James Sterrett on 5/12/2005 at 04:53

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My weekend got eaten alive...

(http://www.taleworlds.com/) Taleworlds is producing an RPG, Mount & Blade, set in a Eastern-European-feeling not-quite Middle Ages; the overall feel is highly realistic. And the sense of speed and motion when riding the horses in combat is... exhilarating.

You play as a freelancer - quite literally: a mercenary with a horse and a sword, trying to make your way.

It isn't the prettiest thing on the market, nor the most polished (they claim it's version 0.704 currently, with a pricing scheme that causes the price to slowly increase towards full as the beta progresses - it's currently $14).

But it does do a fine simulation of the fighting. At first, it's probably just you taking on a handful of bandits.

Then the bandit forces get bigger. And you link up with a hero or two and hire a handful of farmers to assist.

Eventually you make some money, and you hire and train an army. After a weekend of play, I now traipse around the map with 30+ retainers, including militia I'm training, and fully trained knights & crossbowmen.

And my force is still relatively small and somewhat second- or third- rate. There's no shortage of forces out there that I run away from to avoid getting my ass stomped.


The combat engine can handle fights with about 15 per side, so the real-time 3D you-are-there combats feel pretty big (the engine fights battles between large forces in a series of rounds and also feeds in reinforcements during rounds; numbers are important, but so is quality.)

Thus, the game keeps on opening new things to explore, even though, ostensibly, there isn't a lot of special content in place - though there's a lot of "background" content. (M&B is still in beta, (v0.704), with the price slowly increasing at is gets closer to release. Currenty it's $14 USD. )


Go try the demo; it gives you a couple hours of gameplay, cutting out when you reach level 6.

ravuya on 5/12/2005 at 05:01

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This does look interesting; I'll be sure to give it a try.

James Sterrett on 5/12/2005 at 23:54

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Piln: Combat is real-time.

Imagine a fight between a few small units in Medieval: Total War.

Now imagine that you *are* the leader - not staring down from above the map.

You have 5 commands:

Defend This Position

Follow Me!

Charge!

Mount

Dismount

That's pretty limiting - and, (un)fortunately, that limitation is highly realistic for an ill-disciplined medieval war band. Your troops will mostly follow your instructions, and sometimes go off on their own hook. But generally, they'll get on and off their horses on command; they will follow you to death or glory; they will happily charge on command; and they will mostly tolerate sitting and waiting for the enemy to come to them.

My current typical actions on getting into the 3D world:

1) Issue a "Defend this position" command.

2) Look around. What's the nearest hill that looks like it has a clear field of fire towards the probable location of the enemy? Begin to ride towards it.

3) Issue a "Follow Me" command.

4) Continue assessing terrain. I'm working overtime trying to find the position I'll base my battle around. I ride to the middle of the best place I can find, then issue "Defend This Position".

5) While they move up onto my chosen position, I dismount and get my crossbow out.

6) The hero characters start doing their own thing. Twits. :) But they frequently disorganize the enemy, too.

7) Open fire with the crossbow on the enemy once they appear. Their cavalry will appear first. Any archers or crossbowmen in my force will likewise be opening fire now. The heros may be galloping about practicing their horse archery.

8 ) In and around killing bad guys with the crossbow, I'm monitoring the situation. Does anybody need help? Is there an especially dangerous bad guy? Is the terrain or situation such that I'm better off mounting up and using the lance? etc

9) If the situation turns fluid - either because of my actions or the enemy's - then I'm issuing a string of "defend", "follow me", and "charge" commands.

10) If I really need the situation to turn static, or it doesn't favor horses, then I'll tell everyone who is mounted to dismount.


The simplicity of the command interface also keeps it manageable - you can issue the commands without it stopping you from the business of staying alive, and yet have some semblance of a plan and changes to it.

James Sterrett on 6/12/2005 at 03:06

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Given what you like (I'd agree - I'm especially a fan of Flashpoint and SWAT :) ), it's well worth a look.

Keep in mind that the points above make it sound... organized. It's often utter chaos.

Also, it does have occasional weaknesses, such as strting on very steep slopes; and some interface irritants in other portions of the game. How much will get solved by the time they hit v1.0 I don't know.

dvrabel on 7/12/2005 at 22:38

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There's a 0.710 but it's not linked from the main page but from a (http://forums.taleworlds.net/viewtopic.php?t=6246) forum post.