Greetings warriors of Calradia!

With the closed beta underway, we thought it would be a good time to discuss some elements of the multiplayer side of the game in some more detail. In this week’s blog, we will take a look at the multiplayer class system.

So, what is the class system? To put it simply, the class system is a selection of predefined loadouts that you can choose from before spawning. In Bannerlord, these classes are divided into three distinct categories: infantry, ranged, and cavalry.



Our aim is to ensure that each class is a viable choice, allowing players to choose their preferred unit type while playing. Each of the classes has its own strengths and weaknesses, meaning no single class is particularly effective in every scenario. Some classes are clearly stronger and better equipped than others, but this doesn’t necessarily mean they will perform at a higher level in all instances, and of course, they also come at a much higher cost which limits your options when it comes to respawning. We feel that this approach puts a stronger emphasis on coordination, communication, and synergy in our team-based game modes, and encourages players to experiment and react to the events that unfold during a match.

Bannerlord also features a perk system that allows players to slightly change their loadout if they so desire, tailoring their class choice to their own particular playstyle or perhaps to counter the class selection of the opposing team. This change allows players to jump straight into the action, safe in the knowledge that they aren’t at a major disadvantage to their opponents in terms of equipment.

One connected system that has carried over from Warband’s multiplayer, but has been slightly reworked, is the money system. In Bannerlord, we refer to money as points. Instead of using points to purchase gear for your character, you spend these points on selecting a class. Some of our game modes feature a respawn system, so how you manage those points throughout the course of a round will determine which classes you have access to, and the number of respawns that you have available.



With these changes, the entire focus of the gameplay is put onto player skill and teamwork, rather than whoever has the superior equipment or loadout. We think these changes will go a long way in preventing a snowball effect, in which the winning team just gets stronger with each consecutive round win. In Bannerlord, every round starts on a somewhat level playing field, which should provide for a more exciting back and forth between the two teams throughout the course of a match.

While creating the class system, we decided that it was important that each class should reflect the faction they are from, not just in terms of their appearance, but also with the equipment they use and the roles they perform. And, as such, the strengths and weaknesses of the classes take into account the strengths and weaknesses of the faction as a whole. This design approach for our factions influences the kind of strategies and tactics that are effective, both for and against, each individual faction, leading to a more dynamic multiplayer experience where no two matches feel the same.

Overall, we think these changes to the multiplayer class system will make for a fairer, more accessible multiplayer experience that promotes teamwork and communication, and centres the gameplay on the skill-based directional combat system that is at the very core of Mount & Blade games. It ensures that, at a glance, you can see exactly who your opponent is, and what their abilities and limitations are while eliminating the possibility of obscure meta builds from becoming prominent and ensuring that the game remains somewhat balanced.

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Greetings warriors of Calradia!

Picture the scene. You find yourself deep in enemy territory. After seizing an enemy stronghold, you pause for a respite. The campaign has been long and costly, and supplies are running low... And then, on the horizon, you see your worst fears realised. At first, a low rumble and a blur of colour, but then, slowly, the standards and banners of the enemy army come into focus. Your army is ill-prepared for a field battle, and so, you dig in.

The situation seems hopeless. You are vastly outnumbered and time is not a commodity that you possess. Morale is wavering and your troops look to you to make a decisive decision. Do you hold your position and pray that reinforcements arrive before the walls are breached, or worse, you starve to death? Do you sally out to meet the attackers head-on in a brave, but ultimately, suicidal final charge?



While we have already talked about certain siege mechanics in previous blogs, we didn’t discuss the different ways and trade-offs that are involved in any amount of detail. So, in this week’s blog, we’ll try to present players’ options related to sieges in a more comprehensive manner.

Sieges in Bannerlord are dangerous affairs for both the besieged and the besiegers. If you are defending, you already may be facing bleak odds. The enemy may be bombarding your walls with trebuchets with the hope of creating a breach to exploit, or may be preparing an assault with siege towers and battering rams. You may be running out of food and losing your soldiers to starvation. But even in the direst situations, you have a number of options. You can keep waiting behind your walls, hoping that you will be able to beat off the assault or that a relief force will arrive soon and drive away the besiegers. Or alternatively, you may use your tactics skill to break out of the siege with relatively little loss and save yourself and the majority of your army from annihilation. Lastly, you may try to parley with the besiegers in the hope that they will allow you to pass through the siege lines unmolested in return for handing over the walls.



If you are outside and have come to the aid of a besieged castle, you again have options. You can attack the besiegers right away, and in general, the forces in the town will sally out to join the fight, and together, you may hopefully overwhelm the attackers. Another option is to stay mobile outside of the siege camp, harassing the enemy, attacking foragers and reinforcements in the hope that the enemy will run out of provisions before they can take the castle. If neither of those options has a good chance of success, you can also make use of your tactics skill and force your way through the siege, this time going into the castle rather than out, bringing much-needed supplies and troops as part of the relief effort!

All in all, understanding the available options in dealing with sieges is hugely important and may mean the difference between successfully defending and enlarging your domain, or sitting out the rest of the war in a cold and damp dungeon.

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Greetings warriors of Calradia!

Earlier in the year, we told you about our intention to hold a multiplayer beta for Bannerlord. This is something we have some experience with from our previous title, Mount & Blade: Warband, so we are fully aware of the value of including our community at this stage of development. Our preparations have been proceeding quite nicely and we thought it would be a good idea to share what we have been up to in this period.

The first stage of the beta preparation process was to set up things so that we as the developers could experience the game as players, downloading and playing it from our homes. This was quite exciting for us and many team members commented that playing the game felt very different when played from home, although of course, it was very much identical to the version in the office!

After making sure everything was working, we went on and invited some of our friends and family members. By inviting people close to us, we were able to ensure that both our game and servers were working as intended - without having to worry about providing a perfectly polished gameplay experience quite yet. Still, our intention with this was to lay the groundwork for inviting members of our community to play the game.

While doing all of this, we kept on polishing the game as well as developing the necessary infrastructure for a smooth multiplayer experience. We created a matchmaking system, as well as systems for deploying servers and monitoring their performance. We also started working on systems that would collect data from played matches so that we could analyze this information and make more informed decisions for future development. In addition to collecting data, we thought about the best ways to receive feedback from players and put it into use, creating questionnaires and special forum sections for this purpose.

And that leads us to where we are right now! This week, we started inviting members of our community to participate in a closed beta. We think that at this stage, this is the most productive route to take, as it allows us to draw from their collective knowledge, understanding, and experience of our previous games, as well as, allowing us to show some appreciation for the continued passion and support that they have shown for our games over the years.


Our friends from the clan Unity posing for a photo during a closed beta playtest

With this being the early stages of testing, we have decided to keep the player count rather small and manageable, allowing us to more directly engage testers and make better use of the feedback provided to refine Bannerlord’s multiplayer and make it the best that it can be. The game is far from feature and content complete, and these early tests are very much focused on testing the game’s systems and mechanics, as well as, stability before it’s ready for a more general audience.

After this stage of closed beta tests, our plan is to transition to an open beta, meaning a large number of players will be able to access the game and be involved in the testing process. When that time comes, we will make an announcement detailing how you can apply to take part. Until then, we hope you take heart from knowing that we have taken the first steps towards releasing the game and that after such a long wait, it’s finally almost harvesting season!


Skirmish - A 6vs6 Team-Based PvP Game Mode

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Greetings warriors of Calradia!

In Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, players are able to engage in a number of hostile and criminal activities. However, just as in real life, these actions have consequences. And while some of the more obvious actions may be engaging an enemy in a pitched battle or laying siege to a castle, in this week’s blog, we focus on some of the more unconventional options that players have at their disposal.

Raiding Villages
First on the list is something that Mount & Blade veterans will be familiar with: raiding. Raiding in Bannerlord is built on the mechanic from our previous games, but with various additions and improvements to how the system works.

Players are free to initiate raids on neutral or enemy villages to steal the assets of the villagers. After dispatching the local militia, the raid continues on the world map, with the inventory of the village being transferred to the player party over time. The player can choose to abandon the raid at any time, taking whatever goods they managed to gather with them. Once a village has been fully raided, it takes some time for it to recover and be fully operational again.

Forcefully Recruiting Villagers
Bannerlord sees the introduction of the ability to press gang villagers into your army. This is an act of coercion that takes some time to perform, but won’t necessarily lead to an encounter, providing there is a character with a high roguery skill in the player party. Villagers can choose to resist this coercion, at which point the player needs to decide if they should escalate to fighting the villagers, or back down and abandon their attempts to forcefully recruit troops. If the player decides to back down, then there are no penalties for their actions.

Forcefully Taking Supplies
Forcing supplies from villages is the least aggressive of the hostile actions, and villagers will only put up a fight if they believe you have absolutely no chance of taking on their numbers. Otherwise, they will allow you to take some supplies from the village’s stores while spending some time there. The yield from forcing supplies will be significantly smaller compared to a raid, but at the same time, you will create much less ill will against yourself.



Attacking or Coercing Villagers and Caravans
But of course, it isn’t just settlements that are subject to hostile actions. Caravans and villager parties moving on the campaign map can also be attacked, coerced to join the player or forced to hand over a portion of their items and gold. In addition to this, they can also be intimidated into surrendering, which gives the player full access to their inventory. Just like with hostile actions against settlements, the severity of the hostile action is taken into account to determine consequences. Forcefully taking a few items from a caravan can be regarded as relatively unimportant, whereas outright attacking it will be considered as a major provocation.

Consequences for Hostile Actions
If you are not at war with the kingdom of the target, hostile actions are considered to be criminal acts and thus increase your criminal rating in the region. However, if your criminal rating exceeds a certain point, the other kingdom will be provoked to declare war. Otherwise, you may be able to repair the damage and atone for your sins by paying compensation.
But apart from the threat of war, there are many other consequences to hostile actions. In all instances, the player will receive a relation hit with the owner of the targeted settlement and notables that reside there. Moreover, if the player is a vassal of a kingdom, they will receive a relation penalty with their liege and lose influence within their realm. Finally, if the player is the ruler of their faction, their influence within their realm will again be negatively impacted.

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Greetings warriors of Calradia!

During battles, hierarchies are of key importance: keeping the chain of command intact and knowing exactly who is in charge is vital… especially if that someone is you! That rang especially true in medieval times when the chain of command was also a reflection of how society was ordered as a whole.

In Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, politics and tactics can overlap as well, and you won’t always be the one in command of every army you’re fighting for. In the early and middle game, you will usually find yourself following an army led by a king or a high ranking noble. When this army enters battle, you may be able to take the leadership of one of the formations, but which formation you may lead has to be determined realistically, so we came up with a system for that.

For determining who will lead what, the game first assigns a seniority rank to each lord present, including the player. Calculation of the rank takes into account clan renown and power, and of course, faction rulers are given a huge boost to reflect their position within the realm. The system also takes into account the leader of the army itself, as well as, the number of troops that each lord has brought to the field of battle.

The lord with the highest rank is selected as the commander for the battle. Following this, captains are allowed to choose the formation they will lead in order of their rank. For NPC lords, an AI routine selects the most appropriate formation (usually the largest and most prestigious one remaining).



When it’s the player’s turn to choose, the game displays the menu above. Formations led by higher ranking lords are shown as locked and may not be selected. Players may select any of the remaining ones, or choose not to lead any formation at all (entering the battle as just a warrior with no special responsibilities). Once the player makes a choice, any remaining AI lords are also assigned to their choices in the order of their rank. Players may then review this order of battle and then click done if satisfied with how things look.

Conversely, if the player has the highest rank and is assigned as the commander, then they will be given total control over the entire army during the battle. In this case, the player is still shown the menu but can’t change anything and just has to proceed after reviewing the information.



We feel that the order of battle system helps to provide players with a sense of a greater power structure that one would expect to find in a medieval society. It eliminates these strange scenarios where prestigious lords and rulers are commanded by some random lord’s nephew. It also helps to give players a sense of progression as they rise through the ranks to become a renowned lord that commands both respect and, well, more troops!

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Greetings warriors of Calradia!

In Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, you need to keep your head about you at all times. And with the game’s new death system, this rings especially true, lest your adventures come to an abrupt end to the executioner’s axe!

Executions make for quite a natural addition to the series. The medieval period is infamous for some of its troubling, if rather inventive, methods of execution. From dealing with treacherous vassals to striking fear into the hearts of the ruled, executions were a simple solution to otherwise complicated problems.

Our approach to this feature is like with most systems in the game: it should be simple enough to understand and use, yet achieves complexity through its interaction with the larger simulation.



As shown in the screenshot above, players are able to execute characters through a button on the party screen. Choosing to do so leads to another interface for confirmation that the player wants to carry out this action, with a short animation that follows if the player decides to press ahead. The execution itself has a number of consequences that help to ensure that it is a powerful, yet costly action. These consequences differ in severity depending on whom the player chooses to execute. Executing a dishonourable lord is a lot more acceptable in the eyes of your peers than killing an honourable one, but it is still frowned upon. After all, lords are part of the ruling elite, and such punishments are not befitting of their status! Likewise, the executed character’s clan and faction won’t take too kindly to seeing one of their kin slain in such a manner, and as such, relations between the two sides will be severely affected. What’s worse, executing an honourable lord will decrease your own honour rating, so you may end up being marked as dishonourable yourself.



If you do end up as dishonourable due to executions you carry out or for any other reason, it’s not exactly the end of the world. You’ll receive some penalty to your relation with most other nobles, but you can still make it work. However, you will now need to be very careful. Executions are an option available to AI lords as well, and now that you are dishonourable, your enemies will be much more likely to chop your head off if they manage to capture you. When deciding whether or not to execute the player, the AI lord’s personality, the honour rating of the player, and the relationship between the two are all taken into account.

In the end, we think that executions are a solid addition to the game. Like many of Bannerlord’s mechanics, if used wisely, it can help to further your goals within the game. Likewise, it opens up new avenues for roleplaying and feeds into the emergent narrative that the sandbox encourages.

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Greetings warriors of Calradia!

Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord’s singleplayer campaign takes place in a vast sandbox with numerous systems working together to provide players with a deep and engaging gaming experience. Bringing these systems together and ensuring that they work alongside and complement each other is no small task. And with multiple programmers working somewhat independently on each system, an additional layer of complexity is added to the mix. This is where Ömer Sarı steps in. It is his responsibility to coordinate and organise the campaign team while ensuring that the programming work is of a consistently high standard.


Ömer Sarı

Kocaeli, Turkey

2014

Computer Science, Bilkent University

Lead Programmer (Campaign Team)


“I do code reviews and small meetings with fellow team members to ensure good code quality in the campaign project. Other than that, there are times when I attend design meetings to discuss the technical details of game features. Every couple of weeks I organise internal single player tests and review the feedback from my colleagues.

I try to implement new features and/or solve bugs with the rest of the time I have. The feature which I work on usually varies depending on the priority of the task and the immediate needs of the campaign sandbox.”

“I like being immersed in an alive and ever-changing Calradia; The game is made up of complex systems running in the background, such as the trading system, resource production, prosperity, loyalty, etc., and I’m particularly interested in how these systems can affect each other. Raiding villages and looting caravans in an area can hinder the production of a certain trade good, which in turn can have an impact on the economy of a faraway kingdom.

I like the ability to directly change the living world around you through your actions.”

“I gained the role of campaign lead programmer a few months ago. Before that, I was mainly writing code all day long. Now, I also have to be available to other campaign team members or for design meetings, code reviews, and so on. So, currently, my biggest challenge is to manage my time in a way that allows me to take care of my team, review their code and yet still find time to create content myself!”

“I am working on optimising the pathfinding usages by campaign parties, as well as, translation/localisation support.

We have a lot of parties moving around the campaign map, with each of them constantly calculating the distance between their position and their potential target’s position to figure out if they should really go to that target. I am trying to increase the precision in their calculations while improving performance at the same time.

Each language has its own needs and rules. Our text system enables the player’s attributes and actions to change the way other characters address the player. For example, if the player is an honourable king with a family, his wife will address him as husband, his foes will address him with respect, etc. Our text system is able to replace specific parts of the text to achieve this role-playing element, and I am trying to ensure that this system works for every language.”



“I like Khuzaits the most. I like their tribal nature and their troop tree. Watching your enemies getting crushed and trampled under hordes of mounted men is always a spectacle. Also, horse archers always tend to make things easier!”

“It is usually difficult to predict what will be affected by a new feature since the project is fairly large and complex. Any new feature that is being added, no matter how small it is, may require additional work to remove any discrepancies with other systems. Luckily, we are not adding as many features as before.

One recent example that I can give is our work on the party speed and inventory mechanics. When we tweaked the penalty for parties transporting cargo beyond their capacity, we discovered that a range of AI parties tend to go beyond their limits. This was perfectly fine with the previous (very forgiving) set up but caused them to slow down excessively after the change. Of course, we could have simply reverted the changes, but that would leave the capacity system feeling rather toothless. And maybe worse, it would not address the underlying problems. So instead, we set out to find a better solution (or several in fact). In some cases, like villagers transporting goods from their home to the town, this simply meant adjusting the frequency of their deliveries to better match the rate of production. In other cases, like caravans, we introduced the ability to purchase additional pack animals. However, even with a number of eventualities addressed, we felt that there should be a failsafe in place. After all, what if a party acts according to plan but is attacked and loses a lot of men? Suddenly, they may be carrying goods well beyond their capabilities. So, currently, we are looking at if and when a party should be able to rid itself of some of its cargo, prisoners... or wounded men.”

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Greetings warriors of Calradia!

As Bannerlord’s multiplayer beta draws ever closer, we thought it would be a good time to discuss another of the game’s exciting game modes: Captain Mode.

With Fire & Sword and Napoleonic Wars veterans will already be somewhat familiar with the concept of Captain Mode, with a rudimentary version of this game mode appearing in both of those games. Likewise, if you have been following the development of Bannerlord for some time now, you will know that we took Captain Mode to gamescom back in 2017 and perhaps saw one of the videos we put out around that time. But for those of you who are unfamiliar with Captain Mode, allow us to give you an overview.

Captain Mode is a multiplayer game mode that pits two teams against each other in a player-vs-player battle, with each player having command of their own detachment of AI troops. With Bannerlord, the game mode has been revamped to provide players with a more structured and enjoyable experience, and on a much larger scale than was possible in our previous games. It shares some of its mechanics with Skirmish, which we talked about a few weeks back, but there are a few distinct differences between the two, other than the bots of course!

Like Skirmish, Captain Mode makes use of our new morale mechanic, which is something that was introduced to encourage players to engage with the enemy throughout the course of a round. The morale system is tied to capture points on the map, which teams can control to diminish the enemy team’s morale. If a team’s morale is completely depleted, then they are considered to have been driven from the field of battle and lose the round. Likewise, if a team is completely wiped out, then they will lose the round. But, this is pretty much where the similarities between the two modes end.

In Captain Mode, both the player and their troops have a single life. However, players have the option of switching to one of their troops upon the death of their character. Allowing players to take control of their bots upon death was something that we felt made a lot of sense. After all, they are playing the game, not watching it, and allowing players to take control in this way means that there is less downtime, and more opportunities to take part in the action! And in this game mode, it is actually rather essential that we allow this as it helps to prevent players from sniping enemy captains with the intention of cutting the head off the snake, so to speak. You see, in Captain Mode, there is actually a lot of cross-over with what you would expect from a single player battle. You have full control over your troops, meaning you can issue commands and change formations at will. And with this being a player-vs-player game mode, we knew that it would be important for players to retain control over their troops, even after death. Our solution was to enable players to do this, but only by exposing themselves to risk by stepping back onto the frontlines alongside their troops!

Balancing Captain Mode has been a little tricky because there are simply so many factors at play, and admittedly, we still have some work to do on this front. Mainly, the balancing issues arise from the AI detachments that players can lead into battle. Bannerlord’s multiplayer features six unique factions, and no two troops are the same: each has their own loadout and stats, which are tailored to their role on the battlefield. We found that the best way to balance the factions and troop types across the board was to configure the number of troops that each detachment can hold based on their troop type. So, for example, if a detachment of light infantry can field 30 men, then a detachment of heavy cavalry in the same match would only have 12.

With that being said, in Captain Mode, and well, with Mount & Blade games in general, individual player skill counts for a lot! However, Captain Mode aims to strike a balance between the individual skill-level of a player and their tactical prowess. This means that players that perhaps aren’t the best with the combat system in the game can still be highly effective in Captain Mode, purely through using superior strategy and tactics, and by effectively communicating with their teammates of course!

Overall, we feel that Captain Mode makes for a fun, fast-paced, team-based game mode that encourages communication and teamwork while allowing players to shine through either their individual combat skill or tactical prowess.



In next week’s blog, we will talk with the lead programmer of the campaign team, Ömer Sarı. If you have any questions you would like to ask him, please leave a reply in the comments and we will pick one out for him to answer!



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