Running a Warband

Into the ground.

I've been slowly whittling away at Watch Dogs Legion in order to get up my review on it which, if you've ever played Legion, you'll know means I need to have other games in order to keep me from growing bored with gaming altogether as a hobby. Without getting into that whole cake before it's cooked, let's just say 'diversity and excitement' runs out pretty quickly, requiring to me seek out much more dynamic and exciting video games such as, perhaps, the 2010 re-release of a 2008 sandbox MMO about Medieval combat. Yeah, there's definitely a lot more gameplay variety there! But seriously, Mount and Blade: Warband has been an actual treat to come back to and play with some degree of seriousness (as opposed to the fumbling I usually do) and though Bannerlord (the sequel) has just hit it's official big release, I think there's something special and worth coming back to even in that battered old version of this long running franchise.

As I've mentioned before, the start of Mount and Blade will pit your custom-built player as a mercenary in a fictional medieval land on the constant brink of total warfare between six very unhappy factions. Which is why the start of game is pretty much spent avoiding all the major conflicts, hiring up local mercenaries from villages and plundering bandits and looters. It is astonishing how many people in the Mount and Blade universe decided to take up a career in mugging the 'innocents 'of the world; so astonishing that I slightly wonder who it is exactly they're sticking up. Surely each other, at this point; they outnumber the villages 10 to 1 so... where else are they getting their supplies? Luckily the cycle of life dictates that their reigns of terror is always short lived by the blade of some upcoming so-and-so who's looking to cut his men's collective teeth on the bones of fodder enemies.

Being a free-agent makes it easy to shop around for opportunities worth profiting from, whether it be from accepting missions at Villages (In my recent playthrough I can't find any mission which isn't 'please bring us cattle we can't possibly pay you for'!) or from the various nobles that can't be bothered to so much as ride to the next castle over to deliver a letter, or, the most sure-fire source of employment, local guild leaders in big towns. And opportunity is the driving force of the slow rise which is this game's loop. You do jobs that get you enough money to keep running your warband and build up your 'renown' which in turn opens you up to more opportunity. The more renown you own the easier it is to prove you're someone of worth that should be taken seriously and given access to becoming a noble, or maybe even starting your own kingdom to define what 'noblehood' even is!

Of course, starting your own fledgling rebellion is pretty much 'endgame' stuff when it comes to Mount and Blade; which is why most players are stuck running errands back and forth for lazy nobles just to make ends meet. That was how I endured playing Mount and Blade for ages back when I was young, which is why it's so surprising to me to learn now that I could have completely subsidized the cost of paying my mercenaries and soldiers through the businesses system! The game did nothing to alert me to the fact that this system existed! Essentially, the player can roll up to a Guild leader that likes them just a little bit (as long as the lord of that town doesn't hate your guts for doing something crazy like eloping with his pre-betrothed daughter or something...) and pay for the land to build a business that is largely self perpetuating and will provide a consistent revenue stream that can offset troop costs pretty darn easily. Would have been nice to see that in the tutorial, and not find it randomly in a Youtube video!

Becoming more famous isn't the only means of progression in Mount and Blade, and in fact the game enjoys some decently robust RPG mechanisms within it's skin that blossoms the proficiency of the player during their playtime. (So that in the times when you make a raw judgement call and lose everything, you're never starting totally from square one.) There's plenty to level up from the bare basics stuff, like hitting harder to blocking more, to the inventory you can carry, the level of weaponry you can use, how fast you travel on the world map and how many people you can recruit to your Warband. Some skills are explained less clearly than others, however, and 'party' skills don't necessarily stack like one might expect.

Stick at it long enough and you may earn enough credentials to make it as a noble for one of the warring factions. And then it's slap bang into 'responsibilities-ville' for you because, lo and behold, now you have to manage fiefdoms, and castles, and worry about places you own being pillaged. And you'll get calls to war from the faction marshal. The more you move up in the Mount and Blade pecking order, the more plates you'll end up spinning. Personally I liked the prestige of the title but the freedom of being that 'free agent' just appealed to my style of play so-much more. Still, having friends in noble places can be helpful in the right circumstances, such as whenever you need to convince wars to be started to stopped to your benefit. Geopolitical manipulation has it's draws.

But for my money the most fun part of the Mount and Blade gameplay cycle is raiding, and what's more than that; raiding castles. Taleworlds did a great job creating the sense of blind chaos when raiding a fortification, even whilst shackled to a decently strapped engine. The AI will always bundle into the exact same kill box, and there's very little tactical options in the game to alleviate any of that mad AI dash, but being in the middle of that crush, swinging wildly whilst arrows cut down everyone around you, and bodies get thrown off the gang-planks into the courtyard, is exciting despite the hangups. Of course, Bannerlord made great strides to improve this system immensely, but even with the dated tools I've got, I can squeeze a great time out of it.

Mount and Blade is one of those games that fully realises exactly what it wants to be and hyperspecializes to fit the mould of the medieval war simulator. Is it a little crude and slapdash? In the fabric-threads perhaps, but the whole weave together is robust enough to springboard a campaign in the heart of the player, and that is the special sort of sauce that brings me back to sandbox RPGs and hungry for more. Mount and Blade is also a lot quicker to get into and start progressing in than, say, Kenshi; I genuinely would call this game largely friendly to the randomly uniformed sandbox RPG adopter or curious starter. So whilst this isn't a review, it is a recommendation to give Mount and Blade a look-in at some point, if for nothing more than to set up a custom battle in castle siege because that craziness is worth experiencing at least once.