those big
balls of lead being able to knock
breaches and Fort walls knock down doors
and destroy ships yes later introduced
to the update were ships as well full of
Navy and Marine classes meant for these
amazing battles of attacking forts not
just from land but also from the oceans
as well people sailing around using the
Cannons on board are boarding other
ships and my God was an incredible
experience speaking of an incredible
experience a new soundtrack was added in
using an array of 50 different pieces of
music from classical to custom and it
fit perfectly for the time period you
really felt that you were in this
Symphony of Destruction within the
bloody battle in their perionic Wars
whether it was line battles or sieges
there was so much fun to be had
especially on the custom private events
you see when you have such a big
multiplayer community that Mountain
Blaine apparent Wars started to grow you
will also have some knock-on effects as
people start to come together you know
we enacters that get together every now
and then and try and reenact these
famous battles from history in real life
well players in Mountain blade thought
why can't we do that within the game
lining up in their own regiments
historically accurate to the time period
the British the French sieging forts
playing line battles with set rules and
itineraries going to certain events at
certain times having training maps where
they practice their melee Weaponry
they're cannon firing all their
horseback combat and then taking that
into the big events with up to 250
players all in other regiments of their
own whether you played as a footman
regiment whether you played as a light
infantry a Rifleman an artillery even a
naval regiment they were all within it
having Engineers placed down barricades
and digging trenches in order for that
other regimental Lads to use later on an
update came out adding in Medics for
Napoleonic Wars meaning that you could
have someone following around your line
healing troops as they go it was so
in-depth and it was so passionately
devoted to by its fan base so even now
10 years later Mountain blade appear on
it was still has these multiplayer
events it even inspired games like whole
Fascinations at war and battle Cry of
Freedom the effects that this DLC had
within the gaming industry in general
are rippled throughout the last decade
but tailored Taylors were still not done
yet because in December of 2014 we got
another DLC this one once again based
off a mod from before Brighton Walder
this was Viking Conquest
developed by the people behind Brighton
Wilder it was a massive advancement for
storytelling within the franchise Viking
Conquest took players Into the Dark Age
of Northern Europe the 9th century where
Norseman invaded the British Isles and
took a complete head spin on what fans
had come to expect from the mountain
Blade franchise the DLC added in six
historically accurate cultures and 21
corresponding factions with their own
unique feel and troops not only this but
the star itself took the sandbox and
implemented the possibility for a now
story driven campaign starting up it
lets you choose between this narrative
story driven campaign or your regular
Mountain blade sandbox starting at
different levels from regular to Lord or
even King however the first thing you
really notice with this DLC is the menu
music oh my God does it set the scene
this was gonna be a new take on Mountain
blade games and they really tried to
show that from the get-go
[Music]
the DLC does have multiplayer but much
like Queen Elizabeth II it's dead
completely sandbox is pretty much what
you'd expect from Mount And Blade but
basically just set within a viking world
with a few tweaks here and there the map
is of course custom made the United
Kingdom with warring factions to explore
starting as a king and sandbox mode
however essentially just means you get a
massive head start loads of XP to
distribute and an army to fit you can go
straight into battles destroying your
enemies none of this Adventurer nonsense
a big change actually is the general
aesthetic to Viking Conquest I don't
know exactly what they've done but it
feels a little bit more dirty and grimy
or at least compared to what Native
warband had of course the team had to
work with what the tail World original
gave them you know that pretty old and
knackered engine but it seems like their
attempts to improve the game graphically
Works in some places but in my humble
opinion not in others things like the
water looks a lot nicer now don't get me
wrong I mean it kind of needs to for an
expansion whose Main feature is ship
battles but the general Vibe kind of
feels a little bit off to me maybe
that's just because I'm so used to how
muted the vanilla mountain blade looks
but in my opinion I'm not a massive fan
of the general feel of this DLC biking
Conquest has a lot more customization
than what vanilla had though you can
ramp up the battle sizes all the way to
750 agents which is way more than
warband ever had this makes for some
incredibly immersive battles with Shield
Wars and other new troop types like
Slingers oh and you can actually form
proper Shield Wars now warband didn't
really have that feature so it kind of
made sense for them to add it in with
Viking Conquest along with many more
advanced formations that really gives
you that epic Viking feel troops with
Spears and shields will now walk right
and slam their weapons into the shields
to intimidate the enemy Beyond combat in
general is similar of course it's still
Mountain blade but with a few extra
added things like Shield bashing which
stuns the enemy and critical hit points
hitting someone else or in my case being
hit from behind will deal extra damage
which can be absolutely brutal if you're
not ready for it however additions like
this are what mountain blade are really
needed adding a little bit more realism
and forcing players to stick with their
troops more from Shield Wars and fight
in formation rather than the usual F1 F3
charge as entertaining as it is it
didn't exactly recreate medieval battles
as most people expected them to Villages
and towns do also have a bit more added
detail wandering around NPCs will be
doing their jobs in the farm and can be
interacted with as usual there's also
children in the game however you can't
kill them if that's what you're thinking
the DLC adds in locations of Interest
not owned by anyone these are just
neutral places that you can go and
explore they add to this ever-changing
story and it kind of makes you feel a
bit more like an adventurer than the
native Mountain blade ever did weapons
also have modifiers to increase and
improve the meaning that sticking and
working with one type of weapon is
actually warranted here you can create
hideouts anywhere on the map with your
party you could go and walk around and
this is where you can train troops or
keeps troops occupied before a big
Invasion and of course the big one Naval
battles it was something very very new
of course as mentioned Viking Conquest
was based off the bright and wolded DLC
and that's when Naval battles were
really introduced but they were kind of
improved here being able to sail around
and go into these scenes charging across
the vessels you could actually steer
ships and your troops would throw
javelins and Sling from the decks and it
was so satisfying ramming into them and
of course boarding the enemy vessel it
was a really cool addition and of course
the main selling point for a viking
based expansion all in all viking
Conquest was pretty successful I think
many people at least the single player
fans were really into this at the time
it was actually remastered just a couple
years after its initial release but then
tail was decided to go a different
direction they thought console was the
way you see after multiple DLCs and
continue growing of the community table
saw that the mountain Blade franchise
was more than what it actually started
off as it was a kind of nerdy medieval
RPG sandbox that was very much targeted
towards a PC player base because there
wasn't a mainstream audience here but
these DLCs and especially Mountain blade
warbands multiplayer had grown the
notoriety of this franchise to a point
where they were starting to look
elsewhere in 2016 a mountain blade
warband released onto Xbox One and PS4
it was pretty much exactly the base game
but with a few changes of course
complete console controls which worked
pretty well for what they could do and
uh oh multiplayer battles were 32 vs 32.
what's the point of them then despite
the lack of mountain Blade's best
features like custom servers mods and
the DLC add-on Mountain blade still
actually sold pretty well on both
consoles and it was a little taster to
get people interested in this franchise
of course the addition going on to PS
now and of course Xbox game pass opened
it up to a much bigger audience for this
medieval epic to tap into but that was
seemingly it for Mountain blade or at
least Mountain blade warband that was
kind of the end of its life tailwoods
were prepping something much bigger and
it was about to enter the Limelight
after eight years
you see back in 2012 we got the first
real announcement that battlelord was
being worked on the sequel to mount on
blade warband yet it's kind of more of a
prequel lore wise heading back 200 years
before the events that we found in our
first outing of Carl Radia gone are the
factions that we came to know and love
in warband this was a time of a late
Empire split into splintering factions
giving hints of her glory that once was
the sturgeons were in the north the
roots of the mountain blade world
flandians had heavy Cavalry to smash
down their foes the Koozies who were the
ancestors of the later kurgit karnate
rode on the steps with Bowen horse and
who could of course forget the azerite
still very much like their later
surrounding cousins great for bullying
and leveling up your troops on something
definitely got to be running in their
family after the incredible success of
mountain Blade warband with all its DLCs
tail Wars had gone solo they left the
warmth and safety that was Paradox as a
publishing house and thought they could
do it all in their own and I guess they
were right before we get into the game
itself it would be dishonest not to
speak about the incredible delays of
Battlelog the announcement of course as
mentioned came in 2012 it started that
hype train but that train kept missing
stops and it never wanted to slow down
for eight whole years reports of the
game going back and forth in development
scrapping the project and starting again
time and time over how true these rumors
are I guess we will never really know
but creating a new game engine from
scratch which was what tailwoods were
trying to do completely different to
what warband had was never gonna be an
easy feat but every single Gamescom that
tail was went to 2017 2018 2019 each
time they bought us more gameplay and
more and more unfulfilled promises and
this is where the split form Paradox
could have been detrimental yeah it
gives Towers all the freedom in the
world they can create whatever game they
wanted to in whatever whatever time
frame they wish they don't have the same
budget perhaps but they do have the fan
base so distribution wouldn't really be
an issue yet having a Powerhouse of a
publishing company like Paradox above
you can also have its advantages keeping
development on track is one of them
handling extra resources when needed to
make sure release schedules are met and
not letting deadlines slip but that have
been detrimental to the creative process
for Banner maybe but it definitely
without a doubt would have helped
terwood's PR which admittedly wasn't
great upon the lead up it got to the
point where there were so many
complaints to the dev team that they
actually set up weekly developer blogs
just to appease the angry fans who kept
being teased to no avail did it work
kind of
at least it gave me more videos I mean
we can never forget that Infamous camel
developer blog yes all my hard work and
years of building up a fan base that are
interested in Mountain blade led to that
moment sitting in my room wondering what
am I doing as I made an entire video on
the fact that camels are going to be in
the new game if you remember that you
are a real one it wasn't until 2018 at
Gamescom that the first playable version
of the title was shown to fans Remember
by this time it had been six years since
the initial announcement in four years
since any screenshots or gameplay
choosing which faction area you start of
will give you some advantages depending
on what troop on Play Store you're going
for the initial Pro Luke has gone no
more fighting a bandit in the streets
but you will be introduced straight away
to the new tutorial or training campers
we should call it I mean sure if it's
your first time playing it will go
through some basics of the mechanics of
the new sword fighting or using your
bear wall or even riding a horse but
after you've done it once you don't need
to do this again just just skip that bit
the map of Colorado does feel a similar
scale to warbands as mentioned it is
still car Radia but there's a few well
shifts in the landscape in the last 200
years there's some sort of Pangea effect
has happened in the space of 200 years
here what is going on with this roaming
around though the game gives you plenty
of money making opportunities straight
off the bat unlike warband where at the
beginning it was really just mostly
efficient to attack looters and sell
their gear battle actually goes a little
bit more realistic if you want to make
money and I mean real money enough to
pay for a small Warrior band you better
be doing quests from the start okay look
you can still play a little bit like War
band just fighting off Bandits at the
beginning and selling their gear and
taking them prisoner but it's not the
real efficient way to play quests are
pretty fun I mean they're a little bit
Hit or Miss depending on which ones you
choose they're not exactly the most
exciting and some can get kind of
repetitive but they do at least pay well
getting horse sources for people can do
bits if the fives aren't too far away
escorting Caravan missions is a good
amount of fun and it pays decent not to
mention the battle experience your
troops get however one of the best is
taking out Bandit hideouts for certain
Town members you get paid 3 000 denars
from a simple Hideout attack plus all
the loot prisoners and XP you could ever
want this is one to look out for another
great addition that battled adds over
its 2010 counterpart is the fact that
you can have NPCs doing certain quests
and jobs for you you know the scrubs
that you find in the taverns ask them to
join your parties and they can be
upgraded just like a regular player
character even given command of troops
on the battlefield or custom armor
normally your hand me downs these NPCs
can be chosen to escort a mission with
sending a few troops with them still
bringing that cash in in the later game
without really having to do much of the
work yourself this also links into the
new Caravan system along with more of
the RPG aspects of a mountain Blade 2
battlelood buying up shops workshops
Smiths or sending out Caravans on their
way is a great way to start stocking up
money of course make sure you give them
enough guards because they will probably
be attacked but they can bring in a
heavy flow of cash tournaments are also
pretty good and they've had a complete
revamp in the new title being able to
join in on any City's tournaments if you
see the little bronze helmet icon this
means that there is a tournament going
on you can place bets on yourself
fighting in various styles of tourney
from archery battles in the north to
horseback bowmanship in the East all
relating to the faction that the town
originates in not only can money be one
but arms and armor or even sometimes
expensive horses a cool little side note
with the tournaments is the fact that
whilst you'll be fighting at some
generic soldiers in here sometimes NPCs
Lords and characters from your party or
other parties in the town will be the
ones taking part in the tournament as
well and you'll be fighting against them
it's a cool nice little immersion touch
and gets you seeing characters faces
over and over again and kind of working
up that relationship with them the game
also adds in a load of little quality of
life things in that warband never had
from the aforementioned tourney icon so
you don't have to go into every town you
find being able to talk to NPCs from the
town menus rather than having to run
around the streets looking for them
menus in general are much more flush and
simple to read giving a lot more
information for a lot less space on the
screen diplomacy screens troop movements
your clan and of course later your
kingdom is beautifully set out and it's
really obvious for management of your
playthrough battlelord itself gives you
full encyclopedias for every single
faction town and Truth within the game
or their stats armor and where they
might be found marking up towns for
Missions or general exploration is
incredibly easy and the gameplay
experience for battlelord in general is
so much smoother and feels more premium
than warband ever was but what about the
core gameplay well whilst warband said
on the surface that you could role play
as pretty much whoever you wanted the
actual depth of each of these roles was
kind of shallow yes in warband you could
technically be a Trader but only by
moving items from one place to another
in manlord you can actually buy
workshops create Goods by crafting tools
and weapons you can then send out your
Caravans and NBC workers to trade for
you creating a full Merchant Network in
warband you could technically become a
soldier in another Army but in battle
you could actually follow these Lords
join them and raise up the ranks by
getting known by them and increasing
your Renown get personal orders by them
on the battlefield or Captain one of
their detachments in the army with the
addition of some mods like serve as a
soldier you can even play as an alone
front rank Soldier leveling up with new
armor and weapons every time your AI
Lord upgrades you an incredible piece of
immersion to add to this tail was
recently introduced a battle to rain
system of feature that breaks the
Overworld map up into tiny detailed
sections to translate them onto the
battle maps themselves armies will spawn
in the correct direction that they will
face on the Overworld map towns will
appear in the background if you're
fighting nearby Bridges will be in the
correct place as they were in the
Overworld map so you can choose and plan
bottlenecks and attacks every single
update it gets more and more detailed
and it is incredible hopefully in the
future it will be on par with what we
got in the original Rome Total War
speaking of Battle maps this is where
some of the big differences come in
going back to warband now it makes it
very painfully clear how much these maps
and battle sizes have improved from the
150 agents that warband had to offer now
is boosted up to 1 000 troops on the
battlefield at once making for some
incredibly awesome moments especially
with the more recent editions of a
battle deployment being able to
intricately split up units with
different classes from archers infantry
Cavalry and so on and so forth then you
can even prioritize them with heavy
armored units or Light Armored units in
a certain section then selecting an NPC
that you've recruited before to lead
that unit will free you up on the
battlefield to do more fighting rather
than commanding these NPCs can also be
given banners with different Buffs like
better morale Arrow resistance speed and
so on giving them to an NPC will show up
in the unit that they command on the
battlefield giving them that buff
keeping it active as long as the troop
that is holding the banner is still
standing it really feels now that we've
finally reached that in-depth immersive
medieval Battlefield experience that has
been building for the last few years
this even moves to sieges they've had so
much of an improvement being able to
surround a city build Siege engines to
bombard whilst on the Overworld map to
try and take out the Defenders Siege
engines or even make a breach in the
wall making it easier once you initiate
the attacking phase or you can reserve
these Siege engines use them in the
battle themselves an impressive sight
admittedly when trebuchets break down
the crenellations of an enemy castle and
men go flying all this encompasses the
scale which Tales have strived to create
over the last few years and whilst yes
Banner Lord came into Early Access and
it had some backlash but with it it
actually gave the opportunity for
development to continue and grow with
the game itself with the backing and
live testing of the fans they could play
it whilst updates were coming out and
give live feedback and I think it has
been incredibly successful for Battlelog
itself yet in this two and a half years
that battlelord has been out in Early
Access it still hasn't stopped modders
from getting their hands on the game
even before official modding tools were
widely available I mean there were even
mods for the beta of battlelord before
Early Access custom battles actually
arrived in battle Lord by mods when it
was just a multiplayer testing phase
that's kind of incredible then we got
things like Eagle rising and car radio
awakens being some of the first massive
overhauls the former being one of my
favorite Roman expansions the intricate
details on the lorica segmentata brought
me back to the days of the abellum
Imperial mod for warband of course many
modifications are still in the early
days and nowhere near finished Eagle
Rising for example has Romans Carthage
and Barbarian faction of two but soon it
will be translated onto a new custom map
based on Europe itself this map already
looks insane by the way adding in things
like sea travel and so much more to come
separatist crisis is the Star Wars
Conquest mod for Battlelog do I need to
explain what's going on in this mod look
it's Star Wars in Mountain blade they're
planning on having full planets that can
be moved between on the campaign map
recruiting soldiers from every star
system with all their different unique
troops and Troop trees that you'd expect
from the Star Wars Universe being able
to upgrade and make ships space battles
I cannot wait for this and that's not
even including the possibility of them
adding in co-op with the campaign later
on so world were not a silent helper
here either they very much saw the big
impact that the modding scene had on
warband and arguably made it the game it
is today therefore the developers
actively encouraged the same to come to
battle Lord not only adding in modding
tools but speaking with Banner's mod
devs and the community themselves adding
in a more in-depth modding tools making
it easier to rig new troops and add
assets warband had a basic map maker but
battlelord has it in built into the game
itself no moving around fires and almost
breaking your game in the process full
intricate tools forming terrain
buildings even importing your own
textures and assets to any map built
within bannelord this has meant that in
such a short space of time Mount And
Blade 2's modern Community has derived
the 11th most modded game on Nexus yeah
how about that even recently Steam
Workshop has released and whilst Bare
Bones right now in terms of variation
slowly but surely my mods from Nexus are
being imported over to make it
increasingly easier for players to
download their favorite overhauls and
modifications this isn't even
introducing with what's next we've had a
lot of single player mods and there are
so many more to come kingdoms of Arda
lands of sikhar the old rounds being
improved over and over again but now
multiplayer has full custom servers
remember those massive line battles we
spoke about in warband but they're
starting to prop up in Bangalore now and
it's not the same this time this time
around with the massive improvement with
the server support and the way download
functions we've gone from 250 players on
a server to 400 500 there was even a 1
000 Player test for the other night for
multiplayer servers and as far as
Tailwinds are aware they've said look
you can do it but we wouldn't recommend
it but you can tell that modders and
people are just going to try and push
these events as big as possible not only
have we had native line battles now but
the sworder must get mod the Napoleonic
Wars iteration is up and running
regiments are starting to form and line
battles have been made full invasion
three is on its way the sequel to
Mountain blade warband's horde based
Co-op game where you'd have hordes of
Lord of the Rings World War II soldiers
even My Little Ponies charging at you as
you'd fight anywhere from Helms Deep to
under the ocean it was one of the
biggest mods and it was God damn
incredible that's coming to banalod and
of course persistent world the four
multiplayer open World playing as a surf
to a knight to a King joining it with
other factions and going to war that is
now in development this really is a
future that I cannot wait to see so then
that begs the question where do we go
now is this it well maybe it is I think
it could just be
I mean the game is here is out the full
release of mountain Blade 2 battled not
only on PC but on consoles as well of
course the game will continue to grow
with a community that is coming in at a
better time than any mods are still
growing and being developed and they
will continue to release this is a
community that will never stop building
yet from a tailored perspective from a
developer point of view whilst fixing
bugs and small issues will continue to
happen throughout the full release in
terms of content I think it's really
going to slow down there may be bits and
pieces here but I don't really see any
massive changes coming in the future
DLCs Maybe Taylor was stated in the
release plan while they don't have any
real intentions for DLCs right now
probably because they're still working
on the full release update it's
something that could definitely happen
in the future and I think quite likely
we saw it with warband multiplayer DLCs
based off month and I can't see why
tailors wouldn't do the same now but
love to see another Napoleon Awards DLC
but at the same time I'm not sure if
retreading those same steps is all that
a good idea maybe they should take it
somewhere completely different still
keeping it within the bannelord limits
but something that players had never
seen before