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[Putnam]

Don't go to Sarranid territory early game.

[Sinistar]

I'd say any half-decent spear/pike troops in big numbers. The initial charge of desert bandits is dangerous, but that's about all they are good for, if you have a wall of troops that can hold their ground, you are golden. Oh, and a few archers, because those horse archers/javeliners are annoying to chase down. Other than that, yeah, stay clear of Khergit/Sarranid territory. Or try to outrun them.

[hops]

So would it be a good idea to bring in Rhodoks soldiers to deal with them?

[BFEL]

I forgot to mention (or rather forgot entirely) the 41 Veteran Huscarls (basically Huscarl Level 2) and 1 Elite Huscarl (Huscarl Level 3)

*Huscarl level 2 screams for 20 minutes, then grows 2 feet of hair*
"And I call THIS Huscarl 3!"

[Iceblaster]

So would it be a good idea to bring in Rhodoks soldiers to deal with them?

Big lines of crossbows are always good.

I'd suggest a majority of archers with about 30~ high level infantry up in front of them to break the initial charge.

Though, that's just my normal army composition, so results may vary

[Burnt Pies]

I'd say that joining against the Noldor and auto resolving might be better. I don't think you get a relations penalty for joining a battle, and for every Noldor prisoner that you talk to and release you get some relations. Get enough prisoners and you get more relation than fighting alongside them. This of course stops working once the Noldor like you.

That depends purely on numbers. I think you have to have actually helped/saved the party you're assisting to get the relation up. In my most recent PoP run I just rescued the noldor groups that were being jumped by large-ish numbers of Jatu or Sarleon Lords (I was a Ravenstern lady at the time, and we were at war), allowing them to easily shred the enemy rather than get autoresolved into the ground, which worked very nicely. Any group the Noldor are confident enough to chase probably won't give relations if you join that fight, though.

Also, Aeldarian decided to sack Sarleon (the city), which left it with 60 defenders when he finished. It's mine now.

[nenjin]

I went ahead and installed Floris. Vanilla M&B may not be stellar, but in retrospect I prefer reasonable expectations rather than some ultra broken unit showing up. As I glanced at the stats of some of the knightly orders, I got why people called PoP grind. One-handed skill in the 400s? Yeah, let me grind until that's fightable. :\

[Micro102]

Whoops, doublepost. Ignore this.

[Micro102]

I went ahead and installed Floris. Vanilla M&B may not be stellar, but in retrospect I prefer reasonable expectations rather than some ultra broken unit showing up. As I glanced at the stats of some of the knightly orders, I got why people called PoP grind. One-handed skill in the 400s? Yeah, let me grind until that's fightable. :\

Haha, that's not the grindy part. You get there naturally after cutting your way through the 1000 man armies. The grindy part is custom knight factions and qualis gems for red runed swords of instant killing.

Is it really so hard to accept that there are units that are stronger than you in the game?


Also, how is the mod ACOK? Last time I played it it was horribly buggy.

[Glloyd]

So, how playable are the Reckoning and L'aigle in their current states? I've been looking for a new mod to try and those were two that got a lot of hype when they were released.

[nenjin]

Is it really so hard to accept that there are units that are stronger than you in the game?

It's a matter of how much more powerful. Switching from PoP to Floris, I immediately stopped getting one shot by bandit-level opponents. I suppose after 20 or more hours of vanilla, I might be wanting a harder challenge. But I've never really played a game of M&B for more than 30 or 40 hours, so I'll probably be satiated by then.

I like all the features of PoP, I'm just not sure it's worth save scumming every 10 minutes when the game drops several uber warbands in my path.

[scrdest]

So, how playable are the Reckoning and L'aigle in their current states? I've been looking for a new mod to try and those were two that got a lot of hype when they were released.

The Reckoning is a bit fiddly with the graphics settings (DX9, no anti-aliasing, Load Textures on Demand) and I think the current way ammo is use is not quite the intended one - read - your PC and him alone will have to scavenge bullets from dead buddies or human enemies to shoot more than 16 bullets per fight and recruitment system's cheaper option steals your resources, but it's playable, just very rough around the edges.

[Putnam]

One thing I noticed. If you decide to choose a pre-made faction, they always get some kind of hidden bonus.

So lets say I join Nords. They'll kick ass most of the time.
If I join swadia, they'll kick ass most of the time.
So on for other factions.

But whenever I am not nords or swadia (and I should add, all I do when testing this is sit in a city for months and months getting fat and corrupt) or whatever faction...they don't tend to do as good.

So whatever faction you join, while it IS a bit random...but if you join a faction, it gets some kind of bonus to do better than average. Even if all you do is sit in a city, eating up food and hiring prostitutes

In 1257, the hidden bonus seems a lot less or not at all, as even if I join crusader states or welsh or some other faction if I don't help them out then they have as much of a chance at winning/losing as other factions.

But in vanilla, the faction you join as a higher winning chance compared to other factions.

This was tested in vanilla, floris and A New Dawn. All 3 had the same experience and all use the same factions/map, the worst of them was A New Dawn which the winning chance was much higher than vanilla for the faction you join.

The mods that this does NOT happen (that I have played, if it does, the bonus is not noticeable compared to vanilla) is 1257 ad and 16th century mod.

Not sure if anyone noticed this little game mechanic feature or not. I know most make their own kingdom (which the AI always targets you no matter how big you get), so I don't bother with it)...so this is more information for people who like being a vassal and don't want to be a leader of a faction.

And, yeah...I wasted A LOT of time to figure this out

(I should also add, that isn't to say joining Nords suddenly makes them win. They just get a higher chance of winning if you join them, whether you do battles or sit in a city forever)

Oh yeah, forgot to mention; Silverstag actually has this as an adjustable feature:

http://silverstag.wikia.com/wiki/Center_Recruitment_Rating

[Putnam]

The Khergits are still around despite me having taken over all their territory.

The only people there are Sanjar, Harlaus, Graveth and Hakim.

Ragnar and Yaroglek, mysteriously enough, are still Sarranid, despite being... quite defeated, with Hakim himself being a Khergit now.

[Akura]

Is it really so hard to accept that there are units that are stronger than you in the game?

Given that I regularly use cheat characters with max stats, and still get my ass handed to me in Prophecy of Pendor, yes it's hard to accept.

It also crashes a lot, I think one of the random armor models for one of the blue guys'(Ravenstern?) top-tier units is messed up and is causing it.


Is Floris available for the original M&B?