Mount & Blade: Difference between revisions

 

{{tropelist}}

* [[Acceptable Breaks From Reality]]: It might not be very historically correct to have Vikings fighting Mongolian horse archers, but boy is it fun.

* [[The Alleged Steed]]: The one you start with, usually.

* [[Anachronism Stew]]: As far as all the medieval weapons and armour go, [[Shown Their Work|they are portrayed very accurately, including their proper names]]. The only [[Acceptable Breaks From Reality|exception to this rule]] would be that [[Weapons Kitchen Sink|they come from]] [[Dark Age Europe|slightly]] [[The Low Middle Ages|different]] [[The High Middle Ages|time]] [[The Late Middle Ages|periods]] of [[The Middle Ages]]).

** With the usual exception of the bastard sword, which is a misnomer historians applied to hand-and-a-half longswords. Correctly, all western swords with a two-handed hilt are longswords, with the one-handed base form being considered an arming sword or a short sword.

* [[Annoying Arrows]]: Played straight except for headshots, usually. Though there's still sometimes the amusing sight of one of the tougher units charging on with an arrow sticking out of his eye.

** Rarer when full damage is enabled; two arrows are usually lethal unless their target is wearing plate armor.

** The campaign AI is even worse. In theory, the majority of the faction should gather around the marshal and push for objects while a few others run supplies and raid random villages as a distraction or seek to pick off enemy lords doing that. In ''practice'', lords break off from the marshal quickly, and drop everything to go feast.

* [[Ascended Extra]]: The Khergits were a type of bandit until an update turned them into a proper faction.

* [[Authority Equals Asskicking]]: A common occurence with the faction lords, who after all lead armies as part of their job description. Specific levels of asskickery vary between individuals, but most can outfight their own elite troops. If you see someone with distinctive armor riding around the battlefield scything down your troops ''with an actual scythe'', it's probably a lord.

* [[Automaton Horses]]: Horses are basically treated like any other equippable item, never tire, never panic, and are perfectly willing to run headlong into obstacles like walls or trees at full speed unless steered clear by the player. They can be injured in battle, though, and have a chance of becoming lame or dying when they run out of [[Hit Points]]. They also have their own AI while not being ridden and will bolt off if hit.

* [[Badass Army]]: Any force composed of top-level units. They will make ''hay'' out of a lord's army.

* [[Being Evil Sucks]]: Partially averted, partially played straight. It's easy and profitable to do "dishonorable" missions, such as assassinations, kidnappings, and starting wars, with little consequences aside from ticking off the victims. However, dishonorable acts such as pillaging villages or kicking around the local peasantry will draw the ire of the local Lord, who can usually (At least early-on in the game) kick your tail pretty soundly.

** In Warband, you also have to take into account the opinion of your companions: many come from the peasantry and aren't too fond of watching their kind get murdered and looted, especially as they are supposed to take part in the pillaging.

* [[Blade on a Stick]]: Spears are best used only against cavalry, and most other polearms are best used only by cavalry.

* [[Boom! Headshot!]]: Doable with every ranged weapon in the game for double damage.

* [[Bow and Sword in Accord]]: Commonly used by NPCs and the default setup of the player. Useful as there will be situations where getting into melee or standing off at range is inadvisable or even suicidal. NPC archers and crossbowmen always carry melee weapons and sometimes shields, and the highest level ranged attackers can be used as middling infantry in a pinch.

* [[Critical Existence Failure]]: Characters become bloodier as they take damage, but their performance is unaffected.

* [[Dangerous Deserter]]: In spades. From a technical point of view, they are very similar to regular groups of bandits, but are often far more numerous and better equipped. They can be a [[Demonic Spiders]] style threat early in the game, but become less intimidating after the player levels up considerably and creates his party. Still, large groups of advanced troops (40 nords warriors in full mail armor for instance) remain a threat for a pretty long time.

* [[Deliberate Values Dissonance]]: Calradia is a sexist land (though it is only briefly touched on before Warband) where even the lords that have been established through dialogue as being just and honorable have no qualms with raiding caravans, burning and plundering villages and attacking helpless traveling farmers, provided they belong to an enemy faction.

** The Steppe Bandits more so than the actual Khergit lords themselves, as they're always hostile.

* [[Department of Redundancy Department]]: You can find a Ragged Ragged Outfit.

** Occasionally one may come across a "Strong Strong Bow"

* [[Drill Sergeant Nasty]]: Lezalit. Ymira points it out if you have both of them in your army.

* [[Dronejam]]: Your own soldiers can and will get in your way in a fight: sieges and the start of battle are the most blatant.

* [[Endless Game]]: There is no set victory condition. Unless you select the retirement option ([[Game Breaking Bug|or your save is corrupted]]), there isn't even a way for the game to end as losing a battle won't kill you, though there still are situations where [[Continuing Is Painful|it's better just to reload or start a new game]]. It's not until ''With Fire and Sword'' that the player character can actually die.

* [[Enemy Exchange Program]]: Villages that changed ownership still produce troops of the faction they originally belonged to, even when that faction no longer exists. When a faction is defeated and its lords disperse, they also retain and are able to recruit troops of their original faction even in service of their new masters.

* [[Evil Uncle]]: King Harlaus of Swadia and King Yaroglek of Vaegir, according to their claimants' stories.

* [[The Exile]]: Endicting a lord from your faction of treason is the only reliable way to put said lord out of play permanently. Other kings can also order exiles for their own lords, but these just join a different faction (hopefully yours) instead.

*** Also in the claimant quests is that if someone other than the rebels finishes off the original faction, the ending is bugged.

* [[Game Favored Gender]]: Goes both ways in different games. In the original, starting as female will give you better skill-point options. In Warband, female characters need far higher reputations to become lords (something companions comment on) and don't recieve a fief with it. Both of these are unintentionally an advantage: The higher requirements mean you aren't spammed with offers (which hurt your influence if you refuse) and the "free" fief gives little income (it will be the poorest one the faction has) but counts against requests for a new one (Any requested fief is effectively guaranteed to you if you are the only lord in the faction with none, even if it's a major city).

** ''With Fire and Sword'' is a non-free mod, which changes the setting to the Khmelnitsky War as described in Polish historical epic ''[[Sienkiewicz Trilogy|Ogniem i Mieczem]]'' (the wars with Cossacks, Tatars and Sweden in the second half of 17th century), with storyline based on the novel ''Black Mace'' by Alex Trubnikov.

** ''Viking Conquest'', another non-free mod, moves the setting to Britain and Scandinavia during the Dark Ages and Viking invasions, complete with a "story" mode.

** ''[[Nova Aetas]]'' is a [[Fan Sequel]] mod set in the vanilla Calradia setting, albeit around the time of its Renaissance. It also extends the map significantly, to the point of having New World and [[Mayincatec]] analogues.

* [[Gratuitous German]]: Not the original game, but the sheer amount of [[Game Mod|Game Mods]] that attempt to add Germany-based factions or units into the game and fail at properly utilizing German spelling and grammar is astounding.

* [[Gray and Grey Morality]]: No single character in the game is entirely good, at least not by modern moral standards.

* [[Hard Head]]: NPCs and redshirts saved by the surgery skill are knocked unconscious and make a full recovery withing a few hours (days at most) with no lasting effects, even if they got a spear to the gut or an arrow through the eye.

* [[Helmets Are Hardly Heroic]]: Sword Sisters have what seems to be a 50/50 chance of going into battle without a helmet (the better off to show their flowing hair, presumably). Along with various recruited bandits and Khergit Lancers, they are the only unit type to do so. This makes them predictably vulnerable to [[One-Hit Kill|arrows to the head.]]

* [[Hit Points]]: Everyone has em, though sometimes in a very odd way. My horse seems to have a spear through its head, why is it still running around?

** Your horse probably has great defence stats and can probably have a lot more spears sticking out before it dies.

** Shields also have hitpoints, after they are exhausted they will break (they are fixed after the battle, but move down a notch on the quality scale).

* [[Honor Before Reason]]: The Rhodoks claimant Lord Kastor of Veluca himself admits that King Graveth is a hero for saving the council from a raiding party, but claims he shouldn't be king because he violated the law against bringing weapons to the council meeting.

** Of course, he might well have organized said raid himself... It also doesn't help Graveth that he approached the defenseless council armed, told them of the war party, and then [[Blackmail|told them he wouldn't save them unless they made him king immediately.]] At least, according to Kastor...

* [[Knight in Shining Armor]]: YOU, if you want. Though you'll find that [[Awesome but Impractical|shiny armor is quite expensive and makes you move at a snail's pace if you get de-horsed]]

* [[Lady Macbeth]]: A female PC can become this to a noble as a way of gaining power.

* [[Lazy Backup]]: Combine the fact that [[We Cannot Go on Without You|your side automatically loses]] if your character is knocked out with the fact that sieges are done in stages and losing at any stage ends the siege unsuccessfully, and you can get into some seriously weird situations where your guys retreat, dragging your unconscious body out of the castle, through the town, up the walls, and down the siege tower ramp, just because you got knocked out by literally the last defender in the last room of the castle. And then they dismantle the tower, so you have to build a new one.

* [[Leaked Experience]]: Normal exp is granted for killing things yourself, and then battle exp is granted for being on the winning side. Battle exp is shared among all members of the army, even if they didn't actually appear on the battlefield. A viable strategy for leveling up troops that are yet too weak to survive actual combat.

** A horse archer PC doesn't really start to work too well until the mid 20s or so, but at that point it can solo entire armies.

* [[Mook Chivalry]]: Entirely averted. Once de-horsed, infantry will frequently swarm you from all sides, sometimes so thickly you can't move. The only defense is to backpedal and hope your shield up until [[The Cavalry]] arrive to spread them out a bit.

* [[Multi Melee Master]]: Each weapon proficiency category covers several different types of weapons.

* [[Mutually Exclusive Party Members]]: Each NPC companion has two others that they don't get along with, and will eventually make this known to you. If multiple members of the party are antagonistic and/or morale is low, some may eventually leave (take your stuff back before they do).

* [[My Rules Are Not Your Rules]]: Every time you lose a battle, you get taken prisoner and dragged around for a while; however, whenever an NPC Lord loses, he gets away 80% of the time, and then he's nowhere to be seen.

* [[Plot Armor]]: Any named character can only be captured, not killed. Only Kings (finish a rebellion quest or destroy their faction) and Claimants (Fail a rebellion quest or by destruction of their faction regardless of if they are king) can be removed from play permanently.

* [[Power Equals Rarity]]: Loot will rarely contain items with the highest quality modifiers. Lordly armor and Champion horses are so expensive that even kings apparently can't afford to make much use of them.

* [[Proud Warrior Race Guy]]: Several, notably Baheshtur and Matheld.

* [[Purely Aesthetic Gender]]: Averted though the difference is negligible in the long run. Gender will affect a player's initial stats. However, the female NPCs are oppressed, and the female player character is not beyond some sass from lords early game, somewhat higher requirements for vassalage and no fief upon becoming a vassal, the last of which is actually a blessing in disguise (in gameplay anyways, escaping such is an option for motivations in the background questions at the start of the game).

** Also there is a huge difference in captured female and male peasants. Male farmers will train up to become mercenaries like the ones commonly hired in taverns who are useful but expensive, while female peasants will become Sword Sisters, a rare but cheap and somewhat fairly powerful mounted unit.

** Warband has a different method of courtship for each gender (males must woo a lady and convince her guardian to let the marriage take place), while females have to court roaming lords.

* [[Quicksand Box]]: The period between early in the game (when you take on many modest-paying side-quests to amass wealth and gain favor of lords and factions) and late in the game (when you have an army large enough to take over the world or follow a claimant quest) when you basically have very little to do but fight bandits, [[Level Grinding|level-grind]], and expand your army up to 10, then to 20, then to 30, to 40, to 50... fight bandits, take all their stuff, sell it at the nearest castle town, repeat, until you have an army of 100 and can start to really do some interesting stuff.

* [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits]]: The player can recruit troops from all the factions as well as mercenaries to create one big motley crew - and as he can recruit from his own prisoners and those he rescues from the enemy pretty much any unit can end up in the player's service, including bandits and raiders. The companions recruitable include everything from impoverished nobles to petty bandits, including a daughter fleeing from an arranged marriage with no fighting skills whatsoever.

* [[Rain of Arrows]]: Basically what happens if you get enough archers (or crossbowmen), and one of the best tactics you can use if the map permits.

* [[Rain of Blood]]: Get a guy in close combat for long enough and they will look like they took a dip in a crimson sea.

* [[Ranged Emergency Weapon]]: Throwing knives require no skill in throwing to use and take up only one of your four weapon slots (opposed to the two taken up by a bow or crossbow and its ammo) but do poor damage. Their primary use is to give a sword/shield/lance user some range. Many infantry units have a chance at having proper throwing weapons at creation.

* [[Recruiting the Criminal]]: You can get bandits and such into your party if you take them prisoner and then recruit them after dragging them around for a while to crush their morale. This causes a slight moral hit to your party. Alternatively such criminals can join your party if you conquer the castle they are held in. These criminals are perfectly loyal, and are an effective stop-gap to ensure a newly conquered hold has ''some'' garrison while grab more troops to station in it.

* [[Recurring Traveller]]: Tavern regulars.

* [[Stats Grinding]]: With weapon proficiency only (you get "free" points on each level up as well). Thankfully it increases rather fast with a decent weapons master skill, and one of the main purposes of arenas is to get this skill up to basic competency. One quirk is that mounted archers build proficiency stupidly quick, as the the increases are based on the supposed difficulty of a shot (How far the target is, how fast you are moveing, bonus for head shots), but fails to account for how easy it is to shoot at a large mob during a full gallop (which you should be doing) and have it hit ''someone''.

* [[Sticks to the Back]]: Most of the larger weapons.

* [[Storming the Castle]]: The most common method of expanding your territory.

** Combined with [[All Your Base Are Belong to Us]] is what makes multiplayer Siege games so awesome.

* [[Suicidal Overconfidence]]: The combat AI will charge into any enemy. Even if COMPLETELY outmatched (IE: Peasants vs Knights) Averted on the overmap, though.

** Some of the more hilarious parts of this are watching peasants gleefully charge fully-armored swordsmen one-after-another, with the swordsman 1-hit-killing each one. Or heavily-armored footmen trying in vain to chase down horse archers...

** Apparently even those were too restrictive to some players, as relatively few quests in the expansion have ''any'' limit.

** The record being the wedding "mission", with a time limit of 360 days. Since a wedding require total peace, a feast, and the presence of both the brothered, her father, and you, all this time actually come in handy.

* [[There Are No Tents]]: Averted. You have the option of setting up camp anywhere and anytime on the world map. While camping, you can still engage in some minor actions, like trying to persuade captured bandits to join your party, or reading books. The only downside is, that unlike cities, villages and castles, your camp won't protect you from wandering hordes of bandits (if they're passing by and bump into you).

* [[Thriving Ghost Town]]: Very obvious when you choose to explore a town, castle, or village. Some of the villages look barely enough to house twenty people whereas you can be recruiting a half dozen volunteers from them every day.

* [[Too Dumb to Live]]: The AI will always provide you with endless hilarities by following this trope.

** Both sides during a multiplayer siege battle will treat a defender who repeatedly opens the sally port door this and will promptly ban the offender for their stupidity/poor sportsmanship. On certain servers such shenanigans might be [[Unfriendly Fire|rewarded with friendly arrows to the back]].

* [[Took a Level in Badass]]: Rescued peasant women can fight for your army and rise in rank until they become Sword Sisters, heavy cavalry sporting full plate armour.

* [[Training the Peaceful Villagers]]: A possible quest for each village.

* [[Trying to Catch Me Fighting Dirty]]: The arena is home to some of the dirtiest fighting imaginable. Everything from hitting someone over the head as they spar with someone else to two AI teaming up for a few minutes to go after the player or some other poor unfortunate can be expected. And you will be engaging in it aplenty too.

* [[Values Dissonance]]: Deliberately invoked. You're told up front that, as the game is heavily based on the Middle Ages, the most powerful people in Calradia tend to be of noble birth and male. Indeed, in the early stages of the games, most NPC's will treat a female character like a joke. Of course, there's really no penalty for playing as a girl, and in fact there are several achievements that require you to accomplish certain impressive feats with a female character.

* [[Vendor Trash]]: A byproduct of the looting system. Firstly, you can only get things that your opponents wield (Looters will not magically yield plate armor, for example). Secondly, the quality and quantity of loot is determined by your Looting skill (which serves no other purpose). Thirdly, the more troops and companions you have the less loot you get. The net result is that post-battle looting tends to yield dangerously subpar equipment only fit for selling off. You have a much better chance of finding high quality items by using that money to [[Boring but Practical|go shopping]].

* [[Video Game Cruelty Potential]]: Want to level up your allies, but have a battle they aren't going to win on their own? Dismount enemy cavalry and knock down infantry by trampling them to make them easy pickings for your men.

** Or massacre helpless villagers, loot their homes and steal their cattle.

* [[We Cannot Go on Without You]]: The battle ends as soon as you are knocked out, no matter how close you are to victory. This doesn't mean you lose, but your men will retreat and lose morale. While you can send your men in to fight without you, this is something you should NEVER do as they are much less effective when unled (an army that can inflict a 10-1 casualty rate on the enemy in a proper battle can easily suffer a 2-1 casualty rate if you use autoresolve for the same battle).

* [[Wide Open Sandbox]]

* [[Wimp Fight]]: If two AI in the arena spawn with bows next to each other, they will proceed to punch eachother for minimal damage until one is KO or (more likely) someone kicks both their asses.

* [[Wizard Needs Food Badly]]: A lack of food causes morale penalties and eventually desertion.

* [[You All Meet in An Inn]]: Companions are acquired in taverns.

* [[You Will Be Spared]]: If you let lords go free, they may give you the quick and painless variety.

 

=== In addition to the above, ''Warband'' also features: ===

----

=== ''Bannerlord'' adds the following tropes: ===

* [[Chaos Architecture]]: Unlike vanilla to ''Warband'' the overall shape of the continent is still recognizable, but it still has changed far more than it should have over a mere 200 years.

* [[Child Soldiers]]/[[A Child Shall Lead Them]]: Possible with the succession system, though game mechanics render a faction having a minor as a leader almost as bad as having ''no'' leader. Child soldiers were briefly universal due to a bug in development, but it was fixed before the early access release.

* [[Infant Immortality]]: Added relatively early in early access. Removable with mods.

* [[In-Universe Game Clock]]: Bannerlord changes the time flow so years pass much quicker, making the game year consist of only four months, each one a season long.

* [[Obvious Beta]]: Like the original game, ''Bannerlord'' released as early access and had some fairly blatant missing content. Most infamous being AI for handling siege towers having been broken until January 2022, nearly two years after release, and a handful of perks still being non-functional as of that same patch.

* [[President Action]]: Senator Lucon will lead the armies of the Northern Empire like any other faction head. Whoever winds up ruling the Northern Empire after him will likely at least ''try'' to be such.

* [[Succession Crisis]]: The Empire is split into three factions. The Southern Empire is ruled by the Emperor's daughter with his widow as regent. The Western Empire that wants military control, with only veterans getting a vote. The Northern Empire is controlled by the Senate, who wants the Senate to choose the new Emperor.

 

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Strategy RPG]]

[[Category:Western RPG]]

[[Category:Wide Open Sandbox]]

[[Category:Action RPG]]

[[Category:Video Game]]

[[Category:Microsoft Windows]]