Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord

Bannerlord does a lot of small things extremely well, and I think those small things are a huge reason why I keep coming back. The game starts quickly. There's plenty of action when you want it, but you can also avoid combat and play in completely different ways. The graphics are more than good enough, the animations are great, and most importantly, the game usually doesn't waste your time. There aren't endless cutscenes interrupting everything. Talking to NPCs is quick. In castles and towns, you can usually just select someone from the list and speak to them directly. [hr][/hr] [h2]1) Please invent diplomacy.[/h2] You have castles. You have towns. You have armies. You have nobles serving you. You have hundreds or thousands of soldiers under your command. And yet if you want to speak to one specific lord, apparently the accepted diplomatic procedure is: [b]Get on your horse and personally chase him across Calradia.[/b] I genuinely feel like this game needs some kind of messenger, ambassador, envoy, pigeon, aggressively motivated intern, [i]anything.[/i] Because there is something very funny about being a king while riding around asking: [i]"Has anyone seen this guy? I need to offer him a job."[/i] The encyclopedia doesn't make this much better. [i]"Last seen near this town."[/i] Excellent. So you ride halfway across the continent. You check again. [i]"Last seen on the opposite side of the map."[/i] [b]Excuse me?[/b] Did this man discover teleportation? Want to recruit someone into your kingdom? Find him personally. Want to declare war on a clan under certain circumstances? Better find one of their members. [b]I'm a king.[/b] Send someone. I have people. [i]This is literally what people are for.[/i] [hr][/hr] [h2]2) Executing enemies makes absolutely no sense.[/h2] An enemy lord enters my territory. He raids my villages. He kills my soldiers. He destroys people's livelihoods. He attacks my settlements. Then I finally catch him and tell him to surrender. [i]"What? Me? What did I do?"[/i] My brother in Christ, your army is currently standing on the burning remains of my village. [b]What exactly do you think we're discussing?[/b] Fine. We fight. I capture him. I can release or imprison him so he can return three days later with another army. Or I can execute him. If I execute him, apparently every noble in Calradia suddenly develops a very strong opinion about human rights. The man can burn villages containing hundreds of innocent people and that's just medieval politics. When I remove the person responsible: [i]"You monster."[/i] Apparently killing peasants is an administrative matter, but killing nobles is where society draws the line. I understand why execution needs consequences. Otherwise the player could simply remove every enemy lord from the game. But the current system feels far too extreme and doesn't care enough about context. [hr][/hr] [h2]3) Someone please put a lock on the dungeon door..[/h2] This is probably my number one complaint. [b]Put a lock on the door.[/b] I catch an enemy lord. Execution is heavily punished, so I decide to be civilized. I put him in the dungeon of a heavily fortified town. The town has walls. It has a garrison. Sometimes hundreds of soldiers. The prisoner is surrounded by enemy territory. The next day: [b]"He escaped."[/b] How? Where are we keeping these people? In the dungeon or in a chicken coop with a polite sign saying [i]"please don't leave"[/i]? Sometimes prisoners escape faster than I can travel back from the battlefield. Governor perks can reduce escape chance, which makes this even funnier. So the 700 soldiers aren't the important part. The stone walls aren't important. The guards aren't important. The prison itself isn't important. What truly determines whether the enemy king escapes is whether [b]Gary the Governor[/b] has the correct perk. But if I'm fighting on the frontier, after every major battle I should apparently travel halfway across my kingdom, drop off the prisoners in [b]Maximum Security Medieval Prison™[/b], and ride all the way back. At some point executing everyone starts looking less like cruelty and more like efficient logistics. [hr][/hr] [h2]4) Let me manage my kingdom [/h2] If I own several towns and castles, I shouldn't have to personally travel across the map every time I want to check construction or change development priorities. Again: [b]I am the ruler.[/b] I have governors. I have messengers. I have an administrative system powerful enough to collect taxes from thousands of people. Surely someone can send me a letter saying: [i]"Mi lord, the aqueduct is finished. What should we build next?"[/i] Instead, the king needs to personally inspect the construction menu. Remote settlement management would remove a huge amount of unnecessary travel without damaging the gameplay. [hr][/hr] [h2]5) Battlefield AI sometimes thinks the edge of the map is a tactical objective.[/h2] I love cavalry. A large part of my enjoyment in Bannerlord comes from riding around and smashing into enemy formations. Which becomes slightly less enjoyable when the enemy decides the greatest defensive position in military history is the absolute corner of the map. You order a cavalry charge and five seconds later your entire army is one enthusiastic horse away from leaving the playable area. Enemies also sometimes climb onto the strangest hills imaginable. Not strategically useful hills. I'm talking about terrain where one surviving soldier gets stuck on a geological feature and the entire battle refuses to end because technically [b]Steve is still alive somewhere inside a mountain.[/b] I especially like fighting on plains because cavalry can actually move properly. Naturally, the game frequently decides that what I really need is: Trees. More trees. Possibly a forest. Maybe a forest located on a mountain. [hr][/hr] [h2]6) Clan parties need actual orders.[/h2] Creating clan parties should feel like expanding your military power. Instead, it sometimes feels like releasing a wild animal back into nature. You create a new party. You give it to a companion. You give them excellent troops. You tell them to behave defensively. Five minutes later: [b]They're raiding a village deep inside enemy territory.[/b] Why? Come back. There is no [i]"come back."[/i] You basically have to disband the party to stop whatever questionable military adventure they've invented. Even worse, an enemy army approaches my territory and I think: [i]"Perfect. I'll gather my clan parties and form an army."[/i] Then I check the map. They're already on the opposite side of the continent, attached to someone else's army. Fantastic. I'm very happy that my elite troops are helping Lord Whoever capture a castle 900 kilometers away while my own town is on fire. [hr][/hr] [h2]7) Please stop filling my elite armies with looters.[/h2] I carefully build an army. I train Imperial Elite Cataphracts. I keep them alive. I level them. I hand some of them to my companion. Then the companion loses a few soldiers and decides: [i]"You know what this army needs?"[/i] [b]Looters.[/b] So now one of the finest cavalry units in Calradia is standing next to a man whose military qualifications consist of owning a rock. Imagine being an Imperial Elite Cataphract. Years of training. Expensive armor. Warhorse. Lance. Multiple campaigns survived. Then your commander introduces your new colleague: [i]"This is Greg."[/i] "What unit is he?" [i]"Looter."[/i] "What does he do?" [i]"Mostly throws rocks."[/i] "Why is he here?" [i]"We had space."[/i] There really needs to be some control over what troop types clan parties are allowed to recruit.

Played for around 1200 hours, solid game, incredibly fun with the Realm of Thrones Mod.

I don't know why i have over 500 hours in this game but most of it was spent obsessively smithing swords and javelins worth tens of thousands of gold. Forget leading epic conquests.....I’m basically running a medieval hedge fund powered by ridiculously overpriced crafted weapons that completely break Calradia’s economy and I regret absolutely nothing. 10/10 blacksmith simulator.

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord is a great medieval sandbox with satisfying combat, huge battles, and tons of freedom. You can trade, conquer kingdoms, lead armies, or simply create your own story. It can feel repetitive at times, but the battles and endless possibilities make it worth playing.