Has anyone played the early access?

This game popped up on my radar after watching some pretty epic (as if this term isn’t overused, sorry) battles. I did some research on the previous game and this seems ambitious and possibly a great time sink. However I have not played any of them prior.

Have you been playing the early access that just came out in March? What are your thoughts both positive and negative.

On the similar note. What is your experience with the earlier versions in the series?

Mount & Blade: Warband is one of my favourite — and most played — games of all time so I jumped into Bannerlord straight away. It had a pretty rough start but as of version 1.1.0 it's in a much better place. It's still very much an Early Access release though; quests are buggy, it's unbalanced, there's a bunch of missing dialog and it has some performance and stability issues. For those reasons alone it might be worth waiting until it's further along, but if they don't sound like dealbreakers then I can recommend it in its current state.

If you're on the fence, it might be worth checking out Warband instead; you can get it for next to nothing these days and despite looking pretty rough compared to basically anything else released in the last 10 years it's aged well. If Warband grabs you then Bannerlord almost certainly will.

Let me know if you have any specific questions and I'd be happy to answer them!

How does Warband or bannerlord handle resources? I see some scenes that look really good and I’m running on an 6-7 year old rig so I’m worried I’ll be on single digits fps.

Is the game pretty linear with how you progress with experiences and earning money? I heard somewhere that you can be a trader to earn money through the dynamic economy which honestly sounds fun but again I’m pretty green with all the facts of these games.

@lead_dispencer said:

Warband will run on pretty much anything. I haven't had any real trouble running Bannerlord but my machine is pretty powerful. Anecdotally, performance seems to be hit and miss but hopefully that'll get smoothed out over time.

It has a main campaign, but once you get past the first hour or so you're pretty much free to do whatever you like. Typically, you'll begin by recruiting some troops from nearby villages and start taking out looters and deserters; this'll get you gear and resources (and prisoners!) you can sell. You can also pick up quests or start trading to build reputation and earn cash. Once you have enough troops, you can act as a mercenary or align yourself with a specific faction and start getting into bigger battles. Eventually, you'll be able to form your own Kingdom which opens up a whole other layer of gameplay options.

I have this but I am very very confused by all of it. I might stream some on Wednesday afternoon if anyone wants to swing by and get me pointers?

I will definitely watch the stream but I cannot offer guidance! I will be cheering for the land of rori and his puppy clan.

What time?

Warband is one of my favorite games ever. It's got the strategy map game of a game like Total War (although with a singular unit focus) and the group/sim/management/economy feel of games like Elite or Pirates and on the other hand with very unique battles. No other game has better captured mounted combat in particular.

I have been so excited for Bannerlord but I've been waiting to get into a bit as right now, as nice as it looks graphically by comparison, it's still lacking a lot of the additions that will really set it apart from the previous game as far as features and gameplay from what I have seen the developers say. Plus the modding community is insane in these games (not sure I hardly ever played the game unmodded) and it will be cool to get into 2 once that ramps up more.

Keep in mind, Warband itself was kind of ultimate/directors cut edition of the original Mount & Blade and it improved a lot. I expect there to be some eventual "Warband" version of Bannerlord.

Some things I think or know will be in the full release that aren't now are detailed companions, unique maps, more quests, more management features, more siege elements, rebellions, kingdom creation, and weapon crafting. On top of possible others and whatever modders manage (which was a lot in Warband). So the wait will be worth it.

In the mean time I'm knocking backlog stuff out. But all that aside I couldn't recommend the series more and I know when I get into Bannerlord it'll be that same addicting feel I have gotten from Warband. It's very similar to the Total War "one more turn" addicting loop and the combat is so satisfying.

Also a Quick Look of Warband FYI

Warband has a good demo i seem to recall;

Bannerlord is still being worked on, warband is a solid choice at a better price point.

The bannerlord battles are bigger by default, and they seem to perform better for me at scale. Your warband battles might not be quite as grand in scale but will still be very cool.

I'm playing it more than anything during lockdown. Bit over 60 hours at this point, 95% on one character. Loving it, though there are a lot of rough edges. Getting into the real meat of the campaign now, fighting over cities and going up against enemy armies. Been playing since the original M&B around 2006, think it was the first "early access" game I ever bought a key for, loving going back to it with less hideous graphics. The most constantly annoying bug I've getting is your player character yells, "Infantry" whenever you select you cavalry in battle. The game is extremely playable in its current state. It's basically sid meier's Pirates if the boats were horse

I have 74 hours of gameplay right now. I'm enjoying it a lot, but there are many things that are still unfinished or broken. That being said, there are almost daily updates, but I have a feeling that it'll be around a year until Bannerlord is fully fleshed out. There are a ton of mods that fix some of the most glaring issues, but there are still times when I am annoyed by a glitch or something not yet added. I haven't had any performance problems since they patched out a memory leak.

All-in-all, if you can deal with playing a clearly unfinished game, go for it. If you don't want to feel screwed over by paying for a game with clear problems, then I'd wait for a while.

If you have never played any Mount & Blade game before, for sure get Warband and try out some mods with the Diplomacy mod (Perisno, Prophecy of Pendor, and Gekokujo are favorites of mine). I have over 600 hours in Warband and it is easily one of my favorite games.