ran

Mhhh... I understand using the sword and the hammer (the latter to knock out people without killing them), but why the axe, too? The sword of war is quite a killer on it's own - and it's much faster than the slow axe! shock ... depending on the landscape I use either the lance (for flat land) or the axe when the land is a bit more broken. The battle axe also has a longer reach than the sword and inflicts more damage with a nice bonus against shields, it allows you at high levels to kill armoured horsemen in one not so well aimed swing if you're able to get a slight speed bonus with your horse. And I just love axes

I never had any need (at least after I had an armor decent enough to skip on the shield) for anything but the crossbow, two packs of bolts and my Sword of War -> 4 slots. And once the crossbow skill is high enough and you have a feeling for how to aim it, you'll never need more shots than this. Hell, with my last char I was giving out headshots in >50% of the cases. well, I use mostly a battle axe, a sword of war, a warhammer and a great lance (so much stufff in a so little armor).

Personnaly, I'm split on the question of these ranged weapons. I rarely take any with me but I keep a swadian sniper crossbow and a war bow with their ammo in my inventory "in case if"... The crossbow eventhough it can inflict huge damages is slow, really slow and is on any use only on foot, while I tend to fight mounted (except in unfortunate and uneforeseen circumstances such as a bunch of dark knights gang-butchering my horsie). The bows are nice, but they require some skills and even if they can be fired from horseback, then you better aim your shots quite well at reasonnable (understand short to medium) ranges to make a difference while riding. The ammount of ammo is also quite limited as if you're going archer you rarely have more than 20 (42 at most, but I'm not sacrifying one more slot to bow ammo as first and foremost I'm specialised in huge two handed weapons). I may start to use my bow more as I quite enjoy having one during tournaments, but charging with a battle axe toward an enemy horde swaying left and right beheading poor footmen and butchering horses and/or riders is the best in my opinion

The great helmet looks ace. The black armor is nice, but at low levels, it really reduces your running speed too much. I'm sporting a combo of heavy battle axe, war hammer and a sword of war I've stolen from one of the NPC's in my party. For the clothes and armor I use a black body armor, a great helm and black crests for the serious encounters (war parties of any kind, dark hunters) and for the rest I use either padded cloth armor or leather jacket with leather boots and a fur hat as my "pimp" uniform when I'm fighting lowly bandits and foragers.

Yeah that's a shame ... you should see what I get with my 70 men ... a fancy shield at most, the rest being rubbish (which sometimes comes in a handy and spares me some unvoluntary expenses) As pointed out before by hellfish, I find the slave trade a bit unfair ... 100d for a sea raider berserker ? yeah, I admit, they come with a bloody nose and a few bruises but still ...

the game crashed just after I had taken on a 108 men strong Black Riders war party well ... the loot was shitty anyway ... That's another problem, the loot after a battle is often pathetic, especially when you see riderless chargers and warhorses at the end of a battle and all you get is a punny dagger and a whool cap !

I pledged allegiance to the Swadian king and am roaming around the Calradian land as a trader (everything from slaves to furs) and law enforcement "specialist"! I'm not really fond of these supply and capture quests and prefer to go on my way After some time in black armor I switched to my "pimp" attire, fur cap, leather jacket and leather boots I've created myself a "small" circle of hired blades, swadian knights and sword sisters

A new version is apparently going to be released soon ! Armagan, one of the devs said that it will mainly contain bugfixes, small features such as chests to put things in to empty inventory slots along with the modding tools and some seemingly minor upgrades but important for modding and upgrading the game.

because it makes some nice TV footage

It could also be a prototype/benchmark of some kind or just a photoshop

Maybe he should get in touch with the Groland team, even if their country is fictionnal, they get a pretty large audience. These guys are on holiday right now but their weekly show is like some kind of *first world and a half* country news broadcast they offer Groland passports and car stickers on their website (which is hosted by Canal+) here are some fansites : http://www.wanagro.com/ http://groland.gnux.info/ (in french unfortunately for you all ) the country's motto is "Je mourrirai pour toi" 7 days in Groland official page

I see the fighting ground more as some kind of random arena (yet with some relation to the general map) and combat/tactics challenge than a real depiction of the gameworld I believe the map to be the right depiction in our case

I'd like to agree but the map seems somewhat steppe-like and ... you tend to see dust clouds from far away over sur a barren landscape.

that's why I hit only on the enemy foragers and lowly bandits when I go on a slave run. When you encounter strong enemies, don't bother, just pull the battle axe/sword of war/sniper crossbow/bodkin arrows out and get the party started with a huge merciless bloodbath It would be interesting to have more capture missions given by the kings and the counts, with larger numbers of prisonners to take back to your boss depending on your prisoner management capacity, offering a nice reward ine exchange I'm back from two capture runs or manhunts in a single day after running into 4 bandits parties and taking back 20 prisonners at a time.

hehehehehehehe yeah oddly enough I find that knocking enemies unconscious with a war hammer to be pretty delectable I always attack the first wave with my hammer and I take out the deadlier weapons only for the second and sometimes third waves, that way you can easily get about 15 prisonners out of an encounter I don't mind slave trading as I only trade bandits, deserters and sometimes, enemies

Heheh, I only noticed today that the horse can jump too. I don't know what the the hell I was thinking when I jumped over a very high hill into the river resulting in my horse being crippled. "Lame charger" hmm. that's life be happy that your horses don't die that easily A good way to make fast money is to raise your prisonner management capacity to about 20 slots and four stacks and attack relentlessly small parties of river pirates, sea raiders and other bandits, armed with some kind of hammer/mace which does a good deal of concussion damage (the useful ones have a slight strenght pre-requisite though) and take the business on your own after asking your guys to stay behind and hold their position. 20 prisonners make 2000 gold once sold, repeat that a few times and you've got enough money to offer yourself some nice little "ŕ côtés" like spare jarids/daggers/axes/bolts/arrows (very useful when you run out of those in a battle, just find your chest and take the time to replenish your empty quiver) and spare horses (in case you feel like jumping from a cliff) One should also note that if you choose to make a lot of trade, it's important to know that the more cargo you're moving around, the slower you'll travel. Adding a couple of good horses to your inventory seems to lower the speed penalities due to the large quantities of trading goods. After the battle a good way to make some cash is to take the shields, armors and correct weapons and sell them in the nearest town. You can come accross some nice little treasures in your victory loot

Jump ... works for the rocks at least There's a technique I use. I try to get chased by one or two horsemen and go on a little steeple chase I jump over a rock, the guy's horses behind me rear up, blocked by the rock and I turn around to slash them as the horses are either still rearing or presenting their flanks to my blade?

hehehe yeah well after long (game)weeks of adrent levelling, a shitload of suply quests, fur trade and caravan raids, I finally got to free Galahad That's one absolutely kick ass NPC

The problem with adding the two heroes to your party is that they each take up a slot of your party. So you really need to get your leadership skill up if you want to be able to train up some generic troops, too! but they're well worth it as they reduce the burden of the party skills you have to develop! Borcha is great at tracking and spotting and Marnid is a good trader, you could add them and then upgrade trainer and tactics capabilities when they level up and do the same with you. Battles will be easier and the units under your command will upgrade much faster.

Mag 7 is quite nice that's right, I'm playing it in the Knights configuration, they've added quite a few things too, especially shields If you've found Borcha in the vanilla version, you know where the 7th NPC is in the Mag7 mod Now, gotta find the hugenormous ransom the count asks for this NPC ...

Yes, the count of Tihr (I think it was) asked me to bring him three leather caps. So I went to the local merchant and bought three of them for 345 denars. And he gave me something like 846 denars as a reward. One lazy git as long as you don't have to find and take 5 hunter horses to someone ...

has anybody done any supply quests ? some of them are awfully tedious, but they're quite profitable in the end

try to join ongoing battles beetween the Swadians and the Vaegirs if the advantage is on your side, once you've won you may have captured a couple of knights, just make them new party members and voilŕ, you've got highly trained and highly efficient elements as part of your party I for one prefer the bow which can, if used correctly be deadly at all ranges with a good rate of fire on the contrary of the crossbow (which on the other hand can be a "one shot one kill" weapon if you know how to aim like a god). And there's nothing more gratifying than stopping a pirate or any kind of thug in the middle of his rush toward you, a few meters aways with an arrow in the head (if you miss, you better be quick to switch to something a bit more efficient at close ranges ) I like it when you're rushing headfirst toward the enemy with other horsemen! Right now, I'm "struggling" to get to level 4 and to be able to take more people in my party as 23 people is too few to fight against the hordes of steppe bandits and enemy war parties !

ok, I just did a quick search with Mount&Blade before posting, thanks for the heads up now, could a mod merge those two threads maybe ?

Mount&Blade website I came accross this game today. It's a medieval RPG developped by a turkish couple. I love the tournaments There are a few screenshots on the website. The graphics may look a bit dated but remember that they are only two working on this project It's not yet finished but it's quite promising at this point !