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[Ibid Straydrink]

Still immersed in Prophesy of Pendor, and determined to achieve total victory for once, which I have never done yet in M&B.

I'm roughly 550 in-game days into it, and my character is quite the badass mounted archer at this point.  I'm quite good at leading enemy cavalry in circles and picking them off one by one in quick passing shots, even at a distance.  Coolest moment yet was when I challenged an enemy lord and had my troops hang back for a bit, while I went ahead to soften up the opposition.  I went and fired my first shot completely at random into the middle of the enemy formation, and it nailed their lord right in the face    With my rune bow, noldor arrows, and power draw 7, only the tankiest units take two shots.  I personally take out 30-60 enemies in any battle.

I've finally declared myself an as an independent faction in the name of Pendor.  I have one castle and village.  Sarleon and Ravenstern quickly declared war to take it from me.  Damn bullies.  They keep showing up with massive forces, and I've managed to hold my own by baiting Jatu armies over to drive them all away.  When someone breaks away from their group, I pounce on them.  I've thus managed to slowly whittle down the opposition.  They're bringing smaller and smaller armies.  Except for damn King Ulric, who keeps coming at me with armies of 600+.  I can personally field only 162.  At one point, the Jatu weren't even enough to drive them away, and I had to drag them over to Ilthrilrandir's noldor army (a massive 1500 unit army), so that he would chase the Jatu while the Jatu chased me over to my castle to drive away almost 2000 Sarleon.

I'm slowly building up a garrison in my castle of max-level infantry units.  I have about 220 in reserve now.  Soon, I'm going to take as many of them as I can and go capture another castle.  I have to do it soon, because I had about 100,000 denars when I started out, and I'm down to about 35,000.  Desperately need more income.  My biggest problem is all the business enterprises I invested in are in Sarleon and Ravenstern, because I built up great relations with them in my mercenary days.  Then I go independent, and they're the two that immediately attack me.  It's been ridiculously challenging, and I admit I've had to save scum a lot.

I've also started a chapter of the Silvermist Knighthood Order, and have two silvermist rangers and five silvermist halberdiers.  Haven't taken them into battle yet.  Looking forward to seeing what they can do.

Oh, envy! It sounds like you are having a better time of it than I did, when I recently decided to don the crown lead me own faction for the first time... with 3 right to rule.

As it turns out, most faction leaders are not impressed when a -60 honor slave-hunting, caravan sacking, cut-throat Mongolian mercenary decides to single-handedly liberate the city and rule as lord of the "Free City of Narra." : /

[SalmonGod]

I built up my Right to Rule over 60 before declaring for Pendor

[ShoesandHats]

Well, something rather strange just happened. I was playing Sword of Damocles: Warlords, a mod for Warband, and for whatever reason, everyone started hating everyone all of a sudden. Every single nation declared war on each other and every lord in the land started to hate me, and I assume each other. Is there any reason for this?

[EuchreJack]

Sounds like a bug.  I think that I've seen similar in other mods, but I'm not too familar with that mod.

Just random speculation, but I think Sword of Damocles is one of the mods that wasn't fully updated to the newest version of Warband, and that can cause this sort of problem, among others.  If it is still being worked on, their forum would probably be the best place to mention this.

[ShoesandHats]

Eh, I'm not particularly concerned about it. It's just weird, is all. And a little amusing.

[Brotato]

Eh, I'm not particularly concerned about it. It's just weird, is all. And a little amusing.

A little amusing.  That's incredibly hilarious.

[Osmosis Jones]

Nah, just think of it as a feature. Keeps you on your toes. After all, there's nothing quite like facing down a few thousand enemy soldiers in an epic showdown

[Micro102]

O man....reminded me when I took on the last 70 or so khergit horsemen by myself in vanilla. I decided to take as many of them with me as I could, but I ended up winning with one hit away from death.

[SalmonGod]

Taking on masses of enemy cavalry as a horse archer is really easy.  You just run in circles, and they'll form a trail behind that you can easily turn around and shoot at.  Foot archers are the greatest danger, because they'll stand in one place and shoot at you.  You're then forced to run circles around them, to prevent them from getting any straight shots at you.  If anything distracts you from running circles around them, you'll get pelted with arrows pretty quickly.  The other danger is horses.  As you deprive dozens of horses of their riders, they'll start wandering around, and your chances of being stopped abruptly when you run into one steadily increases.  Then you most likely die in the next 1-2 seconds as your pursuers swarm you with a bunch of high speed attacks.

[Facekillz058]

I decided to pick it up, and I must say I am impressed with the game so far.
My first real battle experience involved me riding in circles around a horde of 50 or so bandits solo, stabbing them all in the face with a spear as I got close to them.
Right now I have a really messy weapons setup, a Nordic Sword, a Spear, and a Hunting Bow.
I scrapped the shield I was using, mainly because I never used it, and I've been considering switching over to a two-handed polearm and a two-handed sword, or hammer, or axe.

[lordcooper]

Shields can be pretty useful when you inevitably get faced with mass archer spam.

[Neonivek]

Shields can be pretty useful when you inevitably get faced with mass archer spam.

Off or on the horse? because if you are on a horse the best strategy is to avoid the line of fire, which the shield cannot help with.

[SalmonGod]

Shields are a major trade-off.  They can save your life often, but they also reduce your offensive capability.  I run with a two-handed sword (in case I get dismounted), a bow, and two stacks of arrows.  If I equipped a shield, I'd either have to go without a melee weapon or half my arrow capacity, and I run out of arrows often already.  It's also another thing you have to sink skill points into to really be effective.  I think shields are great if you plan to be a front line infantry fighter or cavalry with a melee weapon.  If you have a horse that is ridiculously tanky like mine (90 armor/500 health), you could even just run over infantry while holding up a shield and be pretty safe and effective.

[Robsoie]

Assuming you're not playing the game with reduced damage in the options, shields are a major survival asset when you're involved in besieging a castle.

While when you're in the defending side, not using a shield but a 2 hands weapon is not a problem, if you're in the attacking side, not having a shield is really trying to push your luck, arrows and bolts being very damaging you'll go through a rain of them to reach the walls.

Additionally maybe in Native the archers/crossbows AI in defense are bad shots, i don't remember much, but in most mods they're not bad at all, and so it's very easy to end into a pin cushion in no time if you go there without a shield.

[USEC_OFFICER]

Additionally maybe in Native the archers/crossbows AI in defense are bad shots, i don't remember much, but in most mods they're not bad at all, and so it's very easy to end into a pin cushion in no time if you go there without a shield.

If I remember correctly, the AI is pretty accurate during sieges (given the ranges they're working with...) but they tend to be positioned poorly as the infantry hogs all the good spots. However the guy at the front of the line is going to get a lot of arrows shot at his way, while the rest of the attacking force only gets a few potshots from bow/crossbowmen who can't see the conga line enemies climbing the ladders. Of course you could always get your meatshields soldiers to go first and soak up the projectiles if you don't have a shield, but that's not very fun.

Thinking about it, shields are best for footsoldiers, since they don't have the any other ability to deal with enemy arrows. Horsemen have the speed/maneuverability to dodge, while archers/crossbowmen can simply snipe the enemy (ammo will be a problem, but that's why you can pick up arrows/bolts). However if you've decided to run about on foot, then you'll probably want a shield. Or a big mass of troops to draw enemy fire, but I'm pretty sure that everyone wants that anyways.