Gonna tweak the review concept a lil’
Personal History:
I actually don’t know what citations to give for this. Hmmmm….I guess for the over-world empire strategy I can throw out games like Warlord and Civilization. I liked Warlord but wasn’t really into Civ (I know right. BLASPHEMY)
For the on field combat, short of the physics based melee system and the RTS elements, the closest I can think of would be along the lines of Dynasty Warriors (I played a bunch of the earlier PS2 titles), just not as over the top epic. I did enjoy the DW titles for their mindless hack and slash nature.
As far as the RPG aspects… I can’t think of anything that I’ve played that conveys the same political nature. I’m pretty sure that there are simulation games that do have the political aspect to Warband’s scale, I just haven’t played them.
The multiplayer aspect of Warband is just field combat with more players fighting each other.
Blood fueled warlord.
Gameplay/Mechanics:
Lets start here with visuals. I will admit that in today’s HDR bloomed out world of high quality textures and models oozing forth from every game engine in mainstream use, Warband does not live up to the visual standard set by so many major developers. Does this make for a bad game? Not at all. What TaleWorlds lacks in visual appeal is more than made up for in gameplay, proving to me yet again that I prefer function over form almost any day of the week when it comes to games. And Warband has all the function I need. Over-world map strategies with constantly warring factions. Massive roaming armies as well as smaller bands of raiders and thieves. A deep political and economic structure. Micro-managing of cities and towns you control. Leveling players and soldiers with different advancement trees. Rich stories told through mercenary commanders you can hire from taverns to help fight by your side and eventually lead parts of your army when you declare yourself a sovereign nation. The list goes on of all these incredible things I’ve come across so far. I’ll try and detail what I’ve seen a little bit more because within these layers are further layers that touch on everything in Warband.
This is about 1/4th of the whole map.
The over-world map. Its not too big but not to small. It fits just enough major cites, castles and towns to feel like a well populated part of the world during the medieval era. Most of the factions in Calradia (the name of the continent) even resemble historic warrior nations. Vikings are now Nords. Mongolians are now the Kergit Kanate. You use the map to go from town to town. Its the basic method of travel. It also impacts the battlefields you enter when you run into an enemy force. Every inch of the map is an algorithm that randomly generates terrain when combat begins. This can sometimes be very extreme, but the differences are what makes certain army types and strategies have advantages. This is reflected with the soldier types that are found in each empire. The other functions of the map involve showing the player actual physical trade routes as well as spawning areas for thief type factions that terrorize villagers, which in turn lowers productivity and moral.
Before I get tied up in the more detailed aspect of the map I’m gonna move on to the army creation and maintenance aspect of Warband. The cities and towns serve several purposes but the biggest roles boil down to soldier recruitment and taxes. Each faction provides different soldier archetypes from their starting towns. This means that if one faction takes over another, the towns they gained still provide the original soldier types. These soldiers gain experience in combat and they level into much more hardened veterans on the battlefield. The cool part of the leveling is the pacing. The truly war hardened soldiers don’t come instantly, so when you face down insurmountable odds to protect others, each death from your ranks fuels a little bit of rage towards the enemies that took them. Especially later on when the battles involve thousands of soldiers and you have to go all Spartan 300 on your enemies. Beyond the basic fighting part of maintaining a sizable force, Warband also has you think of soldiers needs such as food and money, as well as soldier moral. If you have a massive,several hundred man legion rolling around Calderia and your not at war, your soldiers will begin to despise the lack of action and begin to desert. This can be altered by the types of food you buy since those come with moral boosts. Past the simple soldiers I’d have to say my favorite part of building and army is finding a well knit group of mercenary commanders to fight along side you. The commanders you chose will have their own personalities that can clash with each other and cause tension in the ranks. They are also the only units, besides yourself, that can be equipped with specific items and given specific leveling stats. This can make from some really interesting strategic concepts.
My axe brings DEATH!
Combat in Warband is also innovative in its hybridization of third person action and real time strategy. Out of combat, the troops you gain can be given types that are used on the battlefield to call out orders. You can form battle-lines, advance at a set pacing, even split your forces and command both fronts separately. It all depends on play style. Do you feel like bolting at your enemy on horse back and lawnmower lines of troops, set up archer lines and rain death down upon your enemies, or even run on foot towards the enemy in a shield wall. And best of all, once you hit a certain size force you can do all of it in large scale, and since the last patch a lot more combat possibilities have been added to make castle and town warfare more interesting.
Another major portion of Warband is its political aspect. Actions you take, the person you marry, the way you go about marrying them, wars you start, people you rescue from prison. All these things change what can happen. If a commander likes you enough you’ll find that he will turn sides and join you in a war against his own people. Truly in depth functions that you don’t really see up front as much as it probably should be, but they are subtle enough that you will find yourself appreciating the changes you personally cause. For instance I once harassed the crap out of supply lines from a distant faction, when their king didn’t respond with force he lost face among his commanders and they began leaving him for other factions. Then I eloped with his daughter and from that point forward his now dwindling forces were constantly at odds with my faction, but more specifically me. The only castles and towns he tried raiding were mine, and because he was stretched so thin trying to seek revenge on me, a neighboring faction of his went to war and wiped him out of Calradia.
I’m trying real hard not to go on and on about all the aspects of single player, so now would probably be a good time to bring up multiplayer. Multiplayer can be annoying. I’ve begun to notice this from a lot of multiplayer games. Very rarely will you see a good team fighting a good team outside of guild matches, and this makes for some drastically imbalanced pub matches. The mechanics of multiplayer were somewhat….broken. At least for a bit. With the current patch it seems a little better. The issues stem from the physics based melee being exploited by people that spin faster than humanly possible while swinging to cause massive increases in damage. Other than that multiplayer is kinda basic. You use the fighting mechanics of the game to fight other players in basic settings. Take and hold, destroy objectives, deathmatch, team deathmatch and siege. Siege can be a very impressive mode but I feel it could easily have been so much more. All these modes are still very fun, especially with a team of people you know fighting by your side.
TO THE WALLS!!!!!
Current Stance:
Several games were released since when I first bought Warband and I also bought many AAA titles that were released before Warband, but I find myself constantly going back. I’ve logged 108 hours so far putting it in my top five of games I’ve played for extended periods of time, and its steadily working its way up to number one on the list. Since only a small group of my friends own Warband I tend to only play single player, so about 80% of what i’ve played is just campaign mode. I feel this is an amazing game because in my time spent in campaign, I’m still finding things that are part of the game mechanics. I know that what I’ve written, as scaled down as it is, is only the tip of the iceberg and I can’t wait to see the rest of it, and I truly hope that others check this out because I feel that TaleWorlds deserves recognition for the immense amount of time and effort they put into Mount and Blade : Warband.
