Spoiler: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord Developer Blog 15 - Valuable Relationships Greetings all and thanks for making your way over to our 15th Development Blog. It's been a little while since we updated the blog, but we've been hard at work on the game and we're excited to talk a little about something we've been working on recently. As many of you will know, this month we featured on the cover of PC Gamer Magazine! In addition to being a proud moment for the team, we also packed in some new screenshots, which you can see online, and spoke to Phil Savage about the game; the full write-up of which is featured in the April 2017 issue. One aspect of Bannerlord that featured in the write-up is quests, which is what we're discussing in this blog entry. As a sandbox game, the essential function of quests in Mount & Blade is different to that of a linear or story-based RPG. Our goal is to use quests as a way to encourage the player to interact with the sandbox, and help form the player's relationships in the world. As in Warband, completing quests for NPCs will increase your relation with that character. This however, takes on a new dimension in Bannerlord, as that relationship can have a more profound impact on your character, and the decisions you make. As an example, when you go to a town to recruit soldiers, instead of simply receiving a number of local recruits, the town's NPCs act as recruiting agents, or middle men, through whom you receive a supply of troops. The higher your relation with a specific NPC, the greater the number of soldiers they will make available to you. This places inherent value on your relationship with a specific NPC, giving you a reason to complete quests for them, and enhance your capacity to recruit soldiers quickly, from a single location. Consider, also, the way this invests you in an NPC's safety and well-being; when that NPC is at risk, so too is your supply of soldiers. This link, between quests and the sandbox, is what provides interesting gameplay, as your character's connection to the world grows, making allies and enemies. In this sense, the impact of a quest is often more significant than the reward it offers. A crucial change, in the nature of the quests themselves, is that the majority of quests, in Bannerlord, have multiple potential outcomes. As an example, when a character in a town tasks you with clearing out some thugs, who are occupying a local alley, upon meeting the gang, you are presented with a counter offer: go back to the quest-giver, extort money out of them for questioning the gang's authority and keep the profits for yourself. You can even clear out the thugs, as requested but instead of handing control back to the townsfolk, install your own men in the alley and begin a new criminal operation. By offering these branching quests, Bannerlord gives you, as a player, the chance to define your relationship with different characters through a narrative. Instead of simply working to earn the favour of specific individuals, you are weighing the value of an NPC's allegiance, against a short term reward. And since the NPCs themselves have their own rivalries and disputes, even taking what seems like the moral option can compromise your standing, with those who disapprove of your choice of friends. Quests in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord are designed to provide the basis for interesting, emergent interactions with the sandbox game world. While you might complete a single quest multiple times, the context within which you undertake the task, and the decisions you make, will mean the experience and the consequences can vary on each occasion. We're looking forward to giving you a chance to play the game, and try out the quests for yourselves! In the meantime, thanks for reading this Development Blog and stay tuned for more Bannerlord news on our website, Facebook and Twitter.
Taken from: https://www.taleworlds.com/en/Games/Bannerlord/News We are extremely excited to be able to share with you two new videos showcasing our advanced battle AI and deep and intuitive combat system! Both of the battles shown are available as demos for press to play throughout E3. This is the first time we have made the game available to play outside of our office, marking a huge milestone in the development of Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. We hope you enjoy them! Key Battle Improvements Battles are at the very core of the series and play better than ever in the latest instalment. Advanced Formations – Merge and split forces at your behest, with intuitive but powerful control over the movement, form and behavior of every unit! Order heavy infantry to hold together, shoulder-to-shoulder in a slowly advancing but near impenetrable shield wall; or launch your cavalry in lightning charges using the skein formation. Battlefield AI – AI commanders can execute complex tactics, utilizing the advanced formation options to present a formidable challenge. Their behavior is drawn from actual historical tacticians, for example Alexander the great, who used his superior cavalry forces to rout their counterparts in the opposing army, before delivering a crushing blow to the enemy’s main force. This not only creates the feeling of an authentic medieval battle but also proves effective in-game, as in reality. Sergeant System – Commanders now designate units to other lords in battle, including the player! Execute the orders issued by your commander throughout the fight, and use your own instincts to do your part and help secure victory on the field of battle. Lead the horse archers as they skirmish and harass the enemy to disrupt their lines before your allies finish them off, or take control of the cavalry and charge into the fray to devastate entire units at once! Key Combat Updates Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord also features greatly updated combat, which builds on previous instalments in a number of ways while retaining its intuitive, direction-based core that made it so popular among players. Directional Shield Blocking and Shield Bash – These two features revitalize the sword & board gameplay, making it a more engaging experience than ever before! Blocking in the wrong direction will not necessarily get you killed but it will cause your shield to break faster, leaving you defenseless against missiles and vulnerable against multiple foes. Shield bashing, a highly requested feature, temporarily stuns your opponent and knocks them back, lowering their defenses and giving you room to breathe. Attack Chaining – Swings that complete their motion can now be chained into follow-up attacks which can catch your opponent off-guard after a miss. Unbalanced weapons such as hammers and axes also use the momentum of the first swing for a faster follow-up! Improved Animations and Combat Engine – Huge effort has gone into making Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord’s combat as fluid and visually appealing as possible. Damage dealt is now calculated with a great degree of physical depth, factoring in the weight distribution of every individual weapon. This means that whether you are executing a perfectly timed thrust while thundering towards a hapless archer on horseback or shooting an arrow across the battlefield to whittle down your opponent’s infantry forces before the melee, the game will understand all of the forces involved and produce consistent, realistic and satisfying results every time. “It is great to be back at E3 with Bannerlord, demonstrating the best Mount & Blade battles ever. Our team worked very hard on developing all aspects of the battles, which are so central to the game. We are thrilled to showcase our work and looking forward to seeing the response.” Armagan Yavuz – CEO / Founder, TaleWorlds
So happy to see a UI that allows for proper damn tactics to be used. Looking forward to leading my first shieldwall.
Devblog 05/10/2017 Greetings warriors of Calradia! In this week’s blog we would like to talk about an aspect of the game which many of you have requested we talk about for quite some time now: singleplayer. We decided that the most interesting way to do this would be to discuss different features and mechanics from the campaign in their own dedicated blogs. We hope that, over time, we can touch on many of the key aspects of the sandbox and give you all a better understanding of what to expect in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord. In a previous blog we briefly discussed a mechanic which is new to the Mount & Blade series, influence. Influence acts as a kind of currency in the game and can be earned by serving your kingdom in various ways: destroying bandits or enemy parties, raiding, capturing enemy settlements etc. Influence points can be spent to determine the outcome of some faction decisions and to make requests to allied lords. We have already shown you that influence can be spent to ask an allied lord to follow you, but one thing we are yet to discuss is how players can use our new army gathering system to perform this action on a grander scale. So how does this work? Well, each allied lord has an influence cost based on the power of their party. Players can spend their influence points to summon allied lords to form their own army. It is the leader of the army which gains all of the influence for the army’s victorious deeds, e.g. capturing a city will result in a huge influence boon for the leader, so spending influence to build an army is actually an investment, and sometimes even a gamble. If an army leader can no longer afford to spend influence then the army will start to disband. Army influence upkeep cost is based on several factors: If the army morale is high, then upkeep costs are lower (and vice versa) Distance from their hometowns, how long they have been fighting etc. Relations between the army commander and lords As long as the army is successful in their efforts and the lord commander is keeping the other lords happy, then the army can go on marching for a long time. But if things don’t go so well, the army will quickly dissolve and lords will decide to abandon the campaign and return to their own lands. When an army is gathered it becomes almost like a moving settlement, with its own UI overlay on the campaign map. The UI shows: Army morale Lords and their parties Food supplies Marching speed (players can see factors affecting the marching speed from a tooltip) The UI also shows portraits of the lords which are currently a part of the army and their current relations with the player. Deep red means that they despise you, whereas bright green means that they are your favourite drinking buddy! If a lord has answered the summons and is travelling to join your army, or if they are currently away from the army on a mission, their portrait will appear greyed out with an indicator displaying their distance from the army’s current position, which is measured in days of travelling time. If you are an army commander you can click on a portrait to talk with a lord and give them a task to perform, such as scout ahead, bring food, bring reinforcements, bring horses, etc. You can dismiss lords to send them back to defend their lands or to trim the army and better manage your influence upkeep costs. If you are a member of an army, the army commander or other lords might have their own missions for you. Another aspect of the new army system is that armies use pooled resources to support their campaigns. This means that if one lord brings some food, butter, for instance, then the rest of the army will be fed. Likewise, horses and mules are shared, increasing the movement speed of the entire army. This new system allows for all lords to call on other allied lords and build their own army. Because of the large influence costs, it is of course easier for a king to do this, however there will certainly be times when some powerful lords will have more influence and money than their liege and will be able to amass their own powerful armies to take on a campaign. It also makes it possible for players to try their hand at army management relatively early in the game, before they have had a chance to climb to the top of a kingdom. We feel that the new influence and army gathering systems better simulate the historical feudal system. When the player becomes part of a kingdom, they have obligations to their liege. This system allows players to pay for the benefits of being a lord by supporting their liege and fellow lords in military campaigns while building up influence within the realm to serve their own purposes.
Devblog 19/10/2017 Greetings warriors of Calradia! The misty hills of north-western Calradia are dominated by the Battanian clans, the original inhabitants of much of the continent. Their hilltop fortresses have born witness to countless wars fought to resist outside invaders: first the Empire's legions, and more recently the rising Sturgian and Vlandian kingdoms. They are masters of the longbow, the night raid, the sudden wild charge out of the woods. They idolise valour, but especially like it when mixed with a bit of mischief - the cattle thief who can whisk an entire herd into the fog; the champion who dines with a rival tribe, and, regaling his hosts with an anecdote of battle, produces from his bag the skull of one of their kinsmen that he took as a souvenir. As readers have probably guessed, the Battanians are inspired by the Celtic peoples of Western Europe - in particular, the Picts, Irish, and Welsh of the early medieval era. So we'd like to take this chance to discuss how history influences our design. Mount and Blade's Calradia is a low-fantasy setting that we think gains from cleaving fairly closely to history. Our physics-based combat system, for example, gives a well-balanced sword or a hard-hitting axe the characteristics that you'd expect by looking at it. A murderous-looking ascent up a cliffside to assault a fort should be murderous in the game, thanks to an engine that gives defenders the ability to rain down rocks and arrows on attacking forces. Because of this design philosophy, we try not to introduce any social institutions that would be impossible to find in the technological and economic setting we describe. But we also don't mind borrowing a bit from other times and places outside our core setting, the 10th and 11th centuries. For example, the Dark Age Celts built some mysterious and majestic structures, like massive roundhouses and complex concentric fortresses, but did not build major cities. By then, they'd been pushed back to the margins of Europe, where big cities were hard to sustain. Back in Caesar's day, however, the Celts still lived closer to the economic heart of the continent and created impressive towns known as oppida on key trade routes. So you won't find an exact archaeological antecedent for our Battanian settlements, which mix later Celtic architecture with earlier Celtic town layout. But we think the result will be both visually impressive and credible, sort of an alternate version of how Celtic settlements could have evolved had history been slightly different. Lots of our characters, too, are based on history - or legends, at least. For example, the Battanian king Caladog is partially inspired by Gruffydd ap Llywellyn, who dominated much of Wales in the 11th century. He was a very colourful figure, ruthless yet possessed of a wicked sense of humour. He is famous for quipping, when accused of having killed off all his competitors for the kingship, "I merely blunt the horns of Wales' sons lest they injure their mother." The charismatic silver-tongued rogue, who'd steal your cattle and then extemporise a poem about it: this was a bit of stereotype of Celts among the English at the time. It's actually a common view that inhabitants of peaceful but despotic kingdoms held of tribal peoples who had a strong oral tradition and enjoyed freedom but little security. Boastful, cunning, resourceful, but perhaps a tad too cussed and individualistic for their own good -- the Battanians aren't an efficient conquering machine like some of their neighbours, but no one makes war with more flair. Bannerlord gives us some new features to bring out the uniqueness of its cultures, but we're especially excited about minor factions - mercenaries, nomads and outlaw leagues that have their own agendas that aren't part of the struggle for power. One of the Battanian minor factions is the Wolfskins - a society of young warriors who have left their clans to live a life of freedom (and violence) in the woods. So long as they live 'as wolves' - eating no cooked meat, sleeping under no roof, and wearing no woven cloth - they are exempt from the laws of men. The Wolfskins are inspired by the Fianna, a fighting brotherhood who were the stars of a major Irish saga. It treats them as heroes, but they also have a dark side, extorting money from clans who are interested in mundane things like marriage and crops and don't have time to fight all the time. Simon Young, a historian who wrote a brilliantly entertaining reconstruction of "darkest Britain," AD 500, suggests that the Fianna may in reality have given rise to legends of werewolves. The Code of the Wolf however is our own invention.
Dev Blog 02/11/17 Greetings warriors of Calradia! Mount & Blade’s deep and intuitive combat system is one of the core features of our games. Our directional attacking and blocking mechanic is intuitive in the sense that it is easy to pick-up, and deep in that it allows players to continuously develop and adapt their own fighting style through the use of feinting, chambering and good footwork (including a well-timed kick!). In previous Mount & Blade games, there is, however, an element of randomness in combat. Damage is calculated using a number of variables and weapons are hardcoded to deal a randomly selected amount of damage from a predefined range (before other factors are added to the equation, such as the attacker’s weapon proficiency, the speed of the combatants and the armour value of the unlucky soul on the receiving end of an attack). We feel that, for the most part, this system works well, but, there is still that one part of the damage calculation that can’t be controlled or reliably predicted by the player. In Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, we wanted to improve this aspect of combat to make it both fairer and easier for players to understand, especially in a multiplayer setting. We decided that the best way to go about this would be to make a physics-based system which would take into account the physical properties of a weapon and use a simulation to derive the combat stats, such as weapon speed and damage. We hope that this system will balance weapons in a more natural and realistic way. Another advantage for the physical stat calculation is that it can be used in our new weapon crafting system. The physics-based system fits naturally with crafting because all we need to do is to acquire the physical properties of crafted weapons and then feed these into the stat calculation system. This will, in turn, provide us with the stats for the weapon. When crafting a weapon, the player first selects a template. A sword, for instance, is made up of a blade, a guard, a grip and a pommel. Each of these parts may give the weapon certain bonuses or penalties outside of the physics simulation (a particularly large guard may increase the wielder’s hand armour, for example). Each part also has certain physical properties that are used for calculations. Once the player selects each part, we combine the physical properties of the parts to make up the overall properties of the weapon. These properties are: Length: Determines the reach of a weapon. Mass: This is important for thrust attacks and is used to determine the speed and power of thrusts. Light weapons are faster, but have less energy and cause less damage. Making the weapon heavier will slow it down but also make it more powerful, up to a point. If too heavy and too slow, a weapon will make contact with your opponent before it could reach its full speed, making it feeble and ineffective. Weight Distribution and Inertia: This is important for swings. Unlike thrusts, swing speed is affected not only by weight but also by the distribution of weight around the pivot point of the swing. Increasing the weight may increase the damage (within certain boundaries), but, it will also increase the inertia, meaning that more energy would be required to achieve sufficient speed on impact. Thus, these weapons will typically be slower and increasing the weight will only positively affect damage up to a certain point. After deriving these physical properties, we then use them to determine the weapon’s swing and thrust speed. Doing this with perfect precision would be rather difficult, since we would have to take into account all the motions a fencer goes through, all the muscles that are involved, their performance limits, etc. We simplify all of this with a basic model where we assume the fencer is made up of three simple motors. One motor representing the legs and hips, one for the chest and shoulder, and one for the arm and wrist. We then run a simulation where the motors work together to speed up the weapon until it hits the target. (Actually, we run two simulations, one for swing and one for thrust.) After these steps, we get the length, mass, swing and thrust speed of the crafted weapon. But, there is still the rather interesting problem of determining its damage...
Dev Blog 09/11/17 Greetings warriors of Calradia! A century ago, the eastward expansion of the Empire met the great sea of grass in the centre of the continent. Beyond that, with no farmland where the legions could forage, they could conquer no more. They fortified their most recent acquisitions, the great trading cities on the steppe's edge, confident that the disorganized horse tribes beyond the frontier posed no major threat. Khuzaits, Nachaghan, Arkits, Khergits, Karakhergits - imperial officials barely even bothered to learn the names of the various clans and peoples, except when it was necessary to turn one chief against another with a bribe, or remove a rising khan with a vial of poison. The steppe tribes were well aware how the Empire toyed with them. But they were jealous of each other, and an imperial title, a princess bride, or a chest of gold could give them a slight edge in the endless struggle for prestige and precedence. They raided, traded, took protection money to "escort" caravans across the steppe, and left the game of conquest to the settled peoples. Two generations ago, however, something happened far away to the east - a change in the winds, perhaps, or some terrible but distant conqueror - and the horse clans were set in motion. New tribes pushed westward, seeking fresh pastures. Unwilling to be crushed in the middle, the clans nearest the empire formed a confederacy under Urkhun the Khuzait. They caught the Empire in a moment of overconfidence. A force of legions was annihilated, the trading cities capitulated, and Urkhun's confederacy was now a khanate. The horse lords now ruled over towns and farmers and counted tariffs and cropland. Urkhun imposed discipline on the unruly clans, forcing them to ride to war on his command instead of simply when they wished. But with the coming of statehood and its burdens, the spirit of unity was lost. Urkhun died, and though his descendants still rule the Khuzait Khanate, the other clans feel that they should be the ones to raise the nine-horsetail banner that symbolizes the supreme authority. The Khuzait Khanate draws its inspiration from the steppe peoples of central Asia. Genghis Khan's alliance is probably the best known example, thanks largely to the remarkable document, the Secret History of the Mongols, which chronicled the Khan's rise from lone fugitive to the ruler of one of the greatest empires the world has seen. The Khuzaits are based partially on the Mongols but also on their more modest cousins, the Avars, Göktürks, Kipchaks, and Khazars, who were more regional powers than global ones. The nomads-turned-kings swiftly took on many of the cultural aspects of the peoples they conquered, so that the various Mongol or Turkic dynasties dressed, feasted, worshipped and administered their lands like the Chinese or Persian rulers who came before them. But it's clear that they still fondly remembered their heritage out on great grasslands. Travellers to the Uyghur capital of Ordu-Baliq wrote that the khan built a great yurt on top of his palace, apparently feeling most at ease in the felt tents of his ancestors even as he also enjoyed the protection of walls. We try to make the Khuzaits' settlements reflect this cultural mixing. And for those holdouts who would never submit to a khagan no matter what security or riches he offers, we have a minor faction, the Karakhergits, who keep the old ways. The Khuzaits' military strength is their horse archers, who combine firepower with mobility. Computer games traditionally have a hard time striking the right balance for mounted bowmen - sometimes they could stay out of reach until the enemy broke, such as when the Parthians wiped out Crassus's legions at Carrhae, but they could also be brought to battle and broken, such as when Attila the Hun was defeated by Aetius at the Catalaunian Fields. There are many reasons why even the swiftest horse archers couldn't just dance away from close combat forever - the endurance of the horses and the supply of arrows, the need to protect baggage and ensure a water source. Usually the horse armies' greatest victories, like Kalka River or Manzikert, ended with a final climactic melee. With this in mind, Bannerlord is working to make control of the battlefield more important, so that skirmishing is usually a prelude to a clash and horse archer armies are exciting both to command and to fight.
Dev Blog 16/11/17 Greetings warriors of Calradia! In the previous blog in this series, we described how Bannerlord’s new weapon physics model derives swing and thrust speeds of weapons from their physical characteristics. We talked about how weapon crafting plays a role in determining these properties and how this gives players the freedom to create a weapon which will complement their own fighting style. In this week’s blog, we would like to expand on this topic and explain the rest of the weapon physics model, showing how we determine the damage that a weapon inflicts and how that works in the game. Damage is a difficult concept to get right in a computer game. Making the damage model realistic could be desirable since this can help with immersion and depth, on the other hand, what happens in a real-life physical trauma is incredibly complex and trying to replicate that in a computer model could easily get needlessly complicated with little benefit to gameplay. While working on the system we made great use of an excellent article at thearma.org written by George Turner. The article was an eye opener about the intricacies and fine points of weapon dynamics. Of course, during implementation we had to make several simplifications and assumptions and if there are any unrealistic elements or errors in the end result, the fault lies with us and not the article. Energy and Damage In Bannerlord we tried to come up with a good model that is somewhat based on physics, but is still simple and understandable for players. In our model, damage depends on kinetic energy dissipated during the impact. However, energy is not converted to damage directly as we use several extra steps in our calculations. Types of Damage A weapon hit can have three different types of damage: cut, pierce or blunt. These three types have different trade-offs. A cutting weapon is most efficient in converting kinetic energy of the weapon into hit-point damage. However, it is also least effective against armour. Blunt weapons may require more hits for taking down an opponent, however, they make up for this by being least affected by armour. Piercing weapons sit somewhat between cutting and blunt weapons. Apart from kinetic energy and damage type, weapons also have a damage factor that can increase their effectiveness. Better made, more expensive weapons will inflict more damage. Speed Bonus As our calculations are physically based, we no longer need to calculate an extra “speed bonus” like we do in the previous games in the series. We simply get the attacker’s and target’s velocities and feed these into our equations. This results in a realistic and accurate way where the attack damage is affected by speed. Impact Point For swings, damage depends on the location of the impact point on the weapon. When showing weapon statistics in the inventory, we simply show damage as if the attack connected at a point a few centimetres below the tip. During combat we take the impact point from the position of the weapon and the target, so it is not necessarily near the tip. So for example, an axe that advertises itself as having 80 damage can deliver much less if it hits the target near the grip. Weapon Balance and Damage Weight and balance of the weapon has significant effect on damage. As we discussed in the first part of the blog, weight and weight distribution basically determines how much kinetic energy accumulated in the weapon’s swing. Lighter weapons are faster and more agile. Heavier weapons can take more time to connect, but this gives more time to increase their energy making them more powerful. Therefore, during the swing, the muscles work to speed up the weapon increasing its kinetic energy. When the impact happens, this energy can go into three places: Some of the energy will stay with the weapon since the weapon will not necessarily come to a complete stop. A significant portion of the energy will go into the impact with the victim. This is the part of the energy which does the useful stuff that a weapon is supposed to do (inflict damage!). As the attacker, you will generally want this to be as high as possible. Hitting the opponent at an optimal point may ensure that more of the energy goes to the impact rather than being retained by the weapon. Lastly, a portion of the energy will go to kicking-back the attacker’s hand(s). Not only does this do nothing to the opponent, but it also affects the attacker adversely. In the game, we model this with an “attacker stun”, which means that weapons with high kick-back will make you unable to attack again for a short while after your current attack connects or is blocked. An interesting note is that a pommel with the right weight will reduce kick-back, much like a making a gun heavier will reduce recoil, ensuring that energy goes to the bullet rather than the shooter’s hand. Conclusion Overall, for Bannerlord we strived to create a physics based combat system that will give realistic and immersive results without making use of hidden random variables. This allows players to craft different weapons with individual characteristics and strengths. Hopefully, as players become familiar with the system, they will keep creating new weapons and discovering new techniques and this will serve as a good base to make the game’s combat fun and interesting.
I was thinking more of the min maxing effect, using the 'best' weapon possible will require you to determine the weapon that consistently yields the best result in the manner in which you play the game, rather than simply reading the stats. You could make a weapon with the best overall damage that you simply can't wield effectively in actual combat etc...
Dev Blog 30/11/17 Greetings warriors of Calradia! They came from overseas, mercenaries and adventurers, speaking the tongues of many lands, taking the empire's silver to guard the frontiers against the unsubdued tribes of the interior. They took their name from one of their first warlords, Wilund the Bold - Valandion, in Calradic - and became known as the Vlandians. Their heavy cavalry, second to none, ran down the Emperor's foes from the Aserai wastes to the distant steppes. But the empire never had as much silver as it needed, and treasury officials soon learned that it could pay its mercenaries with land grants and titles. This was perhaps not the most far-sighted of policies. The Vlandians settled, married, planted farms, and built fortresses. It was not difficult, during the recent interregnum, for Osrac Iron-arm to declare himself king, independent in all but name. He seized the imperial capital of Baravenos and the lands along the coast, and that was how the west was lost to the empire. The Vlandians are based on the feudal states of early medieval Europe, in particular the Normans, the Norse raiders who settled in France then carved out kingdoms for themselves in England, Sicily, and the Holy Land. The Normans stunned their Byzantine and Muslim adversaries with the fury and discipline of cavalry charges with couched lance which, in the words of 12th century chronicler Anna Comnena, "could pierce the walls of Babylon." The knights combined extraordinary discipline in training for war with the tenacious pursuit of any land they could possibly conceive a claim to. Any grey area in feudal inheritance law was grounds for war. The careers of William the Conqueror, Robert Guiscard of Sicily, or the Crusader Bohemond were one of endless conflict: sometimes conquering more lands, but just as often over the relatively petty disputes of vassal against liege, brother against brother, father against son. The Vlandians control slightly more territory than the other factions, but we've seeded the ground for a lot of internal dissent among them. The world-weary Vlandian king, Derthert, will have to deal with barons who are more interested in pursuing their own agendas than fighting under his banner. Mount and Blade: Warband also tried to model this "herding cats" aspect of medieval warfare, but some people found the implementation, in which lords could wander off on their own accord, to be frustrating. In Bannerlord, the new Influence mechanism will let the player spend influence to keep large armies of quarrelsome vassals in the field - but that resource is limited. The Vlandians will have their share of minor factions. As with the Battanians and Khuzaits, these serve to emphasize the origins of the kingdom. For example, players who wish to emulate the adventurers who founded the Vlandian (and Norman) kingdoms can seek their fortunes with the Company of the Golden Boar, mercenaries who are based on medieval outfits like the Catalan or Free Companies. Vlandian arms and armour are based on that of Western Europe from the 9th to the early 12th centuries. This was a period of relatively fast evolution, and leaves us with some balancing issues. For example, there are textual references to what appear to be two-handed swords in this period, notably as wielded by Swabian mercenaries at the 1053 battle of Civitate, but as far as we know no artistic depictions or specimens. Two-handed swords were a popular weapon in Warband, so we're including them - but we're ensuring they're relatively rare, a hero's weapon rather than standard equipment. There's also come controversy about how frequently crossbows were used in the 11th century and before, but we're erring on the side of inclusion. Their use should help the Vlandians be as effective defending fortresses as the Normans were historically. The couched lance charge is a deadly tactic - as it was, clearly, on the medieval battlefield. But it becomes much more effective when it's performed by a good rider on a powerful horse. In Bannerlord, we're trying to ensure there's a trade-off between specializing as light or heavy cavalry. Light horses will be noticeably more manoeuvrable but also more averse to physical contact. And even the best heavy cavalry should think twice about crashing into a wall of spears - even the Normans could not break the shield wall at Hastings, instead wearing it down with combined arms and feints. Still, used properly, a force of Vlandians can be a steamroller - just be sure to keep them focused on your enemies instead of your own lands.
