After trying to explain to you what you will be faced with playing Mount & Blade II Bannerlord through ours preview a few days ago, we now want to offer you a guide on how to get started on the right foot in the TaleWorlds PC game. Recall that the game is in early access and therefore some of our recommendations may be subject to changes due to the possible release of patches by the developers that could change the current game experience.
This medieval life simulator can be daunting especially for newbies but fear not because every failure in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord can be transformed into an extra incentive to achieve your goals.
- Always try to keep at least 20 soldiers in your party
Going alone around the kingdom of Calradia is not very convenient as you will soon end up as prisoners of some group of bandits or some noble enemy. As you wander around the different cities featured in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord you will notice gangs of looters and bandits wandering around the countryside trying to attack the smaller and poorly equipped groups. So, when you visit the various villages, we advise you to recruit as many soldiers as possible up to a minimum of 20 which should then be more than enough to face the first missions and the weakest enemies you will come across on your way.
At the beginning of the game you will be able to recruit only simple soldiers linked to the various NPCs but completing missions for them will earn you trust points which, over time, will give you the opportunity to recruit more powerful soldiers and higher than the basic one. .
- Don't be afraid to move to new areas of the map
The world of Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, unlike most RPGs, is not designed so that the further you get from "home", the more dangerous it becomes. Each of the various kingdoms will be relatively safe and will offer you similar opportunities, so if you are particularly pleased with where you are, if you have broken the law or if you have angered the wrong people, feel free to move to a different region and explore it. .
The various kingdoms present in the game have some differences between them to keep in mind, such as the strength of their economies and armies, the types of weapons and armor they prefer, and who their nobles in power are. The Khuzait, for example, are steppe nomads who prefer combat on horseback, making them a great faction to ally with if you want to be a knight. All this, when you are starting out, may not count for much but later it could prove very important. Even if you decide to become a merchant, we advise you to choose factions that have healthy economies or that have an abundance of a certain resource.
- Don't set the difficulty level to "realistic" if you are a new player
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord's difficulty settings will be quite daunting at first as there are an infinity of them present. Instead of just setting the overall difficulty of the game, you can individually change certain factors, such as the amount of damage your units will be able to take during combat. The "realistic" difficulty level is more or less equivalent to a "difficult" difficulty level. To give you a practical example: if you set your combat damage to “realistic”, enemies will be able to kill you with one or two hits which would be too punishing for new gamers.
Starting your adventure in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord at an easy or very easy level could be the right solution to better understand the game dynamics. Once you get a little more familiar with combat, you can change the starting settings at any time. Another option you should always turn on is "Enable Death". In this way all the characters that you are able to recruit, including you, will be able to die increasing the level of fun. There is no need to worry as the death of your main character will not mean the end of the game but, in the event of defeat, you will be taken prisoner and have to buy your freedom or have luck to escape from your enemies.
- Tournaments are a great way to make money, but only if you are a good fighter
At the beginning of the game you will be short of money but if you know how to handle your sword you can quickly create a fortune thanks to the tournaments that are often organized in the main cities of the kingdom of Calradia. Anyone can enter these tournaments and the winners will take home large sums of money as well as one or two rare items that can eventually be sold at a very high price. If you do well in the fights (or simply if you play at the lowest difficulty level) it will surely be one of the best ways to start and in addition to the money you will also increase your fame by helping your clan to become one of the most dominant families in Calradia.
The tournaments, in addition to being profitable, are very useful for practicing the sword in case you stop in a city where there is no tournament you can still visit the arena and talk to a Master to get information on where and when the next tournaments will take place.
- Get a shield if you want to survive
There are many weapons in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, and the two-handed ones will require exceptional skill and impeccable timing to be used correctly. If you are new to it, we recommend that you initially rely on the basic sword and shield as armaments. While two-handed weapons have superior damage and range, you will need to move the mouse in the right direction and at the right time to block enemy attacks. It won't be easy, especially when you find yourself in the chaos of a battle against hundreds of enemies.
The shield will guarantee greater protection even in numerical inferiority, just stand in front of your opponent and hold down the lock button. However, remember to be careful as the shields will only absorb a certain amount of damage before breaking permanently.
- Always keep an eye on your food supplies
Food will be needed in the game to keep you and your soldiers alive. At the bottom right of the screen you will find a counter that will track your party's food consumption rate and show you how many days your supplies will last before running out. Always keeping 5 days of supplies aside could be a good solution as the lack of food will also negatively affect the morale of your troops who, in extreme cases, could even desert.
There are various types of food available and each will affect the morale of your companions. Wheat, for example, will be cheap but won't have the same effect as butter or meat.
- Compare the speed of nearby enemies before making any decisions
When you travel through Calradia, each caravan will have a speed of movement on the map which will be determined by the type of units present in it. The weight of the armor worn, the number of horses or the goods transported will also affect the speed of the movements which will be visible simply by hovering the mouse over the icon of each of them. The number you see will be extremely important to take into consideration because if your speed for example is 4.1 and you are chasing some bandits whose speed is 4.3, you will never be able to catch them without first buying a few more horses or leaving some on the road. goods.
We recommend that you get into the habit of checking the speed of enemy units as they enter your field of vision in order to plan how to deal with them correctly. A large army may seem scary at first, but if you are able to move at twice the speed you can easily avoid it.
- By pressing the N key you can consult the game encyclopedia
The encyclopedia featured in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord is an incredibly useful resource but is only available in game and not on the main screen. Basically it's a huge repository of information on everything that revolves around the game, from the different kingdoms to the ruling families, from the characters you might encounter to the statistics on the various units. There is also a small section that explains some hidden and less obvious aspects of the game.
The most useful thing in the encyclopedia is to show what the other characters in the game are doing and the s between them. This will allow you to keep the global situation under control at any time, deciding which characters to interact with to achieve your goals. The encyclopedia will also update you in real time on everything related to markets and settlements in case you decide to trade.
- Accept the quests carefully as failure will have consequences
Especially at the beginning of your adventure in Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord you might think that saying yes to any favor an NPC asks you will be the best thing to do but you may regret it bitterly as quests will often be challenging and failure to complete them may make you less sympathetic to those who have entrusted them to you. For this reason, we advise you first of all to always have at least 20 or more soldiers with you and then to carefully evaluate the possibility or not of being attacked by enemies during the journey. It is not excluded that during a move on the map to complete a quest you could be attacked by an army with well-armed cavalry that could wipe you out in no time at all. Therefore, even in this case, always check the speed of nearby enemy units.
Here is our guide on how to get off on the right foot in the PC game by TaleWorlds: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord.
► Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord is an RPG-Simulation-Adventure game developed and published by TaleWorlds for PC, the video game was released on 30/03/2020
