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[Robsoie]

That's something i like in Pendor, the mercenary troops that you can hire are actually quite good and sometime better than the ones you're training at your current level of trainer (and your own level), making then hiring mercs something very good.

Talking about Pendor, i wonder if they will improve the challenge balance in M&B2.
Warband is challenging in the early game, then it fall into medium/easy in the midgame , and sadly is too easy in the late/endgame (full knight charge can simply win the whole game at that point, even in siege without horses knights can kill whole guarison, tested that myself), making then the mid/endgame much less interesting.
An area of the gameplay i would like to see improved too.

Pendor went the other way, early game is completely ridiculous (you damaging the enemy for 0 damage and getting one hit killed by everything cease to be fun quickly, but fortunately it's where you learn to hire mercs to get something decent and slowly progress in your own strength and equipment to match the troops) , then midgame is challenging as enemy lords have as powerfull troops as you, and end/lategame can still provide some challenge (the neutral armies hunt to conclude the game).

And Pendor knights while still extremely powerfull are not the unbeatable unit they are in Warband, even high end foot infantry can be a match to those horse tanks, and without mentionning noldor archers that can bring a powerfull knight charge in open terrain into a disaster for them.

[Anvilfolk]

I tried Pendor for a while... you build up and build up and build up and finally you have this little band of 40+, and you start thinking " aw yeah, finally going to do something in this world", and everything looks great. And then some ridiculous band of 12 mounted knights of the apocalypse crap just come along and completely destroy what you've just spent like an hour building up to... and you are essentially where you started all over again. Perhaps with a couple more levels. Nheh.

[Robsoie]

That's because you're making the mistake of playing it like Native, i mean in Native the mercs are a waste of money, you're better using peasants and take time to build them up indeed.

But in Pendor, unless you're high level (and with high Trainer skill) , you will only train/upgrade your peasants a bit, but you're not high level yet enough to access the higher upgrades of those recruits.
And so in the end you'll have spent days in upgrading your recruit into ... low level units that are exploded by all those very powerfull high levels bands that roam the world map.

In that mod you're better going to hire mercenaries, they are -much- better that lowly upgraded recruit and can deal with much stronger enemies better than the regular units.

And to make money to be able to actually hire mercs, your early Pendor game will be to follow lords and jump to their help to get relationship, prisonners, loot etc...
Then once you get mercs, you'll be able to win battles by yourself, become a mercenary for a faction, a vassal etc...

Then once you're starting to get strong in level and skills, you'll then be able to access the better upgrade for the regular recruit and will not need much mercs anymore.

[umiman]

Yeah, in Pendor, the elite units will slaughter everything.

Those elven archers for example. They only come in bands of like 40 or so but they can slaughter your 1000 man army haha.

[Robsoie]

And as it's a requirement to befriend those Noldor in order to *spoiler* , you'll see first hand while following/attracting their patrols/armies into a kingdom (usually Sarleon or Empire) and joining their side (to increase your bad relationships with them) when they fight a lord from the area, how much ridiculously those Noldor archers are overpowered at destroying troops.

[scrdest]

And as it's a requirement to befriend those Noldor in order to *spoiler* , you'll see first hand while following/attracting their patrols/armies into a kingdom (usually Sarleon or Empire) and joining their side (to increase your bad relationships with them) when they fight a lord from the area, how much ridiculously those Noldor archers are overpowered at destroying troops.

You can also beat them up (if you manage to survive it) and release every single soldiers. But, again, you'd have to beat up Noldor archers.

[Ibid Straydrink]

I tried Pendor for a while... you build up and build up and build up and finally you have this little band of 40+, and you start thinking " aw yeah, finally going to do something in this world", and everything looks great. And then some ridiculous band of 12 mounted knights of the apocalypse crap just come along and completely destroy what you've just spent like an hour building up to... and you are essentially where you started all over again. Perhaps with a couple more levels. Nheh.

On point, I started chuckling when when I read "40+." Pendor requires either a lot of force or superhuman finesse. The mod was meant to not only be extremely challenging for veteran players, but also to cut out some of the shortcuts in Vanilla (See: ridiculously high monetary gain coupled with low expenses). Battles are meant to be actively fought, and whereas in Vanilla you can turn into an impenetrable tank, the only legitimate strategy here is to hit and not be hit.

It's quite fun, but also very tedious after a point. A higher more comprehensive difficulty scale would be nice, but the game ought to have enough event/item acquisition/quest related content to occupy the player through.

Otherwise it's just Skyrim on Hardcore.


Relevantly, some time ago I actually edited the troop.ini(?) of my Diplomacy-Freelancer version to bring the stats and levels of Calradian troops more in-line with those of Pendor, without fiddling with their equipment or upgrade paths. Everything was increased by set increments of percentage, and seems to balance out fairly well.

[lionstar]

In Pendor I just run down vanskerries for the first 100 or so days to pay for Donovan + enterprises. Sure those magic head-seeking throwing axes will get ya sometimes but it's by far the least painful way to be independent.

I like going the completely independent route because the PoP forum's scoffing at people who become vassals got to me.

[Ibid Straydrink]

In Pendor I just run down vanskerries for the first 100 or so days to pay for Donovan + enterprises. Sure those magic head-seeking throwing axes will get ya sometimes but it's by far the least painful way to be independent.

I like going the completely independent route because the PoP forum's scoffing at people who become vassals got to me.

Ha. I just prefer Pendor for the tasty low-fantasy setting, and generally for sake of roleplay.

I still haven't got into Light and Darkness yet, mainly because I think I read somewhere that it was made by the Japanese community.

[Xotes]

I still haven't got into Light and Darkness yet, mainly because I think I read somewhere that it was made by the Japanese community.

It's from the Chinese, actually, although the dialogue reads like a hastily-translated Japanese game from the 90's.

[umiman]

And as it's a requirement to befriend those Noldor in order to *spoiler* , you'll see first hand while following/attracting their patrols/armies into a kingdom (usually Sarleon or Empire) and joining their side (to increase your bad relationships with them) when they fight a lord from the area, how much ridiculously those Noldor archers are overpowered at destroying troops.

You can also beat them up (if you manage to survive it) and release every single soldiers. But, again, you'd have to beat up Noldor archers.

I remember the first time I charged a Noldor line. I thought "how hard can it be?"....

Haah...

[scrdest]

I still haven't got into Light and Darkness yet, mainly because I think I read somewhere that it was made by the Japanese community.

It's from the Chinese, actually, although the dialogue reads like a hastily-translated Japanese game from the 90's.

SOMEBODY SET US UP A GUNPOWDER BARREL!

[Robsoie]

Out of some dodgy translation in the dialogues, Light&Darkness is brillant and very unique in the Warband mods lineup as it's not more or less a "reskin/retooling" of Native like most of the mods are.

[scrdest]

Out of some dodgy translation in the dialogues, Light&Darkness is brillant and very unique in the Warband mods lineup as it's not more or less a "reskin/retooling" of Native like most of the mods are.

Reading most feature pages for Warband mods is somewhat depressing. Most use a common set of third-party open source mods like Diplomacy and Freelancer and other scripts, but add nothing new except changing the setting. Original M&B had cool mods like Custom Settlements with its, well, Custom Settlements, 1866 with its Western activities like gun duels, protecting trains, bank robbing etc., 1812 (IIRC the name) with an interesting civic system, jobs, house renting etc...

[SalmonGod]

It is pretty sad... the game has much more potential than what most mod projects do with it.  I don't know how difficult it is to mod, though.  Probably a factor.