Many of you know of Mount & Blade: Warband, the thrilling medieval, tactical, hack 'n' slash game that gave us hundreds of hours of gameplay blood frenzy. I'm not gonna waste words explaining what the game is, instead, what this mod adds. ALERT! Heavy reading ahead!
The mod is a single-player overhaul, meaning it changes everything: the troops, factions, background history, a background theme music, added building options, new unique Heroes, new troop trees and items and also changes the entire continent. Heck, the mod even has GODS!
The PoP gives you a very solid and fleshed out history, of which more can be read here.
The factions consists of: Sarleon (Swadian-type), Ravenstern (Vaegir), Empire (Rhodoks), D'shar Principalities (Khergit Khanate) and Fierdsvain (Nords). There is a sixth faction; Pendor, but I'll let you figure that one for yourself.
The factions has been heavily balanced, there are no more easy-access to mounted troops from the D'shar like Khergits had. Nor are the Empire as useless in combat like their Rhodok-equivalent.
To balance the overpowerful mounted troops that the vanilla game had, the developer has made the Elite troops: Knights.
These knights can only be recruited by Lords of a faction, and are the cream of the crop.
If you plan to be a king, you'd better start taking castles or towns and recruit knights! No, not villages. TOWNS!
Many of the Knights are faction based:
Lady Valkyries (female-only) from Fierdsvain
Knights of the Lion and Order of the Clarion Call from Sarleon
Order of the Dragon from Ravenstern
Immortals and Order of the Shadow Legion from the Empire
Windriders from the D'shar.
These are faction-based, which means that you can only recruit them if you have the noble troops from the corresponding faction. A noble Sarleon knight can't be upgraded to Immortal, nor can a Empire knight be a member of Order of the Lion.
Confused yet?
There are more knighthood orders, but I will let you explore them yourselves.
The whole point of the elites is to prevent the player to have an early and easy access to them:
1. You must own a castle or town
2. build a "training grounds"
3. recruit a noble troop using your honour points (yes, honour is finally useful for once
)
4. train that noble troop until he reaches highest level (they need to be upgraded 2 times) and then upgrade him/her to knighthood.
Knights are the best of the best, a single Immortal can face 5-10 opponents easily!
The neutral factions consists of: Heretics, Snake Cult, Vanskerry (vikings), Jatu, Rogue Knights, Mystmountain Raiders, Noldor, Red Brotherhood, Outlaws, Adventurer Companies, Barclay, Mettenheim, Veccavia (a female-dominant faction) and Singalians.
Many of these factions may or may not attack you on sight, depending on their relation or your troop size versus theirs. Some of these factions may even attack against another neutral faction!
For instance; a Jatu army will charge any mystmountain troops.
And Heretics and Snake Cults are not fond of each other.
The mod also adds "events", for instance, when you travel a sudden text may pop saying "A travelling monk hailed and warned you about an invasion of a demonic army", this will trigger a spawn of a neutral faction army that can consist of 300-1000 troops. Yes you read correctly, neutral factions can randomly spawn in the map and be a hazard to your petty little existence.
Some of these neutral armies may spawn a unique hero that leads them, these heroes vary, some are powerful and some are "meh".
If you successfully capture these heroes, they can, if you talk to them after the battle, offer a price for their freedom: 50,000 denars or a Qualis Gem.
The Gem is a rare item that you can use for many valuable options. One being the founding of one unique knighthood order.
There is SO many many many maaaaany more things to point out: secrets of the Noldor, the other knighthood orders, the fact that almost all factions and heroes have a background to them, the soothing background music. Some neutral factions even have their own theme music!
So much to cover...
Overall, if you liked Mount & Blade and/or Warband, and you dislike the fact that you "own" the game after getting some "elite" weapons and "lordly" armour, then this mod is definitly for you!
It doesn't matter how pro you think you are, how pro your equipment or what troops you have, this mod will viciously cut you into little pieces before you start shaping up!
Please visit the creator, Saxondragon's thread in the Taleworlds forum for more info and download link.
Give him all the thanks and support for creating this amazing mod! For we are not worthy!
Now to some amazing clips of two elite Knighthood orders:
Knights of Dawn
Knights of Eventide
(both videos created by addictz12345, not me)
The mod is a single-player overhaul, meaning it changes everything: the troops, factions, background history, a background theme music, added building options, new unique Heroes, new troop trees and items and also changes the entire continent. Heck, the mod even has GODS!
The PoP gives you a very solid and fleshed out history, of which more can be read here.
The factions consists of: Sarleon (Swadian-type), Ravenstern (Vaegir), Empire (Rhodoks), D'shar Principalities (Khergit Khanate) and Fierdsvain (Nords). There is a sixth faction; Pendor, but I'll let you figure that one for yourself.
The factions has been heavily balanced, there are no more easy-access to mounted troops from the D'shar like Khergits had. Nor are the Empire as useless in combat like their Rhodok-equivalent.
To balance the overpowerful mounted troops that the vanilla game had, the developer has made the Elite troops: Knights.
These knights can only be recruited by Lords of a faction, and are the cream of the crop.
If you plan to be a king, you'd better start taking castles or towns and recruit knights! No, not villages. TOWNS!
Many of the Knights are faction based:
Lady Valkyries (female-only) from Fierdsvain
Knights of the Lion and Order of the Clarion Call from Sarleon
Order of the Dragon from Ravenstern
Immortals and Order of the Shadow Legion from the Empire
Windriders from the D'shar.
These are faction-based, which means that you can only recruit them if you have the noble troops from the corresponding faction. A noble Sarleon knight can't be upgraded to Immortal, nor can a Empire knight be a member of Order of the Lion.
Confused yet?
There are more knighthood orders, but I will let you explore them yourselves.
The whole point of the elites is to prevent the player to have an early and easy access to them:
1. You must own a castle or town
2. build a "training grounds"
3. recruit a noble troop using your honour points (yes, honour is finally useful for once
)4. train that noble troop until he reaches highest level (they need to be upgraded 2 times) and then upgrade him/her to knighthood.
Knights are the best of the best, a single Immortal can face 5-10 opponents easily!
The neutral factions consists of: Heretics, Snake Cult, Vanskerry (vikings), Jatu, Rogue Knights, Mystmountain Raiders, Noldor, Red Brotherhood, Outlaws, Adventurer Companies, Barclay, Mettenheim, Veccavia (a female-dominant faction) and Singalians.
Many of these factions may or may not attack you on sight, depending on their relation or your troop size versus theirs. Some of these factions may even attack against another neutral faction!
For instance; a Jatu army will charge any mystmountain troops.
And Heretics and Snake Cults are not fond of each other.
The mod also adds "events", for instance, when you travel a sudden text may pop saying "A travelling monk hailed and warned you about an invasion of a demonic army", this will trigger a spawn of a neutral faction army that can consist of 300-1000 troops. Yes you read correctly, neutral factions can randomly spawn in the map and be a hazard to your petty little existence.
Some of these neutral armies may spawn a unique hero that leads them, these heroes vary, some are powerful and some are "meh".
If you successfully capture these heroes, they can, if you talk to them after the battle, offer a price for their freedom: 50,000 denars or a Qualis Gem.
The Gem is a rare item that you can use for many valuable options. One being the founding of one unique knighthood order.
There is SO many many many maaaaany more things to point out: secrets of the Noldor, the other knighthood orders, the fact that almost all factions and heroes have a background to them, the soothing background music. Some neutral factions even have their own theme music!
So much to cover...
Overall, if you liked Mount & Blade and/or Warband, and you dislike the fact that you "own" the game after getting some "elite" weapons and "lordly" armour, then this mod is definitly for you!
It doesn't matter how pro you think you are, how pro your equipment or what troops you have, this mod will viciously cut you into little pieces before you start shaping up!
Please visit the creator, Saxondragon's thread in the Taleworlds forum for more info and download link.
Give him all the thanks and support for creating this amazing mod! For we are not worthy!
Now to some amazing clips of two elite Knighthood orders:
Knights of Dawn
Knights of Eventide
(both videos created by addictz12345, not me)