I've only played a few hours of it, and so far I'm not quite sure what to think of it. It's basically just more Mount & Blade (which isn't a bad thing as far as I'm concerned), but I feel like I'm having a hard time progressing in the game. So far I've pretty much only been given a ton of message delivery quests... I guess the point of this is to have you explore the map early on, but if I never see a message quest again, I will be totally fine with it. Maybe I'm playing the game wrong, but I'm not really feeling it so far.

What are your thoughts/early verdicts?

I've been playing the game for a few hours as well. I'm not 100% sold on the guns yet, which is by any measurement the biggest change. The muskets takes a long time to load, which is good because if it didn't then it would be a shooter, but it's really boring having to spend so long just rearming. Also, they change the game in a big way. Once you get better armor they aren't as powerful, but starting out getting shot is devestating.

The AI also is completely retarded about it.. I've had 10 meele units following me on foot, me on horse with a carbine. They will just keep charging without any regards for their safety even though they have no way of catching up and no way of suviving.

The game also have a few improvments on the user interface which is good.

Oh its out already? :|

Brb shooting people in the face with guns!

Is there an actual story to this game or did I just read to much into "based on a novel", And no go kill shit/conquer  does not constitute a story.

So far it seems to me that this is a much slower burn than the original M&B. Troops are way more expensive to recruit, you don't seem to get as much from fighting and you either find a few looters or a roaming deathsquad of deserters. The guns also seem to make it way harder to solo stuff since circling the enemy while firing your weapon will just get you shot if the enemy has got any marksmen whatsoever.

Firearms had always been in Mount and Blade ever since probably version 0.731 That's why I am totally unsold by the whole firearm as a new feature thing. There are tons of mods that already uses the firearms code, heck, there already was a With Fire and Sword mod. This game just looks like a rip off if you're asking me. :/

From what I played so far its a lot harder to start up then MB, it feels more solid tho and lots of stuff to do right away.
Troops are expensive (mercs are anyway, but no other way to get more peeps so far) and so is equipment (more then usual I think).

Guns are great, very slow, not too accurate but insanely strong.
It also nullifies the "Hold here while I go solo 40 man on my horse with my awesome sword/bow" tactic as any gun wielder will either hurt you bad or murder you straight out or shoot down your horse...good luck outrunning an angry mob with spears/guns/bows at such a low level with your troops holding position on the other side of the field.


Yes, that happened to me.
Also, can't we be female in this game? What gives!

I'm a few hours in after some hitches. I don't know. I love the homage to Sid Meier's Pirates, as that is one of my favorite games, but the combat mechanism is so...crappy? So far, I don't think I've hit more than 3 people, with a completely random swipe nonetheless. Having to move your mouse around to strike really messes with your perspective. And once you're outnumbered, forget it.

^That doesn't justify it though. Consistently crappy combat is still crappy.

I think the setting is pretty awesome though. That whole Cossack area and such is not often used in those terms.

" ^That doesn't justify it though. Consistently crappy combat is still crappy.I think the setting is pretty awesome though. That whole Cossack area and such is not often used in those terms. "

Apparently there's a game breaking bug in which no troops at all will level up... it's pretty much confirmed since players from the original version (russian I think) say it shouldn't be like that, it seems a bug introducxed in the international release, also the game crashes all the time for me.... kinda regret buying it now.

Nice to hear that's a bug, it seemed you were just going to have to deal with masses of expensive subpar units. 

I am a bit disappointed. It has some decent potential with some patching etc. But subtraction of Warband features and truly nothing deep added just isn't much of a seller for me. I personally should have done more research. If I had known it was an expansion for the first Mount & Blade I probably would have waited or halted altogether. I thought it was an expansion to Warband. Nonetheless I don't mind supporting Taleworlds so long as they use that 15 dollars I spent on a good Mount & Blade 2 perhaps.

" I am a bit disappointed. It has some decent potential with some patching etc. But subtraction of Warband features and truly nothing deep added just isn't much of a seller for me. I personally should have done more research. If I had known it was an expansion for the first Mount & Blade I probably would have waited or halted altogether. I thought it was an expansion to Warband. Nonetheless I don't mind supporting Taleworlds so long as they use that 15 dollars I spent on a good Mount & Blade 2 perhaps. "

" @Jmangino said:

" I am a bit disappointed. It has some decent potential with some patching etc. But subtraction of Warband features and truly nothing deep added just isn't much of a seller for me. I personally should have done more research. If I had known it was an expansion for the first Mount & Blade I probably would have waited or halted altogether. I thought it was an expansion to Warband. Nonetheless I don't mind supporting Taleworlds so long as they use that 15 dollars I spent on a good Mount & Blade 2 perhaps. "

it is built upon warband, otherwise it wouldn't have multiplayer, I think they've taken some of warband's features out to comply with the storyline. "

If anything, I like it because the guns change things up so much. I can't charge headlong into the fray because I'll get shot to pieces. I've found that I'm using the army commands on the function keys so much more (whereas I never ever used them in Warband or the original). That being said, it's definitely slow to start. I hope they release a balance patch that eliminates the 50-man groups of marauders that annihilated me within 30 seconds of reaching the world map for the first time. The first two games in the series would put you against tough odds in the early game, but they weren't insurmountable.

I have only clocked 3 hours of gameplay, most of which was the multiplayer. To be honest the gameplay seemed... lacking compared to MB:Warband. I can't explain it what with all the new built in features and the inclusion of pistols, rifles, and hand grenades. It just seems to slow down the pace of the game especially if you are looking forward to some great gunplay; great being a stretch. With most everyone reloading half of the time, swords and bows are the superior weapon which makes the inclusion of gunpowder weapons useless. Sure its fun to blast someone in the face with a rifle as they charge you with a sword, but c'mon all that really changed was the map and some tweaks and features here and there. I'm not sure if I'm going to continue playing the game for the simple fact that it could have been so much better. I hope that with a few mods and user tweaks that their will be more life breathed into this potentially epic game.

I had this giant laundry list in my head of things I secretly hoped they would improve upon from the original two games; sieging mechanics, the inventory system, the character creation... Nope. Instead, it feels like they made the crossbow more accurate, with a longer reload time, re-skinnned it, called it a musket, and shipped a game.

Honestly, it's rare that I've been this disappointed. I've been playing M&B since it was a beta. I've invested hundreds of hours into Warband. This... I don't think I'll ever hit the one-hour mark.

I will continue to BUY Taleworld Games in order to help fund a proper, modernized version of M&B. The core battle gameplay is the bread and butter of that game, and at this point, it seems like the only thing that has recieved any degree of proper attention. But honestly, I'm tired of the 'text adventure' dialogue format and giant brown screens that they call an interface. I'm tired of seeing the same 6 male and 5 female faces wherever I go. I'm tired of daisy-chaining together enemy armies and slowly picking them off, 100 troops at a time.

I'm tired of herding cattle.

I've only played the trial version (I have the full version, but midterms are keeping me from digging into it more). It's pretty great so far though. I love the addition of guns- makes it both much easier and much harder to take on groups of enemies when you're surrounded.

"

I had this giant laundry list in my head of things I secretly hoped they would improve upon from the original two games; sieging mechanics, the inventory system, the character creation... Nope. Instead, it feels like they made the crossbow more accurate, with a longer reload time, re-skinnned it, called it a musket, and shipped a game.

"

I had this giant laundry list in my head of things I secretly hoped they would improve upon from the original two games; sieging mechanics, the inventory system, the character creation... Nope. Instead, it feels like they made the crossbow more accurate, with a longer reload time, re-skinnned it, called it a musket, and shipped a game.

Honestly, it's rare that I've been this disappointed. I've been playing M&B since it was a beta. I've invested hundreds of hours into Warband. This... I don't think I'll ever hit the one-hour mark.

I will continue to BUY Taleworld Games in order to help fund a proper, modernized version of M&B. The core battle gameplay is the bread and butter of that game, and at this point, it seems like the only thing that has recieved any degree of proper attention. But honestly, I'm tired of the 'text adventure' dialogue format and giant brown screens that they call an interface. I'm tired of seeing the same 6 male and 5 female faces wherever I go. I'm tired of daisy-chaining together enemy armies and slowly picking them off, 100 troops at a time.

 

I'm tired of herding cattle.

 

"

It gets extremely boring after a while...

I loved Warband, but mostly for its multiplayer. I probably put 30-40 hours into the siege mode alone. Once the game received achievements, I started plumbing the single player. It was fun, no question of that. I just never seemed to get anywhere. The amount of time I had to put in before I could go to feasts/get fiefdoms/etc. seemed prohibitively lengthy. Which was fine. I really, really fell in love with the multiplayer anyways. And it's not that I didn't play the single player - I just gave up any pretense of ever beating it.

Like many, I was really excited for With Fire and Sword, and I'm extremely pleased with it so far.

Multiplayer:
Captain mode gets a little bit silly. Yeah, there are some weird glitches (like half my squad getting stuck on a fence) but in terms of creating huge, epic battles that spiral utterly out of control, it's awesome. Can't wait to sink more time into it. Though: I seem to recall someone mentioning that you'd be able to import your army from the single-player game for those things. Have I gone mad? Did I miss that?

New maps for Siege mode are fun. Not even sure I've played all of them. I was worried that grenades would be horribly frustrating, but thanks to their cost and one-use-per-life functionality, it's more of a compliment to get into a 1 on 1 fight and have someone get so frustrated that they use one of the most powerful weapons just so they don't have to fight you anymore.

I like the companions you can pick up that seem to have their own agendas. (That's a new thing for WF&S, right?) While it's not explicitly mentioned in the game, I think that's where the bulk of the plot stuff comes out when you're not grinding for favour with lords.

Guns: I never really played the single player for stupendously long. Which is to say, I never really got used to halting my army and taking out the opposing force myself. Even if it were the best way to min-max through the game, I can't say I would've done it, because I loved the ridiculous battles that would take place. That you absolutely DO need to have a larger force and you actually need to worry about the firearms killing off your army just heightens the experience for me. Having an extra line of bullet sponges in front of my good troops is a key part of my strategy now. Yes, the guns themselves are not historically accurate, but as a game mechanic that illustrates a very painful lesson on how much warfare was affected by the proliferation of guns, I really can't fault it.

I don't know. I sunk a stupendous amount of time into Warband. I imagine a chunk of the complaints are coming from TF2 players who bought it for the hats and aren't used to the fact that the game wasn't really designed with that kind of mass appeal in mind. But I can't figure the M&B stalwarts that are freaking out about it. If this were a sequel, I'd be pissed, no question. If this were a full-price release, I'd have been doubly pissed. It's half the price of Warband when it launched and adds content I fully expect to lose myself in for an amount of time that is equal to, if not greater than Warband.

I've put around 8 hours into this and here's my thoughts:
The game lacks a lot of what Warband had like Marriage, ability to make your own kingdom, tournaments, recruitment from all villages (You can still recruit, but they have to be in your own faction)

Andadds some new and interesting things such as guns, grenades, mayors, bar fights, caravans, and better sieges. The game's story is actually.... a story.

You can't be a hero anymore and kill the whole army by yourself. You rely a lot of your army to help you out and using tactics is essential to winning. Guns are 1 hit kills at the starting levels, so you can't just run into their whole army.
Also, all the old factions are gone and have been replaced with historically accurate factions and locations which is neat in some respects, but makes me nostalgic for the old ones.

Final thoughts: The game's different from both past games, but that's not a bad thing. Guns are really fun and the armor looks nice. It's missing a lot of what warband had, but still adds new and interesting mechanics. If you're a multiplayer fanatic definitely pick this up, if you hate the original Mount and Blade single player, skip it.

I still dont understand melee. Im doing well with point and shoot ranged combat though.